It actually makes more sense if Cerberus is behind the Andromeda Initiative

If Mac has pulled a swifty on us and the AI is all about them devious reasons with a slight Cerberus tinge in motivation.....


Well fuck brothers and sisters, that's some full redemption song shit IMO, actually love that theory (right up there with Indoc).  




I think it was Mac (but I could be wrong) who said that they weren't directly involved in the AI.


Directly.

Direct.

ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.

Thank you 

That's just the writing, if you look at the numbers (like a bean counter) then humanity is still a bit of an underdog!

We don't have the economic might of the Asari, neither are we as well equipped and as good at spying as the Salarians (STEALTH DREADNOUGHTS - not just puny little frigates!) and we aren't as well armed as the Turians (numbers wise, they have more ships that we do and a larger military in general - more bodies carrying guns!)

Sure we are technologically ok (Humanity always worked best when there was competition and with lots of other species to compete with humanity is really gearing up) and we do better in ground fighting (because we are more flexible - tactically speaking - than the other races, the Turians fight inflexibly (with very few exceptions like the new Primarch in ME3! I'd even say that their own military education is the cause of that: They condition people not to think outside the box and stray to far from established tactics (even if those tactics only work if you dominate the battlefield and/or have superior numbers (while still producing more casualties than needed!)), the Asari only do commando style stuff (one on one they can beat almost everybody - with the exception of Jack (because of her Cerberus upgrades), Miranda (who's a clone who was engineered to be biotically powerful) and maybe Kaidan (L2 implant - powerful, but gives him headaches etc...L3's don't do that but they give up power for savety!)...ok, and Shepard, who kind of seems to be an anomaly (Kaidan tells a biotic Shepard that he's as powerful as Kaidan himself in dialogue) - but if it's small unit tactics and stuff then the lore says that humanity wins hands down and more so if it's an army against a few commandos ) and the Salarians even prefer not to engage in open warfare (they have a small military and try to "win the war before it has even started" - but that only works if you can really paralyze the enemy, if the enemy recovers or if you don't manage to hurt them badly enough then you'll lose!))

Still, over all? Humanity would be annihilated if the (other) council races wanted to wipe us out! Cerberus wants to give us a chance (are them employing morally questionable if not unacceptable means? YES! But so does the STG and so do the SPECTRES (remember Tela Vasir? She's basically a bad version of Aria T'Loak with SPECTRE status, so a criminal with a badge that grants her total immunity from the law!!!)...hell, even humanities most secret facilities can be checked by SPECTREs all the time, if you deny one access you'll face more scrutiny from the council (and STG!) so you can't develop new stuff without them learning about it! That's where Cerberus comes in (if I remember this right, it started as a black opps unit!): Cerberus can run facilities that the Alliance does NOT know about, so SPECTREs can't demand access and STG can't easily spy on them! Not to mention that Cerberus doesn't need to give a rats ass about Alliance and/or Council laws (AI for example which can run electronic warfare systems better than any human operator ever could (EDI!))) if that happens - hell, TIM probably has several "Human restart" plans locked away somewhere if the Council would really try to wipe humanity out (stuff like storing embryos at several of his stations with enough genetic diversity to restart the race, enough raw materials to build ships etc. to leave known space with etc. etc.)

Do I like Cerberus? Well, just as much as I like Star Trek's Section 31, the Tal'Shiar, the Obsidian Order etc. - so no over all I don't like them, but I can work with them and I know that those organizations are needed by their respective governments (I am not sitting on a high horse on this issue: Every paradise needs a snake IMHO!) because the others have an organization like it (and as long as even one government has one (the Salarians would probably never agree to dismantle the STG, would they? Neither would the Council give up their SPECTREs, they are too usefull! Sure humanity made some inroads here, but the over all majority of the SPECTREs (by a larger margin) are probably Salarians, Asari and even Turians (also that's not their style - most of them aren't like Garrus after all, they are too used to following orders and mentally staying in their box, which is not good for a truly independent operative somewhere who might need to change mission parameters on the fly (new information!) etc. etc.)...humanity would take decades to even have a decent amount of SPECTREs (they are after all not trained, they are kind of "born" - a SPECTRE isn't your run of the mill operative after all!))

greetings LAX

Not if they aren't running things (which makes sense - it would make potential backers, from other governments to rich individuals and even corporations back off because they don't want to be see collaborating with Cerberus!) and are only the initiators (they could have deposited some money for anybody up to the challenge of leading such an expedition, like a research grant in a way, kind off like: "So you are an eplorer, you've studied say Xenobiology (or something like that), you've lead successful exploratory missions before, we challenge you to start an Initiative to go to Andromeda. This money is to give you start up capital, prove to us that you can do this and we will give it to you, as well as access to certain technologies (note: There would be a new drive-system needed, because the "old" ones need discharging every once in a while!). You are allowed to involve other people who can contribute money, expertise, technology etc..." So Cerberus provided initial funding and some tech, but otherwise the program truly is independent (they might put agents on board, I mean faking somebodies credentials (so that the time with Cerberus is whipped from their CV) isn't hard and Cerberus does have access to scientists etc. who would be usefull for a programm like the A.I.!)

I agree on the armament of the ship and the rover...damned Bioware this is downright STUPID, especially if we are up against superior numbers (in which case a vehicle gun would help a lot, just like some orbital-strikes and orbitally deployed drop pods (full of robots etc.))

greetings LAX
ps: I'd love a mobile thanix-cannon (I'd love burning down space bears etc. with molten metal at relativistic speeds )

Now that doesn't make any sense!

If TIM would manipulate/sabotage an Ark it would NOT be the human one! He'd go after the others (Turians, Salarians and Asari!), hell he'd probably make the human one faster (so they are the first to arrive to get a headstart on the other races )

greetings LAX
ps: If she rebelled against her dad, then Cora is even more like Miranda than I think she is (IMHO she's a clone/artificially created child made from TIM's DNA and that of Eva Core (TIM's GF before the Turians (I think it was Turians) killed her!))

I still stand by the idea that it's more or less completely impossible for Cerberus to NOT be involved with the Initiative.

Maybe it sucks, but Bioware's the one that wrote themselves into a corner by making Cerberus omnipotent and omnipresent, with unlimited resources and the ability to squeeze there way in and out of any situation almost entirely covertly.

At this point, not including Cerberus in Andromeda is as lazy from a writing standpoint as including them. Bioware really fucked them up.

You're confusing again the fact that it'd be boring, and a repetition of an old plot at this point, with the fact that Cerberus might be interested in establishing humanity as the leading and dominant species in the new galaxy.
Regardless if by funding, influencing the initiative's plans, or be sending a few operatives in the Initiative, it's not illogical that TIM would do something like that. It makes sense based on the in game perspective of Cerberus' and TIM's reasoning. The operative idea might make more sense though since I don't think they had the resources to fund the initiative.

That doesn't mean it'd be good for the game and the story to recycle the old plots, which goes beyond Cerberus (please Bioware, let the genophage and organic/synthetic or quarian/geth plot Rest In Peace in the Milky Way), and I don't think it's going to happen. I just don't think that it'd be a plot hole or an illogical thing in game if something happened, even if I'd get annoyed. A plot can be boring and bad even if it makes sense lorewise.

Where did you get that impression?
Beside that though, Mac Walters is in charge, and he wrote a lot about Cerberus. While it might be a funny coincidence, I doubt it wasn't intentional, as in to troll/make people thing about the relation between the two characters. 

I can understand your point it it makes a real relation between the two...but it's a bit of a ovverreaction if it's just a reference. I also didn't mean troll as negative. Just joking around. I don't think people will have a problem if there isn't any connection between the two.

Nah,  resurrecting someone is actually on par (and it became worse if the AI has an hidden motive beside exploration for the project).  At least they tried/they're trying to explain how the Arks work. 
Beside, the debate is about Cerberus being possibly interested in expanding the human dominant perspective in the human side of the initiative, which isn't nonsensical, regardless the fact I don't want their rpesence 

For the love of God.....please no more fucking Cerberus!
The last 2 games were more than enough

Making sense is an opinion, OK? Everything is an opinion. If you don't like it, guess what, that's an OPINION. You say logical contradiction, I say, 'get over it, it's my opinion'. Opinion. pinion. inion. nion. ion. on. n.