Adjutants and Omega

Not necessarily related to this, but wanted to share:

- In ME2, the Lazarus operating room is the background menu image for the remainder of the game;

- In ME3, the menu background consists of indistinct, faintly colored, moving patches, which are also seen at the very start of the game, a curious sort of fade-in to the scene with Hackett and Anderson speaking off-camera about "something on our scanners". I did a 1-on-1 comparison, it's the exact same image. I like to interpret this as looking through one's eyelashes, as when during changing states of wakefulness / consciousness.

There's also an abundant use of lens flares throughout cutscenes, which look similar, but these could just be regular lens flares for all I know.

The important question, though, is why they would choose this image for the main menu. I think it could be to indicate ME3 isn't real.

The Alliance likely doesn't have malevolent intentions. But they'd need Shep to believe it's real, to feel it --stuff like this is in the dialogue -- as BW needs us, the players, to fall for it, for the illusion to be effective.

Apart from the intro, Hackett and Anderson only talk to you over QEC. The whole game has been reverted to Paragon / Alliance color themes, including the SR2.

It just seems like especially Hackett is the TIM of ME3. He knows more than he's letting on, but it doesn't show as clearly because contrary to TIM he's a "good guy".

Like I said, this is just an idea based mostly on intuition.

But there would be hints of the alliance using shepard and not telling him everything.

You have such hints about TIM and Miranda and Levi and all the asari and legion and Thane and perhaps Jacob and obviously EDI.

But you never have anything which could let us assume the alliance is not straightforward with Shep.
They tell him when they are sending him into a trap, they give him all the infos they have.

With the exception of Udina, I don't see much deception coming from them. Ash and Kaidan stories are corroborated. Maybe James, but even him doesn't show a single hint of deception, if ever, he's under the same delusion as Shep.
Same story with traynor or Joker.

I'd say amongst the characters totally free of any trick are the alliance characters. Even Anderson and Hackett seem totally Paragon.

Well Cerberus wanted to save the Collector base, I guess to experiment on, like with the Adjutant research station. So they need goods to go in and out.

I have been thinking about how the individual games could be quite separated. Cerberus is plunging Shep into an illusion in ME2, I suspect to assess Shep's ideals and moral disposition. The Alliance got their hands on the same tech and starts doing the same to Shep in ME3. Only now to suit THEIR needs.

As such, Cerberus' unlikely and seemingly association with the enemy, the Reapers, or just their general depiction as antagonists, could be a trick by the Alliance. Like the movie Inception, plant ideas in someone's mind.

This is interesting because adjutants are made of any organics. The reaper code rewrites everything.

Then the protheans on Ilos could look have looked like Javik and be turned into adjutants.
The collectors would be just the result of another method to convert organics.


Yes the strategic value of omega is mentionned in the comics and in ME3.
But in ME3 they said the Omega relay connects several sectors allowing to move troops and supplies really quickly.

In the comics, it is specifically said Cerberus want Omega to keep the supply route to the omega 4 relay open.

Why?

Shep is just talked of through the consequences of the ME2 game.
I'm just making a new hypothesis here.

ME1 = real but only a memory which is altered in the end.
ME2 = perhaps real but with a rebuilt Shep which is sent to the collector base. (why?)
ME3 = not real

That Cerberus wanted Omega because of its stratetic value is already mentioned by the comic, I think?

Well, the Ilos creatures... They are
1) early Prothean designs, then retconned to be Inusannon, a race supposedly usurped by the Prothean empire
2) the real Protheans because the Codex keeps supplying images of them and the insertion of the Collector into the Prothean vision is just too... bad... then the Collectors, with their insect design, are something else or just not real, including Javik
3) humans... on account of what I said earlier, remember? It was a list of things.

Yes, the adjutants look like the Ilos statues. If you analyze their Codex entry I think it's pretty obvious BW wanted to imply as much.

What's interesting is that Cerberus seems to have access to both the genetic material of the Ilos creatures, and possibly, was able to produce the Reaper IFF that strangely has the Prothean texture. So you could say Cerberus pull in regards to Ilos must be pretty heavy, interesting considering the other oddities of this world.

But what exactly is your point of novelty here, and why could Shepard still be there? That would mean everything prior to the ME2 ending is just real?

I'm reading the mass effect invasion comics series again.

If you don't remember:

Aria is holding Omega and supply the cerberus ops beyond the Omega relay. It happens after the destruction of the collectors.

Adjutant are getting free from Cerberus ships docked at Omega and start killing Cerberus staff before attacking the station inhabitants.

Cerberus comes to the rescue and help aria defend Omega. pretrovsky warns Ario thos adjutant comes from the other side of the Omega 4 relay.
Both with a Cerberus strike team go there to investigate.

Soon it appears the Cerberus outpost on the other side of the Omega 4 relay has been overwhelmed by the very adjutants they were experimenting on.
Aria managed to kill the adjutant but is stunned while Cerberus troops sent initally to come to protect Omega start invading it.

at this point it is heavily implied the incident involving adjutants was prepared by TIM in order to invade Omega all along. The adjutants did not release themselves alone.

1 - While the adjutants use reaper tech, there seem to be a pure Cerberus creation.
2 - They never freed themselves.

3 - Their similar appearance to the ilos protheans is striking. There're not identical but yet you were right to notice.

Could it be the statues found on Ilos are the Adjutants of the former cycle?
Could Ilos be the base of the Cerberus prothean equivalent during the former cycle?

It does answer one question, why did Cerberus want Omega. Because it secures the access to the base beyond the omega 4 relay.

Could Shep still be there?