Mass Effect Andromeda - the Big Spoilers?

[Cikomyr2]

So I have no intention of ever playing Mass Effect Andromeda. I watched many reviews and breakdowns of the overall plot and gameplay, and I have no interest in investing any hours of gameplay in it, although I am really happy about anyone who did and had fun at it.

However, it is my understanding there were big mysteries about the main Character's family history and/or his position as The Protagonist (Pathfinder I think the name is?). And maybe what happened to other Arks.

So what were these big secrets that ended up revealed in Andromeda? Please open the mystery box for me.

[factotum]

I haven't played it myself, but surely a lot of those "mysteries" are things that would have been answered in the sequels that never happened and likely never will?

[Lord Raziere]

Well I don't know either, so lets spoil these for us together.

Spoiler: Secrets of Andromeda:

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the main character is whichever of two offspring you choose of the previous pathfinder Alec Ryder who dies at the beginning of the game. Alec Ryder was involved in illegal AI research and was the entire family was blacklisted when this was found out, or at least Alec himself had a dishonorable discharge for pursuing such avenues of development for the Andromeda Initiative

Salarian Ark: captured and experimented on by kett, but safely rescued by Ryder. further investigation reveals that there was a conspiracy aboard the Ark to let the Kett on so that they can learn more about the new species. these conspirators either punished or you can let it slide for intelligence on the kett.

Asari Ark: attacked by Kett hunters known as the Decimation, stolen kett navigational data allowed the ark to flee through the Scourge while evacuating many civilians, but had to hide from pursuers. when found by Pathfinder Ryder, seems to be heavily damaged. Pathfinder Sarissa Theris to bring this navigational data, left the previous pathfinder to die, which would be considered a disgrace to other Asari so she lied to keep morale up by being seen as a hero. she can removed from position or this can be let slide.

Turian Ark: hit the Scourge when arrived, cause severe structural damage. as a result, a skeleton crew awoke to try and control the situation, but even the pathfinder died. during the transfer to a new pathfinder, the AI desgined to help with all this got corrupted and focused all its efforts on reaching the intended turian homeworld through the Scourge while ejecting multiple cryo pods. the courge has elft the Turian ark too damaged to travel to the flagship ark, there are 15000 Turians still sleeping aboard, and the SAM (the AI in question) will need to be repaired for a new proper pathfinder to be chosen.

Quarian Ark: designed to carry multiple species (drell, hanar, batarians, elcor and volus in addition to quarians), it is apart of the second wave, its launch delayed to various technical problems (the various needs of the passengers and the Quarians wanting a permanent home on the ship if there are no suitable worlds to find). it did make it, but its location is currently unknown even though Ryder heard a distress broadcast because its currently unsafe for some reason? but the reason isn't stated.

Flagship Ark, Nexus: had multiple species, was the first ark in and was supposed to the hub and central part of the Andromeda initiative, but things went wrong:
-its original leadership was decimated in another scourge disaster when it arrived
-the staff began having disputes when unable to establish contact with any other first wave arks this eventually led to rebellion
-the krogan onboard were promised more power to put down the rebellion, but when it was over they got nothing and thus the krogan left to form their own colony
-the former rebels were all banished and named Exiles
-reports of sabotage and terrorist activity from other crew about the topic of survival in the andromeda galaxy
-two attempts at establishing an outpost ended in disaster.
-hostile kett, food shortages,, rationing, no arks showing up pretty much made them give up hope
when the Human Ark came it pretty much provided them hope, with the successful settlement of Eos and first contact with the Angara.

this is all I can find on those questions. I hope this helped.

[Cikomyr2]

That's very interesting!!! Thanks!!

OK, the Ryder Family secret is something genuinely interesting. Is it related to any of the other beings of similar kind we've met in the franchise previously?

Like, any relation to ELE or the Rogue Financial AI of mass effect 1?

[Lord Raziere]

That's very interesting!!! Thanks!!

OK, the Ryder Family secret is something genuinely interesting. Is it related to any of the other beings of similar kind we've met in the franchise previously?

Like, any relation to ELE or the Rogue Financial AI of mass effect 1?

I think thats the secret. I've never actually played the game, and have just been checking wikis, so I might have screwed it up. but I know of no "ELE" do you mean "EDI"? as for the rogue financial AI, depends do you mean the one from Luna? because EDI and that AI are the same one actually.

Spoiler: The AI:

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the AI's were called SAMs or Simulated Adaptive Matrix. and actually were distributed to all the Pathfinders as an implant to work in harmony with organics. so not actually secret.

the real family secret is from this:

Ryder Family Secrets
During his confidential discussion with Ryder following their headache episode after the Nexus, SAM reveals that Alec encrypted portions of SAM's memory arrays that would only unlock once Ryder progresses as Pathfinder throughout Heleus and discovers eidetic triggers.

Should Ryder talk to Dr. Harry Carlyle about their comatose twin in the Cryo Bay, SAM manifests at a nearby projector and announces the sleeping twin's mental faculties are still intact. SAM managed to access the sibling's implant, allowing him to facilitate a brief conversation between the twins regarding Alec and Habitat 7.

From the unlocked memories, it is revealed SAM's development was largely in part to an anonymous benefactor of the Andromeda Initiative. This leads Ryder to question Director Jarun Tann about the benefactor, who knew nothing, before shifting to the supposed accidental death of Initiative founder Jien Garson.

Investigating the apartment where Garson's body was found, SAM discovers evidence that Garson was murdered but could not identify the murderer, who most likely was long gone. Wondering what Garson was even doing in a shuttered apartment in the first place, Ryder finds a hidden room with an audio recording pointing them to the Garson VI in the Cultural Exchange Center. Accessing the VI through their private channel, Ryder and SAM learns that Garson and Alec had a codeword, "Fulcrum", in regards to their information on the benefactor. SAM suggests that the remainder of Alec's memories may hold the answers.

The last of the memories requires "Fulcrum" to access, revealing that the Initiative's secret purpose was to escape the arrival of the Reapers and, most surprisingly, that Ryder's mother Ellen is in stasis aboard the Hyperion under a false name, Elizabeth Riley. SAM explains that Alec sacrificed himself, unwilling to spare his wife waking up to learn that one of her children had died, and to ensure that knowledge of the Reapers and the benefactor were entrusted to Ryder.

this seems to be what it actually was, sorry, I was mistaken.

[Cikomyr2]

I think thats the secret. I've never actually played the game, and have just been checking wikis, so I might have screwed it up. but I know of no "ELE" do you mean "EDI"? as for the rogue financial AI, depends do you mean the one from Luna? because EDI and that AI are the same one actually.

Spoiler: The AI:

Show

the AI's were called SAMs or Simulated Adaptive Matrix. and actually were distributed to all the Pathfinders as an implant to work in harmony with organics. so not actually secret.

the real family secret is from this:


this seems to be what it actually was, sorry, I was mistaken.

EDI yes. Sorry, it's been so long since I seen any ME2 or 3 media :)

The rogue financial AI is a miniquest on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. You can discover a casino machine slowly siphoning funds as a skim, and you can slowly trace back the signal by running all around the Citadel until you discover a rogue genuine AI who was accidentally created to run financial operations. He framed his creator for fraud and managed to "run away" by having people pack his processing machine up to the Citadel. He was planning to buy a ship and try to make contact with the Geths.

After being found out by Sheperd, he refuses to surrender and threatens to blow up himself, Sheperd and a few blocks of people just to never being taken "alive". The only way to resolve the quest is to kill it and disarm his explosive deadman trigger.


Regarding the above secret: Seems 80% of the secret was: "The arks were launched in anticipation of the upcoming Reaper invasion!! OH MY GOD" and I find this "secret" remarkably disapointing since this is the entire core precept of Mass Effect 3.

Do we ever find out who was this mysterious benefactor? Did he fund only the Human Ark or the entire multiracial project?

Why was the Pathfinder allowed to use AIs if AIs are just outright banned?


thanks for taking the time to reply and investigate these things

[Lord Raziere]

EDI yes. Sorry, it's been so long since I seen any ME2 or 3 media :)

The rogue financial AI is a miniquest on the Citadel in Mass Effect 1. You can discover a casino machine slowly siphoning funds as a skim, and you can slowly trace back the signal by running all around the Citadel until you discover a rogue genuine AI who was accidentally created to run financial operations. He framed his creator for fraud and managed to "run away" by having people pack his processing machine up to the Citadel. He was planning to buy a ship and try to make contact with the Geths.

After being found out by Sheperd, he refuses to surrender and threatens to blow up himself, Sheperd and a few blocks of people just to never being taken "alive". The only way to resolve the quest is to kill it and disarm his explosive deadman trigger.


Do we ever find out who was this mysterious benefactor? Did he fund only the Human Ark or the entire multiracial project?

Why was the Pathfinder allowed to use AIs if AIs are just outright banned?


thanks for taking the time to reply and investigate these things

1. the financial AI is not referenced anywhere else, sorry.

2. Those are all good questions. Lets see if any of them have interesting answers

Spoiler: Answers:

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1. The benefactor is unknown, at first I thought it was the eccentric billionaire and co-founder, Jien Garson that funded it but it turns out she ran out of money the mysterious benefactor helped to pay the rest.
2. Yes the benefactor funded the entire project in part, as Jien Garson and Ryder were founders of the entire initiative.
3. He wasn't. Ryder was dishonorably discharged, continued his research in secret after that and ended up learning the history of the Geth and where they went wrong from things like a quarian historian, Lira and the Shadow Broker. It seems the whole Andromeda Initiative is a privately funded affair that isn't supported by any government and has some illegal parts to it.

[Cikomyr2]

1. the financial AI is not referenced anywhere else, sorry.

2. Those are all good questions. Lets see if any of them have interesting answers

Spoiler: Answers:

Show

1. The benefactor is unknown, at first I thought it was the eccentric billionaire and co-founder, Jien Garson that funded it but it turns out she ran out of money the mysterious benefactor helped to pay the rest.
2. Yes the benefactor funded the entire project in part, as Jien Garson and Ryder were founders of the entire initiative.
3. He wasn't. Ryder was dishonorably discharged, continued his research in secret after that and ended up learning the history of the Geth and where they went wrong from things like a quarian historian, Lira and the Shadow Broker. It seems the whole Andromeda Initiative is a privately funded affair that isn't supported by any government and has some illegal parts to it.

Since Andromeda's story will never, ever be continued, how about we make our own custom Canon where the Mysterious Benefactor is actually the Financial AI that managed to escape and realized the Geths were indoctrinated. Wanting to avoid this fate, it financed the Ark projects and AI development so it could hitch a ride to Andromeda.

[Lord Raziere]

Since Andromeda's story will never, ever be continued, how about we make our own custom Canon where the Mysterious Benefactor is actually the Financial AI that managed to escape and realized the Geths were indoctrinated. Wanting to avoid this fate, it financed the Ark projects and AI development so it could hitch a ride to Andromeda.

That is actually good thinking, the Financial AI realized hey the Geths were indoctrinated from looking at some info on the Citadel and that the Quarians mistake with the Geth in the first place was reacting with fear towards them (there is a good sequence in ME3 where how the Geth uprising happened, and there were actually quarians who stood up for and cared for the Geth at first befor everything went horrible) saw Ryder trying to make an AI who would be working with organics by being placed in cybernetics thought it was a good idea and thus probably through hacking greedy corporations and Cerberus accounts to gain the initial money then play the stock market to get even more money.

now I'm not sure if this all works out timeline wise, this would all have to happen within the 2 and half years Shepard has been doing this before ME3 happens but an AI would be thinking at really fast speeds so the Financial AI would have to work real quick to do all this. and yeah I can see them being somewhere in Andromeda, why mention this benefactor if they're not in Andromeda because if they aren't then they're just some background thing no one cares about.

it certainly ties things nicely together, if we ignore Shepard getting rid of said financial AI. but then apparently we did the same thing for the Luna AI by revealing that EDI was them all along, so why not?

[Rater202]

As far as I can tell, Andromeda is an attempt to patch a plothole.

in the main series, Synthesis is the 'best' ending: Everyone lives, the synthesis allows for peaceful coexistence between the races, the surviving Reapers can share the archived knowledge of the races they were made from, it seems like he Husks and so on got their free will back, and it's strongly implied that the process of being merged with synthetics cured Joker's brittle bone disease, made it so the Quarrians didn't need their suits, and may even make it so that everyone can eat the same food.

But... There's no indication whatsoever that it would work until you do it, with even the Catylist saying that no, this has been tried before and has never worked even as it says it might work this time.

And... We see this. With the exception of Shepard, all of Cerberus's attempts to merge Organics and Biotics ended terribly... Especially Project Overlord... Dear God Project Overlord.

If you go full paragon, you can negotiate peace between the Geth and the Quarrians, and the friendship/romance between Edi and Joker is...

But that's it.

Also: The games frame the organic/synthetic conflict as synthetics inevitably surpassing and rebelling against their creators, but literally every AI conflict we see is Ai acting in self-preservation when organics decide, or have made clear, that they will pre-emptively destroy any AI.

The relationship between the protagonist and the AI in Andromeda is a bandaid for that.

[Lord Raziere]

Mass Effect admittedly is a universe that started out with good foundations but really screwed itself over later.

like if I were to roleplay or tell a story with it, I'd strongly consider just resetting back to base setting and calling it a parallel universe then doing something different/better with the whole "robot cthulhu" concept. the way it ended in ME3 kind of cut off any possibilities of continuing any stories in it no matter what ending you chose. they blew their load with the whole Crucible thing, made it too big and vital.

like the reapers were overplayed. it made no sense that the humans were somehow holding out for so long against so many. and no one could ever come up with a good enough reason why the robot cthulhus wanted/needed to kill everyone aside from vague mutterings about "salvation through destruction" or whatever. it all just felt so unsatisfying.

so plothole bandaid, yeah makes total sense. too bad that was never really the problem anyone cared about. everyone loves Tali and Legion and the whole synthetic/organic divide makes tons of sense, as its really no different from any of the other social conflicts the setting has and thats great. its on par with the Krogan genophage conflict in its execution, well done.

the thing is the Reapers are this completely malevolent force that in all honesty, I don't see being in the same boat as EDI or the Geth. like just because they're all synthetics doesn't mean they're on the same side or that they are destined for this or that. how each synthetic interacts with organics is different, with EDI being the most organic-like, Geth being different in how they work in both body and mind from organics but not inherently harmful, and the Reapers being this big alien intelligence thing which how THAT works is a big ol' blackbox so that it can be a BBEG and have a big galaxy spanning plot in the vein of Star Wars or Halo. honestly I think it was a mistake to have the reapers origin be spelled out in way that its similar to Geth or whatever, because it tries to equate the Geths struggle- who by the way specifically DIDN'T kill all the Quarians when they left- to the Reapers acting like repeated genocides over who knows how long as similar. like the moment your killing an entire civilization of completely unrelated organics you just acting on fear and hatred at that point. so putting it as a "synthetic vs. organic" conflict is just nonsense, because its just one set of synthetics doing the vast majority of the atrocities against organics and one known instance of an organic species not handling their synthetics well. everyone else doesn't even make any synthetics beyond VI, so its not as if people don't take steps to stop the problem even if its not the best one, and develop the AIs as individuals like EDI and being careful with how you handle the first one you make, probably would go a long way towards figuring out how to handle the rest of them. so....the Reapers are this big ol exception that shouldn't be taken as equivalent, normative or indicative. the synthetics and organics having complex problems with each other was never the problem, it was Reapers existing trying to make this a big cosmic conflict thing was the problem, when its only them dude. framing it as "synthetics and organics are destined to fight and need to become one to stop this" is just dumb.

like Reapers are just....the worst handled aspect of it all, because geth? handled well. EDI? handled well. but then no one could figure out what the Reapers were actually suppose to be doing, so they just became dumb genocide robots who for all their supposed super-intelligence needs a single human to solve a problem for them that they arguably are the ones perpetuating the most by doing all this in the first place. because sure you can argue synthesis is best ending, but when your second best ending is pretty much "Shepard tells the Reapers they're all stupid for doing this and that Shepard is in charge now" and its a far more plausible thing to happen than everyone somehow becoming half machine because green energy and is really not much worse in all honesty, then your big robot cthulhus probably needed more thought put into them.

[Corvus]

Something I don't think they considered, but the refuse ending of ME3 sort of implies that the Andromeda initiative failed. In 50000 years they never advanced technologically or were interested in going back to the Milky Way to make any sort of contact?

[Mechalich]

like the reapers were overplayed. it made no sense that the humans were somehow holding out for so long against so many. and no one could ever come up with a good enough reason why the robot cthulhus wanted/needed to kill everyone aside from vague mutterings about "salvation through destruction" or whatever. it all just felt so unsatisfying.

Extinction level threats at the scale of 'the entire galaxy' are difficult in general, because galaxies are so gobsmackingly huge even with highly convenient FTL travel. Pretty much anything trying to operate at that scale involves a level of simplification that becomes unsatisfying. This got particularly bad in Mass Effect because you're in control of a squad-level special forces unit, which meant that had to really contort themselves to McGuffin-ize the plot enough to make whatever Shepard was actually doing seem meaningful (compare to an RTS where the player is at least controlling a fleet or something).

One of the good things about Andromeda, actually, was that they scaled things down to a single cluster that, because of the Scourge and other factors, had relatively few inhabited planets with relatively small populations, so it felt like Ryder was actually taking on problems more in line with the actual capabilities of his unit.

Spoiler: twist not yet mentioned

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One of the big 'reveals' of Andromeda was discovering that the Kett were not actually just a bunch of angry aliens but were in fact biological Borg who 'exalt' members of other species and turn them into different varieties of Kett, with the overwhelming majority of the many, many Kett you fight during gameplay being exalted Angara - the sapient species indigenous to the Cluster. During the course of the game the Kett capture members of Milky Way species and begin to attempt exaltation on them, developing a sort of prototype for the Krogan - as a non-sapient berserker - before you stop them.

[Psyren]

I can already see this whole thread drifting over into complaining about ME3's ending yet again...

Since Andromeda's story will never, ever be continued,

Don't be so sure about that. There are a number of Andromeda hints in the ME4 (ME5?) teaser trailer.

In any event, one of Andromeda's mysteries (the Quarian Ark) was cleared up in a novel. Others, like the origin of the Scourge, the identity of the Benefactor, and Garson's killer, were not as of this writing.

Why was the Pathfinder allowed to use AIs if AIs are just outright banned?

A ban doesn't physically prevent you from doing something, it just means you need to be rich to get away with breaking the law. That's as true in Mass Effect's setting as it is in our world. Hence The Illusive Man being able to make EDI, and Alec (with the Benefactor's help) being able to make SAM. Presumably they used black market connections to get their hands on Reaper tech, most likely pieces of Sovereign (which were all over the Citadel for a couple of years.)

[SerTabris]

I listened to the audiobook version of the Quarian ark's book (Mass Effect Andromeda: Annihilation) and I thought it was a good book and very well-done. It entirely involves the less-common ME species, and does some interesting things with that. In the audio version, they even all have the appropriate sound for their species (elcor sound like elcor, hanar sound like hanar, and so on).

[Beleriphon]

1. the financial AI is not referenced anywhere else, sorry.

2. Those are all good questions. Lets see if any of them have interesting answers

Spoiler: Answers:

Show

1. The benefactor is unknown, at first I thought it was the eccentric billionaire and co-founder, Jien Garson that funded it but it turns out she ran out of money the mysterious benefactor helped to pay the rest.
2. Yes the benefactor funded the entire project in part, as Jien Garson and Ryder were founders of the entire initiative.
3. He wasn't. Ryder was dishonorably discharged, continued his research in secret after that and ended up learning the history of the Geth and where they went wrong from things like a quarian historian, Lira and the Shadow Broker. It seems the whole Andromeda Initiative is a privately funded affair that isn't supported by any government and has some illegal parts to it.

Spoiler

Show

I really thought the reveal was the TIM/Cerberus would be the benefactor. But it isn't. It's a loose end that is clearly sequel bait.

Spoiler: twist not yet mentioned

Show

One of the big 'reveals' of Andromeda was discovering that the Kett were not actually just a bunch of angry aliens but were in fact biological Borg who 'exalt' members of other species and turn them into different varieties of Kett, with the overwhelming majority of the many, many Kett you fight during gameplay being exalted Angara - the sapient species indigenous to the Cluster. During the course of the game the Kett capture members of Milky Way species and begin to attempt exaltation on them, developing a sort of prototype for the Krogan - as a non-sapient berserker - before you stop them.

Spoiler

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Or the Salarians, if Ryder makes that choice

[Psyren]

Spoiler

Show

I really thought the reveal was the TIM/Cerberus would be the benefactor. But it isn't. It's a loose end that is clearly sequel bait.

It could still be TIM, we just don't know.

[Lord Raziere]

It could still be TIM, we just don't know.

Hope not.

It adds nothing, except as yet another tie in to the original trilogy. "oh no, we were sponsored by Cerberus and now are doing our own thing, thus making us a Rogue Cell! What a unique concept!".

Like I'd hope that the Mysterious Benefactor has importance beyond being "oh that guy who we killed at the end of ME3 was behind yet another thing" and y'know....have actual relevance to what is happening in Andromeda.

[Gwynchan'rGwyll]

I do wonder how competent arms control and crime fighting is in the galaxy such that Cerberus and the Andromeda project can both create massive armed forces with space ships on the the scale they have under everyone's nose...

[PhoenixPhyre]

I do wonder how competent arms control and crime fighting is in the galaxy such that Cerberus and the Andromeda project can both create massive armed forces with space ships on the the scale they have under everyone's nose...

As I read (play) the games, my impression is that there is none (arms control or crime fighting) except in particular spheres of influence. It's vigilantes all the way down; the council is more or less toothless against the wishes of any of the races' governments. Or even significant private individuals. Sure the SPECTREs get involved, but they're not everywhere. And a galaxy is a big place.

Plus the whole "infrastructure" problem is so thoroughly handwaved that it's rather a joke. With 3-4 years between ME1 and ME3, Cerberus built huge fleets of ships, filled with zombie soldiers? From a starting point of basically nothing (since it all relies on reaper tech not available until after Sovereign is destroyed)? Either they have farm worlds and whole rafts of shipyards, plus mine worlds etc, or something's a bit off.

[Psyren]

Hope not.

It adds nothing, except as yet another tie in to the original trilogy. "oh no, we were sponsored by Cerberus and now are doing our own thing, thus making us a Rogue Cell! What a unique concept!".

Like I'd hope that the Mysterious Benefactor has importance beyond being "oh that guy who we killed at the end of ME3 was behind yet another thing" and y'know....have actual relevance to what is happening in Andromeda.

Tying it to the original trilogy is the only reason to be this coy about it. Throwing aside the curtain just to say "Behold! It was eccentric trillionaire Siona T'Kerris all along!" just begs the question of why they bothered making it a mystery in the first place if they were just going to make up a brand new character nobody cares about anyway.

With that said, it doesn't have to be TIM; there are other named tycoons in the series it could be, e.g. Rupe Elkoss, Barla Von, Mr. Thax, Donovan Hock, Nassana Dantius etc.

I do wonder how competent arms control and crime fighting is in the galaxy such that Cerberus and the Andromeda project can both create massive armed forces with space ships on the the scale they have under everyone's nose...

I mean, define "massive". When you have multiple habitable planets at your disposal each with populations in the multi-millions if not billions, fielding private armies even in the tens or hundreds of thousands is going to be trivial.

[Lord Raziere]

Tying it to the original trilogy is the only reason to be this coy about it. Throwing aside the curtain just to say "Behold! It was eccentric trillionaire Siona T'Kerris all along!" just begs the question of why they bothered making it a mystery in the first place if they were just going to make up a brand new character nobody cares about anyway.

With that said, it doesn't have to be TIM; there are other named tycoons in the series it could be, e.g. Rupe Elkoss, Barla Von, Mr. Thax, Donovan Hock, Nassana Dantius etc.

That logic doesn't track, Psyren. Original Trilogy is done, and 2.5 million light years away. its already tied in enough, anything more would be just meaningless fanservice. new original character that we know nothing about and is actually IN Andromeda with their own agenda on the other hand makes far more sense and doesn't have the problem of conflicting with existing characterization.

[Psyren]

That logic doesn't track, Psyren. Original Trilogy is done, and 2.5 million light years away. its already tied in enough, anything more would be just meaningless fanservice. new original character that we know nothing about and is actually IN Andromeda with their own agenda on the other hand makes far more sense and doesn't have the problem of conflicting with existing characterization.

This is a bit shortsighted. Yes, whoever funded the initiative may be millions of light years away - or they may not be, if they or their families/scions were able to accompany the Initiative in some way. The simple fact is that very few people are altruistic enough to sink so many resources into a one-way trip for a pile of strangers that won't benefit them in any way - so if it does benefit them, understanding their agenda is important. And while BW could simply invent a brand new character or organization for that agenda, Conservation of Narrative means it's just more elegant to have them related in at least some way to a person, group or power we've seen before. Especially when you consider there are really only three sources for funding of that magnitude - a government agency, a corporation, or a crime lord. (The latter of which is not mutually exclusive with the other two.)

There's also the actions of the Benefactor themselves. When they are communicating with Alec, they take pains to hide every aspect of their identity, even their species; that suggests they are someone he would at least recognize, if not disapprove of working with. It could of course be simple paranoia.

[Beleriphon]

There's also the actions of the Benefactor themselves. When they are communicating with Alec, they take pains to hide every aspect of their identity, even their species; that suggests they are someone he would at least recognize, if not disapprove of working with. It could of course be simple paranoia.

This is why I really, really thought it was TIM. It's a Xanatos Gambit. He takes control of the Reapers per his goals stated in ME3 and can go visit his project, or he fails and at some point in the future he's revealed as the saviour of the Milky Way species. What bugs me is the fact that the murders don't ever get wrapped up.

[Corvus]

I mean, define "massive". When you have multiple habitable planets at your disposal each with populations in the multi-millions if not billions, fielding private armies even in the tens or hundreds of thousands is going to be trivial.

Humans don't have anything like that. They only just started to colonise outside Sol and none of the colonies had more than a population in the very low millions. Most had populations less than a million. Nova Terra was the largest with, I think, only 4.6 million.

Outside of Earth there just wasn't the population for Cerberus to recruit from.

[Cikomyr2]

Actually, since we'll probably never revisit Andromeda, it would be sweet if we learn the mysterious benefactor was actually the Citadel Council knowing the Reapers will actually come but they painted themselves in a corner politically to do anything against them. So they decide to use a fully made up entity to finance the "fling a light into Andromeda" desperate plan, because it was the only thing they could do by themselves.

After all, why finance the arks for all species?!

[Lord Raziere]

After all, why finance the arks for all species?!

Yeah thats another reason why it shouldn't be Cerberus. TIM's a known hypocrite when it comes to this, but he is still a human supremacist. That and between all his other projects and his belief that he is saving the galaxy and the fact that he was being Indoctrinated? The amount of funding for him to have on top of all the stuff he pulled in ME3 would be ridiculous, it doesn't make sense for the extermination cthulhus to allow him to fund this project. That and it would be just another "CeRbErUs iS sO cOoL aNd CoMpEtEnT" factoid only worthy of groans because it would be again at the expense of everyone else being shafted again.

The Council would at least make sense I guess? "We can't let people know the Reapers and openly sponsor this project because....raisins....so we'll just do it secretly instead!" sounds like a dumb move they would pull.

Still has the problem of:
Secret Revealer: The Mysterious Benefactor was.....THE COUNCIL ALL ALONG!
Ryder and Co: Gasp!
*Dun Dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUN!*
That One Angara Crewmate:......But wait how is that relevant to our current situation? Who is the Council, are they even important at this point?
Ryder pauses and thinks about it
Ryder:.....your right I guess it doesn't, and yeah they're just the people who handled diplomatic relations for the whole galaxy we came from, so I guess they were important but not really right now. Its not as if we can contact them.
Then Ryder and the rest go back to doing whatever they're doing.

[Cikomyr2]

Yeah thats another reason why it shouldn't be Cerberus. TIM's a known hypocrite when it comes to this, but he is still a human supremacist. That and between all his other projects and his belief that he is saving the galaxy and the fact that he was being Indoctrinated? The amount of funding for him to have on top of all the stuff he pulled in ME3 would be ridiculous, it doesn't make sense for the extermination cthulhus to allow him to fund this project. That and it would be just another "CeRbErUs iS sO cOoL aNd CoMpEtEnT" factoid only worthy of groans because it would be again at the expense of everyone else being shafted again.

The Council would at least make sense I guess? "We can't let people know the Reapers and openly sponsor this project because....raisins....so we'll just do it secretly instead!" sounds like a dumb move they would pull.

Still has the problem of:
Secret Revealer: The Mysterious Benefactor was.....THE COUNCIL ALL ALONG!
Ryder and Co: Gasp!
*Dun Dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUN!*
That One Angara Crewmate:......But wait how is that relevant to our current situation? Who is the Council, are they even important at this point?
Ryder pauses and thinks about it
Ryder:.....your right I guess it doesn't, and yeah they're just the people who handled diplomatic relations for the whole galaxy we came from, so I guess they were important but not really right now. Its not as if we can contact them.
Then Ryder and the rest go back to doing whatever they're doing.

You are totally right. The benefactor has to be some sort of hitchhiker of some sort for it to be relevant to the story

[Lord Raziere]

You are totally right. The benefactor has to be some sort of hitchhiker of some sort for it to be relevant to the story

Hey y'know what would be empowered by the council to do anything possible for the galaxy's safety, have no qualms about going against the law or doing whatever it takes to find funding, and could totally slip in on the arks themselves to do a thing? A Spectre. Council would make sense, but another Spectre who decided to sponsor all this? has that AND be an active force in the story who'd as we know from other games would totally be in the mindset of "everything I do is for the greater good" and could totally become a villain because of it and if they some history back in the Milky Way Galaxy of them doing something horrible, that could tip us off of what they're capable of. much better than some random CEO from the original trilogy, has every reason to think they're in charge, go find some Andromeda tech and activate it to do a bunch of horrible things, and have this reasoning of "well my job is to protect the people from the Milky Way Galaxy, Council didn't say anything about these Angara, might as well clear the Andromeda galaxy of competition so we can rebuild without the natives interfering." or something like that. that would be relevant, that would tie into things, and you get a plot of out it.

[Cikomyr2]

Hey y'know what would be empowered by the council to do anything possible for the galaxy's safety, have no qualms about going against the law or doing whatever it takes to find funding, and could totally slip in on the arks themselves to do a thing? A Spectre. Council would make sense, but another Spectre who decided to sponsor all this? has that AND be an active force in the story who'd as we know from other games would totally be in the mindset of "everything I do is for the greater good" and could totally become a villain because of it and if they some history back in the Milky Way Galaxy of them doing something horrible, that could tip us off of what they're capable of. much better than some random CEO from the original trilogy, has every reason to think they're in charge, go find some Andromeda tech and activate it to do a bunch of horrible things, and have this reasoning of "well my job is to protect the people from the Milky Way Galaxy, Council didn't say anything about these Angara, might as well clear the Andromeda galaxy of competition so we can rebuild without the natives interfering." or something like that. that would be relevant, that would tie into things, and you get a plot of out it.

And you learn that it was..

Charles Presley. Who survived the destruction of the 1st Normandy, and was the one who ran away with Shepherd's infinite money pit of Mass Effect 1.

He invested it in defense industry and made a fortune, enough to fund an escape solution to the Reaper problem.