#mass effect tim

[aki888]

More pics of my Lorna shep’s adventure through MELE    (24)

[seanevansart]

Still thinking about Force Awakens/Mass Effect crossover AU 5 years later

[sirianhewigiii]

The Ilusive Man Concept Art

The Art of The Mass Effect Universe

[craftylittlenerd]

N7 Day 6 Challenge exaltation

Each time TIM successfully circumvented science, it emboldened him to push the envelope further. In other words, a look at what makes Jack Harper, aka The Illusive Man tick.

N7 Day 6 Challenge exaltation - this was fun to write. I normally don't write from the villain's side of story but I couldn't pass that up with today's challenge.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42916056

Hubris In All Its Glory

The hubris of humanity is an easy trap to fall into, especially when one has billions of credits to spend. Having that kind of money brought you certain assurances, which allowed him to get away with what he needed to for the betterment of humanity. He remembered the days before humans made first contact before they found themselves as less than what they actually were. Being made to be second-class citizens on a galactic scale was insulting. How dare they, how dare any of them. Humanity beat them, beat the aliens who had been forging wars of a sci-fi nature since before humans figured out how to fly. Or they would have if that coward Williams didn't surrender.

Jack had felt this way long before he sent out that anonymous manifesto. The loss of his best friend and girlfriend to what he saw as humanity's new overlords had cemented his hatred for them. Of course, Jack would parlay with them and do business with their new "alien allies." it was good for business. It was suitable for his plans to wipe the smile off smug assholes, putting these things in their rightful place. He argued at the time that humanity needed a Cerberus to protect them from alien species at all costs. Even as he penned out his message all those years, Jack knew he was doing the right thing. He called on all humans, regardless of religion, race, color, or creed, to stand together. They needed to stop fighting one another and focus on the real danger. As far as Jack was concerned, his message was a masterpiece. He insisted that humans should be the dominant species taking their rightful place in the galaxy. The proclamation resonated with more people than the Alliance - let alone the politicians wanted to admit. After what he saw during the First Contact War, Jack Harper truly believed that humans should lead the charge. Yet the media downplayed the message as some lone lunatic to avoid having the Alliance seen as human-centric.

Yet he liked the name the press gave him an "illusive man." It had a certain ring to it, which made him feel exalted and empowered. It helped foster the anonymity a group like his would need to work in the shadows while gathering legitimate resources in public. It would allow him to support politicians and groups like terra firma. Finally, it would allow him to move on from the deaths of Ben and Eva, letting Jack Harper die with them on that fateful day.

Jack had always been clever and knew he could pull the wool over anyone's eyes with enough money and persuasion. The Alliance was just as eager, if not as fallible, as anyone else in their pure desire to further their technological advances, more so now than the Mars cache could. Who cares if the asari or the turians could help them understand it, the knowledge the humans had would put them further ahead. Moreover, Cerberus had shell corporation after shell corporation, which helped hide their true purposes. Cord-Hislop Aerospace was his favorite as it still gave him access to top-secret information through his dummy corporation. While the dummy corp supported joint efforts like the SR1 Normandy and similar projects, It also gave Cerberus exclusive rights to nearly all human spacecraft designs. This allowed The Illusive Man to modify ships to serve his purpose with experimental technology much more effortlessly.

The Illusive Man even paid for the best representation money could buy to bury Cerberus's net worth. He ensured there were enough galactic financial and legal loopholes that it would take the best financial and information brokers like Barla Von decades to untangle. Everything The Illusive Man touched was shielded to the point where it could never be tied to him directly. No one even knew who the head of Cerberus was, something else he also made sure of. That was unless He wanted it to be. And there were very few things The Illusive Man wanted anyone to know.

Anytime Cerberus made the news about rouge scientists or experiments that went wrong, The Illusive Man wanted you to know about it. It was an old magician's trick; make sure everyone was watching his left hand when they should be watching his right hand. At least five other projects had been successful for each project that had gone wrong. So sending in the Alliance to clean up the mess, well, that was just good business. It kept money in Cerberus's pockets and maybe provided him with future test subjects like that Toombs kid from Akuze. Not to mention dossiers of prospective disgruntled service members to join the cause, for each Alliance soldier that quit over galactic politics meant one more new employee to bring into the fold.

He watched the reaper threat and that new hotshot commander who had just been made the first human specter. Shepard, that was her name, Commander Jane Shepard, born April 11, 2154, on the Mindoir colony. Using his connections he had with the shadow broker, The Illusive Man was able to get her entire unredacted file. She was the sole survivor of her family and had extensive but non-life-threatening injuries. Yet the mental trauma Shepard suffered took her years to get over. By the time she entered the Alliance academy, she was considered to be mentally healed. By the time she graduated, Shepard had completed all therapy treatments and was recommended for N School. However, by the time she finished the first half of her N training, Shepard had found herself facing the batarian's again in the blitz.

The Illusive Man watched the vid as the Shepard was paraded around the colony after receiving the Star of Terra at her family's home. The land and the farm attached to it had been turned into a museum called the Shepard Memorial. He could tell the grainy holo that the young woman was uncomfortable with all the attention and adoration she had received that day. Still, he had also seen how she stuck to her training, even at the age of twenty-two. Her eyes straight ahead, she took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders to center herself, and made it through the ceremony in one piece. That's when The Illusive Man knew he had found the person he wanted to lead his personal military.

The Illusive Man had tried to recruit her, not directly; he sent his top recruiter to do the job, and he never failed him. Unfortunately, for The Illusive Man, his recruiter couldn't get Shepard to budge. Stupid bitch! She was Alliance through and through. Not only did blue and gold run in her veins, but so did black and red. Shepard was a proud woman and proud of her accomplishments, especially her N7. Worse, she broke his recruiter's arm when the man tried to grab Shepard when she attempted to walk away. Clearly, his top man didn't read the young woman's body language very well. However, the Illusive man was able to get ahold of the security feeds. Which showed the new-minted lieutenant had been done with the conversation long before she started to leave. The Illusive Man didn't tolerate failure and would soon be in the market for a new recruiter.

Then out of nowhere, Shepard died, having been spaced during an attack. The Alliance claimed it was the Geth and let the matter die down over time. But something about the attack on the ship and the foreign FTL signature from the attack had him thinking, plotting, really. All he knew for sure at this point was that he wanted Shepard's body. So the Illusive man had his top agent Miranda Lawson set up a team to locate it, and of course, they would need  Dr. T'Soni's help. Maybe even call her back when they got Shepard to wake up. That's what they were promising her anyway, and he had the credits to burn to at least try. Not that they told Liara if they could, but they would. Never once questioning if they should.

The Illusive Man also wanted to see what could have taken down not just the SR-1 SSV Normandy but the woman who had become larger than life. He needed to study the wreckage, study her. Her psych profile showed she was loyal to those she served with. In return, those who served under her gave them their loyalty and respect. He wanted that, needed that for the coming war against the reapers. He had spent billions getting his hands on everything specter Saren Arterius had gathered throughout the years. If The Illusive Man was honest with himself, he had been paying that much for information on the turian who tortured him during First Contact for years. It had finally paid off when Cerberus connected the strange ship Seran had acquired six months earlier as the same one that attacked the Citadel. The FTL signature, though, was a bit harder to track down until he ordered the kidnapping of a high-ranking batarian scientist out in the terminus.

The Illusive Man could remember a simpler time when he enjoyed puzzles, watching all the pieces coming together. Each piece revealed new clues to the picture or word problem he was attempting to solve. This, though, was much better than that. Everything Shepard had said about the reapers was true. Every piece of evidence The Illusive Man brought, traded, bartered, and killed for all started to make sense. Sovereign was just the beginning, and the collectors were the catalyst of humanity's destruction. Yet they all feared one thing, Shepard. They saw her for who she was and what she represented—humanity's salvation. Shepard would lead the humans to victory, to control the machine gods. Making their enemies pay, making sure humans took their rightful place. The dice were cast, humanity would rule, and Shepard would lead them to victory.

First things first, though, he had to bring Shepard back from the dead. His top agent and best researchers were on it. He was gathering all the information they could, even if it meant borrowing from other species' medical technology. They were going to bring her back. The Illusive Man was also set on making sure he could lull her into a sense of familiarity and comfort. First, he reached out to Joker, who had been vocal since the loss of the SR-1, about how they needed to find Shepard's body and the bastards who killed her. In order to get Joker, he would have to bring back the love of his life, but instead of the SR-1, The Illusive Man would need to make sure the SR-2 was ready for Joker before he recruited the pilot. Dr. Chakwas had been stationed on Mars, and they would need her medical experience to keep Shepard alive. He made sure the medbay of the new Normandy would be filled with all of Shepard's medical information from her rebuild. He wouldn't be able to get Ashley Williams, nor did he want to. A disgraced name if he had ever heard one, and this Williams was related to the man who handed the turians the war. Unforgivable, the whole family should have been sent off to some shithole at the far end of the galaxy.

Shepard would want that damn alien crew of hers back too. He was willing to do it. The Illusive Man would need to sell her that Cerberus was not a terrorist organization. How all rouge branches had been taken care of after an extensive review of their policies to ensure there were no further issues. By the time they received Shepard's body and started the process of bringing the commander back to life, he had everything else wrapped up in a nice neat little package. Nothing would be left to chance. He would make sure of it.

[anthurak]

I really wish there was a way to play Shepard in ME3 where they just acknowledge that pretty much EVERYONE still in Cerberus is probably indoctrinated by this point. 

Like, in all the conversations with TIM, I want there to be dialogue options where Shepard just goes ‘Okay, he’s another Seran at this point’, and starts going “Okay Harbinger, I know you’re puppeting this dumbass. You can stop pretending and do the whole ‘Assuming Direct Control’ thing. You’re not fooling anybody.”

[sirianhewigiii]

The Illusive Man

The Art of the Mass Effect Universe