ME1 storyline question, 2 year old spoilers ahead

[daishi5]

If you don't like spoilers, leave now

Just played through mass effect again, and I have to ask a plot question. Why is Saren going after the conduit in the beginning of the game if it is just a way to get into the citadel? Why can't he just sneak in a huge army of geth in crates like they do on noveria. Did I miss something, or was he spending all his time trying to find a back door into the Citadel when he already had the keys to the front door. On top of that he was the most respected spectre, if he needed access to some super secret console in the chamber hall, couldn't he have just asked for it?

 

[zerogear]

Saren thought the Conduit was a key/gate to reactivate the mass effect gate to call back the Reapers, but as it turns it the conduit was a backdoor to the Citadel as a result of Prothean experiments with Mass effect gates. After the Reapers went back to dark space (and Prothean/organic life was mostly wiped out), there were a group of Prothean scientists who survived and went into the Citadel via Conduit (it only goes one way) to modify the Keepers code so that they would ignore Sovereign's signal every 50k years that opened the Citadel gate to the dark space.... Which is why there is Saren was indoctrinated in the first place.

 

[Qbah]

It wasn't enough for Saren to "activate" the huge mass relay (it wasn't his goal). All Saren was doing is giving Sovereign manual control over the Citadel. And Sovereign had to be nearby.

So even if Saren would activate the controls in the council chambers, there wouldn't be any Sovereign close enough to take manual control over the Citadel and activate the relay himself.

The Conduit + attack on the Citadel was a synchronized effort. The assault was there to divert attention from the main goal - Sovereign linking with the Citadel. And the Conduit was there for Saren to get the chambers and actually enable manual control for Sovereign. Because earlier, all Sovereign had to do is tell the keepers to prep the station and activate the relay (so he didn't have to link with the Citadel etc). The Protheans changed the keepers and they wouldn't respond to Sovereign's commands. Now he had to do it manually and the only switch was from the inside.

The datadisk you get from Vigil is there, so that it will block Sovereign's manual override possibility. At least temporarily. That would enable the future races to attack him when he made his manual attempt and destry him - to stop the possibility of any activation. That's what I understood at least

Also, I think Sovereign kept Saren a bit in the dark about what he needs him for. He couldn't fully indoctrinate him as not to lose his capabilities. So Saren may believe he's doing something else. If you use the Paragon answers, Saren understands that it is possible to stop the Reapers (at least for now) and has just enough free will to commit suicide (not to be a puppet for Sovereign).

 

[daishi5]

Saren thought the Conduit was a key/gate to reactivate the mass effect gate to call back the Reapers, but as it turns it the conduit was a backdoor to the Citadel as a result of Prothean experiments with Mass effect gates. After the Reapers went back to dark space (and Prothean/organic life was mostly wiped out), there were a group of Prothean scientists who survived and went into the Citadel via Conduit (it only goes one way) to modify the Keepers code so that they would ignore Sovereign's signal every 50k years that opened the Citadel gate to the dark space.... Which is why there is Saren was indoctrinated in the first place.

But Saren is working with a reaper, who knows the conduit is not needed. All the reaper needed was to get access to the citadel, to do that, he might have needed help from someone on the inside, but he had that. I don't see any reason he needed access to a mass relay in the citadel when he already had the freedom to fly a ship to the citadel with an army packed in cargo crates. Noveria shows that they were able to slip cargo crates with Geth packed inside past weapon scanners.

I keep hearing that it is a great plot, but to me it just seems like Saren was doing a worthless side quest instead of going straight to the main goal.

 

[daishi5]

It wasn't enough for Saren to "activate" the huge mass relay (it wasn't his goal). All Saren was doing is giving Sovereign manual control over the Citadel. And Sovereign had to be nearby.

So even if Saren would activate the controls in the council chambers, there wouldn't be any Sovereign close enough to take manual control over the Citadel and activate the relay himself.

The Conduit + attack on the Citadel was a synchronized effort. The assault was there to divert attention from the main goal - Sovereign linking with the Citadel. And the Conduit was there for Saren to get the chambers and actually enable manual control for Sovereign. Because earlier, all Sovereign had to do is tell the keepers to prep the station and activate the relay (so he didn't have to link with the Citadel etc). The Protheans changed the keepers and they wouldn't respond to Sovereign's commands. Now he had to do it manually and the only switch was from the inside.

The datadisk you get from Vigil is there, so that it will block Sovereign's manual override possibility. At least temporarily. That would enable the future races to attack him when he made his manual attempt and destry him - to stop the possibility of any activation. That's what I understood at least

Also, I think Sovereign kept Saren a bit in the dark about what he needs him for. He couldn't fully indoctrinate him as not to lose his capabilities. So Saren may believe he's doing something else. If you use the Paragon answers, Saren understands that it is possible to stop the Reapers (at least for now) and has just enough free will to commit suicide (not to be a puppet for Sovereign).

But that does not explain the conduit. Noveria, the beacons, and the thorian were all clues that lead to the conduit which then reveals that the citadel is a mass relay that sovereign is trying to activate manually. But, sovereign always knew what his goal was, he did not need the beacon, the thorian or rachni queen's information to find out that the citadel was a mass relay. What he needed was access to the citadel. The conduit only got saren on the citadel, which he could have done without the conduit.

From sovereigns point of view, he needs 1 thing, physical access to the citadel. He has a fleet, and an insider. He can sneak geth inside the citadel on containers. Saren was a willing helper in this, and I don't see any reason he would not have helped him activate the mass relay, he was helping with everything else. The whole plan of attacking several systems, mind ripping a rachni queen, and finding the thorian only seems to make sense while the player does not know what sovereign knows. But, when I know what sovereign knows, he just seems to be wasting his time and drawing attention to his plans.

 

[Qbah]

Maybe the Citadel security systems were more robust than the ones on Noveria ? Maybe it was impossible to have the same happen there ? Also, for all we know, when Sovereign found out the Keepers aren't responding, he intercepted the Prothean message, found out about something called the Conduit and that it was part of the reason he can't communicate with the Keepers - remember Sovereign was dependent on how the organic beings interpret the Prothean message. And Shepard didn't know what the Conduit is until Vigil told him (Saren could've found out about it from other consoles on Ilos).

So Sovereign's goal was to acquire/destroy the Conduit as it helped the Protheans stop him. When he found out what it really was, a backdoor to the Citadel, the newest plan was devised (aka the original plan). This time making it very easy for his agent to get to the chambers.

Also, I think it wasn't just a simple click on the console and Saren doing anything in this restricted council chamber would surely make at least the council suspicious. Also, since this was a manual console for the citadel's mass relay capabilities, they would find it out really fast.

I mean, sure, Sovereign could have attacked the Citadel outright with the Geth, and Saren, as a "sleeper" agent, activate manual controls for the Reaper. But what if the Conduit did something more? And this would be also in vain? Sovereign would fail - and this was an all or nothing plan. Since the conduit was nothing more than a tunnel to the Citadel and Saren found out all that was tampered with were the Keepers, they could proceed with the original plan.

Works for me


EDIT: Also, the beacon message was for other Protheans only. And it was sent to tell everybody that there are still Protheans on Ilos and what happened. Also, perhaps a mention of the Conduit and that it will help them stop a future invasion from the Reapers (to keep hope up - as they assumed the Reapers would be gone sooner and their species could repopulate their lost worlds). Since the Reapers took several hundread years to disappear back to dark space, most Protheans were dead, even on Ilos. The Ilos scientists modified their plan a bit (since their race was lost) and proceeded with the plan to stop a future invasion (by modifying the Keepers) - however this time, for the sake of future races.

 

[daishi5]

Maybe the Citadel security systems were more robust than the ones on Noveria ? Maybe it was impossible to have the same happen there ? Also, for all we know, when Sovereign found out the Keepers aren't responding, he intercepted the Prothean message, found out about something called the Conduit and that it was part of the reason he can't communicate with the Keepers - remember Sovereign was dependent on how the organic beings interpret the Prothean message. And Shepard didn't know what the Conduit is until Vigil told him (Saren could've found out about it from other consoles on Ilos).

So Sovereign's goal was to acquire/destroy the Conduit as it helped the Protheans stop him. When he found out what it really was, a backdoor to the Citadel, the newest plan was devised (aka the original plan). This time making it very easy for his agent to get to the chambers.

Also, I think it wasn't just a simple click on the console and Saren doing anything in this restricted council chamber would surely make at least the council suspicious. Also, since this was a manual console for the citadel's mass relay capabilities, they would find it out really fast.

I mean, sure, Sovereign could have attacked the Citadel outright with the Geth, and Saren, as a "sleeper" agent, activate manual controls for the Reaper. But what if the Conduit did something more? And this would be also in vain? Sovereign would fail - and this was an all or nothing plan. Since the conduit was nothing more than a tunnel to the Citadel and Saren found out all that was tampered with were the Keepers, they could proceed with the original plan.

Works for me


EDIT: Also, the beacon message was for other Protheans only. And it was sent to tell everybody that there are still Protheans on Ilos and what happened. Also, perhaps a mention of the Conduit and that it will help them stop a future invasion from the Reapers (to keep hope up - as they assumed the Reapers would be gone sooner and their species could repopulate their lost worlds). Since the Reapers took several hundread years to disappear back to dark space, most Protheans were dead, even on Ilos. The Ilos scientists modified their plan a bit (since their race was lost) and proceeded with the plan to stop a future invasion (by modifying the Keepers) - however this time, for the sake of future races.

I think it just bothers me this storyline is supposed to be so good. At the end it turns out the rogue agent has a huge complicated plan to find a back door into a place he already had the key for. I can accept bad storylines from games, it is not rare, but I was hoping I was missing something that made this seem more reasonable.

 

[Qbah]

I think it just bothers me this storyline is supposed to be so good. At the end it turns out the rogue agent has a huge complicated plan to find a back door into a place he already had the key for. I can accept bad storylines from games, it is not rare, but I was hoping I was missing something that made this seem more reasonable.

Yeah, I'm afraid there's no direct information clarifying why Sovereign couldn't do all that without the Conduit. I think he wanted to be safe - the Conduit represented an unknown in his calculations, a big unknown since it was something that already foiled his plan once. And since he's a machine, logic dictates his motives (or some other form of decision-making process, not understandable by organic life).

But, as I said, this is all guesswork from me

 

[Maximilian]

I think it just bothers me this storyline is supposed to be so good. At the end it turns out the rogue agent has a huge complicated plan to find a back door into a place he already had the key for. I can accept bad storylines from games, it is not rare, but I was hoping I was missing something that made this seem more reasonable.

Well its not a guaranteed thing that a bunch of geth in crates would be able to take over the citadel, with the conduit there can be a constant flow of geth coming from Ilos insuring saren completes his mission for sovreign and sovreign can then open the relay.

Besides if they tried the crate thing and it didnt work out there probably wouldnt be a second chance.

 

[s44]

I'm not sure you can assume Sov knew what the Conduit was. He knew plan A had failed, and was trying to figure out what the Protheans (if they WERE the ones) had done to cause it.

 

[Scrodes]

Sovereign was aware of the prothians medaling but he didn't know what exactly they did, just that the citadel and the keepers did not respond anymore. However the prothians left evidence as to what they had done via the beacons, this evidence was meant to be found by organic life that preceded them after the genocide so they would have a chance to undo the cycle for good.

This backfired. Sovereign, a synthetic, could not interact with the beacons but saren could, and through saren, sovereign learned the extent of the prothians plans. With the knowledge found in the beacons and decoded via the cypher given by the Thorian, Saren (and by extension sovereign) now had the complete picture.

Only now did Sovereign learn of the conduit, Ilos, and the prothians last stand. He deducted that he must override the keepers control directly from the main terminal in the citadel and open the citadel mass relay to the reapers. But in order to do so an agent of Sovereign must interact with it directly from the Council chambers. Saren was his only agent not completely indoctrinated and still capable of this. With Sheppard close on Sarens tail, Sovereign had to act fast. However thanks to Sheppards efforts Saren was blacklisted and could not just walk in the front door of the citadel (For obvious reasons).

But the path to Ilos and the conduit (the back door) had been lost for years thanks to a supernova that knocked the mass relay out of position. The rachni once inhabited that sector of space and knew of its location. This is why Sovereign went after the rachni queen on Noveria because knowledge in that species is hereditary.

Sovereign now decided to use the prothians efforts against them... Attack the citadel and to create a diversion and send Saren in the back door. Sovereign used what little control he had left over the citadel to prevent the arms from closing, therefore forcing the council to evacuate and clearing a path for Saren.

Vigil the AI on Ilos explains all of this. He says Saren is likely not the first agent of Sovereign. He also states that sovereigns recent actions show that he is becoming either bold or desperate in bringing about the next cycle.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Did Sovereign actually speak to Saren? I was under the impression he was controlling him subliminally, rather than overtly giving him directions. But yeah, as others have mentioned I don't beleive Sovereign knew how the Protheans stopped the keepers from responding and the beacons were the first clue. He needed Saren to uncover them. By the time the secret had unfolded, Saren's status as a Spectre had already been rescinded, so the conduit came in handy.

 

[daishi5]

Sovereign speaks to shephard and is surprised he is not saren, so I assume saren speaks to him. I also don't think you find out if sovereign discovered what the protheans did. Vigil tells you what they did, but at the same time he reveals he noticed the taint of indoctrination on sarens group. I assume Vigil does not reveal his secrets willingly to people who are indoctrinated, and he makes no mention of them stealing the information. If saren wanted to know what the protheans did, he seems to have walked right past the information.

It seems plausible that Sovereign is trying to find out what the protheans did, but there does not seem to be any dialogue or hints that discovering what the protheans did is their goal. I also suspect some super intelligent being would prefer to do his investigations as part of the clean up phase of his plan after he had a super fleet of giant warships to back him up, rather than when he was alone.

I just need to let it go, a lot of other games have had much worse plots.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

There are a number of things to consider here.

First, the controls that prevented Citadel from closing were in the council chambers. Saren is a damn good agent, but walking into the council chamber and keeping Citadel open while a giant alien spaceship showed up wasn't going to happen with normal citadel security.

Just shipping some Geth in crates ain't gonna happen. C-sec ain't corpers, and they are going to care whats in those 500 big crates Mr. Spectre just brought back. The conduit dropped the Geth and Saren right in front of the elevator to the council chambers. Coming in straight, he'd have to fight his way there. The citadel is huge, and the time it would take him to get there would be enough for the member races to respond, not to mention that it would be a lot more risky for Sov's only decent agent then the ninja approach.

Anyone can just seal up the station, and then Sovereign is screwed. He clearly can't beat the entirety of the council fleet in direct combat, and he's not capable of controlling the station remotely. So he needs someone inside to keep the gates open (remember how big a rush he's in to get inside after you start to close the station). Frontal assault very unlikely to work. Ninja method is the only option.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

By that time Sovereign might have been desperate too. Who knows how long before the game he had tried to activate the citadel only to find out it does not work. It could be hundreds of years. In that time the beings in the galaxy might have been able to build stronger fleet of ships than what they would have had when Sovereign wanted to activate the citadel in the first place.

So he has to run around the galaxy to find allies like the geth and Saren. As mentioned earlier he might have has other agents act for him before Saren. But the thing is by the time Shepherd got around to finding out the prothean secrets Sovereign would be pretty desperate to act before it runs out of options and the citadel fleet becomes strong enough to prevent him from ever getting near the citadel itself.

 

[Scrodes]

Sovereign speaks to shephard and is surprised he is not saren, so I assume saren speaks to him. I also don't think you find out if sovereign discovered what the protheans did. Vigil tells you what they did, but at the same time he reveals he noticed the taint of indoctrination on sarens group. I assume Vigil does not reveal his secrets willingly to people who are indoctrinated, and he makes no mention of them stealing the information. If saren wanted to know what the protheans did, he seems to have walked right past the information.

It seems plausible that Sovereign is trying to find out what the protheans did, but there does not seem to be any dialogue or hints that discovering what the protheans did is their goal. I also suspect some super intelligent being would prefer to do his investigations as part of the clean up phase of his plan after he had a super fleet of giant warships to back him up, rather than when he was alone.

I just need to let it go, a lot of other games have had much worse plots.

It's really so clear though... The story is rock solid. I just think you're missing parts.

Soverign has been awake for a while before the events of ME1, trying to figure out what the Prothians did. The discovery of a working Prothian beacon cough his attention, hence the attack on Eden Prime. It was worth the risk of exposing himself.

Soverign got lucky, the beacon contained the last message sent out by the Prothian scientists. It told of the Reepers, the genocide, the secrets of the Citadel and the Prothians last efforts. It was meant to be found by the organic life that followed the Prothian extinction. They left a record of their efforts so that their predecessors (the citidel races) could undo the cycle of the reapers for good.

Only an organic mind could interact with the beacon. Sovereign needed Saren for this, with the cypher and the beacons message Saren knew everything. And what Saren knew Sovereign knew.

Saren was indoctrinated. Everything he learned he either told Sovereign or it was taken from him. In short Sovereign knew everything but he only discovered it all as the events of ME1 were unfolding. Sheppard was right on his tail by then.