Talk:Saren Arterius

The article mentions that the death of Saren was responsible for the loss of Sovereigns shields. However, isn't more reasonable to assume that the loss of the shields are the result of the Alliances fleet massive bombardment? Tough the loss of shield happens right after Shepards team defeats Saren, this could merely be a cinematic choice.

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The cutscene reveals everyone had widthdrawn from the battle, except the Normandy, and possibly a few other ships, because of the devastation that Sovereign could unleash, and the fact that it's shields were impenetrable.

Once the Normandy detected the shields had gone down, the bombardment recommenced, destroying Sovereign.


 * It could be cinematic or a coincidence, but it's very timely if so. Besides, after Saren is defeated, you can see that 'red lightning' flicker all over Sovereign and then disappear, at which point Joker says the shields are down, so the assumption was that the two were connected. --Tullis 06:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, so I played the end again. The alliance fleet does not retreat. There are some who suggest that they should retreat, but admiral Hackett commands them to stay. However, it does seems that this not merely the kinetic barries that is exshausted. But, since we can't be sure about it with the aviable information, I have allowed myself to change the wording to "This final death seems to have stripped Sovereign of its shields" to better reflect that we can't be sure. A minor question though. As I played the ending, I was under the impression that it was the alliance fleet that took sovereign down, since the citadel fleet was occupied by the geth assault. Have I missed the point? (Jakob Laursen 09:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC))
 * I could be wrong but didn't the initial assault by Sovereign and the geth destroy most of the Citadel forces? If I remember it correctly, Sovereign shows up with the geth, destroying a lot of ships when approaching the Citadel. Later Normandy shows up with the alliance fleet and as we learn from the story the Citadel forces seem to have a hard time defending themselves since Normandy has to step up and save the Council. In short, I believe it was mostly alliance warships that destroyed Sovereign. SentientMachine 10:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

um hi. The shields don't lower after they kill Saren. They kill Saren way before that. Saren is DEAD by the time of the final fight. The thing you're fighting is Sovereign using the implants in Saren's body as an avatar, I thought that should be obvious...apparently not. I thought that the avatar was taking up so much of Sovereign's power that when it was destroyed, its mental connection to the mechanism operating the shields was also destroyed...but then I realized something as old and wise as Sovereign wouldn't make such a stupid decision. It's more likely that it was a cinematic choice that resulted in the bombardment finally breaking the shields simultaneously with the avatar being destroyed. However, why the cables detach and why Sovereign falls like there's gravity is beyond me. 75.41.32.173 03:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Right, sorry. By 'death of Saren' I think we were all referring to the death of the avatar. As for the 'mental connection', I don't know if that would have been a 'stupid' decision on Sovereign's part, maybe a desperate one. Bear in mind that Saren was Sovereign's only remaining agent on the ground who stood a chance against Shepard. Once Shepard uploaded the data file, Sovereign lost control of the Citadel and Saren was its only chance to restore Sovereign's control, then allow Sovereign to free its entire race and destroy the Citadel Fleet that was bombarding it. Sovereign either had to regain control of the station any way possible, fast, or face its own destruction and the ruin of centuries of planning. --Tullis 06:51, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm... Sovereign needed to regain control, but the arms was already being opened when the Alliance fleet came trough the mass relays. Shepard had the choice to unlock the mass relay network and it seemed that the fleet would jump right after. So Soverreign would have noticed the lost cause, since it now faced an entire fleet bent on destroying it. It might be that it simply revied Saren in order to take Shepard down with itself. Shepard does pose the greatest threat to the reapers, since Shepard has warned the galaxy, knows their objective and, a reasonable assumption from the Reaper ship, would continue to find a way to stop them.(Jakob Laursen 12:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC))

Added a citation to the article that gives direct reference in the book. :) --Digital Holocaust 12:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I think we should change it from "if you have enough Charm/Intimidate points" in reference to Saren killing himself, to "a Paragon or Renegade option may result in... if the player has enough Charm/Intimidate points". I played Mass Effect as morally ambiguous, and the option in the middle of the tree before one gets the option to charm/intimidate is "Let's end this".

I don't want it to appear that the only reason a fight ensues is if the player is unskilled

I was under the impression that Sovereign transfered itself into Saren's corpse to fight Shepard and then when it was defeated it died and the ship was merely a shell from that point and thus the shields fell.

Saren's upgrades
Given that Saren has a geth arm the first time we see him on Eden Prime, it's likely he was indeed "upgraded" early, but he doesn't seem to consider the fact he has a freaking synthetic arm to be an upgrade when talking to Shepard on the Citadel. He's likely referring to his new abilities when we fight him there as being 'upgrades', but it seems odd that someone who's already obviously been cybernetic the whole time (including the time he was fought and defeated) suddenly goes "oh, by the way, I became a cyborg since we last met". Bit mysterious. --Tullis 18:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Saren being a biotic
I think it is worth mentioning that there is absolutely no mention of Saren being a biotic or using any biotic abilities before the storyline of the game. In fact, we never see any indication of him being a biotic until he starts bombarding your party with biotic attacks during the final battle on Virmire. In Mass Effect: Revelation he is also reluctant to follow Skarr after the fight in Grissom's house, remarking that only a fool would go after a Krogan biotic alone. While on Virmire he faces off against an elite striketeam consisting of multiple powerful biotics (including a krogan biotic if you bring Wrex) all on his own.

All these facts have lead my to believe that he was in fact never a biotic until he received the cybernetic implants from Sovereign. 80.101.161.195 20:12, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

The previous entry was by me. Sondor 20:40, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Sure, stick a mention under 'Trivia'. --Tullis 21:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I also reached that conclusion. I agree it should go in Trivia. This is completely unrelated, but I think the final fight is too easy. Even on the hardest difficulty, saren is a cakewalk and his robot/implant form is beaten just by dodging missiles and shooting.Cheeseslayersmu 00:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, not to mention if you are a Bastion subtype of Adept or Sentinel, -assuming you have the Stasis Mastery- you can choose to put Saren in Stasis while you pound the begeezes out of him, even on Insanity difficulty. Honestly, I prefer to think that the initial parameters of Saren's creation in the art and story for Mass Effect established him as a cyborg. In my opinion, the most likely scenario is that they were going to have Saren be a partially cybernetic character throughout the story of the game, only deciding later to have the 'implantation' event take place after his confrontation with Shepard on Virmire. That late in the game -pardon the pun-, it may have been too late to alter the existing model for Saren pre-Ilos to look non-cybernetic (entirely organic). I agree that he is not a latent biotic; like it is said above, there is no mention of him using or possessing such ability in Mass Effect: Revelation. Keep in mind that Drew Karpyshyn wrote the story of both novels AND the game, meaning any difference between the two would be an absolute breach of continuity. Being not a latent biotic, we can only assume that the cybernetic implants give him biotic ability, which would only serve to prove my hypothesis. --Incrognito 21:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, doesn't he ONLY use biotics during that one attack when he first appears on Virmire? The next time he just throws a grenade at you, when surely using Throw would have been much more natural to a military biotic. I don't think he uses biotics during the battle in the Chambers either, but I could be wrong.
 * I believe it was a dramatic issue. They needed to chase Shepard off so they could have that conversation, but it needed to be something powerful enough so that Shepard -- who's just shot [her] way through an entire base -- couldn't just shoot Saren where he stood. Biotics allowed Saren to drive Shepard off, then throw up a barrier so he could monologue for a bit. It's just odd that it never came up, before or since. :) --Tullis 21:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

He couldn't have gotten biotic powers once the geth arm was grafted onto him, as the geth have no biotic powers. If you read one of the codex entries related to Turians, I believe it says that Turian biotics are rare, but do exist. Using that information, its very possible that Saren had unique biotic powers even before the game began. Keep in mind that Mass Effect: Revelation was created around the same time as the first game, but I think the writer was attempting not to spoil too much of his (Saren's) character. H-Man Havoc 12:48, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

Query Regarding Infobox
This article seems committed to avoiding spoilers prior to the "spoilers" tag, yet the infobox located above the tag describes Saren as "Rogue Spectre and leader of the geth". Perhaps this could be solved by placing two infoboxes in the article, one describing Saren "before the betrayal" and the other "after the betrayal". As it is, however, the spoiler is rather blatant.Heliossoileh 13:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * *looks* I'd rather not have two infoboxes. Let's take the spoiler info out. And I'm guessing that also means Benezia's infobox needs a cleanout. --Tullis 13:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Suicide
"If Shepard's Charm / Intimidate skills are high enough, the commander can convince Saren that, indoctrinated or not, he still has a way to stop Sovereign. Saren commits suicide by shooting himself in the head, to prevent himself from opening the Citadel relay, but not before whispering, "Goodbye, Shepard. Thank you."

He puts the gun to his neck, not his head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt-hPpHVT6g 2:30 mark. SkullandBonesMember


 * But if I'm not mistaken, he fires at an upward angle, resulting in the round passing through his head (it looked like he was trying to take out the brain), so it's still valid, seeing as the selected passage is about where he shoots himself, not where he places the gun. SpartHawg948 20:58, December 13, 2009 (UTC)
 * Just perused the video, and yes, he definitely does shoot himself in the head, just as the article states, as you demonstrated with the quote! SpartHawg948 21:01, December 13, 2009 (UTC)

Saren's name
Was it likely that Saren was named after Sauron, otherwise known as the primary antagonist of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy? H-Man Havoc 12:51, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

Possibly. You can put that in the trivia if you want to The Yoshiman 97 22:39, February 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * He can? Gosh-golly gee whiz Yoshiman, that's great! Too bad it runs counter to the site's Trivia policy concerning this sort of stuff. So no, please don't put it in the trivia section. Thanks, SpartHawg948 23:11, February 11, 2010 (UTC)

sarens name
Sarens name comes from the Danish name Soren. Its on his page. Sauron? please....
 * It can also come from 'Suzuki' or 'Sbarro', but unless there is any confirmation, or a relation that makes any kind of sense - it should not be included in the trivia. --silverstrike 23:39, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Left hand or right hand?
Isn't the picture in contradiction to the statement in the article? The article cites that it is the left arm that is the grafted geth arm. The picture shows that it is the right hand. Maybe the scan process has flipped the picture. As I don't have the original book, please give some confirmation on this.

And sorry for messing up with the "page_talk: Saren_Arterius" thing. Ignorance on my part. Braveangel 04:36, May 2, 2010 (UTC)

Weird Leveling
Weird thing happened when I fought Saren on the Citadel (not enough Charm). The fight went according to plan, but then after I killed him I went to my inventory. I had received three Mk. II-III items. This was when I was in the high 40s and used to getting Mk. VII-VIII. Any reason for this to happen? --DKong 15:15, June 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * The loot Saren drops is fixed instead of picked from a leveled-pool. It is odd that he is the only enemy in the game with this behavior, especially one at the very end dropping such low-leveled items.  &mdash;ArmeniusLOD 16:31, June 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's really weird. Should a note be made in the Trivia section of the page? --DKong 16:48, June 17, 2010 (UTC)