Illusive Man

The Illusive Man is the elusive, secretive, and well informed leader of Cerberus. He has close-cropped silver-grey hair with "steely blue" eyes which appear to be prosthetic. The Illusive Man's real name and his life before Cerberus are both long forgotten. For years, the Illusive Man has been using Cerberus and his immense network of contacts to achieve his goal - that of making humanity ascendant above all other races. He is described as having the best and worst traits of humanity rolled into one man.

The Illusive Man is voiced by Martin Sheen.

Background
The Illusive Man was a normal civilian with a job and a family until the discovery of alien life. Not long after the Battle of Shanxi, an e-mail circulated throughout the internet calling for humanity to take its rightful place and assert its power to its new alien contacts. Alliance intelligence could not locate the originator of the e-mail, but referred to him as an "illusive man" in press releases to try and dismiss the human-centric diatribe. The name stuck, and the Illusive Man founded Cerberus, a human-centric splinter group. He was responsible for breaking Cerberus away from the Alliance military, and building up Cord-Hislop Aerospace as a cover for the organization's shadow operations. His justification is that "if humanity is to survive, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. The Alliance doesn't understand this. Cerberus does." In terms of appearance, the Illusive Man is dressed in an impeccable futuristic-style suit, combined with the casual swagger of a charming billionaire; he also seems to possess unique patterns on his irises. It is currently unknown whether these grant him any additional abilities or are simply aesthetic.

The Illusive Man believes that the political party Terra Firma has a part to play in humanity's ascension and even used an assassination in order to put the right man &mdash; Charles Saracino &mdash; in power. The Illusive Man's belief that biotics are the future of humanity led him to order the sabotage and detonation of Eldfell-Ashland Energy starships over human colonies, to ensure biotic children would be born. Somehow &mdash; likely through unsavory means &mdash; the Illusive Man claimed one of these biotic children as a baby and gave her to Paul Grayson to raise as his own daughter. A decade later he planted Cerberus operatives into the Ascension Project to take advantage of the Alliance's more sophisticated biotic research.

He also has an interest in the quarians and their Migrant Fleet. The Illusive Man does not trust an alien species that effectively has the largest armada of ships in the galaxy. However, he is also greatly impressed by the quarians' technological expertise, namely their creation of the geth and their continued survival despite the odds stacked against them. This curiosity has led him to seek the transmission codes for the Migrant Fleet in order to spy on them.

His long-term plans are ultimately unknown, but he has many different projects all factoring into helping humanity achieve its rightful place. Currently, it seems that his main focus is on the Reapers after their discovery, realizing the vast threat they pose on humanity. He appears to dedicate all his vast resources to stop them by any means necessary.

Mass Effect: Ascension
After the attack on the Citadel, the Illusive Man became suspicious about the claim it was a geth armada, knowing that no ordinary geth attack could have been so successful. He knew that word of what had really happened would eventually filter back to him, but in the meantime, he had greater concerns. Though he acknowledged Commander Shepard's role in creating humanity's new place in the galaxy, the Illusive Man also knew the suspicion and mistrust of the other races would soon close off the political channels that Shepard had opened, and decided to push ahead with his work in the Ascension Project. He also ordered Pel to go to Omega to get the Migrant Fleet codes, but Pel betrayed him and tried to sell Gillian Grayson to the Collectors.

When Paul Grayson reported to the Illusive Man, he gently confronted Paul about his addiction to red sand, but agreed Gillian needed to be pursued and authorized an attack on the Migrant Fleet itself. When the strike team, including Paul and the quarian Golo, failed to report back, the Illusive Man assumed they had died in the attempt as his vast web of informants did not stretch to the Migrant Fleet. He was surprised, therefore, to get a communique from Paul, and even more surprised when Paul calmly announced he was leaving Cerberus forever. He held the threat of revelation over the Illusive Man's head, and used it to get an assurance that Kahlee Sanders would be left alone. The Illusive Man was forced to agree for the sake of Cerberus' other projects.

Mass Effect: Redemption


The Illusive Man eventually learned the truth about the Reapers and the threat they posed to the galaxy as a whole. He knew that the galaxy's best hope was Commander Shepard. If the galaxy's hero was lost, then the rest of humanity may well follow. Therefore, he takes steps to ensure that Cerberus doesn't lose Shepard.

Unfortunately, the SSV Normandy was attacked by an unknown ship and Shepard was presumed dead. The Commander's body was retrieved by agents of the Shadow Broker, who was going to deliver the body to the Collectors. Therefore, the Illusive Man forms an alliance with Liara T'Soni, one of Shepard's alien associates, to find the body before the transaction could be completed and to discover the Collectors' intentions for it.

Mass Effect 2
After the destruction of the SSV Normandy by the Collectors, the Illusive Man used his contacts and influence to obtain Commander Shepard's badly damaged corpse. Over the course of two years, the Illusive Man devoted a substantial amount of Cerberus' resources into the Lazarus Project, headed by Miranda Lawson, entirely devoted to resurrecting Shepard. However, he refused a suggestion by Miranda to implant a control chip in the Commander's brain, fearing that it may affect Shepard's personality.

When Shepard is finally reconstituted and reawakened after two years, the Illusive Man explains during their first meeting that the fate of the galaxy, but specifically humanity, is just as precarious as it was when Shepard died; the Council is still in denial over the existence of the Reapers and have been ignoring the recent phenomenon across various colonies in the Terminus Systems where entire populations of human colonists have vanished without a trace. The Illusive Man postulates that the disappearance of humans must be tied in some way to the threat of the Reapers, but with the vast amount of ignorance and political red tape that has been hampering the Council and Alliance, only Cerberus can provide Shepard with the resources necessary to confront both threats. Shepard agrees to work with Cerberus for the time being and the Illusive Man provides Shepard with the newly built Normandy SR-2 and a full crew which includes Cerberus operatives Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor, along with former SSV Normandy crew members, Joker and Doctor Chakwas to work with Shepard.

After Shepard and the new team investigate Freedom's Progress, the latest site of human disappearances, they obtain evidence that the Collectors were responsible and are abducting entire human colonies for unknown reasons. The Illusive Man admits that even he has limited knowledge of the enigmatic species, and further investigation of the Collectors' activities will require a team of combat and scientific specialists from across the galaxy. The Illusive Man then provides Shepard a list of dossiers for the Commander to recruit into the team.

Unwilling to wait until another human colony is attacked, the Illusive Man leaked information of the Alliance setting up defense turrets and the location of Shepard's fellow squad member from Mass Effect at Horizon. Shepard's timely arrival prevented the Collectors from taking the entire colony. This confirms the Illusive Man's suspicions that the Collectors are very focused on taking Shepard out.

Eventually, the Illusive Man directs Shepard to the Collector ship that took out the original Normandy, supposedly disabled by a turian patrol. The Illusive Man intentionally allows Shepard to walk into a trap, to fool the Collectors into thinking that they have the upper hand, in order to gain information on how to pass through the Omega 4 Relay; Shepard was not happy at the apparent betrayal but the Illusive Man tells Shepard that he trusted the Commander could escape safely should any danger happen. After learning that a Reaper IFF is required for safe passage through the relay, the Illusive Man instructs Shepard to investigate a derelict Reaper &mdash; which was damaged from an ancient mass accelerator weapon &mdash; after a Cerberus team researching it had gone missing.

Near the end of the suicide mission at the Collectors' base, instead of letting Shepard rig and detonate the base, the Illusive Man suggests using a radiation pulse to wipe out all living Collectors and leave the base intact in order to use its technology against the Reapers. If Shepard destroys the base, the Illusive Man is furious with the Commander's idealism, saying he knew that Shepard would "choke on the hard decisions". He also asserts that the technology could have possibly advanced humanity's position against anything, and to reason that Cerberus is humanity. He is rebuffed by Shepard, who wasn't looking for approval and then chooses to leave Cerberus. The Illusive Man tries to dissuade the Commander, citing that it is because of him that Shepard is alive. Shepard can then rudely terminate the communication or promise to win the war with the Reapers without sacrificing humanity's soul. Alternatively, if Shepard accepts the Illusive Man's suggestion and kills only the Collectors, he considers it an excellent opportunity to advance the position of humanity. Shepard can either warn the Illusive Man about using the Collector technology for anything else other than fighting the Reapers, or to agree with his idea of advancing humanity using the technology. At the end of this meeting, the Illusive Man smiles deviously while looking at a hologram of his newly acquired prize: the Collector base.

Mass Effect: Retribution
Sometime after the battle with the Collectors, the Illusive Man sought to learn more about the Reapers in order to combat them. He required a test subject to experiment with salvaged reaper technology. The candidate he selected was Paul Grayson, who was captured by Kai Leng, a former N7 marine. The Illusive Man subjected his former operative to implantation with Reaper technology and would have him killed if Grayson got out of control. But before he could terminate Grayson, the turians launched a mass strike of all known Cerberus assets, facilities and agents into both Council and Terminus space, including the station where the experiment was being conducted. The Illusive Man was forced to flee, while Grayson was being overtaken by the Reapers (just as Saren Arterius was) and sent on a rampage. Seeing that Grayson had become a liability, the Illusive Man dispatched Leng to finish the job. Leng ultimately succeeded in his task, ending Grayson's life at the Jon Grissom Academy. Leng was forced to escape afterwards, leaving what remained of Grayson's corpse in Alliance hands. The Illusive Man was not concerned about that because he knew that men like David Anderson would be as pro-active as him in preparing for the Reapers' arrival. Also, unwilling to afford a war with Omega's queen, Aria T'Loak, the Illusive Man used her suspicions of Grayson's involvement in her daughter's death to secure an alliance with her.

Trivia

 * The "Illusive Man" may be inspired by the Upright Man and his successor, the Virtuous Man in Raymond Feist's Midkemia. They also run organized crime syndicates. He's also comparable to the G-Man from the Half-Life series, both in appearance and role (they both play the role of an overseer and employer, both observing the player as the games progress and pulling strings to control the outcome of specific events). He may also take inspiration from the Smoking Man from the television series The X-Files or the various representatives of Star Trek's Section 31.
 * He is sometimes erroneously referred to as the Elusive Man; however, "illusive" refers to that which is transitory, unreal, or deceptive (such as an illusion).
 * Unsurprisingly, the Illusive Man bears a strong physical resemblance to his voice actor Martin Sheen (as some other characters in the game resemble their voice actors as well).
 * Many characters outside Cerberus say not to trust the Illusive Man; humorously, his voice actor Martin Sheen says in the Mass Effect 2 Documentary DVD that he would not trust the Illusive Man.