User blog comment:Ironreaper/Did Shepard leave Ceberus./@comment-204.210.207.90-20100915194803/@comment-217683-20100915200915

Ah, two of my favorite arguments resurfacing: 1) Denial of suspension of disbelief, and 2) Denial of free will.

Arguing that the reason you still get paid by Cerberus "may just be an oversite from programmers trying to get the DLC released asap" denies the concept of suspension of disbelief, which is key to sci-fi. What it boils down to is: if we see it happen in-universe, then it happens in-universe. Out-of-universe reasons don't factor in. We see Shepard getting paid by Cerberus for completing missions. Therefor, canonically, Shepard is getting paid by Cerberus for completing missions. It doesn't matter if it's an oversight on the part of the designers or not, it's canon.

Denial of free will - The rest of the crew (even the ones we never speak to and the ones whose reasons for joining Cerberus had nothing to do with Shepard, like Mess Sergeant Gardner, "are only still alive because Shepard saved them from being turned into Reaper goo", therefor they must be loyal to Shepard over Cerberus, right? WRONG Funny thing about human beings. We have this thing called free will. Want a perfect example? The only reason Shepard is still alive is because Cerberus brought him back to life. Now, using the reasoning displayed above, this must mean that Shepard is therefor loyal to Cerberus, right? But we know this to be false, because Shepard has free will. Simple as that.

Oh, also some assumptions. Such as the assumption that the squad members are all loyal to Shepard. This is, of course, not necessarily true, as in order for it to be the case, all loyalty missions need to be done. And the assumption that Joker "scrubbing" the ship somehow ensures that "it can't be remotely taken over". But hey, other than two glaring holes and a bunch of assumptions, this theory is... well, not really that kosher at all, is it?