User blog comment:Ironreaper/Did Shepard leave Ceberus./@comment-204.210.207.90-20100915194803/@comment-1900300-20100916023655

I wrote this before but i think you missed it.

First, was the Illusive man saving Shepard comparable to Shepard saving the crew? Did TIM grab a gun, fly through the Omega 4 Relay not sure if he would come out alive on the other side, fight through an army of giant bugs, rip Shepard out of an alien deathtrap with his bear hands and then let one of his squad escort you back despite knowing his own chances may drop as a result? No. He played the politican and threw money at the problem till it went away. Was his motives for saving Shepard as altruistic as Shepard's were in saving the crew? No. TIM always has an agenda. I dont buy for a second that losing a few remote human colonies would make him nervous or sad. He has wiped out similar colonies for studies himself. Plus the effect saving these people have on them is going to be different. TIM saved Shepard, a battle-hardened Alliance marine (Alliance hate Cerberus on principle), while Shepard saved a crew of mostly civilians. They were low-ranking security crew, cooks, janitors, doctors and naive psychologists.

It would make sense for TIM to have loyal followers on the SR-2 to keep Shepard in line, but having only Miranda (one of his most trusted agents) and Jacob(who is a stabilising force to keep Shepard from doing anything rash) make sense too. The mission was suicide and TIM may not have wanted to lose more resources or loyal followers then he already has. Most of the crew members seem to be skilled, but not high-ranking in Cerberus and none display any allegiance to the Cerberus cause apart for the Mess Sergent (and he only likes them because they get the job done, not for any political reason). The crew is ultimately expendable, as too is Shepard's squad. If TIM wanted to help he would have giving Shep a squad of N7 marines, but he didn’t, preferring to throw a skilled team not loyal to Cerberus at the Collectors to ensure his loses are minimal.

I also think TIM was a bit of a genius cause he kept Shep in line not with force. A solder would not be intimidated so easily. Instead TIM appealed to the one thing every soldier needs: Honor. He brought Shep back, gave him a ship, a crew (in including Joker and Chakwaz), a new life. He made sure Shep knew how much the Commander owed him, while making Shep as "comfortable" as possible with the change. no crew member is xenophobic, as it would make working with aliens more difficult. TIM let a lot of choice he disagreed with slide to give Shepard the illusion of control.