User blog comment:Elseweyr/Mass reading for best Effect – Introducing the Mass Effect Book Club/@comment-5619827-20140326214822/@comment-5619827-20140328043640

Good point on the potential corrupting power of indoctrination.

One thing I was wondering was about how the turians initially discovered the artifact. From the conversation between General Williams and Harper it's clear that the turians are actively looking for something (presumably the monolith) based on their sweep patterns, but why? If the entire FCW was started because of relay 314 then why would the turians assume there was something valuable on Shanxi at all?

Harper also says that the turians are present in force well beyond what is necessary to recover a crashed ship. Maybe I'm just reading too much into things but what we learn is on Palaven in 3/4 made me wonder if the turian force on Shanxi had some sort of intel on what they were searching for. Desolas (and Saren to an extent) even seem to understand that the relic is significant in some way.

(As an aside, just read MEF9 and was left quite confused. It doesn't seem to follow the STG report and not recognizing the three salarians we know were on the mission felt like a major oversight.)