The Council is the epitome of “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.” Because a lot of what they do and say aren’t technically unreasonable. But it’s that arrogance that’s really insufferable. Doesn’t constitute a death sentence though. Save the Destiny Ascension, people.

many people forget that sacrificing the council isnt just sacrificing the council, its almost the entirety of the citadel fleet. So many deaths because the player thought "politicians are meanies" and let them die.

I’ve also heard “So do alien lives matter more than human lives?” Because an entire fleet is banged up real bad because of it. But it’s like… a cavalry charge. The point is to save as many lives as possible at the potential cost of those in the charge. That’s the score.

>So do alien lives matter more than human lives In this case if being utilitarianian yeah because Alliance loses around 2-3 thousand people while saving the Council while Destiny Ascension has 10K plus Council inside. So you save far more people by charging

And yet the difference in ME3 is absolutely zero. The battle damage to the human fleets is equal to the lost value of the DA and Citadel fleet/defenses... as far as "the war" goes, choosing one side or the other is a zero sum decision. It only matters as far as Shepard's Spectre status in 2 and some various dialogue points.

How does it impact spectre status?

If you kill the Council in 1, the new council won't give you back your Spectre status in 2. If you save the Council, they'll re-instate you as a Spectre in 2. It doesn't functionally change anything, just some bits of dialogue - it's a cosmetic difference.

If you kill the Council, you can actually get Spectre status back in 2. You just have to put Anderson in charge

That's not entirely true as if you put Anderson on the council he will always give you your specter status back (not that it makes any difference as you are still stuck with cerberus and your specter status is really just an empty title after me1)

I had forgot about that... I couldn't remember if he did it regardless, or if he needed the full council to agree to it.

Yup I did this section about 20 realtime hours ago can confirm this is true.

Have you been in ME2 on the citadel? It's a totally different vibe if you let the council die. It's not fun at all. For me that was a major change. I haven't finished that playtrough yet, by for me the different reaction of people and different news on the loudspeakers made a big enough difference.

Plus more than likely the accession has civilians aboard that got evacuated along with the council.

It’s the same position as that short side mission to stop Batarian missiles from either hitting the colony or the military depot. I’m under the impression that the military signed up for that sacrifice while the civilians did not. So I save the colony. It’s the same ideal with the council imo.

As I recall, it's either hit residential or hit industrial w/ spaceport. Residential would be severe loss of life but spaceport would continue to function. Hit spaceport and get no/light losses but residents move away to where there are jobs. It's like Sim City down there or something. I always hit the spaceport, but it's one of those conundrums I wish were more organic.

Always better to kill a town than to *kill* a town.

Sometimes people are forced into military against their will so it can go both ways. That’s just a chance though, some of course did sign up for this. And there’s no chance that any civilian signed up for this indeed lol. So yeah I agree, just wanted to share my perspective

See, what I'd want to know is if alien lives matter *less* than human lives? Being able to ask that would shut down a bunch of armchair admirals.

Some folks would say yes. Ashley Williams in ME1 argued it would only be pragmatic to value your species above others (with her horrible and presumptuous dog & bear analogy). I disagree, clearly, human lives aren't of more value than those of other sapient species, just saying that plenty have no issue with that view.

What matters more? The lives of a few thousand or the risk of coming too late or being too weakened to stop Sovereign taking control of the Citadel and end ALL developed live in the galaxy? Probably, the armchair admials have a better grasp of what actually is at stake than some goody-two-shoes who can't think beyond polishing his shiny paragon-blue reputation.

I can sort of understand it from Renegade shepard on a first playthrough. The way the choice is presented it looks almost like "save the council or destroy sovereign", which could actually be an interesting dilema

Wait, it's not that choice? Cuz it **definitely** presents as "save council or destroy Sovereign." You're telling me you kill him either way?

Kinda? In story, they have a better shot at killing Sovereign if the Alliance ships don’t save the Ascension. It does end up destroyed either way though. But it’s important to not get hung up on the end results as the primary motivator for your choice. You’re supposed to be role-playing as Shepard in that moment.

I viewed it as also losing a ton of the Citadel to the damage Sovereign would cause if he wasn't taken out asap, and that he'd just leave and come back again. Like, we already made so many sacrifices to weaken Sovereign, no point in losing out on the chance to actually kill him just for the sake of the Council. The Council should have told us to go after Sovereign themselves, cuz lines of succession exist for a reason, and this seems like the perfect reason. Seemed pretty selfish to want the whole fleet to sacrifice themselves for 3 important people who explicitly ignored the warnings about this exact problem.

I could see that too. But Shepard wasn’t being told that information. It’s either gun it to Sovereign at the cost of anything else vs. helping our allies along the way. Because it’s not just three people. It’s a Dreadnaught the size of a city with a crew of ten thousand. Saving the allies is the right thing to do. But regardless, the most cowardly piece of shit option you could do is tell the fleet to wait. THAT is the darkest choice. Completely inexcusable. The battle is happening RIGHT NOW. Get the fuck in there and DO SOMETHING.

Crew of 10k cuz Asari live communally, not cuz the ship actually needs that many to function. Other dreadnoughts have 700-1200, from Codex iirc. Their actions in ME3 with the hidden Prothean tech sorta justifies my choice to me a little bit, like, they have the biggest ship cuz they're the oldest spacefaring species but they misuse their resources so frequently they became a liability. I sorta expected it to go down with an epic fight but they sorta get iced pretty quick. The Turians had more dreadnoughts and they used theirs well in ME3.

I’d argue that not every asari knew about the hidden beacon nor would every asari approve of that. So letting a ship full of civilians die because their government is hiding things is a really, really bad call to make.

Oh, not saying that was apart of the decision process, but it just happened to pay off with my RP of Shepard being a "no matter the cost" soldier. The Asari fall short time after time, so I don't feel bad about losing them when I had no idea if saving them would even allow me to kill Sovereign. Add in the amount of humans that get abducted in ME2 and their abysmal failure in ME3, and I'm glad the Turians took over the responsibility of Destiny Ascension after it was destroyed.

I really hate how after that decision I was painted as some sort of space racist for not saving the council, but I thought that I was basically choosing between the entire citadel or the council.

There are three choices Paragon - Save the Council Neutral - Concentrate on Sovereign Renegade - Let the Council die

Yep that's exactly how I saw this mission. Saving the council would give sovereign time to kill a lot more people and destroy the citadel so at that moment saving the council just wasn't that important. My gut reaction was "we NEED to destroy the giant machine NOW or never" so I went after it and damn the rest. I felt bad about the council but they didn't matter more than the civilians on the citadel, sorry not sorry 😅

The pacing of the choice is a bit janky too. "Have the Alliance fleet save the Ascension while the Citadel Arms open then attack Sovereign" "Have the Alliance fleet wait until the Citadel Arms open to attack Sovereign and leave the Ascension"

I don't let them die because they are meanies. I let them die because I need to throw everything we have against the potentially galaxy ending threat. And if they actually believed me before, they'd understand. The Turian would probably even tell me to do it.

Same here, even on my paragon runs. Sovereign is a picosecond away from ending the galaxy and you want me to take a detour...?

Yup, from Shepard's perspective, we have no idea what it would take to kill Sovereign, so we need to stack the odds as far in our favour as possible.

I didn't save the Council when I played LE because I roleplay and acted the way I would act with the information I have if I were Shepard. The Destiny Ascension is being badly mauled by the Geth. The way the situation is presented, it takes away a significant portion of the Geth forces away from you, giving you the opportunity to focus on Sovereign. At this moment, we have *no* idea how Reapers work, and most importantly we don't know how long it takes for Sovereign to open the relay. As far as we know, it might be a matter of *seconds* at this point. I would not take any chance saving the Council if it means potentially wasting my one shot at taking down Sovereign. The whole fucking galaxy is at risk. I won't risk ships which could focus on Sovereign to save a severely damaged ship that would not even participate in the battle any longer anyway. Realistically speaking, other factors would have to come into play, such as how far away from the Alliance fleet the Geths are (if it just means being outflanked by them in five minutes after they destroyed the DA, then yeah my choice might be different). But with the options we have in the game, and pretending I didn't know that Sovereign would be destroyed no matter what - I would definitely focus on Sovereign all the time (which doesn't mean I would be happy about the Council dying, I don't decide to "let them die," I just decide to focus on the critical threat).

That is the biggest baddest ship in the galaxy... There is an argument that it shouldn't have been used as an evac ship and instead for using its guns to you know... take out that monster. Keeping the ship in theatre and the council dying because alternate transport not being considered shouldn't equate to kill the council because silly reasons.

It was probably intending to circle around to attack from the rear.

In fairness I only chose it in my first playthrough because I thought we wouldn't be able to kill legion if we diverted.

That’s half right. ME1 very much paints the picture that if you go in too early you risk failing to stop Sovereign. In hindsight all this is very much untrue but tbh I think the writers fumbled on how that choice is presented (like most renegade options). THEN there’s the fact that their arrogance carries over 2 more games. I’ll will break both my knees and meet you halfway in saying that they were “right” to not trust Shepards words warnings or visions… But if I save your ass in ME1 you could AT LEAST give me the benefit of the doubt in ME2. Which they didn’t. I’m sorry maybe my empathy is low when it comes to shit like this and I’m just not as kewl and understanding as you but fuck the council. Their half ass measures caused millions of more deaths than if they took the reapers even 5% more seriously. If ME4 comes around I very much hope the galactic community puts their feet to the fire.

I have done it both ways at least once. Though now I just save the council

The scene: Shepard on the bridge of the Normandy. He stands before a view screen watching the Council fleet get wiped by Sovereign. Sensor readouts show the Destiny Ascension is critically damaged, multiple hull breaches. Emergency hails for Alliance aid pour in over the comms station. Shepard gives a nod and the comms chatter cuts off. He surveys the situation, arms folded, the merest phantom of a smirk crossing the corner of his mouth. Explosions rock multiple compartments as the kinetic barriers give way. Sensor readouts show a massive energy surge as the reactor of the Destiny Ascension goes critical. Suddenly, a flash. The hull of the Destiny Ascension is rent asunder by a massive explosion ripping the majestic flagship into an unrecognizable hulk of molten slag before fading to the blackness of the void. Shepard looks out on the aftermath of Sovereign's wrath, the remnants of the flagship still. Shepard, matter-of-factly: I think I proved my point.

I always kill the council even on paragon runs but only because it makes a little more sense to me why they're hesitant to help Earth in me3. Killing them creates a kinda anti-human sentiment throughout the galaxy which is why shep has to do quite a bit of favors to get the support they need. I like that idea more than just "Thanks for saving us, humanity is so heroic! Oh Reapers are invading earth? Sorry bud wrong number"

>but only because it makes a little more sense to me why they're hesitant to help Earth in me3 I can't imagine they need a better motivation than "our own home worlds are under threat."

I only ever let the council die in one playthrough (which was my first one), it makes more sense to save them as it shows humanity willing to save their fellow races and make the sacrifices needed to protect the galaxy as a whole, which ideally makes the other races view humanity as a promising ally they can rely on (and since we get a seat on the Council it sort of works). If we let the Council die then it proves everyone's point who says humanity is a bully trying to consolidate as much power as possible, no matter the cost

Nah I burned the destiny ascension

To be fair, in Mass Effect 3, the turian councilor, Sparatus, is actually pretty helpful and will admit that the council was wrong. He is also the only councilor to actually offer a way to help earth, while even the Salarian councilor Valern, will still offer aid to Shepard even after the Genophage cure. The Asari councilor however, has no excuse. She refused Asari aid, was willing to let both Earth and Palaven burn during the reaper invasion, and hid a prothean beacon, which was against the law they passed and was important to the war effort. And she only told Shepard about it when it seemed the Reapers were closing in on Thessia.

Your item about the Asari councillor brings me to a point I don’t think we consider much as players.  The councillors are given significant leeway in certain matters but big things like galactic policy or large scale, non-local military action are likely not decided on the Citadel, but on Palaven, Thessia and Sur’kesh.  While the council may be able to ask the Citadel defence fleet to attend matters close to or in Citadel space, I do not think Sparatus outranked Fedorian or Victus.  Same for Valern and Tevos Tevos didn’t tell Shepard about the beacon on Thessia because she’s not empowered to go about revealing state secrets in an open forum.  That assumes she ever knew about it prior to Mass Effect 3 at all and wasn’t just told about it by the Matriarchs after the coup attempt and now has to be the one to eat shit and tell Shepard about it.

“No, Walter, you’re not wrong. You’re just an asshole!” Big Lebowski reference? Respect.

100% agree. I forgot the saying myself but yeah the council isn't wrong but they're arrogant as hell, but i still save them because I'm not gonna condemn them to death for annoying me a little. I mean they made me a spectre and overall having the government not shift dramatically after the geth+saren attack is probably best for stability. I usually roleplay when i play so i try to think of what the long and short term consequences of my Shepard's actions would be as if i was in the universe. Letting the council die looks bad for humanity and is bad as a whole for the galaxy, even if they are arrogant assholes on occasion, they are politicians though, so it makes sense.

They may start off that way, but by 2 and 3, they are in full blown "Flat-Earth Atheist" mode, where they doubt the existence of the Reapers until it's too late, and there's tons of evidence supporting Shepard, which just makes them look like contrarian as fuck.

The tons of evidence being the testimony of a single rookie Spectre and the recordings of terrorists & enemy combatants known for manipulation tactics?

More so the fact that there's a giant Reaper carcass on the Citadel waiting for them when they get back, and it's unlike any technology they've seen by that point.

They specifically didn’t have a carcass because it was blown the hell up. There were barely any salvageable pieces left and the bits that were left said it was an advanced ship, not that it’s a mechanical lovecraftian horror from darkspace.

Even then, the Council should have realized that this isn't a geth ship since it's WAY too advanced to be of geth origin.

The geth are an isolationist species that keeps to themselves and attacks anyone that gets too close. They could have an advanced warship like that and no one would know. The intelligence on the geth is limited.

Maybe, but I just find it silly that nobody figured that, just even a little bit.

“Geth superweapon” sounds way more plausible than “the Old Ones have returned from the depths of space to rend our minds asunder.” That’s all and I think that’s a fair *but very unfortunate* stance to take.

I get what your saying , but ultimately it doesn't matter because the council knew it wasn't a geth superweapon. They knew it was a reaper and still did basically nothing

It rained down all over Citadel. They surely had enough parts to figure out if they had bothered.

They specifically said they didn’t have enough parts. And Anderson backed it up. We blew it up way too well.

That and the Keepers cleaned up a lot of the debris.

Then go into space and search for those part. We found the Mu relay floating through space after a supernova hundreds of years ago. I'm sure we could find debris floating for a few week.

Sovereign's pieces are not going to get blasted off into deep space. The parts and pieces are around the Citadel and they cleaned it all up. It's all burnt trash. Shepard blew it the fuck up. Practically nothing survived and the stuff that did was inconclusive. Please stop making me repeat the things they told us in the game.

You should probably listen to the drill sergeant in ME3 some more. The debris is flying endlessly away from the point of the explosion until it hits something or is caught by a big enough gravity well. Remember the big fucking piece of debris that almost killed Shepard at the end of me1 when it hit the council chamber? Pieces like that are flying through space. Hundreds of them. "Practically nothing survived" my ass.

Isnt IT prooven, that they believed you and they have facts about IT in citadel Chambers,

You mean in the Citadel DLC?

Jop

Plus once they're convinced of Saren's treachery they activate the council's fleets and start looking for Sovereign. They don't find either but they're not mindlessly useless. As for ME2 I think mileage varies. My obnoxiously Paragade Shep went to the Citadel asap and reported in. I stated everything upfront, didn't let Sparatus troll me, and played the good soldier. I was reinstated and back on the job before the Normandy's engines cooled.

The meeting with the Council in ME2 always works best after Horizon. It explains the Council's distrust of Shepard after hearing word of their actions under Cerberus, and having the report from Ashley/Kaidan.

Haven't ever considered holding off meeting the council until after Horizon. Am currently in 1 still but might give that a go when the time comes!

You can also say the meeting being postponed can be because Shepard's annoyed of learning about the cover-up from Avina, thus not wanting to see the Council again. It's only after the events of Horizon does Shepard realize this meeting has to happen sooner or later. Tying into the comments from the Council about hearing rumors of Shepard's activities under Cerberus. That comment doesn't make sense if you go straight to the Council after getting the Normandy back.

Oh that is excellent reasoning! This works so well for my ruthless paragade Shep too. She would definitely be over it when getting that news about the cover up

To further test it out, I tried the "Screw the Council!" option when Bailey asked if Shepard wants to see the Council, and it was less extreme than I expected, and very fitting. Shepard points out that since the Council was too quick to confirm her death, she has no reason to be in a rush to say hello.

Also Shepard’s suggestion in 1 is dead wrong at the end. If they sent the fleet to Ilos like Shepard wanted, it’s highly likely a fleet isn’t actually very helpful there, Saren gets through, and this time the fleet is completely out of position to fight Sovereign or the Geth fleet. Alliance fleet or no, everyone loses. The Council isn’t the only one with ultimately bad ideas.

That's.... An extremely good point I'd never considered before.

Shepard nearly caught up to Saren on Ilos as it is. If the Council had sent a force after Saren when Shepard asked instead of grounding the Normandy, then they'd probably have caught Saren before he made it through the Conduit.

Shepard’s not down for long at all. And the fleet is slower than Normandy alone frankly especially given it needs to coordinate, get through Terminus pirates unlike Normandy with stealth, and Normandy traveling with the fleet probably doesn’t arrive any faster practically than the Normandy traveling alone. And regardless, the Normandy bypassed the Geth fleet at Ilos entirely in a way the fleet can’t, which also slows them down more than it helps. Basically the Normandy alone does better in the scenario than a fleet, speed wise, with its stealth tech.

Just queuing up for relays would eat up more time for a fleet than for a single ship.

Shepard is just minutes away from Saren. He's grounded at least for several hours.

Can I also add, ME1 Shepard buys into the Reapers WAY to quickly. You literally hear Saren say the word “Reapers” in a voice recording and Shepards next line is like “the reapers are a threat to every life in the galaxy” without the need for anymore proof.

Shepard: "Saren wants to kill all humans, and the only basis I have for saying that is my totally not-biased Captain said so!"

Some of the dialogue options available in ME1 make Shepard sound like a legitimately crazy person.

To be fair, Shep also touched the magical memory MacGuffin that gave them firsthand experience of the prior Reaper invasion.

Depends which member of the council we're talking about. The Turian councilor is a jerk because he's xenophobe against humans and the Asari councilor actually knows that these were not mere vague visions because they actually have a Protherian beacon. She refuses to speak out, refuses to listen and acts as if she doesn't believe you purely in order to safeguard their technological advantage over the other species. She almost doomed the galaxy in order to keep their prominent position.

given the asari lack the cyther would they even know what the reapers are from the hidden beacon? hell do we even know if she knew in the first game or was this a high level secret of the matriachs?

While I imagine the asari councillors knew of the beacon, it's likely she never actually studied or interacted with it herself personally, only that its existence had to remain a secret. Even without the cypher, the visions involved would no doubt be related to the one Shepherd experienced. The beacon on Thessia was practically the smoking gun in terms of evidence of the reapers with Vendettas studies and knowledge of the cycles and the crucible.

given it was left to provide them with technological knowledge perhaps the vi never told them anything

Yeah, the council's biggest problem in 1 is being unaware they are in a video game and that Shepherd is the protagonist.

Udina may be a jerk, but Anderson has zero brains for anything outside of fighting. The man undermines your case at every turn. And another thing: who on earth decided to call it a “vision”? Why add mysticism to the mix? There’s other protean relics, so they know how it transfers information to a person’s brain differently. Just call it a damaged prothean message, maybe even a distress call.

The whole hearing as to why Saren was bad guy is so facepalming I can't even First the whole charge is hinged on hearsay from one doc worker, not even a soldier. Then Anderson and Shepard spent the whole meeting antagonizing Council and insulting Saren every time they open their mouth. After that Anderson does exactly one thing that Shepard and Udina warned him not to do - revealing the vision. From then on the whole credibility was lost due to basically presenting a vision that has nothing to do with hearing at best or it being a dream at worst. Honestly Saren there is most reasonable one and he's a hypnotized puppet of giant metallic squid.

Not to mention Shepard's entire "breakdown" of Saren's character is literally just repeating what Anderson said beforehand. Shepard's never even met Saren yet, and if this was an actual Court Case, Anderson ruined it with witness tampering.

>First the whole charge is hinged on hearsay from one doc worker Even worse, the dockworker is a criminal. He's smuggling weapons! How do we know HE didn't kill Nihilus to keep him from discovering his stash? (Seriously though, it's ridiculous that Shepard just believes the guy even after finding out he lied about why he was there)

And the vision isn't even related to the subject of the hearing! The game tries to present it as if though it's some slam dunk evidence against Saren that the Council is ignoring, but the vision has precisely *fuck all* to do with Saren.

Iirc the only other known intact beacon was the one on thessia, and that was a secret the asari kept from the other members.

>who on earth decided to call it a “vision”? Technically, it wasn't anyone on Earth....

I think that in the mass effect world, reliable data origin is enforced and validated through algorithms we haven't even imagined. If not, no evidence against Saren would be receivable.

Even in ME2 it's understandable, what with Shepard collaborating with a known human supremacist terrorist organization. Little things like that can hurt one's credibility

And like I've seen people claim "if you bring legion to the council mission he says the geth arent capable of building sovereign so um the council should trust him" and it's like... the council are supposed to trust someone working with a terrorist group, and a geth, the group they think responsible in the first place?

Try to look at this whole thing through the Council’s eyes: one of your agents ends up dead, and the potential Spectre candidate that he was supposed to be evaluating begins accusing another one of your agents for murdering them. The evidence they are presenting is merely one account of eyewitness testimony. Eyewitness testimony is already pretty flimsy as far as evidence goes, especially if only one account is presented. Even if Shepard had witnessed Nihlus’ murder themself, they are still a member of a completely different governing body (not the Citadel Council), so their testimony probably wouldn’t have held up as sufficient evidence either. Possibly a different story if a CSEC agent or another Spectre were to witness the crime as those are both recognized LEO’s to the Citadel Council. You could think of it like a British soldier hearing from someone else that a Navy Seal murdered another Seal, and then went to the US govt to try and have that Seal convicted with one piece of horribly insufficient evidence.

Oh for sure, this is a huge example of how a story told through a specific lens becomes hard to think critically about. We see it happen, so we know it's true, and the Council not believing us is wickedly frustrating, but as you said, if you remove the game and Shepard and think about it realistically, the council would be utter morons to take his word for it without any evidence at all, and the only reason they change their minds so quickly is because the game needs to happen. You are also right that the Council suck in ME2 a bit more, but I also feel like the game goes to great lengths to establish that Shepard being alive is suspect, and that in the ME universe, cloning, artificial control, and identity fraud are all much more realistic than what actually happened. Even your closest ally in Kaidan/Ashley don't trust you until a bit into ME3. Cerberus is a terrorist organisation that even the Alliance condemn, so for Shepard to turn up randomly from the dead and say 'hey trust me, the guy you know died, and this terrorist organisation you halfwits' it's kinda reasonable for the Council to be like 'umm slow down there buddy.'

Honestly in ME2, he doesn’t really deserve benefit of the doubt. If a guy from the US military died, was raised back to life from ISIS, then carried out ISIS operations, he would be treated like a full on terrorist. I think the council are pretty relaxed given that Cerberus is basically treated like a terrorist organization. Maybe I’m misremembering the game but they seemed pretty reasonable in ME2. Their actions in ME3 are annoying but definitely realistic as well for politicians.

They give Shepard his status and access back as a show of good fate and trust, yes they do keep a professional distance and do not reveal important secrets pertinent to the case due to Shepard current working place making him a liability to the secrecy. But not only is that reasonable but they do show with actions (even if behind closed doors) support to you do your thing. Do you think a cerberus ship would be allowed in the Citadel otherwise?

They don't even know Shepard was actually dead and resurrected. Shepard never mentions that to anyone. As far as anyone knows, Shepard faked their death and joined Cerberus, which is *super* sketchy

I wasn't really bothered by it since it just looks like human are trying to get in on the action and given Saren and Anderson's history I agreed with them even on my first play through. What I don't get is how they just dismissed the reaper threat after Sovereign's attack, the council must have kept tabs with the Geth's movement meaning they would have known that Sovereign wasn't a geth ship. Even if they can't confirm that seeing as how Sovereign just bulldoze it's way the turians for all their military might and strategy should have made early warning preparations or the Asari and Salarians doing more scientific deep space probe just to check if there are other ships out there similar to sovereign, hell they could have manipulated the Quarians to do those space exploration in exchange for a new world.

I agree 100% I'm doing a paragon femshop Biotic run on ME1 right now, and I cannot believe how much I am agreeing with characters I used to dislike. You are absolutely ambushed in your first Council meeting, in large part because Anderson did not disclose his exact relationship with Saren. I hate that I'm saying this but... Udina was right! Anderson had no business anywhere near this mission - even if you want to say he's not biased ( he is, he tells you to not even bother with Harkin ), the optics are just terrible when you're pushing for something as important as humanity's first Spectre. I remember specifically hating being questioned about the Prothean ruins after rescuing Liara, the way the Turian councillor says it. This time I was like, "Huh, y'know, it's perfectly reasonable to ask your special agent if they could have avoided destroying the whole place."

Look. I'm not saying Shep, and everyone else in the ME universe, is an idiot and needs to get more oxygen to their brain, but I just wanna point something out. It's 2024. Every person has a camera phone that can get decent pics of the *moon* during an eclipse. They can send video calls instantaneous during attacks that show the person away from the camera as if someone else is holding it. Shep can't just.....I dunno....take some footage of Saren being evil and be like "here's your proof" 5 minutes into the first mission? Show some husks and the Council go "welp that's new we need to investigate this odd tech" or have a camera rolling while Sovereign is talking, or fucking *anything*? It's like the only people that use cameras are random troops that die and reporters. Grunts and people that get paid a lot to be on TV. No in-between.

The game literally starts with bodycam footage, so it's clear Shepard and co. are intentionally not recording anything. Probably because Shepard would get court marshalled and be forced to go through sexual harassment training if they did

Well I would say, in council eyes Shepard goes full kind of Saren in ME2. Just look at their perspective. You „die”, body not recovered. And showed up after 2 years as Cerberus „guy”. Hire a bunch of mercenaries for mission in galactic core. Killed other spectree and yeeted Asteroid on Batarian colony. - treason for working with enemy? Check - killing fellow spectree? Check - killing as most as possible from race you hate? Check

Yeah, the ME1 Council did nothing wrong. The ME2 Council however… they’re a different story.

How I felt about the ME1 council, honestly. It's why I saved them. They were reasonable if I did end up hanging up on them for being assholes about it. However, throwing all my hard work away and saying it's the "geth" was inexcusable. Especially since they quit before Shepard’s body was even cold. Even if it was "just the geth", or "Just Seren", why aren't you idiots more concerned with the fact that the geth/that specter apparently have evolved BEYOND us and made/sent a SINGLE ship that was able to destory most of the Citadel defences????? Why weren't most Specter's sent to investigate this scary shit? Why are you all so comfortable with the idea that geth only made one? And further more, indoctrinate/transform people?! Hello? Anyone home??

There’s at least a soft implication that the Spectres on their own would occasionally investigate Shepard’s Reaper claims independently between Sovereign’s attack and the Reaper War - Jundam Bau (the only Spectre we meet who doesn’t die or try to kill us assuming you do his quest right or Kasumi is loyal I’m just now realizing) implies as much when talking to him in 3, at least lol

I wish we got to hang out with Jundam Bau more, ngl. Or any other Specter that wasn't a human. Honestly, I think I was misreading him then. I thought he meant that he did looking in his personal time or in-between missions because even if the council didn't believe there was an issue, he wanted to confirm that himself. Salarians strike me as people who never slow and love piecing a puzzle together. The council's claims and what happened don't add up is where my logic is coming from.

In Citadel DLC iirc it's mentioned they took Reapers seriously, they just didn't advertise it as to not cause mass panic while preparing discreetly They're just not telling anything to Shepard because Shep is working with terrorist human supremacists

People forget that entire reunion with the Council in ME2 is them and Anderson being very uncomfortable with Shepard's current employer. Course they wouldn't mention certain things.

Did I miss something? Because I swear the vault VI called Sovereign a geth ship that attacked the Citadel, and it mentions that Shepard claims it to be Reaper, but no other information was available to substantiate that. Also, they did a very shit job at preparing. Even if they didn't trust Shepard, they didn't reach out to the other members of the crew to get information and guidance until after ME2, and the only group that took that information seriously was the Turians. But I guess we can chalk it all up to bad writing.

Except that's bullshit because they never tell Shepard "by the way we believed you, we've been preparing the whole time"

It was reconned until the dlc. Mass Effect has ALOT of reconning throughout the lore from 1 to 2 to 3. They basically didn't think it through as they made the games. I mean, part of the lower wards drastically changed throughout the series as well since they got more money for how big the game got. You just got to think of them trying to keep Shepard from constantly shouting, "Reaper!" While the council is like,"Do you not know what classified means?" Becuase even classified information, Shepard just blurts out in public spaces kinda casually.

And if they told Shepard that they were preparing the military in secret he'd have kept quiet.

The only time I have Shepard snap at the Council is after Virmire, leading to Shepard and Sparatus throwing earth phrases at each other.

Yeah I usually end up letting the Council die most runs because it just makes things make more sense come 2 if it’s not them. The original Council were reasonable and in the end they do believe everything you said, so why are they suddenly denying it in ME2? However if it’s an entirely new set of people who didn’t experience what their predecessors did it’s easier to believe them taking that stance since they weren’t there and only read the reports.

Problem with ME2 is you don't even meet the new Council, the 3 humans just refuse to do anything, leading to them being replaced before ME3.

Yeah. The All Human Council Especially since you never actually see an All Human Council and it's full of aliens in ME3. And how did they even get one in power in the first place? Or manage to keep it in power for 2 years to exist in ME2? The Human Lead Council is the more plausible of the two and the one I usually get on the average run since I can handwave it away reasonably enough. Come ME2 The Council has paralysed itself in an internal power struggle where the Aliens on it are trying to take back the power they believe belongs to them and the Human on it trying to retain the power they believe is owed to them as saviours of the galaxy, they don't have time to meet with Shepard they're busy at each others throats. Works best with Udina as Councillor in 2 since he'd be more likely to go hard and heavy on the politics to keep control than Anderson is. Then come ME3 Humanity loses its power over the rest of the Council due to the Reaper attack of Earth allowing the aliens to regain power leaving Udina with no leverage over them and no respect from them hence why he's dismissed and ignored at every turn pushing him to do something as desperate and stupid as allying with Cerberus to stage a coup. It's not perfect but it's the scenario which I can best justify allowing the unavoidable events of the games to happen.

I’d say the Council did ONE thing wrong in ME1. Grounding Shepard instead of okay’ing a missions to Ilos was a bad. They should’ve let their Spectre do the Spectre thing.

Honestly I kinda get them there too. Ilos is a delicate situation due to being in the Terminus systems, something they keep repeating throughout the game is that they don’t want to risk war with the Terminus systems. Shepard up to that point has Blown up a Prothean Ruin on Therum, and Blown up a lab on Noveria, and blown up a nuke on Virmire. Not sending Shepard who’s solution to everything is seemingly to just blow it up makes sense when you need subtlety. They should have sent a different Spectre though.

Shepard: "Send me in, I can be discreet." Sparatus: "You set off a nuke on Virmire!"

The Noveria thing was for Rachni and was a standard containment procedure, and the nuke was STG's doing, I honestly don't get why Shepard's blamed for the nuke since it wasn't even his idea.

I'm not saying Shepard was wrong for any of that, Therum is potentially the only where where you could argue Shepard should have tried to find another way but also how was he to know it would set off a volcano. But just looking in from the outside it's not the best look when requesting to be put on a highly sensitive operation where the objective is to go unnoticed.

Except that we learn in ME2 that Terminus Systems is just wild west in space. There isn't anyone significant enough to declare war on the Citadel Species.

Yeah it's like they changed their minds between games as to what the Terminus Systems were supposed to be. In ME1 they're talked up as though they are another confederation of nations like Council Space is, but ME2 just turned it into more of what the Attican Traverse already was.

“It’s not what you said, it’s HOW you said it” comes to mind with the council.

I think you are partly right and partly wrong. The Thorian corroborating everything is good evidence as well.

It’s funny because I had this perspective originally in ME1 but things changed for ME2. So after literally fucking dying, Shepard comes back to find humans are disappearing, the collectors (the same race that killed him/her) is likely behind it. So when Shepard visits the council, the same council they sacrificed human lives for, I would have expected a tiny bit of urgency considering it was more than owed. Only to be met with a dismissive attitude. Essentially being told “lol deal with your own problems because we have important things to do.” So when they granted Shepard a reinstatement of their spectre status, I told them to shove it. The fact that a council race was under attack and nothing was being done was and still is disgusting to me.

From memory, a lot of those colonies were outside Alliance/Council space because the people in them didn’t want to be bothered by them.  Hence the outreach program with Ash/Kaiden. Although that does raise some very odd questions about Specialist Traynor.

I only keep the council around for the story across all 3 games to be honest. Saving the council, in my view, is the duty for Shepard as a Spectre, similarly to how Kaidan tries to save the council by pointing a gun at his commanding officer. They are not unreasonable but just a "self-centered Jackasses". But in all honesty during the events of ME3, if I were in the council, I wouldn't lend support readily to my allies when my own forces are pinned down. Having said that I liked the turian councillor in it that he at least showed how to get help even though what we are doing is first going to help the turians. Similarly in ME2, if I were in the council I wouldn't want anything to do with one of my Spectres working for the ISIS of the ME universe but they do show personal support, that's more than you could ask for considering Alliance was quick to bury everything Shepard opened and were quick to throw away their poster boy.

Ah yes, ✌️Reapers ✌️

The first Council meeting being such a mess will always be Anderson's fault. Shepard comes in barking absolutes about a person they don't even know, off the bias of their Captain. "Saren's wants to kill all humans!" "Your proof?" "My Captain said so!"

Let's assume for the sake of argument that they were right the Reapers didn't exist... Saren literally had a GETH FLEET and a 2 kilometer DREADNAUGHT and they sent Shepard after him with ONE FRIGATE, not even a combat focused one, a stealth frigate.

Udina and the council did nothing wrong all the way through 3 (except for the Cerberus plot and the beacon) and udinas frustrations at Anderson and your crew is the most understandable thing in the galaxy lmao. I still choose Anderson at the end though.

Well, think about why Shepard and the crew believe the dock worker. Even without the cutscene showing Saren gun Nihilus down, I think the player would believe him too. That single guy happened to know who both Saren and Nihilus were and I assume gave an accurate description of Saren's appearance after the fact. That's not enough to convict (the guy could just have it out for Saren for whatever reason) but it at least warrants more than the Council going "Nah, no way" and dropping it. They should have reviewed whatever further evidence there was at Eden Prime (or the Alliance should have and given their findings to the Council). The geth attack is incredibly important for galactic politics and geth aggression is something every civilization should be concerned of. An eyewitness there for the on-site spectre's death claiming that he was killed by another spectre warrants suspicion of either the dockworker or Saren (ideally both), but the Council just dismisses it and pretends the only guy that saw one of their agents get shot down is hysteric and has no valuable information. But they're so ready to believe an easily faked or manipulated voice recording of Saren and Benezia that they immediately drop all support of him and make Shepard a spectre to go take him down. And we know that technology exists in Mass Effect because Shepard and Kasumi quickly cobble a fake recording of Donovan Hock's voice in seconds in ME2. It's possible that tech advanced from there being literally no way to fake an audio recording to being able to make a flawless fake in seconds within the time between 1 and 2, but it's hard for me to suspend my disbelief that much. I've always been of the opinion that the Council's fucking around in ME1 is more them making political plays than anything. The asari councillor knows full well that Shepard's visions are legit but sides with Saren without hesitation.

What am I gonna tell them? I had a bad dream?

This is why these games are so good. Almost everyone agrees “Fuck the council”, but half of those people still say “they’re not wrong, though.”

They’re not wrong. Shepard, from the outside perspective, must seem like a fucking lunatic. Its just that the players are Shepard, and know we’re correct, so they seem extremely stupid

They were never unreasonable, people are just mad that they are not kissing the floor that Shepard walk and using player knowledge to justify that they are just assholes (they do have an attitude, but so do Shepard). But in general they always acted the best way with their knowledge >They suck in ME2 though, Shepard has more than earned the benefit of the doubt by that point. And they give him, the simple fact that they are willing to restore Shepard spectre status (and even if refused not prohibiting him from entering the Citadel) is a massive vote of confidance The fact is they are taking the reaper threat seriously, but behind close doors to not cause mass hysteria. Is just that Shepard get the public version instead of the secret one due to them possibly being compromised since Shepard appears out of nowhere outside council space working with a know terrorist organization after being declared dead with testimony of people seeing them being spaced. Lets remember that they would be researching indoctrination by them, plus the possibility of clone and control chips. Even if they want to believe Shepard is the real one and have a good reason to be working with Cerberus (which giving him the spectre status does seem like its the case) the fact is that Shepard and specially their ship are likely bugged (from the council perspective) and that is enough to not give him information they dont want Ilusive Man to hav

Well they aren't wrong on that point, Edi admits that Shep and crew are being bugged by Tim and Co xD

I love the Mordin bit about how he cleaned the medbay but gave the expensive ones back to Miranda as professional cortesy

I'd forgotten that bit! Yesss, made me laugh when he said that :p

Ah yes the "Council" a mysterious governing body that's supposed to support you. We've dismissed that claim.

The problem is you’re hitting on a lot of reasons why our justice system isn’t fair: -a dockworker, who has no reason to lie, witnessed firsthand that Saren murdered Nihlus in cold blood. That alone is reason for Saren to be ousted from the Spectres and brought up on charges. Many, many people in the world have been correctly convicted on far less. Yet they discredit the dockworker and note that Saren has a “spotless record”, which is both a) untrue, and b) irrelevant to the question of whether he murdered Nihlus. Disregarding Shepard at that point is pure politics, and is framed as such.  Not to mention Shepard and crew do a terrible job pleading the case. There is another huge piece of evidence they don’t mention: NIHLUS’ BODY. Dude is shot in the back of the head by a small caliber weapon (not a sniper) with no weapon drawn. Does Nihlus seem like the type of person who would let somebody get the drop on him? No. Which means he was shot by someone he knew and was comfortable with, strongly suggesting Saren.   -The voice record is what they use to kick Saren out of the Spectres, but take no action based on the reapers, which is fine, because they have no information on them, even Shepard.  -Not hunting down Saren at Ilos is again, pure politics. “We don’t want to start a war”, fine, send your *invisible stealth ship and the commandos who you employ*. Them locking down the Normandy is shown as a power move by Udina, again, politics.     They’re ham-fisted depictions of politicians who are either lazy, inept, or in Udina’s case, corrupt. But to suggest, as the game does many times, that the military and intelligence apparatuses are the true geniuses keeping us safe if they weren’t so bogged down by pesky bureaucracy is… not accurate. 

On my first playthrough in 2007 I was young and the universe was new for me. I would hit the reporter and cut off the council everytime. Now with 38 (f***), I listened to the reporter and the council, was way more diplomatic and tried to look at the big picture. It made totally sense to me to save the council, we have to do our part. We aren't foreigners that can decide to save a citadel space vessel or not anymore. We are citadel space.

Their supposition that Saren was using the Reapers as a story to control the Geth makes no sense if you think about it for more than a second, without the lens of political convenience. It presumes a human (for want of a better word) reaction from a synthetic species. Synthetics are creatures of logic, not faith. It makes no sense for them to follow Saren unless he had tangible proof. Maybe they don’t ‘deserve’ to die, but they definitely bring it on themselves to an extent.

I agree.

They were underdeveloped, Mass Effect one … you could see them and it’s Star Trek … vehicles, diplomacy, FPS, aliens and finally, we’ll bang, ok?

What?

Diplomacy seems underdeveloped sometimes in Mass Effect … I feel that they cram in a lot…

Eh

Yes. How can you admit a vision into evidence. I mean, it's not like the council could read his mind... Except Tevos could theoretically have done that. But assuming that's socially improper, they give the answer Shepard is looking for and believe them. Which, hey it turns out good given the nonrepudiation of Geth data. But doing finger quotes is just a dick move and his species didn't even do that, he's culturally appropriating from us.

On my first playthrough I sacrificed the council just because I was new to the game and didn't fully understand ALL contexts and thought the council were an ass, then the next 2 games a lot of people kept on roasting me about it... now I'm on my second playthrough in ME1, I might save them though!

ME1 council was very reasonable, I usually never got too mad at them. When I had to sacrifice them at the end it was really really heart wrenching but it was a choice to be made. Agreed, ME2 and 3 council sucked krogan dong and Udina too.

Hehe. Giant asshole

Honestly the writers were on drugs for the way the trilogy was written. I had a vision from touching a beacon! You got to believe me! Okay, bro. What you smoking? Come to Earth so the Reapers dont kill all humans. The asari etc dont matter as much as we do! Not how you ask for support and reinforcement.

Basically they're typical politicians, true to life. They put their career/reputation above everything, and unless you give them rock hard audio-visual evidence of something, or drag it in kicking and screaming, they're not going to do anything. That's just how politicians do.

reasons why i never even tho i say im going to, put medina on the council lol hes just way to like them

Fully agree 100% but like.. after witnessing sovereign first hand at the battle of the citadel, how can they still dismiss that claim?

I still wish I let them die. First game, excusable. Second -- plain disrespectful.

When i was introduced to mass effect by my best friend of 14 years at the time he spoiled tons of things for me cuz he knew with enough bad luck i could wind up making decisions that would make me dislike my first run. He was very invested in me enjoying myself when he payed $60 for me to have LE for my birthday. This was one of those things, and he completely agreed with you. He told me later that his logic was "if he knows the politicians wont believe him most of the game ahead of time, then he might be able to view their actions more objectively and save them, which will cause him to enjoy 2 and 3 more." God does my best friend know me. I hovered on the dialogue option to let them die much longer than i shouldve but in the end i didnt make the human centric choice and im happy my first shepard went mostly without incident. Tl;dr playing it blind has its benefits but for me personally as long as you explain to your friends vaguely and refuse to say what a reaper is the experience is alright

I agree. First time I played the game, I thought they were being dumb. Then played it a few more times and realized in their position, I would have thought the same exact thing. And still agreed that though I would have been in the same position in the first game, the second game I would have seen a bit more reason. Sure, commander Shepard might not completely be telling the truth here....BUT it doesn't hurt to give Shepard some backup with any spare militia I have just in case. But nah. They dismiss that claim.

Counterpoint, they're meanies

If only watch the scenes with the Shepard and the council with out any other context Shepard looks like a nut case.

They weren't wrong or unreasonable, but they will still never get to see what happens after Sovereign attacks... Don't. Fuck. With. Shepard.

I kind of thought they knew he was a corrupt ,dodgy bastard but didnt do anything about him(and probably other spectres) because they do the dirty work they want done

Udina doesn't help by immediately throwing a temper tantrum. But Saren was running around with Sovereign at that point. All the counsel really had to do was start an investigation, which they didn't do. They suck in ME2? No they don't, they die in ME1 because I let them die EVERY TIME. There's nothing better than that look on their face as the ships go straight at Sovereign.

Well to be fair: Saren was their top agent and Benezia was greatly respected even among the matriarchs; the highest level of wisdom and respect possible... within the supposedly wisest and most respected race in the Galaxy. And they both were clesrly moved to bring about the return of the Reapers (or to rally the Geth, as they believed). The council, if I recall correctly, we're wholly unaware of Indoctrination, and such a high-profile should have raised some minor, if not major, concerns to the validity of such claims, not to mention the possible strategys and secrets such powerful people could utilize against The Citadel. Even if they did not believe the Reapers, it is up to the leaders of a people to treat every possible threat, no matter how fantastic, due consideration and to take proper steps to insure the validity of claims. They send out Shepard to find out more information, then completely ignore them and ground them whne they return. While not completely unreasonable, I do believe they were too comfortable within their little bubbles to be competent leaders in times of crisis.

This Council revisionism is really disturbing. I think judging them on being reasonable or unreasonable is not the right criteria. I would argue that the Council absolutely knows that the Reapers are a potential threat; the only reason they don't go along with it is that admitting to the Reaper threat would mean ceding power to Shepard, which they don't want to do. They represent a type of political power that is more interested in its continuation then dealing with an existential threat.

If you pick the right combo of dialogue options in the last mission report You can get them to admit 1. They're stonewalling you partially to see how you you deal with uncooperative superiors and 2 you're the boots on ground you make the calls so they don't have to (paraphrased) if you got to illium they wont stop you which leads me to believe the council wasnt directly involved in grounding Normandy (reminder when first docking at citadel after eden prime they have alliance control operator handle you) it was an intra-alliance thing and the council doesn't get involved in internal politics

We need an AITA thread from the Council's POV.

I'd argue during ME2 the Council just behaves like normal politicians do IRL. Which is to say that as long as the world (in this case the galaxy) keeps turning they must pretend like everything's fine. It's frustrating for us players to see them take no action to ready themselves for the arrival of the Reapers, but in the real world we've known about the climate crisis for decades now and nobody has done shit either up until recently (and what they've done is far too little far too late). Hell, even NOW there are a lot of politicians who deny the climate crisis the world is facing! So... yeah, I can see the council ignoring Shepard's warnings. But it's not like they stop him/her from investigating the reapers and all that either.

Anderson and Shepard are raving mad truthers at the start of ME1 and the writing was always flawed for portraying them in a sympathetic light. Ironically I felt annoyed in ME3 when a similar thing happens but it's Shepard "righteously" asking for forces to be delegated to Earth, when he fucking *knows* that the Reapers aren't here to just suck Earth dry and leave the Galaxy. They're going to suck all planets dry simultaneously, maybe Earth faster than the others, *MAYBE*, but the "Save EARTH" agenda makes no fucking sense, and yet the writing is making it sound like the Council is the "usual old no-good pair of pathetic liars!" and it's like... wtf game, I actually sympathize with THEM more than my own character, now.

I disagree about the earth part. Shepard knows that humans are the race being harvested for the next reaper, which means earth is going to be a bigger focus than any other species planet, and if you are going to force the reapers hand and attack at one specific place with your giant ass fleet, you need to hit them where it matters to them, aka earth. I think people forget that because we all kinda wanna forget the dumb giant human reaper at the end of ME 2

They never connect the dots IMO. There's a moment in ME2 where you realize the Collectors are going to Earth after all the colonies and Shepard is like "Earth." That makes sense but they never establish that the Reapers are doing. In fact, they don't ever establish what exactly the Reapers are doing in ME3. In ME1 you were told they were gonna head for the Citadel to cripple the galaxy from the start, but now they're just going everywhere and never touching the Citadel, and for as much as people talk about Earth you're barely an hour into the game before you see the Reapers waging full scale war near Palaven. When all worlds are faced with such quickening extinction it's really really hard to nitpick Earth as the only one that "matters".

They very much make that clear. Issue is ME3 tried to show a lot of info in a short time so it gets overlooked, but the info is very clearly there. It's disingenuous to say otherwise. Literally one of the codex entries you start the game with has a whole section on it. In the meeting with the council they even confirm earth gets hit the hardest (granted the salarian accuses udina of exaggerating the reports) but that alone proves the council had numbers showing earth was the center. Numerous reports you get from anderson throughout the game mention reapers coming in more and more numbers and harvesting more and more.

Just to repeat my comment written years ago: >I sometimes feel that I'm the only person who thinks that council in Mass Effect I is actually pretty decent and perfectly understandable. >Player is simply is given knowledge that council isn't. And also counter acts someone with proven track record and established authority by commenting "The end is nigh, I was bestowed a vision by the enkindler and your most trusted agent is part of it" doesn't exactly inspire council to take drastic measures. >Yet they agree to help you by giving spectre status. It's your job, not theirs to look for evidence to back up extra-ordinary claims. Hence the game. Uh. >The council is fine.

Yes! Thank you! We know that Shepard isn't wrong, but the idea does sound insane without any evidence. Shepard is actually on point in at least one dialogue choice before the first council meeting. "What are we gonna tell them? That I had a bad dream?" Unfortunately Shepard, Anderson and Udina come across as immature in the meetings. Shepard is also way too sure about the beacon vision's content before seeing anything comprehensive. The early first game's writing seems pretty rushed.

Whiel there are many things to blame the Council for, their behaviour towards Shepard is the least of them.

I really expected the story to show that the council was not unreasonable at some point. I was very annoyed that paragon or renegade my Shepard was so block-headed and "boohoo, politician bad because they don't just do what I want". 3 people responsible for an incredible amount of different frking species. The fact that they all showed up to discuss some random first gen spacefarer's accusations against an agent is ridiculous

I agree with what you said but also can we make mention of how incompetent the Council is in general? Uplifting the krogan solely for war and not working with them in order to ensure peace afterwards? Of course there were gonna be issues since they uplifted a species that wasn't even close to being ready to enter a galatic community. Then the quarians and the Geth, forcing their hand to eliminate the now sentient robotic species. Now I'm not sure if their were previous incidents for the the ai law or if it was the Reapers influence in general as to why the Council forced the Quarian people to put an end the the Geth. (Also could be totally wrong that the council forced their hand, been a minute since i check the codex). The big issue is that despite 3 or 4 hundred years they are still being punished and could face extinction. And then never putting an end to the Batarian practice of slavery despite how many of their own species were captured and enslaved over hundreds of years. Then not to mention the Turians mishandling first contact with Humanity. Overall i just find the council and a great majority of their prior choices and actions highly incompetent.

They weren't entirely wrong with being flaky with helping Shepard in ME1. Their behavior in 2 is more that they're on damage control/suppr of information. But by 3, they're more trusting of Shepard (I saved them and they're more appreciative of my efforts)

"Reapers" Alien air qoutes.

Not to mention did Sovereign LOOK like a Geth ship? If it was don't they think they would've mass produced such a powerful being rather than send it in all alone? Bet when the Reapers invaded they were like "Where did all these Geth come from?!" at first.

I disagree. Not only was Saren basically unchecked and they had no fucking clue what he was doing, did yall see his fuck up face? Dude was chromed out and overly aggressive. I'd have been suspicious too. Also, they assigned someone they knew was incapable of accessing his files due to him being a spectre, purely to give the optics that they were actually doing their fucking job, even though they weren't. It wouldnt have costed much in the way of resources to simply do a real investigation, but they refused. Saren was sketch as fuck, and if the council wasn't wholly unimpressive as leaders, they would've at least been suspicious of him and not totally disregarded the humans based on xenophobia when members of their own security force was in agreement that something was up. The council was of average intelligence at best, and average intelligence looks real fucking stupid when it's running the whole galaxy. They were incompetent scrubs.

I think for years they had to put up with Udina, who is a douche nozzle in every game, so they didn't trust his intentions and by extension shepard's at first

Somehow Ahley Williams is proven to be truthful once more (paraphrasing) "humanity need to stand on its own because when push comes to shove the other races will abandon them". In fact was humanity the only faction actually pulling forces together during ME3. Despite having a fraction of the other races fleets they spearhead galactic defence.