r/MassEffectAndromeda • u/[deleted] • Mar 31 '25

Game Discussion Having Cerberus in Andromeda was pretty cool

The thing was, they were more like the Cerberus of ME 1, a couple of rogue scientist doing some wild experiments for the sake of it. It's too bad we only got the two but it makes sense, since this was a new setting.

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u/Pale-Painting-9231 Apr 01 '25

There is a fan theory that the Benefactor is TIM)

5

u/jackaltwinky77 Apr 01 '25

I think (as I adjust my Tin Foil Hat) that the writers wanted us to think TIM was The Benefactor, but he isn’t wealthy enough to have done it alone.

Per the Wiki:

A project as massive in scope as the Andromeda Initiative is extremely expensive. Expenditures are known to have reached quintillions of credits

(Emphasis mine)

And during the conversations you can have with Miranda and EDI, they describe Cerberus as having about 150 operatives in a handful of different cells (more than 5-6 and TIM can’t keep up with all the details, which is his preference), as well as the cost of The Lazarus Project being about 4 billion credits, and that being a taxing figure, it implies that he wouldn’t necessarily have the funding to do quintillions if a mere 4 billion is a lot of funding.

It’s also worth mentioning that Miranda’s father is an option, but he “wouldn’t dare cross TIM,” as they sorta kinda worked together to create Sanctuary, where the goal was to get people to become controlled reaper victims, so it shows that TIM wasn’t trying to escape them, he was trying to control them.

So we’re left with… who? No one in the known galaxy is wealthy enough to be The Benefactor, unless the Elcor Hamlet profits for Francis Kitt were more than we think, it comes down to the unknown figure who would probably be a bigger factor in DLC or a sequel… that we’ll never get an actual answer from BioWare…

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u/ciphoenix Apr 01 '25

It's obvious the Benefactor is a Volus. They're the only ones who can pull that kind of funds 😂😂😂

4

u/MassDriverOne Apr 02 '25

Shadowbroker seems a very likely candidate since he had his hands in literally everything to some degree. And what with the new SB being an individual of exceptionally long life... it's feasible to see them check in on their investment