Mass Effect 5: Solving the Mystery of the Benefactor

foreign Mass Effect Andromeda set up one of the most interesting murder mysteries in the Mass Effect universe and with no direct SQL or DLC in sight I do think the upcoming game could address a few of andromeda's unresolved questions beginning with who is the mysterious benefactor who is the person who funded the Andromeda initiative who is behind Jean garson's murder and more importantly why and while there is a lot of speculation and no concrete answers I wanted to Deep dive into all of the possibilities especially because this person originated from the timeline of the original trilogy but first as a little recap let's go over the timeline of the initiative and how the benefactor even became involved Gian Garson founded the Andromeda initiative in 1976. by this time she was already a billionaire and at the time it was founded the initiative was intended as a way to expand exploration Discovery and research it wasn't originally intended to be the major project that it became when Garson ran out of money during production the mysterious and Anonymous benefactor stepped forward to save the project knowing of garson's situation but with two major stipulations first 100 000 colonists on five arcs would be sent with the initiative essentially changing the initiative's entire purpose each Arc would contain twenty thousand colonists comprising of all of the Milky Way galaxy races the second stipulation was that Alec Ryder would be made the human Pathfinder the benefactor had already approached Alec Ryder about the Andromeda initiative even before Garson and the benefactor stipulated Alec writer's involvement as well as Sam to be continued on the initiative something important to note here is that the benefactor's motivations seem altruistic it seems like the benefactor wanted to save and preserve the races of the Milky Way galaxy by providing them with a fresh start elsewhere they were worried about the chaos and lack of resources should the reaper War happen they also wanted the project kept hidden so as Not to cause Panic seemingly worried about the general Public's response they also wanted to help the research and development of Sam to such lengths that they contacted Alec even before Garson knew of him the stipulations requested by the benefactor were essentially beneficial to all parties involved so is the benefactor a good person an altruistic person or is there some kind of sinister motivation for both of these stipulations and why would the benefactor who is seemingly helping Garson accomplish her life's goal want to kill her we do actually have some semi-concrete information on the benefactor and the identity someone on the BioWare social networks apparently data mined some game files with some very interesting information about the benefactor and we can see here it says that the character name is the mysterious benefactor and it indicates that the gender is female the character description says a character in The Alec Rider memory flashbacks this is the mysterious benefactor the secret backer of the entire Andromeda initiative who originally hired Alec she's a woman though her face will remain hidden in this game and will only hear her voice race human character type major and age range about 45. now this is just datamind info from Frosty manager and this could be referencing the feminine voice used when we see the benefactor in Alex memory using the face Scrambler and possibly voice changer and this isn't the first BioWare game that has had files with important information but it's interesting that the file says that the benefactor is a woman and seems like it's implying The Voice we hear in the audio is the actual benefactor's voice and the voice does sound human like the data mine files suggest but I'd assume someone going to these lengths to protect their identity would also use a voice changer the benefactor's voice actress is Deborah Moore and she also voices Catherine Nye AKA Knight who is the leader of an anti-ai group seemingly the very opposite of something our benefactor would support she can also die in the side quest so I'd rule her out as the benefactor anyways using voice actors for multiple roles is common and more has one other random role listed as well so it's not something I put much weight into but it is worth mentioning we also know that the benefactor somehow knew that there was something coming even before Shepard and their fears were confirmed when Shepard encountered the Reapers in Mass Effect 1. this might be the most interesting thing we know about the benefactor and according to my gamble the benefactor was intended to be a broader overarching mystery intentionally left vague for future exploration which means that we can kind of assume the benefactor was originally intended to be someone that is currently in the Andromeda Galaxy so that is everything that we actually know about the benefactor so let's look into the theories into who it could be starting with the most suspected character Foster Addison Addison's story after The Disappearance of Garson is extremely inconsistent and is actually also very suspicious specifically during the 27 hours between the nexus's initial arrival in Andromeda and when garson's body is found I made a timeline so you can see the events broken up by when they happen and the teal colors are suspicious incidents related to Addison's whereabouts and responses when questioned Nexus Uprising tells the events of the Nexus arriving in Andromeda and the chaos that ensues due to the scourge hit so let's break it down the Nexus arrives in Andromeda after their 633-year Journey the Nexus then wakes up the initiative's leadership and science team first this is supposedly when Garson was woken up and made her way to the hidden room it's important to note that the secret room was made during the nexus's construction so we can assume Garson was scared even during the construction phase of this project during this Foster Addison claims that she was with Garson and the entire science team right before the scourge hit but Sloan Kelly finds the entire science team and Leadership dead due to the scourge impact this means Addison most likely wasn't with them Sloan goes to look for Garson and instead finds Addison in garson's chamber pod alone when Sloan questions Addison on why she is there she says she is looking for the restroom and then proceeds to tell Sloane that she was just with Garson and the science team and then left to go find Garson but then stopped in the chamber pod to find the restroom which Sloan immediately finds suspicious And Addison's hesitation before answering is indeed suspicious why would she be looking for Garson if she was just with her Addison tells Sloan she hit her head from the impact and she does actually have cuts on her head and a head injury so Sloane mostly chocks up Addison's weird and suspicious Behavior due to her assumed concussion the book does make a point of saying that Addison's cut is already starting to dry around the edges which adds more suspicion to the timeline of events when all this is happening Garson is in her room recording the messages she leaves right before she is murdered important to also note that where garson's secret room is was closed off and somehow the murderer was able to access it before Garson is found Addison also almost immediately brings up the succession now that Garson is presumed dead meanwhile the others are still hoping that she is alive the rest of the team is still looking for Garson during all of this but 27 hours after they were woken up garson's body is supposedly found in one of their makeshift morgues her body is charred and unrecognizable and Sloan can't piece together any evidence of identity it's also important to note that her body was found seemingly in a state of decay with a very strong smell ingly implying that by the time she was found she had been dead for a while what is also suspicious about this is that it is the two life support techs who identify garson's body they are quick to answer that it is her that they found her while they were cleaning bodies and that her wounds are consistent with all of the rest of the scourge victims the rest of the team doesn't argue this because her injuries were consistent with the scourge impact and her death isn't investigated anymore in the novel Nexus Uprising Addison's thoughts on the matter also aren't described so we don't get an inside perspective into how she's thinking despite the novel giving us everyone else's perspectives Addison was the only remaining survivor of the science team that was woken up from chamber zero zero the same pod as Garson and Addison doesn't actually seem like the type of powerful person to be the actual benefactor she's temperamental and suspicious and I feel like if the actual benefactor was on the Nexus they'd have done everything to maintain their secret and avoid suspicion I do think Addison is working for the benefactor though by killing Garson and this could also be the possibility for the two techs that were the ones who say they found her and were so quick to label her as another Scourge victim we don't learn much of the Tech's identities but we do know that a ton of things including cars and even people were smuggled onto the Nexus and arcs so someone being there when they shouldn't seems like it would have been easy to do so maybe they helped hide garson's murder there is also a mention of the janitor Chen being woken up alongside the Nexus leadership team and how odd Sloane thinks this is the janitor is panicked and seemed like he was also affected by the scourge impact Chen isn't acting suspiciously but him being awake during this time seems odd maybe he was also involved in hiding garson's death could Addison have covered up the murder to make it look like Garson was killed by the scourge possibly with the help of the tax and was this actually garson's body the novel makes it pretty clear that it is only suspected to be her body based on what the texts tells Sloan Kelly there is no actual identifier so maybe even she's still alive either way I think Addison was involved and next up we have a theory that I see probably the most and that is that the elusive man is the benefactor and this is probably the most popular Theory but it just doesn't make sense in both the timeline and motivations first off The elusive man died in 2186 a year after the Andromeda initiative was launched this means that he could not be an Andromeda and Mike gamble said that the benefactor was set up to be important in the future and the only way that I could see this working since the elusive Man is dead is if Cora Harper who shares his last name as Jack Harper AKA The elusive man is revealed to be his daughter we'll Circle back to this later but this is still a pretty far-fetched Theory and doesn't really make sense motivation wise because why would the elusive man who was pro-human and anti-alien want to fund the entire initiative especially when the benefactor first started working with Garson and told her to add a hundred thousand colonists twenty thousand of each race to the mission we have also heard the benefactor speak and it sounds nothing like how the elusive man speaks and why would the elusive man help Alec Ryder and his advancements of AI The elusive man was indoctrinated he was working for the Reapers why would the Reapers want the advancements of A.I and to send all of these races to the Andromeda Galaxy when the Reaper's entire purpose was harvesting the races of the Milky Way galaxy this would essentially mean that there would be less beings for them to harvest and this goes against their motive I just don't see the elusive man who was the leader of Cerberus a Humanity first organization funding a project that was essentially about saving all the races of the Milky Way galaxy The elusive man also already had his own secret identity he was The elusive man why would he need another alias going back to his motivations The elusive man and saren were both exposed to a Reaper artifact during the first Contact War and while their indoctrinations developed differently we know that the elusive man implanted himself with Reaper technology in Mass Effect 3 through the Cerberus logs and this essentially finalizes indoctrination The elusive man's motivations changed for Mass Effect 2 to 3 where he is first acting on the advancement and preservation of humankind but his Godlike view of the humans warps into indirectly supporting the reaper cause on top of his indoctrination and thus he is fully corrupted by Mass Effect 3. so while he had good intentions initially his motivations became warped and he was working for the Reapers in the end and you're probably thinking but the elusive man wasn't fully indoctrinated during the development of the Andromeda initiative and this is true but we also don't know exactly how his indoctrination progressed especially when it seems like it had been gradually increasing for almost 30 years regardless his anti-alien pro-human stance had already been drilled into him at this point we also know that during the timeline which I've made a visual for shows that the Lazarus Project is what the elusive man put all of his money into Miranda even makes a comment about the depleting funds we know that the Lazarus Project cost about 4 billion credits and that was seemingly enough to put a major Dent into the elusive man's funds so how could The elusive man have also funded the Andromeda initiative which cost way way more it's estimated to have cost in the quintillion credits so it doesn't make any sense for him to have been able to financially support both projects especially when they were running concurrently we also know that timeline wise that the initiative was founded in 1976 and by 1985 the project was completed so that means that sometime during that is when Garson went bankrupt and then the benefactor steps in to fund the initiative and this doesn't make sense considering the Lazarus Project timeline The elusive man was running out of money in 21.85. so if this is the same year that the initiative was complete all of the funds would have already been put into the initiative why would he not already be short on funds if he had been funding this massive project Garson also mentions that the benefactor had what seemed like unlimited funds so this just doesn't sound like The elusive man there is also another small noteworthy thing in Mass Effect Andromeda and personally I see this as just a fun Easter egg to the original trilogy but some have seen it as hard proof of The elusive man's involvement with Alec Ryder but you do find an sr2 model in Alec Ryder's room since this timeline would put this model before the sr2 was even out it could mean that the elusive man gave an early on release copy of the final sr2 model before it was given to Shepard personally I just can't see this as hard truth of anything ship models are a common thing in Mass Effect games and this is most likely just a fun Easter egg that should have been the sr1 which would have fit the timeline better there is one more relation to the elusive man that could be a possibility that I mentioned earlier and this is actually a popular Theory surrounding Cora Harper now both Cora Harper and Jack Harper AKA The elusive man share the last name and the timeline could also line up with one major caveat Cora Harper was born in 2159 and Jack Harper was involved in the first Contact war in 2157. two years earlier this would have meant that the elusive man would have already begun his descent into indoctrination by 2159 when Cora was born he would have already established Cerberus as well so I don't know if having a child would have been on his mind but it doesn't rule it out as there's no solid concrete evidence leaning either way when Cora talks about her parents she says that she grew up on their cargo freighter in poverty but doesn't go into details she could be his daughter she could have been adopted or only knew her birth mother maybe the elusive man didn't even know about her on the opposite side of this which I see speculation on a lot she also could even be a sleeper agent who did a very good job of fooling everyone and honestly that could be a pretty interesting sequel maybe the elusive man did know of her existence and that was the reason behind a lot of the opportunities she was presented with who knows but do I think quartet was the benefactor absolutely not she was also on the Hyperion when the murder on the Nexus happened do I think it's weird that quora and the elusive man share the same last name absolutely while andromeda's team was mostly new Mike gamble was on Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda as the game's producer I can't see him not realizing the correlation so accidental coincidence or intentional callback who knows there is also speculation that Cerberus is behind the initiative but there's several issues with this first off Jack Harper AKA The elusive man founded Cerberus what are the chances of this much money being funneled out of his own organization without him knowing if there was some kind of Shadow organization within Cerberus how would that exist without him knowing The elusive man had eyes everywhere and was in control of everything there's no way that that much money was being stolen from his organization without his knowledge I do think it's unrealistic that he didn't know about the Andromeda initiative though with his extensive knowledge of everyone and everything going on if you could find out Liara was the shadow broker he would have known about the initiative and we know that Cerberus knew about the Andromeda initiative because we find ex-service agents in kadara we find a message from The elusive man that these ex-agents were actually fired by the man himself because of their mind control AI experiments that they were doing against Miranda's orders there is also an ex-project Overlord Cerberus agent that we meet in Andromeda as well that I mentioned earlier Catherine Nye and this is the character who shares the voice actress with the benefactor but again Nye is an anti-ai extremist and her entire storyline is trying to destroy Sam which is the exact opposite of what we know about the benefactor so the Cerberus agents we do meet in Andromeda do not align with what we know of our benefactor or seem to have the funds or resources to fund the initiative either but I do absolutely think we'll see Cerberus return because Cerberus represents an idea an idea that exists with or without Cerberus being pro-human anti-alien is something that will probably always exist within the Mass Effect universe and after the ending of Mass Effect 3 and The elusive man's death there will be a power vacuum within this idea and the Cerberus organization and I assume someone else will rise to the occasion we've also already seen what looks like Cerberus colors so it's definitely a possibility I just don't see them having a connection to the initiative or see a reasonable way that they would have been able to fund this project without the support of The elusive man another popular suspect is director tan his quick advancement in the ranks due to garson's death immediately makes him suspicious but in Nexus Uprising we actually learned he was still asleep in his pod when Garson was murdered he was also reluctant to take such a high position of power when he was so low in the ranks and would have no major motivation in eliminating so many people to get to garson's position in the first place tan was seventh in line to succeed garson's position the lengths he would have had to have gone through to reach that goal would be ridiculous if he planned it out versus this all being some freak Scourge attack the book also gives us his perspective and shows that he is not working from personal gain or a place of malice only practicality he also is in disbelief when he learns of garson's death and has a hard time accepting it I do not think he was involved whatsoever now let's get into another very popular theory about who the benefactor could be and one that I think actually makes the least sense and that is that Liara is the benefactor now the majority of this Theory revolves around liar becoming the shadow broker before the initiative left but the timeline just doesn't match the initiative had been being funded secretly by the benefactor for years before Liara even knew the shadow broker's identity quintillions of credits were being moved and put into production during the many years of construction of the arcs for the entire project it would not make sense for Liara to have been the benefactor because she only became the shadow broker about five months before the initiative launch we also know exactly what Liara was doing before she becomes a benefactor and after I can't see any correlation for her involvement other than wanting to save the races of the Milky Way galaxy but she was already doing that with Shepard either way the timeline doesn't add up for this to even be a possibility so she is ruled out and no I don't think this tweet is supposed to say benefactor but could the benefactor have been the original Shadow broker we know that Alec Ryder reached out to the shadow broker looking for technology to finish Sam specifically looking for code that the shadow broker tried to Swindle him out of more money for the shatter broker specifically doubles the price of the code and even threatens Alec Ryder over it and this goes against how the benefactor behaved towards Alec Ryder when they approached him to help finish working on Sam the benefactor specifically reached out to Alec Ryder before even Garson did offering to pay for the funding of Sam's completion and the additional AI research that would be done on the initiative this is the opposite of how the shadow broker approached the same subject another aspect of this is that we know the original shutter broker is dead we killed him and during the interview I mentioned earlier Mike gamble said the benefactor would be important to the future of the story so I can't see the original Shadow broker who died before the initiative even left being an important part of a story located in another galaxy 600 years into the future we also know that the shadow broker before the yog we kill was also killed by that same yog so both shutter Brokers are dead the only indicator that it could have been the shadow broker is that the shadow broker knew of the Reapers and even worked with the collectors I can't see the benefactor who is trying to save the races of the Milky Way galaxy from the Reapers to the point that they are evacuating the Galaxy also working with the collectors so I'm rolling out all three Shadow Brokers as well there is also another popular theory that the council was the one behind the Andromeda initiative so let's explore this we do know that Alec Ryder spoke with Anita Goyle from his memories and if you're not familiar with who Goyle is she was the first human Ambassador before udina back before Mass Effect 1 took place in the Mass Effect novel Revelation it's revealed that the Human Alliance was actually already researching AI in The skillion Verge this was back in 2165. Alec Ryder was posted on the Citadel roughly five years after this Alec Ryder approaches Goyle about AI advancement and while she seems open enough to listen to him she also denies his request essentially the story is that the Human Alliance was secretly researching AI in a small facility unknown to the Council on sidon obviously the council even during this time was against AI research and development and proposes to inflict heavy penalties on the Human Alliance for breaking their AI laws in good faith Goyle Reveals All of the documents and research from the facility to try to negotiate a better deal what this means is that the Human Alliance was already secretly researching Ai and because of this being discovered the council also now has access to this information going back to Alec Ryder's memory Goyle is acting pretty suspiciously giving her assistant questionable side eyes but what makes this meeting so interesting with Goyle is that Goyle supported this AI research that was being done and even tried to convince the Council of its benefits which is probably why Alec Ryder felt comfortable enough to approach her in the first place unfortunately Alec Ryder's research on Sam is why he was dishonorably discharged from the Citadel and Alliance military but in the novel initiation Sam's tech was stolen and he thinks it was Goyle if Goyle really was the one who stole the Sam kernel then she and probably the alliance were still interested in AI research and development in 2184 almost 20 years after Alec writer's meeting with Goyle we learned that the system's Alliance has been running a Black Ops facility quiet Eddie that is specifically researching a legal AI for potential commercial applications which makes sense considering it is military funded but alongside the AI team on quiet Eddie there's also a team working on cybernetic integration similar to Sam this team stole the Sam kernel and immediately uses it on their AI that was operating quiet Eddie VI Medea Medea was a poorly functioning prototype with a feminine build similar to Edie after the installation of Sam Medea goes crazy and becomes a literal murderous anti-human monster once Alec Ryder finds out it was quiet Eddie that stole the Sam kernel Cora and her team bombed the facility which ends the threat of the vi Medea there's a subsequent trial involving the remaining scientist but Alec Ryder acknowledges that the people truly responsible for quiet Eddie will probably remain undiscovered regardless so this leaves a major possibility we know that the human military Alliance has secretly and illegally researched and developed AI for a number of years we also know that they were able to get their hands on Sam a year before the departure of the initiative and most importantly we know that the people actually behind this were never revealed or tried for their crimes against the council's AI laws so this doesn't really reveal anything about the council but it does tell us a lot about the Human Alliance and their ongoing illegal research for AI and more specifically the lengths that they went to to hide their AI development from the council the humans Alliance could also be a possibility for the benefactor if they could come up with the funds but it does seem like they were behind in development so maybe they decided to fund Alec Ryder's project instead of continuing their own which in my opinion wouldn't make sense a large military like the system's Alliance would probably kill Alec Ryder and take the tech for themselves which it seems like they've already tried to do before they'd ever spend all those credits to fund his project I can't see this being how they decide to continue their research if they couldn't directly use it and also be in control of its development that just doesn't seem like how a secret military project would operate or maybe out in the open defying the council was the perfect place to hide their research because the initiative was leaving the Milky Way the council had no control or say over their research but I'm still willing to bet it's the former rather than the latter so why would the alliance even back this project maybe it was altruistic to truly save the races of the Milky Way galaxy we know that the alliance mostly supported Shepard in their Crusade against the Reapers and we know that benefactor's major motivation was being saved from the Reapers but if that was the case why wouldn't the human Council and human Systems Alliance fund a project specifically for humans especially when they were getting no support from the council in their AI research and development I think this is the major question that kind of breaks this Theory but there's definitely still more here leaning towards a possibility than not so for now the Human Alliance is a maybe but this brings me to the actual Council we know from everything I just mentioned that the council was against Ai and had been for quite some time even before the initiative was founded the actual Council knew of the Reapers but denied their existence as we know from our experience with Shepard but in Andromeda we learned from garris's Dad and Alec writer's memory that behind closed doors the council was somewhat acknowledging the thing Shepard was telling them and recognizing the threat that the Reapers presented but in the end it did end up being too late for them to properly prepare what forces they had and we know that thessia palaven and Earth suffered greatly for this so realistically how could the council have done such a terrible job of protecting the races of the Milky Way galaxy and their home planets while simultaneously preparing for the worst possible scenario the timeline here doesn't add up considering that the initiative was in production at the same time the reaper timeline was happening we know that the benefactor stepped in to help with funding sometime during 2176 and 2185 and it's safe to assume that it would have been during the second half of production when Garson would have run out of her own money and thus needed the help of the benefactor to step in to begin with so if we say she ran out of money roughly around 21.81 this would have been two years before Mass Effect 1 even takes place so the benefactor's motivation being that their Reapers were coming goes against the council's motivations because when the initiative was actively being built and when the benefactor would have been actively funding it it would have been when the council was in denial about the Reaper's existence even still the council's general motivations would make sense if they were behind the project considering their entire job is to protect the races of the Milky Way galaxy and if they actually did believe in the Reapers and the impending doom a Fail-Safe to save the races even if it meant leaving the Galaxy would make sense but as I just mentioned their motivations as we knew them and the timeline wouldn't have aligned with what we knew of the council's opinions regarding the Reapers anyways and could the council fund the project the initiative cost quintillions of credits and right before the project would have been preparing to leave the council was in the middle of repairing not only the Citadel but also their own homeworlds that had been destroyed wouldn't they have put their efforts into repairing what was happening in their own world instead of using a massive amount of money investing in a project set for another galaxy the motivations don't make sense especially considering you can also kill the council in Mass Effect 1 which would have set place during the initiative's funding so if they were funding it they would have been killed not to mention the council members are still in the Milky Way galaxy and again we know that the benefactor was set up to be important in the future so I see it as a low chance of them actually being the benefactor and what would their reasoning be behind hiding their identity anyways but since there isn't anything that specifically rules them out the council is a maybe but probably not now I saved my favorite Theory and the most complicated theory for last and that is that an AI is behind the benefactor possibly the get themselves or another AI of some sort since we know there were other AIS being developed in the Milky Way galaxy so let's look at why it could be an AI first off we know that the Andromeda initiative project itself costs quintillions of credits and that the benefactor had seemingly unlimited funds according to Garson this is the first major flag that this benefactor could be generating money instead of actually having any if an AI was able to basically punch in some numbers to get access to more money that seems more likely than one person actually having this amount of money and we know that even The elusive man had limits when it came to money he essentially went bankrupt funding project Lazarus and that was only 4 billion credits so who do we know in the Milky Way galaxy who could have actually funded this project with truly unlimited funds none that we currently know of maybe the shatter broker but as mentioned before his motivations and timeline just don't align especially considering his interactions with Alec Ryder so realistically we don't know one individual who would have this kind of money that doesn't mean that they don't exist but we just don't know of anyone and this is a lot of money it seems far more realistic that an AI mess with some code or numbers and came up with it I don't know how money laundering works but this seems to be feasible in a world where everything can be assumed to be digital by the year 2180 anyways the next major red flag is why would the benefactor go to such lengths to protect their identity using a scrambler for their face and most like their voice is one thing but to kill Gian Garson the person who is behind the initiative to begin with is another thing technically we don't actually know the benefactor's motivation behind garson's death so it could be more than just wanting to make sure she never found out who the benefactor actually was and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more to this but from what we know now it seems like Garson was becoming suspicious and was wanting to know who the benefactor was and the benefactor didn't like this hence why she ended up dead and we also don't know if the figure in the AI Recreation of the scene is the benefactor or someone they hired I'm assuming it is someone that was hired to kill Garson versus the actual benefactor and most importantly we know that the benefactor knew of an incoming threat even before Shepard encountered the Reapers in Mass Effect 1. and we know that gath were the first to come in contact with the Reapers in this cycle around 2180 roughly three to five years before Shepard and this would be a few years into the initiatives production timeline possibly when Garson ran out of money a few years after beginning the project in 2176 we also know the Geth did not actually want to war with both the corians and the other races of the Milky Way galaxy and we know that not all Geth followed the Reapers majority of the Geth just wanted peace and to be able to live unburdened by the war they were not the aggressors in the morning war and by aligning themselves with the reaper they were looking for a way to survive would the gath go through such lengths to protect all the species of the Milky Way galaxy maybe if they were all like Legion I'd find that plausible but we know Legion was more advanced than the rest of the Geth so the motivations behind the Geth being the benefactor are questionable maybe the Geth wanted to understand and help synthetics as a way to be accepted in the Milky Way galaxy but also knew the other races wouldn't accept their help from an AI which is why they'd want to hide their identity maybe with their telescope the Geth were able to uncover more information that we just don't know about the future of the Milky Way galaxy or the Andromeda Galaxy we also have to remember just what the Geth were capable of if you're not familiar with the Geth telescope I have a whole video on it but essentially the Geth moved three Mass relays and joined them together by some strain technology possibly Reaper technology the gath were able to pull relays which are massive across systems to the Perseus Veil to construct the Kalos array in secret they then reverse engineered them to make an extremely powerful telescope that could look across galaxies in essentially real time when we learn of it we don't know how old it is or how it was made only that it was pointed toward dark space the discovery of the Geth telescope aka the callus array by Shield leth vasnovara is what gave the initiative the information to be able to finish their calculations to Andromeda so there is some contradiction here because why would the Geth hide this information from the initiative if it could have helped them make this journey on the project that they hypothetically could have funded that aspect doesn't make sense another issue with the AI Sam get theory is that the benefactor speaks in a very human way the inflection in the voice is not something we've seen AI replicate Edie is probably the closest to sounding the most human but Sam and the Geth have a very robotic feel to the Cadence of their voices we at least haven't encountered any AI with this ability anyways so maybe it wasn't the gath but it could have been an AI for all the reasons I just mentioned an AI would be able to generate unlimited funds and AI would also want to hide their identity from humans because it is very clear across the Milky Way galaxy that Ai and synthetics have not found a perfect harmony to live together something else kind of silly but still worth mentioning is a coincidence that the Andromeda initiative's initials are AI probably a coincidence but you never know related to this AI Theory I haven't actually seen this Theory but it ties into this AI concept and it is far-fetched but within the Mass Effect Universe there are virtual aliens they are a race of roughly 1 billion individuals who downloaded their minds into a virtual world aboard a Starship after their Homeworld star was about to go supernova roughly 8 000 years ago to avoid the destruction of their civilization as of 2185 the virtual aliens have established a diplomatic relationship with the council to secure a new power source for the systems that maintain their virtual world these virtual aliens are capable of swapping Consciousness with other sentient beings and can also control their bodies in 2185 when the virtual alien Starship entered solarian space looking for help the council hesitated due to their views of AI but a deal was established the council would help the virtual aliens to maintain their starship if they traded their advanced technology all the information around this exchange have been classified as top secret but we do learn that Dr Detweiler who was the liaison between the virtual aliens and the council was being controlled by the virtual aliens Ambassador ambassador seigen to communicate with the council Some Space Magic happen and Saigon and 400 virtual aliens swap places with various races to leave their virtual world and join ours you'd think that if these virtual aliens were capable of all of this that they could easily create the necessary funds to fund the initiative and maybe they'd been involved somehow even before approaching the council for help it's a big stretch but this would be a very cool way to introduce a new race that was mentioned in Mass Effect 3 while also exploring more AI we encounter multiple AI through the series and I could see an AI like Legion or Edie who had a surface level understanding about sentient life but also had a genuine curiosity and love for Humanity and the races of the Milky Way galaxy finding a way to save the races if they could maybe even Sam who was being created for the sole purpose of saving Ellen Rider's life grew intelligent enough to want to help all life this one is a bit more far-fetched considering the timeline of events but Sam being the benefactor is another popular Theory by the time the benefactor contacted Alec Ryder Sam was partially completed but not fully finished maybe Sam saw a way to help his own mission which was to save Alan Ryder even if it meant this entire grand plan maybe this even factored into Sam's own self-preservation knowing all of Alec writer's experience with AI and the possibility of more people finding out about Sam's existence meant that Sam could be destroyed Sam would also have had access to Alec Ryder's memories and experiences and if Sam knew of garson's suspicions and her wanting to find out more about who the benefactor was if Sam was the benefactor Sam would have wanted garson's questioning put to an end Sam also has the ability to bring people on board under hidden false names so Sam committing any kind of questionable activities would have been Child's Play for him especially with access to unlimited funds and the ability to generate multiple faces and voices to disguise Sam's true identity Sam doesn't really seem like a murderer but he does have some very interesting and random dialogues that are kind of suspicious talking about the beginning of something but not elaborating and while this is another far-fetched Theory Sam would have had access to all the technology to smuggle people on board to create a fake identity and if he is advancing in his AI would also fight for self-preservation now Sam Maybe wouldn't have had known about the Reapers impending attack unless Sam had been secretly accessing files related to Shepard's report which could be a possibility but Sam still wouldn't have been able to create the benefactor's voice in such a human way so I think there are definitely flaws in this Theory so for now it's a maybe but probably not I have also seen some theories around Reyes Vidal and I think realistically he could be capable of killing Garson if hired to do so but his motivations behind being the benefactor just don't make sense sure Cerberus agents are operating under his territory and his little gang called the collective sounds suspicious as hell but I think he is more self-serving and likes to work alone I couldn't find the tweets but apparently his writer Courtney Woods confirmed that Reyes arrived in Andromeda and was awake before the events of the Nexus Uprising but I couldn't confirm his exact location during the events of garson's murder he's also not mentioned at all during the novel but his personality and background fits with someone who would have no problem being a hired Hitman but he can also die so I'm ruling him out as a benefactor but a maybe for being affiliated with the benefactor and maybe being a hired Hitman let's also look at some semi-popular theories that I don't really feel like going into deep Dives on because I just don't think they hold much weight and the first one is Lexi de pero the resident Andromeda doctor majority of this Theory surrounds the fact that she is not romanceable and that she is trying to investigate you and there's really not much more than that I think that this was more of BioWare trying to avoid a doctor-patient Trope rather than it being the motivation behind a secret identity DePere was also not on the Nexus during garson's death but was still on the Hyperion asleep so yeah not much weight here another theory I actually see kind of often is about the Volus billionaire cumin Shoal Scholl claims that a vision of a higher being told him to seek the Lost Crypts of beings of light on the planet clenquiry these entities were supposedly created at the dawn of time to protect organic life from synthetic machine Devils which is referring to the Reapers Shoal has been Excavating on clancory's toxic surface for two decades putting all of his money into this venture we find some texts about him from a survey that says scans of the planet clancori reveal the cockpit of a Volus trading vessel there are no signs of the rest of the ship but the Salvage team discovered one of the matriarch Dylan naga's writing on his ship there really isn't much to him in game but his obsession with the Reapers is probably keeping him in the Milky Way galaxy obsessively Excavating clancery he was also only a billionaire the initiative is known to have cost in the quintillions so he's ruled out I also want to bring up these Andromeda data pads that also mention a benefactor these are found in the KET exaltation facility on vold and I think contextually it doesn't align with what we know of our benefactor but seems like the brainwash angara is thanking their own personal benefactor it reads benefactor I hear that you're having good success in questionable EOS my transfer to this place was a good idea there's so much to learn I'm grateful you suggested it let's meet again perhaps you would be interested to see my Homeworld like you once showed me yours in harmony is itch unless and this is a tin foil hat Theory unless the initiative was actually used as a way to harvest different races and then bring them to Andromeda for exaltation but this doesn't really add up when you account for both how far-fetched that is and also that the cat would not have been able to view the Milky Way galaxy with the thriving races as we know as they would only see the things roughly 2 million years in the past but why would BioWare use the title benefactor here if it wasn't referring to the one and only seems like a weird coincidence and it's hard to just chalk it up to just coincidence anyways first quora and Jack Harper and now two benefactors maybe our benefactor actually was someone working with the cat because the comment about the Homeworld is hard to look past it seems like the cat saw the benefactor's Homeworld which would be an extremely interesting interaction to know more about if it was our benefactor but I do lean more towards being an angara to KET interaction maybe this is just a red herring and BioWare put it in here to throw us off maybe BioWare hadn't actually decided who the benefactor was during development and is left as a question to answer is the future realistically this is what I think it is I think that there were roughly 600 people woken up when the scourge hit meaning there are a lot of possibilities behind who killed Jian Garson and BioWare could slop a name and story onto any one of those people and have them be the benefactor or maybe the benefactor stayed in the Milky Way galaxy and had Foster Addison kilgarson but why would the benefactor stay in the Milky Way galaxy after investing in such a massive project that would travel to Andromeda so in conclusion The elusive man Cerberus Liara the previous two Shadow Brokers director tan the Volus billionaire Cora Harper Lexi depero and William spender which was Addison's Lackey are ruled out these are the people who are not the benefactor because of timeline inconsistencies or because of motivations that don't make sense there were also either asleep or not on the Nexus at the time of the murder and then we have those that could be involved in garson's murder but are not the benefactor we have Foster Addison who I think is the most likely candidate Reyes Vidal who could possibly be and also the life support techs that found her body and I think these are the most suspicious and that leaves us with the remaining candidates that could possibly be the benefactor we have an unknown person and I do think that this is the most likely scenario we also have Anita Goyle who stole the Sam Colonel and was also suspicious and the human system's Alliance who is known to be researching and development AI behind the council's back and then we have ai for several reasons that I listed earlier and then any one of the 600 Nexus colonists that were woken up during the scourge impact we also have Sam which I think is unlikely the council which I think is unlikely and the Geth which I think is unlikely but are still possibilities there's so many unanswered questions and I actually think the benefactor situation is a perfect way to connect the original trilogy and Andromeda we have already been shown a ton of Clues hinting to Andromeda in the trailer teasers and Gamble's tweets and the benefactor would have come from the Milky Way galaxy since there are so many unanswered questions around the identity origin and fate of the benefactor and garson's murderer there are a lot of opportunities to bridge the gap between the two galaxies and make them feel more connected if the next game takes place shortly after the ending of Mass Effect 3 which I think is a major possibility then the benefactor could still be in the Milky Way galaxy instead of being in the Andromeda Galaxy maybe using the get telescope to observe what is happening in Andromeda I'd also argue that the Mysteries surrounding the benefactor is andromeda's most popular unanswered question even people who don't necessarily love Andromeda are still wanting to know who it was since it is relevance to the original trilogy's timeline and with a direct Andromeda sequel most likely out of the question the possibilities for the benefactor have most likely changed with the change in the direction of the series so I hope we do get this answered in the next game and if you're still here thank you so much for watching this I did a ton of research and tried to cover the most popular and realistic theories let me know who you think the benefactor is in the comments and if you've heard these theories before and make sure to like comment and subscribe for more Mass Effect content thank you for watching

Channel: Kala Elizabeth

Views: 49,024

Keywords: mass effect, mass effect andromeda, mass effect 4, mass effect 5, mass effect legendary edition, bioware, benefactor

Id: yi0Jf6T3A3c

Length: 53min 15sec (3195 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023