A/N: If you're a reader of my story, you've probably been wondering what I've been doing these last couple of months since the last update. Rest assured, Into the Terminus is anything but dead; I've been working on things in the background while my co-writer is focusing on his college and personal life. The chapters of this story will focus on our favorite organization, Cerberus, and its many components. Of course, I do not own Mass Effect, nor any of the other sources used in the making of these doccuments.

Enjoy! Please don't forget to review!

Operative Lawson,

Over the last seven solar days, I have done as you asked of me. With the assistance of Specialist Chambers and Doctor Vahlen, as well as the artificial intelligence program created from the Enhanced Defense Initiative, a comprehensive series of documents and write-ups regarding our organization's: history, manifesto, influence (economic, political, and cultural), and military information has been drafted.

Given that the newest member of your team has already been granted level Psi-level security clearance; he will find these reports to be far less censored, and less biased, when they are compared to what the average intiate of our organization is normally instructed to read.

On a more personal, side note, I would like to again lodge a formal protest. While I understand that you have properly vetted Operative Stevens, and the background that he continues to swear by, I am inclined to believe that he is simply too new to our organization to be trusted with some of the information found within these files. I know it is not my place to really say these kinds of things, but I am simply worried about operational security.

I truth that you will look over these files before they are delivered to him, and I look forward to hearing your feedback (or criticism) on them. Doctor Vahlen was rather confident that some of this information should be passed onto other executive officers in our military and research divisions as an attempt to our boost morale. It is clear that Cerberus is stronger than it has ever been, and is only growing in size.

With regards from Prometheus Station,

Operative Hope Ilium

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

-George Orwell (Disputed)

Born in the Fire of First Contact (2156 - 2158 CE)

If not for Cerberus, it is very likely that humanity - nay, the entire civilized galaxy, would not exist as we know it today.

Though many do not know it, the founding members of our organization played a pivotal role during the First Contact War. At the time, we were little more than a fledgling private military cooperation formed by a company's worth of earth-borne soldiers and combat engineers who wanted to part ways with the homeworld of humanity. Some were interested in seeing the galaxy had to offer them, while others simply wished to escape the overpopulated regions of the planet but could not afford the high costs of moving from one planet to another.

The majority of these men and women hailed from: North American, European, or Southeast asian nation-states. Given that they came primarily from these three regions, and borrowed heavily from the structure of the American marine corp, they dubbed their newly formed group as 'Cerberus' and adopted the image of a three-headed-hell-hound as the emblem. Their leadership, jokingly referred to as the 'board of directors' at the time, were really not much more than the most experienced and wealthiest of their small cohort; each of them was given command of an infantry platoon as well as the vehicles necessary for transport.

Among those in the highest-ranking positions of the cooperation were: Eva Coré (A former French Foreign Legion shuttle-assault officer), Benjamin 'Ben' Hislop (One of the final graduates of the United North American States' Army Ranger program), Matthew Lawson (Older brother of the famous entrepreneur, Henry Lawson, and a former officer in the Australian Army regiment of engineers), Jack Harper (the man who has made Cerberus what it was today), and Anna Fisher- the face and de facto leader of the group.

During its first few months of operation, the Cerberus cooperation conducted no operations of note. Acting as a supplement to the small merchant mariner force of the Systems Alliance (a government that was not even a decade old at this point), the company primarily provided supplementary security; tasked with making sure that humanity's eezo and cargo haulers made it safely to their ultimate destinations without molestation.

Though piracy had yet to become an issue, the Alliance space based navy and marine corp was still a small force; the former only fielded around seventy-five vessels (including the merchant marine forces), while the latter was mostly units from former Terran militaries that had been thrown together to serve under one banner. Issues of cohesion and standardized equipment ran rampant as factories, and competing defense companies, struggled to keep up with the demand that came with the newly formed SAN and SAMC. (Systems Alliance Navy and Systems Alliance Marine Corp, respectively.)

After approximately six-months of in operation, the services of Cerberus were requested by General Williams, the marine commander of garrison forces at Shanxi. Several times, the commanding officer had petitioned for additional territorial-marine groups, fearing that the frontier colony was not 'secure' in the event of first contact with an alien race, particularly and militaristic or generally violent one - the good general was ahead of his time in that regard.

All of his petitions were met with denial, however, and instead he had been forced to turn to private contractors, offering up a generous figure amount of money (drawn from his own operating budget) in return for their services. Cerberus was more than happy to take up this contract, withdrawing from merchant marine service several days after the initial offer was delivered to them, and the entire group had been consulted on whether or not the contract should have been accepted or not.

Two weeks later, in the early months of 2157, Cerberus arrived at a marine base outside of New Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi. Once the mercenary teams had set up a primary operating base in the city, a commandeered former warehouse and a high-density apartment complex selected by Commander Fisher, they immediately began operation. One platoon was tasked with the duty of supplementing the security forces at the planet's capital, while another was delegated the task of training local militia forces. The third group, along with corporation's support staff, remained in reserve in case of emergency.

Said incident came several months later; we know now it as the First Contact War.

The events that transpired during this period of time were either struck for the record books, or simply weren't recorded, because there is little that we actually know about what our organization's founders went through during the conflict. From the few statements and reports that we have been able to dig up from the archives, all of which deal in generalities rather than fine detail, it appears as if our founders conducted a series of guerilla operations against the Turian 'police' force that was dispatched to deal with humanity. We were ultimately doomed to fail, but our hounds didn't go down without a fight. Interestingly enough, these documents have some of the first whisperings of things equivalent to what we've seen fielded by the Reapers, but those reports are buried behind so much red-tape that even someone with my security-clearance can't access them.

The Rise of Cerberus and the Contemporary Era (2159 - Present)

Following humanity's armistice with the Turians, in which the latter adamantly refused to provide reparations for the untold amount of damage that their actions had caused, it became clear to the surviving members of our organization that humanity would ultimately be left to stand alone during these dark times. Though our supposed friends in the Asari government promised a new era of enlightenment, it was clear that they, as well as most other governments, saw our species as wet behind the ears and easily exploited. The worst offenders, unsurprisingly, were the batarians who began a campaign of rapid expansion in territories that the Alliance had intended to claim in the area known as the Traverse.

After recovering from the injuries he sustained during the course of the war, Jack Harper assumed control of our organization and adopted the moniker of Illusive Man. Shortly after that had been done, he released the infamous Cerberus manifesto in which he challenged humanity to take action, or be swept aside in the same way that the Incan Empire was annihilated by the Spanish conquistadors. Though the Alliance officially condemned such rhetoric, there were any number of politicians who quietly agreed with the Illusive Man,and even went so far as to endorse and financially support him behind closed doors. For a short period of time, Cerberus and its agents were an extension of the Alliance government.

While Harper was all too happy with this kind of support, he understood that things could change at any time. The sort of things that our organization dabbled in -research illegal in Citadel space, testing on captured aliens, et cetera- could quickly bring the condemnation of the Council if discovered. Furthermore, he understood that not all politicians in the Alliance would agree with his methods; therefore, he put contingencies in place that would allow our organization to continue operations if humanity's parliament decided to cut ties. Our best agents, the ones not provided by the SAIS, began the long and tedious process of infiltrating the bastions of humanity. The media, influential corporations, the military, and politicians were all high-valued targets. Even the Catholic Church's pope, who preached acceptance and tolerance of aliens, was quietly 'replaced' by a Cardinal whose beliefs were more in line with those of our organization.

The straw that ultimately broke the camel's back, turning humanity's view of us into criminals and ending whatever support we received from the Alliance, was the Yandoa Incident of 2170. Per the request of parliamentary defense board, Cerberus facilitated an accident aboard an Eldfell-Ashland eezo hauler that left the colony covered in dust and the Alliance ensured another generation of biotic soldiers. After several more incidents, investigators loyal to a party that did not necessarily support our organization or its values, thumbed our agents as the culprits and branded us as a terrorist organization. This signaled Cerberus withdrawing numerous assets from Alliance core territories and spreading them out across the colonies where it was easier to work with our supporters.

While Cerberus continues to operate behind closed doors, spreading its influence to wherever is necessary or receptive, our military arm has made great strides to increase its numbers across the board. Zarina III has been more busy than ever, as colonial types increasingly flock to our cause. Furthermore, our construction facilities are at full capacity as we try and push out as many ships as we can before the situation in the Terminus deteriorates - or worse yet, the Reapers decide to arrive before we've had time to prepare. The biggest project on our itinerary, however, is the government known as the Settlement Defense Front that we have helped create; though it is where a good deal of our resources are currently tasked, the Illusive Man and the board of directors is certain that the long-term payouts will be immense.

A new era has come to the galaxy, and Cerberus will see to it that it is one where humanity does not fall behind, but walks alongside the other Council races as equals. Better yet, we shall truly lead them against the looming threat that the Citadel refuses to even acknowledge.