First I want to say that I already know people will argue this but, it needs to be brought up. Ignore the "face value" off the game. Why would Sovereign really need to send Sarin look for not only the beacon, but also the conduit? Yes he was being controlled by Sovereign but, he could have easily given control of the citadel to the Sovereign long before going rogue. Once they noticed that the Keepers ignored the signal, Sarin could have just walked in and handed control over. Not only that, how did Sovereign know about the beacon and conduit? Who told him, let alone where to look for them? I have discussed this with others, and they agree. There is NO WAY that Sovereign knew what happened inside the citadel to begin with.

Here are some facts to ponder.

1) Sarin was a respected and honored Specter even after being indoctrinated. 2) The console to give control over was in the main room to the council thats used at the end of the game. 3) No one would have thought twice to stop Sarin from using the console before going rogue. 4) Sovereign was in a state of hibernation after the war with the Protheans when Sarin found him.

-- Please sign your post. Now. This is what I think is the 'fix'. In order to do the stuff on the citadel, he'd need to see the code to the program that the Protheans added, so he would know what it does and respond accordingly. To get the code to that program at the citadel, he'd be caught long before he'd find it and he didn't want doubts about himself start to creep into their minds upon seeing him do *something* to the Citadel. So he needs to go to Ilos, where it was created. But he can't get to Ilos, and Sovereign is being no help for its own mysterious reasons. (read: He doesn't know where the Mu Relay is, which was lost or something?) At that point, Saren learns about the Beacons, and some stuff later, he's got the beacon and taken it to Virmire. from that, he learns about something called 'the conduit' that the Protheans used, but he doesn't know what it is (aside from, you know, a conduit) or what it does. And Sovereign wants to know too. And to learn more, he needs another beacon. He locates the one on Eden Prime, and the 'ping' if you will might be what allowed the people on Eden Prime to find it. The news is all the shocker and stuff, and he realises he can't just take it. They'd ID him, and the council will wonder when he doesn't show up with it hours later. So he starts to plan.

In come the Geth. And while planning, he realises that he needs someone to command the units that can think illogically or something. Or whatever reason, ergo Krogan. He's already been laying the ground work for subtly indoctrinating people not noticiing he's being indoctrinated too.

And he learns another thing - the Cypher, and there's that creature that has the cypher so he can make sense of it. And so begins the game, with him attacking Eden Prime, going to Feros and when done there, dropping off Benezia before going on to Virmire where he can 'meditate' on the knowledge he's gained. aka two beacons of data, cypher to allow his mind to read it better. But there's an issue.

As soon as he's done on Feros, he gets word from the council. (Sovereign is faster)

Ooops, he's been found out. But he realises that they dont have solid evidence (aside from a corpse). Time to react.

So before going into the meeting all 'what do you expect from a human', he has his contacts, such as... fist... on the lookout. Whom hears about Tali (Saren might not have known of Tali's evidence.)

So imagine his shock a few hours later when the council calls him up to allow him to respond to the evidence. Cue growl of rage and disconnnect. you know what happens from there. AlexMcpherson 10:54, June 23, 2012 (UTC)

All you did was state the story. Saren DOES NOT need the code the Protheans used to give control of the citadel to Sovereign. The code ONLY affected the Keepers to ignore reaper signals, hence the code would be useless to him. -- someone who needs to sign his post. Use your wavy lines. four of them should suffice. hash key plus shift.

I didn't just state the story, I explained the parts as I saw it from Saren's side. I can agree that Saren didn't need the code to actually open the citadel as a relay to/from darkspace. But did Saren know that? That's why he went through all the trouble he did, when all he had to do was stroll onto the Citadel. So since he doesn't know what the code did, he then needed to see it. For all he knew, it wasn't on the keepers, but on the station mainframe or whatever, with a virus or something to prevent activation by pulling a GlaDOS (aka, flood the council area with very dense acid and disable artificial gravity. and yes, the council tower must have it there, as it's not far enough from the rotation axis for gravity before anyone points out that flaw.)

That basic error then on his part, that example of actually trying to be intelligent about it... aka figure out what the protheans did before reversing it. That was the point of his search. Sovereign doesn't know. AlexMcpherson 15:03, June 24, 2012 (UTC)