Jackson Harper

**Jack Harper** (ジャック・ハーパー, *Jakku Hābā*), also known as The **Illusive Man** (イルーシブ マン, *Irūshipu Man*), is fictional character and antagonist of the *Mass Wars* series created by Casey Hudson and George Lucas.

He was elusive, secretive, and well informed leader of Cerberus. His life before now was both long forgotten by most. For years, he used Cerberus and immense network of contacts to achieve his goal - that of making humanity ascendant above all other races.

He is described as having the best and worst traits of humanity rolled into one man. At first, he provided the Shepard siblings with a ship and crew, and sends them on several missions against the human-abducting Collectors.

When his secrets were exposed and revealed to the world, he works against the Jedi Order and the N7's attempts to destroy the Reapers, wishing to control them instead. he died during the battle at the Citadel, with his final words revealing the Reaper indoctrination.

"*Salvation comes with a cost. Judge us not by our methods, but by what we seek to accomplish.*"

—The Illusive Man, to Jane.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Martin Sheen (English), Not Known (Japanese), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Croatian), Not Known (Danish), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Filipino), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Ukrainian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (Canadian French), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Spain-Spanish)

### Appearance

He had close-cropped silver-grey hair with "steely blue" eyes which appear to be prosthetic and make him appear slightly inhuman. He wore an open suit that connotes both futuristic style and the "casual swagger of a charming billionaire".

* Hair Color: Silver-Grey
* Skin Color: Light
* Eye Color: Steel Blue
* Age: Not Known (Deceased)
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: Not Known
* Weight: Not Known

## History

### Past

Jack was a normal civilian with a job and a family until the discovery of alien life. Not long after the Battle of Shanxi, an e-mail circulated throughout the extranet calling for humanity to take its rightful place and assert its power to its new alien contacts. Alliance intelligence could not locate the originator of the e-mail, but referred to him as an "illusive man" in press releases to try and dismiss the human-centric diatribe. The name stuck, and he founded Cerberus, a human-centric splinter group.

He was responsible for breaking Cerberus away from the Alliance military, and building up Cord-Hislop Aerospace as a cover for the organization's shadow operations. His justification is that, "If humanity is to survive, sacrifices must be made for the greater good. The Alliance doesn't understand this, Cerberus does." In terms of appearance, Jack is dressed in an impeccable futuristic-style suit, combined with the casual swagger of a charming billionaire; he also seems to possess unique patterns on his irises. It is currently unknown whether these grant him any additional abilities or are simply aesthetic.

He believes that the political party Terra Firma has a part to play in humanity's ascension and even used an assassination in order to put the right man — Charles Saracino — in power. Jack's belief that biotics are the future of humanity led him to order the sabotage and detonation of Eldfell-Ashland Energy starships over human colonies, to ensure biotic children would be born.

Somehow — likely through unsavory means — Jack Harper claimed one of these biotic children as a baby and gave her to Paul Grayson to raise as his own daughter. A decade later he planted Cerberus operatives into the Ascension Project to take advantage of the Alliance's more sophisticated biotic research. He also has an interest in the quarrians and their Migrant Fleet.

Jack does not trust an alien species that effectively has the largest armada of ships in the galaxy. However, he is also greatly impressed by the quarians' technological expertise, namely their creation of the geth and their continued survival despite the odds stacked against them. This curiosity has led him to seek the transmission codes for the Migrant Fleet in order to spy on them.

His long-term plans are ultimately unknown, but it is known that he has many different projects in motion at a time, all factoring into helping humanity achieve its "rightful place" in the galaxy. Currently, it seems that his main focus is on the Reapers: realizing the vast threat they pose to humanity's survival but also acknowledging the benefits of their technology, he dedicates his vast resources in an effort to harness their power by any means necessary.

## External links

* Illusive Man *Wikipedia*
* Illusive Man *Mass Effect Wiki*
* Illusive Man *Villains Wiki*