While I was busy speculating about whether or not your dad dies in Mass Effect: Andromeda, the rest of the internet was chasing a story with slightly more meat on its bones: Who the hell is Cora Harper?
What can I say, I have dad issues. But on to the big story: Cora was introduced in yesterday's Andromeda Initiative briefing. What makes her so interesting is that her surname, Harper, is shared by a very important guy from the original trilogy: Jack Harper, aka The Illusive Man, the leader of Cerberus.
It seems awfully unlikely that this is a coincidence, given that Mass Effect is a work of fiction and not a true story about space explorers going to another galaxy, in which case I would understand if two unrelated people shared a common surname.
Keep in mind that while Andromeda takes place hundreds of years after Mass Effect 3, the mission to Andromeda leaves during Mass Effect 2. That means that not only do these settlers have no idea about the Reaper attack, Cora could easily be The Illusive Man's daughter, or otherwise directly related. And that might explain why she's teamed up with the player's father, Pathfinder Alec Ryder. He's big into AI research, which is something Cerberus enjoyed as well.
As Kotaku points out, we also know that Harper was hanging out with asari commandos for four years, which is a decidedly un-Cerberus thing to do. So maybe she's not related after all, or she just rejected here pops' xenophobia.
I'm starting to think we'll see more call backs to the original trilogy than I had expected.
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