He first appears in the novel "", which takes place 18 years before to the events of "Mass Effect" and before he was indoctrinated and working with Sovereign. Saren later takes command of a dissident geth faction through the use of a Reaper known as Sovereign. With a machine army at his command, he uses them to both do his bidding and oppose Shepard across the story of the "Mass Effect" video game. Saren's main base is situated on the planet Virmire, where he is conducting experiments such as a cure for the Krogan Genophage to bolster his army. Throughout the course of the game, the Reaper slowly began to manipulate Saren through subtle subliminal messages into helping it bring back the Reapers. During the geth invasion of the Citadel, Saren uses the Prothean Conduit to gain access to the Citadel to allow "Sovereign" to activate the Citadel mass relay. The player can then either attempt to kill Saren or appeal to Saren to fight his indoctrination, which if successful will prompt him to commit suicide. Shepard later has to fight a revived and mutated Saren, who is possessed by Sovereign through his grafted cybernetics. Upon defeat of the Sovereign-manipulated Saren, Sovereign itself loses its defenses and is destroyed.