Dr. Liara T'Soni (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dowhatittakes) wrote2014-05-01 01:15 am
dowhatittakes) wrote2014-05-01 01:15 am
Entry tags:
CDC Revisions
Setting: Mass Effect's universe is composed of a bunch of races set into two categories: Council Races and non-Council races. The council acts as a governing force, like the UN on Earth to dictate courses of action toward laws and trade in their section of space. These races are The Asari, the Turians, The Salarians, and recently Humans. They govern about a third of the Milky Way galaxy; outside of this is the Terminus systems. Here the Council's influence doesn't touch, it's lawless, and many planets and sectors develop their own rules of conduct. The main races here are THe Krogan (who were formally a council race until the Krogan Rebellions), The Quarians (Also a previous council race that were banished when the created AI's called the Geth), The Geth (who defended themselves and pushed the Quarians off of their homeworld.), The Drell( Who destroyed their homeworld through massive urbanization and pollution and many were rescued by the Hanar), The Hanar, The Elcor, and The vorcha.
The asari are the oldest race in the galaxy, having had achieved space flight before any of the others. They were the group that set out contacting other races in the galaxy to build this network of races. There have been grudges over the millennia that the galaxy has been trying to work together. The Krogan hate the Turians and salarians for inflicting the genophage, a biological weapon that controls their populations, keeping it severely reduced. This was in place because after the Krogan were uplifted by the asari to fight the Rachni (a now extinct species of telepathic arachnids that could live in extremely toxic environments) the krogan population grew too fast and started taking over other race's colony worlds. The asari then called in the Turians (a massive hierarchy all based around military) to find a solution, this was the genophage, created by the salarians and executed by the turians.
Other tensions run high in the galaxy, the turians dislike humanity for the Realy 314 incident or as humans call it The first contact war, where humanity activated a dormant relay that was deactivated because of the Rachni wars. In turn when the turian military went to investigate and shot at the unknown ships it started a war that lasted 6 months until the asari stepped in and negotiated peace between the two. The quarians have been at war with The Geth for over 300 years, initially The Geth pushed the quarians off of their homeworld and set them to floating through space in a caravan of ships known as the Flotilla, they are seen as pariahs by the council and many other races for breaking one of the most fundamental galaxy laws of not creating AIs. Of course because of their banishment they have earned the reputation of being liars and thieves because they are so poor they have to scavenge anything they can to keep their ships running.
Spaceships and travelling across the galaxy is very common in Mass Effect, the entire galactic community travels across the galaxy on regular occasions, depending on where they wish to go. The Terminus systems are often only visited by people who are mercenaries, big business owners who don't want to follow the ethical codes of the Council, or people looking to escape council space because of previous crimes. Council races tend to stay in council space unless they have reason to visit the Terminus systems (which is almost never) unless they're travelling to a colony world.
Initially the Normandy was brought together to investigate the rogue spectre Saren, who turned out to be indoctrinated and be being controlled by a Reaper named Sovereign. Liara was picked up as an accident, having trapped herself in Prothean technology to escape the Geth controlled by Sovereign. Once on the ship her extensive knowledge of Prothean relics was very useful in assisting Shepard to help track down Saren and stop Sovereign from turning the Citadel into a mass relay for the reapers to come through from dark space.
The next threat was the Collectors, a group of engineered husks of protheans that were under the influence of the Reapers and began taking human colonists and using them to create a human Reaper. Liara had little to do with stopping them, but was one of the reasons Shepard (who was initially killed by the Collectors) was revived to go and stop them. She had her own agenda during this time that involved her heavily in the underbelly of the terminus systems, fighting alongside mercenaries and taking over the largest network of information trade in the galaxy.
As it stands right now in Mass Effect the galaxy is at war with the Reapers, a race of giant sentient spaceships that every 50,000 years reap the galaxy of all advanced organic life to promote the next cycle of primitive races to grow to achieve something similar to what the previous cycle had. Commander Shepard and the Normandy crew are on the forefront of organizing the galaxy in fighting back and to destroy the reapers. Liara's roll in this is to provide Shepard with as much information as she can both from the shadowbroker network, through her thousands of contacts, and from her findings of ancient prothean technology. Her resources have pointed them in trying to find if the previous cycle had found a way to stop them but were too short on resources by that point to effectively finish the project. Their search drags them all across the galaxy from the illustrious Citadel, the seat of the Council, to Omega, the infamous lawless space station run by an asari with a will of iron, and everything in between. They are the first to meet the rebirth of the rachni, deal with terrorist organizations, fight alongside the krogan in abolishing the genophage, help the Geth gain true AI sentience, and find a way to stop the reapers.
Thessia's main net worth is the fact that is is virtually a giant ball of element-zero. The net worth of the planet's core resources alone make Thessia one of the most highly valued planets in the galaxy since Element-zero is what drives ships, makes guns function, powers shields and barriers, it virtually keeps the galaxy running. Because of this, there are strict mining regulations and most of the plant and animals are not permitted to leave the planet. Of course illegal operations do happen from time to time. Thessia's high net-worth has also made it a planet with little war, illness, or crime, within it's republics thanks to a very stable and reliable economy. This stable economy leads it to being one of the most invested in planet in the galaxy, with more races doing business and trade with Thessia for their stable economy and banks than any other planet.
Instead of one overarching government, the asari have a series of republics, all defended formidably with their own military and they agree together overall between the republics because of the equilibrium of a stable economy for all. It's easily considered like Switzerland, very wealthy, but for the most part removes itself from any wars or conflicts going on in the galaxy, preferring to send the turians (much like the ancient romans) into battle while they solve conflicts diplomatically.
Personality: In the initial game Liara's personality is that of a sheltered, bookish, introvert who obsesses over her work and personal interests in Prothean studies. When she is rescued by Shepard from the Geth, a level of hero worship develops between her and the Commander, which carries through the rest of the first game until Shepard death in the second game.
During the two year gap between ME1 and ME2, Liara knows that the Reapers are coming, that much was clear in the final battle against Sovereign (The Reaper that controlled Saren) and with Shepard dead (Killed by the Collectors for the Reapers), she knows there is no chance that the galaxy can prepare. As such she is motivated to move away from her studies as a Prothean scientist and begins digging for information. This leads Liara into a whole dark underworld of spies, traded information, galactic secrets, company secrets, and more than one life threatening situation. She learns very quickly to know who you can and cannot trust when it comes to attaining information. There is also a darker obsession to Liara in searching for information, under it all she is looking for Shepard, not believing the informtaion that the Alliance put out about their death, so she set forth looking.
It led her to Omega and a drell named Feron who informed her that Shepard was indeed dead, which distressed Liara. Of course there was more to it than Shepard merely being dead, which had Liara getting involved with Cerberus ( A human terrorist group), stealing Shepard's body from The Shadowbroker (The largest and most elusive information broker in the galaxy), and from the Collectors (A race of husk creatures controlled by the reapers). In the end Liara made the conscious decision to steal Shepard's body from the Shadowbroker and Collectors who were working in tandem and gave Shepard's body to Cerberus to be reanimated from the dead. IN the wake, her colleague, Feron, is captured by the Shadowbroker. She doesn't return to save him until late in ME2, also known as the Shadowbroker DLC. The span of time before the DLC it is assumed that Liara becomes an informaiton broker herself, looking for information on Feron and being able to track down the Shadowbroker so she can rescue him. It's proven that Liara has changed, hardened, when Shepard walks in on Liara threatening to 'flay someone alive, with (her) mind.' Which before the entire incident with Shepard's death would not have been something ever dreamed of coming from someone as sheltered and quiet as she was. Although when Shepard asks her about it she apologizes and goes back to being the sweet and soft spoken woman from the first game.
This shows that Liara is capable of making some very calculated decisions, including some that are innately selfish in some ways. Of course in the Shadowbroker DLC, she explicitly tells Shepard that while asking for their help it is her fault that Feron was captured and she was going to make it right. She blames herself, and admits to Shepard what she did when chasing down Vasir to get the data to go after the Shadowbroker was aggressive and she hurt civilians, innocent bystanders, all for the sake of getting the information she needed. Liara knows what she's done and the people that she's placed in harms way and have been killed for the sake of her mission, she's grown in more ways and unsuspecting ways than her quiet and lighthearted disposition claims her to be. Saving Feron is ultimately Liara's goal, of course finding the Shadowbroker base meant that there was a chance that Liara could gain power over the entire network. Not only is she able to save Feron but with Shepard's help she overthrows the old broker and takes the position herself with the ability to know every dark secret within the galaxy at her fingertips.
The progression to Mass Effect three is apparent in her. Liara is not afraid to voice her opinions or to get angry, unlike how she was in ME1. She voices her opinions, disagrees with other crew members, and corrects people, she's no long afraid to stand up for herself and the awkwardness has vanished from her entirely. She's become a confident person. Fighting the Shadowbroker, and his many layers of operatives (including one Tela Vasir, an asari spectre like Shepard) has turned Liara into a much stronger person with a drive for knowledge, all knowledge, and the darker drive of stopping at nothing to get what she wants and what will help her other obsession: Shepard. Her fix on Shepard does not dwindle, it's part of an unhealthy part of her personality that obsesses over certain things. Before it was prothean ruins and after being saved from the Geth, it became Shepard. She cares greatly for the people she considers friends on the crew and she's grown as a person in her social skills of being able to talk freely with the crew, learned a great deal about the galaxy, trust, and how people interact. She still retains her positive outlook on many things, but now she's not afraid to apply a little pressure when it's needed to get a task accomplished, or if necessary to kill someone that's a threat or a liability. She's more sure of herself and her abilities, including her biotics and ability to defend herself in a fire fight. She has become a skilled fighter and knows how to get herself out of difficult situations without having to rely on others. She still understands the value of teamwork and how much easier a mission can go with reliable people, overall Liara has grown from the very sheltered introverted scientist she was into one of the more formidable asari in the galaxy.
The asari are the oldest race in the galaxy, having had achieved space flight before any of the others. They were the group that set out contacting other races in the galaxy to build this network of races. There have been grudges over the millennia that the galaxy has been trying to work together. The Krogan hate the Turians and salarians for inflicting the genophage, a biological weapon that controls their populations, keeping it severely reduced. This was in place because after the Krogan were uplifted by the asari to fight the Rachni (a now extinct species of telepathic arachnids that could live in extremely toxic environments) the krogan population grew too fast and started taking over other race's colony worlds. The asari then called in the Turians (a massive hierarchy all based around military) to find a solution, this was the genophage, created by the salarians and executed by the turians.
Other tensions run high in the galaxy, the turians dislike humanity for the Realy 314 incident or as humans call it The first contact war, where humanity activated a dormant relay that was deactivated because of the Rachni wars. In turn when the turian military went to investigate and shot at the unknown ships it started a war that lasted 6 months until the asari stepped in and negotiated peace between the two. The quarians have been at war with The Geth for over 300 years, initially The Geth pushed the quarians off of their homeworld and set them to floating through space in a caravan of ships known as the Flotilla, they are seen as pariahs by the council and many other races for breaking one of the most fundamental galaxy laws of not creating AIs. Of course because of their banishment they have earned the reputation of being liars and thieves because they are so poor they have to scavenge anything they can to keep their ships running.
Spaceships and travelling across the galaxy is very common in Mass Effect, the entire galactic community travels across the galaxy on regular occasions, depending on where they wish to go. The Terminus systems are often only visited by people who are mercenaries, big business owners who don't want to follow the ethical codes of the Council, or people looking to escape council space because of previous crimes. Council races tend to stay in council space unless they have reason to visit the Terminus systems (which is almost never) unless they're travelling to a colony world.
Initially the Normandy was brought together to investigate the rogue spectre Saren, who turned out to be indoctrinated and be being controlled by a Reaper named Sovereign. Liara was picked up as an accident, having trapped herself in Prothean technology to escape the Geth controlled by Sovereign. Once on the ship her extensive knowledge of Prothean relics was very useful in assisting Shepard to help track down Saren and stop Sovereign from turning the Citadel into a mass relay for the reapers to come through from dark space.
The next threat was the Collectors, a group of engineered husks of protheans that were under the influence of the Reapers and began taking human colonists and using them to create a human Reaper. Liara had little to do with stopping them, but was one of the reasons Shepard (who was initially killed by the Collectors) was revived to go and stop them. She had her own agenda during this time that involved her heavily in the underbelly of the terminus systems, fighting alongside mercenaries and taking over the largest network of information trade in the galaxy.
As it stands right now in Mass Effect the galaxy is at war with the Reapers, a race of giant sentient spaceships that every 50,000 years reap the galaxy of all advanced organic life to promote the next cycle of primitive races to grow to achieve something similar to what the previous cycle had. Commander Shepard and the Normandy crew are on the forefront of organizing the galaxy in fighting back and to destroy the reapers. Liara's roll in this is to provide Shepard with as much information as she can both from the shadowbroker network, through her thousands of contacts, and from her findings of ancient prothean technology. Her resources have pointed them in trying to find if the previous cycle had found a way to stop them but were too short on resources by that point to effectively finish the project. Their search drags them all across the galaxy from the illustrious Citadel, the seat of the Council, to Omega, the infamous lawless space station run by an asari with a will of iron, and everything in between. They are the first to meet the rebirth of the rachni, deal with terrorist organizations, fight alongside the krogan in abolishing the genophage, help the Geth gain true AI sentience, and find a way to stop the reapers.
Thessia's main net worth is the fact that is is virtually a giant ball of element-zero. The net worth of the planet's core resources alone make Thessia one of the most highly valued planets in the galaxy since Element-zero is what drives ships, makes guns function, powers shields and barriers, it virtually keeps the galaxy running. Because of this, there are strict mining regulations and most of the plant and animals are not permitted to leave the planet. Of course illegal operations do happen from time to time. Thessia's high net-worth has also made it a planet with little war, illness, or crime, within it's republics thanks to a very stable and reliable economy. This stable economy leads it to being one of the most invested in planet in the galaxy, with more races doing business and trade with Thessia for their stable economy and banks than any other planet.
Instead of one overarching government, the asari have a series of republics, all defended formidably with their own military and they agree together overall between the republics because of the equilibrium of a stable economy for all. It's easily considered like Switzerland, very wealthy, but for the most part removes itself from any wars or conflicts going on in the galaxy, preferring to send the turians (much like the ancient romans) into battle while they solve conflicts diplomatically.
Personality: In the initial game Liara's personality is that of a sheltered, bookish, introvert who obsesses over her work and personal interests in Prothean studies. When she is rescued by Shepard from the Geth, a level of hero worship develops between her and the Commander, which carries through the rest of the first game until Shepard death in the second game.
During the two year gap between ME1 and ME2, Liara knows that the Reapers are coming, that much was clear in the final battle against Sovereign (The Reaper that controlled Saren) and with Shepard dead (Killed by the Collectors for the Reapers), she knows there is no chance that the galaxy can prepare. As such she is motivated to move away from her studies as a Prothean scientist and begins digging for information. This leads Liara into a whole dark underworld of spies, traded information, galactic secrets, company secrets, and more than one life threatening situation. She learns very quickly to know who you can and cannot trust when it comes to attaining information. There is also a darker obsession to Liara in searching for information, under it all she is looking for Shepard, not believing the informtaion that the Alliance put out about their death, so she set forth looking.
It led her to Omega and a drell named Feron who informed her that Shepard was indeed dead, which distressed Liara. Of course there was more to it than Shepard merely being dead, which had Liara getting involved with Cerberus ( A human terrorist group), stealing Shepard's body from The Shadowbroker (The largest and most elusive information broker in the galaxy), and from the Collectors (A race of husk creatures controlled by the reapers). In the end Liara made the conscious decision to steal Shepard's body from the Shadowbroker and Collectors who were working in tandem and gave Shepard's body to Cerberus to be reanimated from the dead. IN the wake, her colleague, Feron, is captured by the Shadowbroker. She doesn't return to save him until late in ME2, also known as the Shadowbroker DLC. The span of time before the DLC it is assumed that Liara becomes an informaiton broker herself, looking for information on Feron and being able to track down the Shadowbroker so she can rescue him. It's proven that Liara has changed, hardened, when Shepard walks in on Liara threatening to 'flay someone alive, with (her) mind.' Which before the entire incident with Shepard's death would not have been something ever dreamed of coming from someone as sheltered and quiet as she was. Although when Shepard asks her about it she apologizes and goes back to being the sweet and soft spoken woman from the first game.
This shows that Liara is capable of making some very calculated decisions, including some that are innately selfish in some ways. Of course in the Shadowbroker DLC, she explicitly tells Shepard that while asking for their help it is her fault that Feron was captured and she was going to make it right. She blames herself, and admits to Shepard what she did when chasing down Vasir to get the data to go after the Shadowbroker was aggressive and she hurt civilians, innocent bystanders, all for the sake of getting the information she needed. Liara knows what she's done and the people that she's placed in harms way and have been killed for the sake of her mission, she's grown in more ways and unsuspecting ways than her quiet and lighthearted disposition claims her to be. Saving Feron is ultimately Liara's goal, of course finding the Shadowbroker base meant that there was a chance that Liara could gain power over the entire network. Not only is she able to save Feron but with Shepard's help she overthrows the old broker and takes the position herself with the ability to know every dark secret within the galaxy at her fingertips.
The progression to Mass Effect three is apparent in her. Liara is not afraid to voice her opinions or to get angry, unlike how she was in ME1. She voices her opinions, disagrees with other crew members, and corrects people, she's no long afraid to stand up for herself and the awkwardness has vanished from her entirely. She's become a confident person. Fighting the Shadowbroker, and his many layers of operatives (including one Tela Vasir, an asari spectre like Shepard) has turned Liara into a much stronger person with a drive for knowledge, all knowledge, and the darker drive of stopping at nothing to get what she wants and what will help her other obsession: Shepard. Her fix on Shepard does not dwindle, it's part of an unhealthy part of her personality that obsesses over certain things. Before it was prothean ruins and after being saved from the Geth, it became Shepard. She cares greatly for the people she considers friends on the crew and she's grown as a person in her social skills of being able to talk freely with the crew, learned a great deal about the galaxy, trust, and how people interact. She still retains her positive outlook on many things, but now she's not afraid to apply a little pressure when it's needed to get a task accomplished, or if necessary to kill someone that's a threat or a liability. She's more sure of herself and her abilities, including her biotics and ability to defend herself in a fire fight. She has become a skilled fighter and knows how to get herself out of difficult situations without having to rely on others. She still understands the value of teamwork and how much easier a mission can go with reliable people, overall Liara has grown from the very sheltered introverted scientist she was into one of the more formidable asari in the galaxy.