Entry tags:
[OOC: APP] || [Adstringendum] || Spoilers for Mass Effect 3
Contact Information | The Mun
Name: Crystal
Personal Journal:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
atreios
Contact: AIM; clickreload | PLURK; likeredgold | EMAIL; draconian.eclipse@gmail.com
Other Characters Played: N/A
Are you 18 or over? Very much so!
Canon Information | The Character
Canon: Mass Effect
Character: Tali’Zorah vas Normandy
Timeline: Post Priority: Rannoch in Mass Effect 3 (Paragon path; Geth and Quarians are now allies)
Personality:
The first thing that people notice about Tali is that she is a Quarian. It’s a hard fact to deny when their people are confined to their environment suits. Because of this, her race and the heritage that comes with it plays a large role in her personality. Tali is rather used to being treated harshly by other races because of the residual guilt that comes from the hand the Quarian race played in the creation of geth, and the resulting rebellion of said geth. While she may be aware and used to this negative attitude, she certainly does approve of it being directed at her—in fact when she is first referred to as “the Quarian” by one in Shepard’s group Tali is quick to remind them that she has a name, thank you.
Upon getting to know her it is easy to see that Tali is a responsible, friendly young woman. Being raised as part of the Migrant Fleet, she is very comfortable among crowds and especially among ship crews. Despite being the only Quarian aboard the first Normandy she was able to fit in amongst the crew easily, even gaining the respect of the Engineer Adams for her eagerness to learn more about the ship. Tali has a natural, and deep, sense of curiousity and a need to discover—a curiosity that landed her in trouble when she discovered evidence of Saren’s dirty work. Her need for discover often blands into her other work, as evidenced in various observations she will make if you make an effort to talk to her on missions—and it is also shown by her side notes in her observations on Haestrom, a place that she notes she would have wished to show her friends.
Tali is an independent, smart young woman. Her father, Rael’Zorah, raised her to be inquisitive and interested in the aspects of synthetics. Her father was extremely interested in researching the geth, driven by the promise to see that his daughter would be able to return to the Quarian homeworld. Tali wasn’t aware that she was the reason behind his constant work, however, and his distance caused her to harbor some resentment toward him for paying more attention to his work than his family. It wasn’t until find him on the Alarei, already dead, that Tali is able to realize how much he cared about her and that his work was a way for him to prove that by doing all he could to keep his promise to her. Still, facing the reality of a distant parent isn’t made any easier by finally being able to see they cared.
Tali is not without her insecurities. There is a naturally ingrained fear of disease, heightened by the fact her mother died of an infection. She is also, of course, a young woman and she shares the same insecurities of most women her age. She suffers from homesickness on the first Normandy, complaining that she can’t sleep because the hull is too quiet in comparison to the noise of a Quarian ship. She has a tendency to get nervous whenever the subject of intimacy is brought up—given their weak immune systems and the suits they are forced to wear to protect against health issues, Quarians are not typically intimate by nature; the most intimate thing a Quarian can do with another is link suit environments. This restriction to intimacy often means Tali feels isolated and she wonders if people can really see who is beneath the suit. She expresses a severe distaste of this isolation, saying she feels alone and she wishes to be free of the environment and expressing a desire for even the simplest pleasures such as being able to eat whatever she wants. When Tali does get nervous, she has a tendency to talk quickly, rapidly and…quite a lot—a habit she describes and being a “defense mechanism.”
Despite the limitations she is under, Tali does not let them get in the way of her everyday life. She is very matter-of-fact about the limitations she faces as a Quarian, but she does not allow such limitations interfere with her work or the overall mission. In fact, aboard the Normandy SR2, there is a moment where she is sick, and she refuses to rest saying that it is “just a cold” and that she can work so long as it doesn’t affect her own abilities, which can be taken to mean she will continue unless a sickness forces her to be bedridden.
Tali is an enthusiastic worker and a skilled technician—she loves technology and she will gladly throw herself at any task that allows her to work with it. Aboard the first Normandy she immediate situated herself in the engine room and took to assisting the crew with running the ship. Once aboard the Normandy SR2 she once again placed herself in the engine room and offered a newly developed set of shields to protect the ship. Tech abilities aside, she has skill with a gun and she isn’t afraid to fight when she needs to. This is the girl that, upon getting information of Saren’s treachery, contacted the Shadow Broker on her own and demanded a face to face meeting with an arguably dangerous man. She has faced down geth on her own, and she withstood a large scale geth attack on Haestrom to get the information on the planet’s sun in order to (hopefully) make the trip and her team’s sacrifices worthwhile.
She possesses a great amount of courage and she is not afraid to do what she must for her friends, crew or the Fleet. She would even go so far as to put her life on the line if necessary; which, with Shepard is a twice-a-day occurrence. While she is willing to do all of these things for the mission, Tali is not afraid to speak up when she believes something to be wrong. She has argued with Shepard before in regards to bringing the geth, Legion, back to the Normandy SR2 and she had a very strong opinion on the matter of reformatting the heretic geth. On another side of things, Tali has also shown that she can have a vindictive streak when she’s angry—she once threatened to hack another alien’s environmental suit and make everything around him smell like garbage.
Tali has also proven to become a leader in her own right, being able to make others under her command back down by the sheer force of her personality—as seen initially with her team on Freedom’s progress (though once out of range those Quarians did turn and disobey her command). She’s come to show that she does not forgive easily, especially when a slight is made against her people as a whole. For example, she continues to remain skeptical of Cerberus and Cerberus employees throughout the mission against the Collectors due to the attack Cerberus weighed against the Fleet—after all to Quarians the Fleet is life.
Background:
Quarians name their child in a very specific manner, and you can learn a great deal about threir origins from their name. Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, as she was known when she first met Shepard, has a name that would tell us she was born of the Rayya (in 2161) to the family of Zorah. She would live and grow on this ship until she reached maturity and was sent from the Quarian Migrant Fleet on her Pilgrimage—a journey young Quarians take to prove their worth to the Migrant Fleet and to the ship they wish to serve on when they return. During her travels on her Pilgrimage, she began hearing reports of geth, AI oriented machines created by the Quarians—the same that forced her kind from their home planet. The geth had never ventured beyond the Perseus Veil since driving the Quarians to exile and she became curious. Having tracked a patrol of geth to an uncharted planet she waited until one was separated from its unit, disabled it and removed its memory core. Recovering anything from a fried memory core is tricky business, but Tali managed to recover a file from its audio memory banks that reveiled Saren Arterius was behind the attack on Eden Prime. Possessing the file put her in danger, and in her escape from Saren’s forces she made her way to the Citadel.
Somewhere between her escape and her arrival on the Citadel, Tali was shot and made her way to Dr. Chloe Michel’s Med Clinic to be treated for her suit rupture. She told the doctor she was planning to trade her information with the Shadow Broker, one of the hidden puppetmasters of information in the universe, in exchange for protection. However, Tali was double crossed by Fist who had changed sides, betraying the Shadow Broker in favor for joining Saren’s side. While Tali was expecting to meet the Broker in person, she was sent to a “messenger” that was accompanied by several assassins. It’s in this situation that Tali first meets Commander Shepard and her team—in the midst of a back alley firefight for her life.
In an attempt to repay the commander for saving her life, Tali presents the file she obtained from the geth unit—a file that, conviently, is just the proof that Shepard needed to get the Council to revoke Saren’s Spectre status. This data also provided the first mention of the Reapers, an ancient machine race that hunted the Protheans to extinction hundreds of thousands of years ago. It also provided a mentioning of a Conduit. Wanting to help in the fight against the geth, and to prove she was willing to give of herself for the greater good, Tali takes this chance to join Shepard’s crew.
Following Shepard’s induction into the Sepctres, Tali found herself placed on the Normandy with her new commander. The young woman spent most of her time in the engine room, where her knowledge of ships and tech impressed Engineer Adams. It is in the engine room that Shepard can speak with Tali and the quarian gives insight to several topics, from her own fascination with ship tech and the Normandy’s design to life as a Quarian to her Pilgrimage to the vessels and politics and culture found in the Migrant Fleet. From these conversations we can learn that her mother passed away five years prior due to an airborne virus, and while Tali is saddened by the loss she admits that such deaths are an unfortunate reality in the Fleet. She also reveals that her father is the head of the Admiralty Board—the highest authority of the Quarian people—and as his only daughter, everyone has high hopes for Tali’s Pilgrimage.
Tali’s time on the Normandy is spent between helping in the engine room, and accompanying Shepard on groundside missions. She was present through Therum for the recruitment of Dr. Liara T’Soni, she was also part of the shore party for Virmire, Feros and Ilos. The only mission she had no part in was the mission to Noveria, mostly in part to Liara participating for the sake of confronting her mother. In her history, Kaidan Alenko was the one sacrificed on Virmire, despite Shepard’s apparent involvement with him.
Following the mission on Ilos, Tali’Zorah found herself involved in the final conflict with Saren, and Sovereign’s reconstruction of him, on the Citadel. Rather than return to the Migrant Fleet, Tali continues to stay with Shepard on her ship. She would still be in service to Shepard up until the point that the Normandy is attacked by a mysterious and deadly ship. She was amongst the members of the crew that managed to escape the trip, and like most of Shepard’s team she drifted once Shepard’s gravitational pull was no longer there to hold everyone together.
The Normandy gone, and Shepard no longer around to provide leadership or a goal, Tali returned to the Migrant Fleet, her service in the campaign against Saren and some data on the early days of the geth (able to be given to her following a mission in Mass Effect) serving as proof and tribute of her Pilgrimage. Following Shepard’s resurrection, Tali’Zorah is met once again on the first mission to Freedom’s Progress. At this point she is now known as Tali’Zorah vas Neema, signaling her acceptance into the crew of a Fleet ship. Her appearance on Freedom’s Progress is suspect to the Cerberus agents accompanying Shepard, but it is revealed that she is leading a team in the search for a fellow Quarian on Pilgrimage, Veetor’Nara.
While Tali is disappointed and shocked to see Shepard, who by all rights should be dead, working with Cerberus, she admits to trusting Shepard enough to not question it—perhaps even convincing herself that it was some cover she needed for her mission. Once Veetor was found, Shepard allowed him to return to the Flotilla so long as Tali transferred the data he had gathered on the Collector’s attack on the colony. This only further solidifies Tali’s trust, seeing that Shepard was still the one that held control. However, she doesn’t join with her at this time due to an important mission she must take on for the Migrant Fleet.
Tali isn’t seen again until Shepard arrives on Haestrom, a planet in geth controlled space that Tali’s team stationed themselves on in order to observe the planet’s prematurely dying sun—this observation being part of the mission Tali placed before Shepard when asked to join her back on Freedom’s Progress. Being deep in geth territory, Tali arrived on the planet with a contingent of Quarian marines (including Kal’Reegar) for protection. However, their team was spotted by a geth patrol ship, which consecutively began to drop troops of geth in numbers that the marines simply couldn’t handle. Her team dying, Kal’Reegar sent her to the observation tower with a few remaining marines while he and the few men he had left guarded their retreat. It is about this point that Shepard comes to the planet.
Having fought through geth troops, Shepard’s team meets Kal’Reegar—who is at that point the last standing marine and singlehandedly trying to take on more troops and a Geth Colossus with nothing more than a rocket launcher. Hearing that Tali is holed up in the tower behind the Colossus, Shepard of course went in guns blazing and eventually managed to secure Tali’s position so that she could escape. At this point, Tali had been able to compile enough data to send to the Admiralty Board for analysis on what was affecting the star’s core. It is at this point that Tali finally agrees to join Shepard, after voicing the hope that whatever this mission had been for had better be worth the cost it took from her and her men.
Tali was welcomed rather warmly when she came to join Shepard on the Normandy SR-2, but it’s clear she trusts close to no one outside of Shepard and (more than likely) Garrus due to her skepticism towards the intentions of Cerberus. Her unease only became more apparent when Jacob reminded her to introduce herself to EDI, the ship’s new AI—it’s likely she never listened to that suggestion.
After some time on the Normandy, Tali received a rather disturbing message from the Migrant Fleet and the Admiralty Board. Once she is able to talk to Shepard about it, she reveals that the Board has seen fit to charge her with treason. She requests to be taken to the Flotilla to discover what her charges are, and to plead her innocence. Shepard agrees, and the crew makes their way to Tali’s home.
Once reaching the Flotilla, the Normandy receives some scrutiny for being a Cerberus ship, but eventually gains clearance due to Tali reciting a necessary passphrase and is able to dock with the Rayya. The shore party is greeted by Tali’s CO, Captain Kar’Danna, who reveals that Tali faces charges of smuggling active geth into the fleet. She’s affronted and upset by the charge, saying she would never threaten the fleet in that way, and that on her father’s orders she had done nothing more than send deactivated geth samples to the fleet—after thoroughly testing to be sure none of those said samples would be dangerous. Following this, Tali is greeted by Admiral Shala’Raan with the name “Tali’Zorah vas Normandy” which understandably earns questions from Tali. The young woman was stripped of her quarian ship’s name, an action that Tali notes essentially makes her as good as exiled before the trial even had a chance to begin. However, by naming her "vas Normandy" the Admiralty Board also guaranteed her the opportunity of having Shepard as her advocate for her hearing.
During her hearing, the admirals sandbagged Tali with the news that the lab ship Alarei was overrun by geth. Her father, having been in service to this ship, is assumed dead. Of course, Tali’s immediate concern is for her father’s safety, and in light of that concern and the well being of the Fleet Shepard proposes that she and Tali re-take the Alarei by dealing with the threat themselves. The admirals agree to this course of action, putting the hearing in recess pending the recovery of the Alarei and any data that might reveal what truly happened on that ship. Following this, talking to the admirals, Veetor, and Kal’Reegar can reveal that Tali’s innocence is a secondary matter, and that the trial is really a means for members of the Admiralty Board to advance their own individual political agendas. Regardless of these new facts, Shepard and her team go aboard the Alarei.
Aboard the ship geth are encountered at almost every turn, revealing that something had indeed gone wrong here, either with the geth parts Tali had sent or with the tests being performed on them. Throughout the ship several logs can be accessed, finally giving some insight into what had actually occurred on the Alarei. While all logs hold some importance in detailing the last moments of those aboard the ship, it’s not until the last log is accessed that it’s revealed the experiments here were being performed by Rael’Zorah in an attempt to take back the Quarian homeworld so he may keep a promise to his daughter. Just beyond the room where the last log is played, the party comes to find Rael’s dead body. Tali tries to convince herself that her father isn’t dead, but lets go of the delusion once Shepard steps in to give her comfort. On Rael’s omni-tool is a message for Tali, his last words being nothing but an order to destroy the main geth hub and to bring the data to Admirals Xen and Gerrel.
The team, of course, takes on these orders and, following the destruction of the main hub, is able to finally collect Rael’s data. This data reveals that Rael was re-activating geth and linking them in neural networks so that they could reach sapience before he would perform weapons testing on them. However, he makes it clear that his daughter knows nothing of these activities. Knowing what this evidence could do to her father’s name, she begs Shepard not to reveal the evidence at trial, even if it means her exile. Following this discussion, the team returns from the Alarei only to find the trial already underway once more with the admirals ready to give judgment in absentia.
Rushing into the trial, Shepard is immediately called on to present any new evidence she may have found aboard the Alarei—a demand that once more earns Tali’s plea for her not to share her father’s data. There are several choices that can be made at this point, one of which is to rally the crowd. After several moving words from Shepard, both Kal’Reegar and Veetor step forward to speak on her behalf, saying that she “did more for the fleet” than the admirals have and if they chose her exile they may as well exile both of them as well. Cowed by Shepard’s words and stern reactions from their own people, the admirals have little choice but to find Tali not guilty. Shepard is thanked for representing one of their people, to which she replies that she wasn’t representing one of their, but instead was representing one of hers—this response may be a factor in Tali retaining the title “vas Normandy” even after being cleared of all charges.
Following these events, Tali continued to loyally follow Shepard’s lead into the fray of the suicide mission. Being a tech specialist, she was in charge of proceeding through the Collector base’s heating valves to open entry to both assault teams. Later on in the mission she was part of the team holding off Collectors as Shepard proceeded to move forward through the base. It should be noted that the suicide mission was a success and obtained no casualties on Shepard’s team. With the Collector’s base destroyed the focus should have shifted to focus on preparing for the arrival of the Reapers; however, Following Shepard’s return to the Alliance, Tali makes a return to the Migrant Fleet. Due to her expertise with the geth, she is asked to join the Admiralty Board in place of her father to aid in a campaign to retake Rannoch, the Quarian homeworld.
Tali is only reunited with Shepard when the Normandy finally arrives on the battlefield at Rannoch. Shepard agrees to join their fight against the geth, and Tali joins the team to serve as a geth software expert as they infiltrate a geth dreadnought. Here, they free Legion who was serving as a conduit for the geth consensus. Following this mission, she is also a required team member for the mission to deactivate the transmission of a Reaper signal controlling the geth—a mission that takes the team to the surface of Rannoch.
After the signal is deactivated, the team is left to fight a Reaper on the surface of Rannoch, a fight that ends with the geth in a weakened state. Legion wishes to upload the Reaper code to augment all platforms of the geth collective, which would effectively restore the geth forces to full strength. Going with the paragon path, Shepard chose to upload the code, upgrading the geth to fully realized individual platforms. However, Admiral Han’Gerrel still wished to make an attempted to launch a full scale attack on the geth, an act that would have led to the destruction of the entire Migrant Fleet. Thankfully, Shepard is able to talk the Fleet down by convincing them that peace would be achievable if they would simply stop attacking the geth first. Legion goes on to sacrifice himself to grant autonomy to all geth and peace is finally established between the quarians and the geth. Tali agrees to join the Normandy again to fight the Reapers, now that her people have a homeworld to fight for again.
Abilities/Additional Notes:
As per her class (Quarian Mechanist), Tali is proficient in the shotgun and heavy pistol weapons classes. This class setting also grants her access to several abilities.
• Energy Drain. Rank 4. Recharge time of 2.46 seconds. Damage of 330 points. Radius of 1.50 meters. Shields restored to 50%.
o This ability saps enemy barriers to recharge the user’s shields while dealing damage to the target.
• Sabotage. Rank 5. Recharge speed of 12 seconds. Hack duration of 18 seconds. Radius of 3.25 meters. Backfire of 150.
o This ability replaces the ME2 ability of AI Hacking. Compromised synthetics fight on the user’s side, and affected enemy weapons will backfire, dealing additional damage and wounding the enemy.
o This ability has been upgraded to an Explosive Hack, meaning that hacked synthetics will explode when destroyed, dealing an additional 350 points of damage across a 4 meter radius.
• Combat Drone. Rank 6. Recharge speed of 8.75 seconds. Damage of 52 points. Shields at 650 points.
o This ability allows the user to spawn a tech drone that draws enemy fire and can deal damage on its own. Only one combat drone may be active at a time per user.
o The drone has been fully upgraded and has the ability to detonate upon destruction (dealing an additional 156 points of damage across a 5 meter radius), as well as a shock ability which upgrades the short-range attack to a damage set of 130 points across a 2.50 meter radius in addition to momentarily stunning the enemy target. The drone is also equipped with long-range rockets, which deal 195 points of damage across a 1.50 meter radius.
• Defense Drone. Rank 6. Recharge speed of 2.15 seconds. Damage of 58.75 points. Radius of 8 meters. Duration of 90 seconds.
o Unlike the combat drone, the defense drone does not draw enemy fire and stays within range of the user—often hovering by their head. The defense drone only attacks enemies that come within range of the user (in this case 8 meters or closer from the user).
o The defense drone has been fully upgraded and as such retains the ability of chain lightning, which allows it to target two additional enemies that may be within range.
Of course, if necessary all abilities can be toned down or made inaccessible if necessary.
Sample Journal Post:
--mandy. . .[A hiss of static] Keelah. Come in Normandy. Is anyone reading this?
[The screen, previously filled with snow, finally clears up enough for a young woman to be seen. Her expression can’t be seen regardless thanks to the helmet she wears, the glass obscuring all but the dim outline of her face and eyes that appear to be glowing. Still, the way she looks around betrays worry, and perhaps a small hint of fear brought on by uncertainty.]
Shepard? [She pauses, just long enough to allow for some kind of response. But there isn’t one, and that makes her nervous.]
[Think clearly Tali, even if the Normandy wasn’t in range someone else has to be. Right?]
I don’t know where I am, or how I got here, but this is Tali’Zorah vas Normandy. If anyone is reading this please respond.
[There is a very long pause, and when she speaks again is barely above a whisper.]
Keelah, don’t let me be alone here.
Sample RP:
The first thing to register with Tali was just how quiet it was. There seemed to be no one around where she had woken up. She had all of her equipment, her guns and her suit was intact, suffering no breaches. Still it offered little comfort when she found herself alone, planetside on an unknown planet. As capable as she knew herself to be, she wasn’t sure how prepared she was to face whatever awaited her here—after all she was no Commander Shepard.
So here she sat, alone and waiting for somebody, anybody, to answer the message she had put out. She had been thankful to find the strange device when she woke, confident that it would help her reach someone—but that hope and confidence was starting to fade as the minutes ticked by. She couldn’t be the only one here, could she?
“No, of course not. Someone will hear it.”
That’s all she had to do. Hold on to that notion. Someone would hear her—and even if they were planetside and there was no means of immediate transportation she wouldn’t be alone. She wouldn’t have to try and survive whatever was going on here alone.
And maybe, if she was lucky, they would know what she was doing here in the first place—where ever here was, anyway.
Name: Crystal
Personal Journal:
atreiosContact: AIM; clickreload | PLURK; likeredgold | EMAIL; draconian.eclipse@gmail.com
Other Characters Played: N/A
Are you 18 or over? Very much so!
Canon Information | The Character
Canon: Mass Effect
Character: Tali’Zorah vas Normandy
Timeline: Post Priority: Rannoch in Mass Effect 3 (Paragon path; Geth and Quarians are now allies)
Personality:
The first thing that people notice about Tali is that she is a Quarian. It’s a hard fact to deny when their people are confined to their environment suits. Because of this, her race and the heritage that comes with it plays a large role in her personality. Tali is rather used to being treated harshly by other races because of the residual guilt that comes from the hand the Quarian race played in the creation of geth, and the resulting rebellion of said geth. While she may be aware and used to this negative attitude, she certainly does approve of it being directed at her—in fact when she is first referred to as “the Quarian” by one in Shepard’s group Tali is quick to remind them that she has a name, thank you.
Upon getting to know her it is easy to see that Tali is a responsible, friendly young woman. Being raised as part of the Migrant Fleet, she is very comfortable among crowds and especially among ship crews. Despite being the only Quarian aboard the first Normandy she was able to fit in amongst the crew easily, even gaining the respect of the Engineer Adams for her eagerness to learn more about the ship. Tali has a natural, and deep, sense of curiousity and a need to discover—a curiosity that landed her in trouble when she discovered evidence of Saren’s dirty work. Her need for discover often blands into her other work, as evidenced in various observations she will make if you make an effort to talk to her on missions—and it is also shown by her side notes in her observations on Haestrom, a place that she notes she would have wished to show her friends.
Tali is an independent, smart young woman. Her father, Rael’Zorah, raised her to be inquisitive and interested in the aspects of synthetics. Her father was extremely interested in researching the geth, driven by the promise to see that his daughter would be able to return to the Quarian homeworld. Tali wasn’t aware that she was the reason behind his constant work, however, and his distance caused her to harbor some resentment toward him for paying more attention to his work than his family. It wasn’t until find him on the Alarei, already dead, that Tali is able to realize how much he cared about her and that his work was a way for him to prove that by doing all he could to keep his promise to her. Still, facing the reality of a distant parent isn’t made any easier by finally being able to see they cared.
Tali is not without her insecurities. There is a naturally ingrained fear of disease, heightened by the fact her mother died of an infection. She is also, of course, a young woman and she shares the same insecurities of most women her age. She suffers from homesickness on the first Normandy, complaining that she can’t sleep because the hull is too quiet in comparison to the noise of a Quarian ship. She has a tendency to get nervous whenever the subject of intimacy is brought up—given their weak immune systems and the suits they are forced to wear to protect against health issues, Quarians are not typically intimate by nature; the most intimate thing a Quarian can do with another is link suit environments. This restriction to intimacy often means Tali feels isolated and she wonders if people can really see who is beneath the suit. She expresses a severe distaste of this isolation, saying she feels alone and she wishes to be free of the environment and expressing a desire for even the simplest pleasures such as being able to eat whatever she wants. When Tali does get nervous, she has a tendency to talk quickly, rapidly and…quite a lot—a habit she describes and being a “defense mechanism.”
Despite the limitations she is under, Tali does not let them get in the way of her everyday life. She is very matter-of-fact about the limitations she faces as a Quarian, but she does not allow such limitations interfere with her work or the overall mission. In fact, aboard the Normandy SR2, there is a moment where she is sick, and she refuses to rest saying that it is “just a cold” and that she can work so long as it doesn’t affect her own abilities, which can be taken to mean she will continue unless a sickness forces her to be bedridden.
Tali is an enthusiastic worker and a skilled technician—she loves technology and she will gladly throw herself at any task that allows her to work with it. Aboard the first Normandy she immediate situated herself in the engine room and took to assisting the crew with running the ship. Once aboard the Normandy SR2 she once again placed herself in the engine room and offered a newly developed set of shields to protect the ship. Tech abilities aside, she has skill with a gun and she isn’t afraid to fight when she needs to. This is the girl that, upon getting information of Saren’s treachery, contacted the Shadow Broker on her own and demanded a face to face meeting with an arguably dangerous man. She has faced down geth on her own, and she withstood a large scale geth attack on Haestrom to get the information on the planet’s sun in order to (hopefully) make the trip and her team’s sacrifices worthwhile.
She possesses a great amount of courage and she is not afraid to do what she must for her friends, crew or the Fleet. She would even go so far as to put her life on the line if necessary; which, with Shepard is a twice-a-day occurrence. While she is willing to do all of these things for the mission, Tali is not afraid to speak up when she believes something to be wrong. She has argued with Shepard before in regards to bringing the geth, Legion, back to the Normandy SR2 and she had a very strong opinion on the matter of reformatting the heretic geth. On another side of things, Tali has also shown that she can have a vindictive streak when she’s angry—she once threatened to hack another alien’s environmental suit and make everything around him smell like garbage.
Tali has also proven to become a leader in her own right, being able to make others under her command back down by the sheer force of her personality—as seen initially with her team on Freedom’s progress (though once out of range those Quarians did turn and disobey her command). She’s come to show that she does not forgive easily, especially when a slight is made against her people as a whole. For example, she continues to remain skeptical of Cerberus and Cerberus employees throughout the mission against the Collectors due to the attack Cerberus weighed against the Fleet—after all to Quarians the Fleet is life.
Background:
Quarians name their child in a very specific manner, and you can learn a great deal about threir origins from their name. Tali’Zorah nar Rayya, as she was known when she first met Shepard, has a name that would tell us she was born of the Rayya (in 2161) to the family of Zorah. She would live and grow on this ship until she reached maturity and was sent from the Quarian Migrant Fleet on her Pilgrimage—a journey young Quarians take to prove their worth to the Migrant Fleet and to the ship they wish to serve on when they return. During her travels on her Pilgrimage, she began hearing reports of geth, AI oriented machines created by the Quarians—the same that forced her kind from their home planet. The geth had never ventured beyond the Perseus Veil since driving the Quarians to exile and she became curious. Having tracked a patrol of geth to an uncharted planet she waited until one was separated from its unit, disabled it and removed its memory core. Recovering anything from a fried memory core is tricky business, but Tali managed to recover a file from its audio memory banks that reveiled Saren Arterius was behind the attack on Eden Prime. Possessing the file put her in danger, and in her escape from Saren’s forces she made her way to the Citadel.
Somewhere between her escape and her arrival on the Citadel, Tali was shot and made her way to Dr. Chloe Michel’s Med Clinic to be treated for her suit rupture. She told the doctor she was planning to trade her information with the Shadow Broker, one of the hidden puppetmasters of information in the universe, in exchange for protection. However, Tali was double crossed by Fist who had changed sides, betraying the Shadow Broker in favor for joining Saren’s side. While Tali was expecting to meet the Broker in person, she was sent to a “messenger” that was accompanied by several assassins. It’s in this situation that Tali first meets Commander Shepard and her team—in the midst of a back alley firefight for her life.
In an attempt to repay the commander for saving her life, Tali presents the file she obtained from the geth unit—a file that, conviently, is just the proof that Shepard needed to get the Council to revoke Saren’s Spectre status. This data also provided the first mention of the Reapers, an ancient machine race that hunted the Protheans to extinction hundreds of thousands of years ago. It also provided a mentioning of a Conduit. Wanting to help in the fight against the geth, and to prove she was willing to give of herself for the greater good, Tali takes this chance to join Shepard’s crew.
Following Shepard’s induction into the Sepctres, Tali found herself placed on the Normandy with her new commander. The young woman spent most of her time in the engine room, where her knowledge of ships and tech impressed Engineer Adams. It is in the engine room that Shepard can speak with Tali and the quarian gives insight to several topics, from her own fascination with ship tech and the Normandy’s design to life as a Quarian to her Pilgrimage to the vessels and politics and culture found in the Migrant Fleet. From these conversations we can learn that her mother passed away five years prior due to an airborne virus, and while Tali is saddened by the loss she admits that such deaths are an unfortunate reality in the Fleet. She also reveals that her father is the head of the Admiralty Board—the highest authority of the Quarian people—and as his only daughter, everyone has high hopes for Tali’s Pilgrimage.
Tali’s time on the Normandy is spent between helping in the engine room, and accompanying Shepard on groundside missions. She was present through Therum for the recruitment of Dr. Liara T’Soni, she was also part of the shore party for Virmire, Feros and Ilos. The only mission she had no part in was the mission to Noveria, mostly in part to Liara participating for the sake of confronting her mother. In her history, Kaidan Alenko was the one sacrificed on Virmire, despite Shepard’s apparent involvement with him.
Following the mission on Ilos, Tali’Zorah found herself involved in the final conflict with Saren, and Sovereign’s reconstruction of him, on the Citadel. Rather than return to the Migrant Fleet, Tali continues to stay with Shepard on her ship. She would still be in service to Shepard up until the point that the Normandy is attacked by a mysterious and deadly ship. She was amongst the members of the crew that managed to escape the trip, and like most of Shepard’s team she drifted once Shepard’s gravitational pull was no longer there to hold everyone together.
The Normandy gone, and Shepard no longer around to provide leadership or a goal, Tali returned to the Migrant Fleet, her service in the campaign against Saren and some data on the early days of the geth (able to be given to her following a mission in Mass Effect) serving as proof and tribute of her Pilgrimage. Following Shepard’s resurrection, Tali’Zorah is met once again on the first mission to Freedom’s Progress. At this point she is now known as Tali’Zorah vas Neema, signaling her acceptance into the crew of a Fleet ship. Her appearance on Freedom’s Progress is suspect to the Cerberus agents accompanying Shepard, but it is revealed that she is leading a team in the search for a fellow Quarian on Pilgrimage, Veetor’Nara.
While Tali is disappointed and shocked to see Shepard, who by all rights should be dead, working with Cerberus, she admits to trusting Shepard enough to not question it—perhaps even convincing herself that it was some cover she needed for her mission. Once Veetor was found, Shepard allowed him to return to the Flotilla so long as Tali transferred the data he had gathered on the Collector’s attack on the colony. This only further solidifies Tali’s trust, seeing that Shepard was still the one that held control. However, she doesn’t join with her at this time due to an important mission she must take on for the Migrant Fleet.
Tali isn’t seen again until Shepard arrives on Haestrom, a planet in geth controlled space that Tali’s team stationed themselves on in order to observe the planet’s prematurely dying sun—this observation being part of the mission Tali placed before Shepard when asked to join her back on Freedom’s Progress. Being deep in geth territory, Tali arrived on the planet with a contingent of Quarian marines (including Kal’Reegar) for protection. However, their team was spotted by a geth patrol ship, which consecutively began to drop troops of geth in numbers that the marines simply couldn’t handle. Her team dying, Kal’Reegar sent her to the observation tower with a few remaining marines while he and the few men he had left guarded their retreat. It is about this point that Shepard comes to the planet.
Having fought through geth troops, Shepard’s team meets Kal’Reegar—who is at that point the last standing marine and singlehandedly trying to take on more troops and a Geth Colossus with nothing more than a rocket launcher. Hearing that Tali is holed up in the tower behind the Colossus, Shepard of course went in guns blazing and eventually managed to secure Tali’s position so that she could escape. At this point, Tali had been able to compile enough data to send to the Admiralty Board for analysis on what was affecting the star’s core. It is at this point that Tali finally agrees to join Shepard, after voicing the hope that whatever this mission had been for had better be worth the cost it took from her and her men.
Tali was welcomed rather warmly when she came to join Shepard on the Normandy SR-2, but it’s clear she trusts close to no one outside of Shepard and (more than likely) Garrus due to her skepticism towards the intentions of Cerberus. Her unease only became more apparent when Jacob reminded her to introduce herself to EDI, the ship’s new AI—it’s likely she never listened to that suggestion.
After some time on the Normandy, Tali received a rather disturbing message from the Migrant Fleet and the Admiralty Board. Once she is able to talk to Shepard about it, she reveals that the Board has seen fit to charge her with treason. She requests to be taken to the Flotilla to discover what her charges are, and to plead her innocence. Shepard agrees, and the crew makes their way to Tali’s home.
Once reaching the Flotilla, the Normandy receives some scrutiny for being a Cerberus ship, but eventually gains clearance due to Tali reciting a necessary passphrase and is able to dock with the Rayya. The shore party is greeted by Tali’s CO, Captain Kar’Danna, who reveals that Tali faces charges of smuggling active geth into the fleet. She’s affronted and upset by the charge, saying she would never threaten the fleet in that way, and that on her father’s orders she had done nothing more than send deactivated geth samples to the fleet—after thoroughly testing to be sure none of those said samples would be dangerous. Following this, Tali is greeted by Admiral Shala’Raan with the name “Tali’Zorah vas Normandy” which understandably earns questions from Tali. The young woman was stripped of her quarian ship’s name, an action that Tali notes essentially makes her as good as exiled before the trial even had a chance to begin. However, by naming her "vas Normandy" the Admiralty Board also guaranteed her the opportunity of having Shepard as her advocate for her hearing.
During her hearing, the admirals sandbagged Tali with the news that the lab ship Alarei was overrun by geth. Her father, having been in service to this ship, is assumed dead. Of course, Tali’s immediate concern is for her father’s safety, and in light of that concern and the well being of the Fleet Shepard proposes that she and Tali re-take the Alarei by dealing with the threat themselves. The admirals agree to this course of action, putting the hearing in recess pending the recovery of the Alarei and any data that might reveal what truly happened on that ship. Following this, talking to the admirals, Veetor, and Kal’Reegar can reveal that Tali’s innocence is a secondary matter, and that the trial is really a means for members of the Admiralty Board to advance their own individual political agendas. Regardless of these new facts, Shepard and her team go aboard the Alarei.
Aboard the ship geth are encountered at almost every turn, revealing that something had indeed gone wrong here, either with the geth parts Tali had sent or with the tests being performed on them. Throughout the ship several logs can be accessed, finally giving some insight into what had actually occurred on the Alarei. While all logs hold some importance in detailing the last moments of those aboard the ship, it’s not until the last log is accessed that it’s revealed the experiments here were being performed by Rael’Zorah in an attempt to take back the Quarian homeworld so he may keep a promise to his daughter. Just beyond the room where the last log is played, the party comes to find Rael’s dead body. Tali tries to convince herself that her father isn’t dead, but lets go of the delusion once Shepard steps in to give her comfort. On Rael’s omni-tool is a message for Tali, his last words being nothing but an order to destroy the main geth hub and to bring the data to Admirals Xen and Gerrel.
The team, of course, takes on these orders and, following the destruction of the main hub, is able to finally collect Rael’s data. This data reveals that Rael was re-activating geth and linking them in neural networks so that they could reach sapience before he would perform weapons testing on them. However, he makes it clear that his daughter knows nothing of these activities. Knowing what this evidence could do to her father’s name, she begs Shepard not to reveal the evidence at trial, even if it means her exile. Following this discussion, the team returns from the Alarei only to find the trial already underway once more with the admirals ready to give judgment in absentia.
Rushing into the trial, Shepard is immediately called on to present any new evidence she may have found aboard the Alarei—a demand that once more earns Tali’s plea for her not to share her father’s data. There are several choices that can be made at this point, one of which is to rally the crowd. After several moving words from Shepard, both Kal’Reegar and Veetor step forward to speak on her behalf, saying that she “did more for the fleet” than the admirals have and if they chose her exile they may as well exile both of them as well. Cowed by Shepard’s words and stern reactions from their own people, the admirals have little choice but to find Tali not guilty. Shepard is thanked for representing one of their people, to which she replies that she wasn’t representing one of their, but instead was representing one of hers—this response may be a factor in Tali retaining the title “vas Normandy” even after being cleared of all charges.
Following these events, Tali continued to loyally follow Shepard’s lead into the fray of the suicide mission. Being a tech specialist, she was in charge of proceeding through the Collector base’s heating valves to open entry to both assault teams. Later on in the mission she was part of the team holding off Collectors as Shepard proceeded to move forward through the base. It should be noted that the suicide mission was a success and obtained no casualties on Shepard’s team. With the Collector’s base destroyed the focus should have shifted to focus on preparing for the arrival of the Reapers; however, Following Shepard’s return to the Alliance, Tali makes a return to the Migrant Fleet. Due to her expertise with the geth, she is asked to join the Admiralty Board in place of her father to aid in a campaign to retake Rannoch, the Quarian homeworld.
Tali is only reunited with Shepard when the Normandy finally arrives on the battlefield at Rannoch. Shepard agrees to join their fight against the geth, and Tali joins the team to serve as a geth software expert as they infiltrate a geth dreadnought. Here, they free Legion who was serving as a conduit for the geth consensus. Following this mission, she is also a required team member for the mission to deactivate the transmission of a Reaper signal controlling the geth—a mission that takes the team to the surface of Rannoch.
After the signal is deactivated, the team is left to fight a Reaper on the surface of Rannoch, a fight that ends with the geth in a weakened state. Legion wishes to upload the Reaper code to augment all platforms of the geth collective, which would effectively restore the geth forces to full strength. Going with the paragon path, Shepard chose to upload the code, upgrading the geth to fully realized individual platforms. However, Admiral Han’Gerrel still wished to make an attempted to launch a full scale attack on the geth, an act that would have led to the destruction of the entire Migrant Fleet. Thankfully, Shepard is able to talk the Fleet down by convincing them that peace would be achievable if they would simply stop attacking the geth first. Legion goes on to sacrifice himself to grant autonomy to all geth and peace is finally established between the quarians and the geth. Tali agrees to join the Normandy again to fight the Reapers, now that her people have a homeworld to fight for again.
Abilities/Additional Notes:
As per her class (Quarian Mechanist), Tali is proficient in the shotgun and heavy pistol weapons classes. This class setting also grants her access to several abilities.
• Energy Drain. Rank 4. Recharge time of 2.46 seconds. Damage of 330 points. Radius of 1.50 meters. Shields restored to 50%.
o This ability saps enemy barriers to recharge the user’s shields while dealing damage to the target.
• Sabotage. Rank 5. Recharge speed of 12 seconds. Hack duration of 18 seconds. Radius of 3.25 meters. Backfire of 150.
o This ability replaces the ME2 ability of AI Hacking. Compromised synthetics fight on the user’s side, and affected enemy weapons will backfire, dealing additional damage and wounding the enemy.
o This ability has been upgraded to an Explosive Hack, meaning that hacked synthetics will explode when destroyed, dealing an additional 350 points of damage across a 4 meter radius.
• Combat Drone. Rank 6. Recharge speed of 8.75 seconds. Damage of 52 points. Shields at 650 points.
o This ability allows the user to spawn a tech drone that draws enemy fire and can deal damage on its own. Only one combat drone may be active at a time per user.
o The drone has been fully upgraded and has the ability to detonate upon destruction (dealing an additional 156 points of damage across a 5 meter radius), as well as a shock ability which upgrades the short-range attack to a damage set of 130 points across a 2.50 meter radius in addition to momentarily stunning the enemy target. The drone is also equipped with long-range rockets, which deal 195 points of damage across a 1.50 meter radius.
• Defense Drone. Rank 6. Recharge speed of 2.15 seconds. Damage of 58.75 points. Radius of 8 meters. Duration of 90 seconds.
o Unlike the combat drone, the defense drone does not draw enemy fire and stays within range of the user—often hovering by their head. The defense drone only attacks enemies that come within range of the user (in this case 8 meters or closer from the user).
o The defense drone has been fully upgraded and as such retains the ability of chain lightning, which allows it to target two additional enemies that may be within range.
Of course, if necessary all abilities can be toned down or made inaccessible if necessary.
Sample Journal Post:
--mandy. . .[A hiss of static] Keelah. Come in Normandy. Is anyone reading this?
[The screen, previously filled with snow, finally clears up enough for a young woman to be seen. Her expression can’t be seen regardless thanks to the helmet she wears, the glass obscuring all but the dim outline of her face and eyes that appear to be glowing. Still, the way she looks around betrays worry, and perhaps a small hint of fear brought on by uncertainty.]
Shepard? [She pauses, just long enough to allow for some kind of response. But there isn’t one, and that makes her nervous.]
[Think clearly Tali, even if the Normandy wasn’t in range someone else has to be. Right?]
I don’t know where I am, or how I got here, but this is Tali’Zorah vas Normandy. If anyone is reading this please respond.
[There is a very long pause, and when she speaks again is barely above a whisper.]
Keelah, don’t let me be alone here.
Sample RP:
The first thing to register with Tali was just how quiet it was. There seemed to be no one around where she had woken up. She had all of her equipment, her guns and her suit was intact, suffering no breaches. Still it offered little comfort when she found herself alone, planetside on an unknown planet. As capable as she knew herself to be, she wasn’t sure how prepared she was to face whatever awaited her here—after all she was no Commander Shepard.
So here she sat, alone and waiting for somebody, anybody, to answer the message she had put out. She had been thankful to find the strange device when she woke, confident that it would help her reach someone—but that hope and confidence was starting to fade as the minutes ticked by. She couldn’t be the only one here, could she?
“No, of course not. Someone will hear it.”
That’s all she had to do. Hold on to that notion. Someone would hear her—and even if they were planetside and there was no means of immediate transportation she wouldn’t be alone. She wouldn’t have to try and survive whatever was going on here alone.
And maybe, if she was lucky, they would know what she was doing here in the first place—where ever here was, anyway.