Characters / Mass Effect 2 Council Space NPCs

Mass Effect Main Character Index
Mass Effect: Commander Shepard | Party Members (Kaidan Alenko | Ashley Williams | Garrus Vakarian | Liara T'Soni | Tali'Zorah | Urdnot Wrex) | Antagonists | NPCs
Mass Effect 2: Early Party Members (Miranda Lawson | Jack) | Late Party Members | Secret Party Members | Main Antagonists | Secondary Antagonists | Normandy Crew | Council Space NPCs | Non-Council Space NPCs
Mass Effect 3: Party Members | Antagonists and NPCs | Multiplayer Characters
Mass Effect: Andromeda: Pathfinder Ryder | Party Members | Crew of the Tempest | The Andromeda Initiative | The Kett | The Angara | Other Characters | Multiplayer Characters

This page is for listing the tropes related to non player characters in council space who first appeared in the second Mass Effect game.

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The Illusive Man

The Illusive Man, AKA Jack Harper

Information is my weapon, Shepard. It's good.

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

Voiced by: Martin Sheen (English) Philippe Catoire (French)

The enigmatic leader of Cerberus. He seeks to protect humanity, regardless of the cost. He gets Shepard to investigate the disappearance of human colonies. He is the protagonist of the tie-in comic Mass Effect Evolution.

In Mass Effect 3, he makes his most ambitious move yet — attempting to gain control of the Reapers and their technology rather than defeating them conventionally.

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• The Adjectival Man: Obviously. And his real name is never revealed in the actual games.
• Affably Evil:
  • To Paragon players. According to Retribution, this is a facade he uses to make it difficult to tell when he's lying.
  • If Shepard dies he seems genuinely remorseful in private, regardless of what s\he did to the Collector Base.
  • Even after they officially become enemies in 3, he remains genuinely respectful and polite to Shepard nearly every time they meet, desiring that they come to see things from his point of view.
• Alas, Poor Villain: No matter how he dies, his death is given a great deal of emotional weight. If Shepard convinces him of his indoctrination, he becomes horrified at what he's done and shoots himself to end it. If Shepard is the one to shoot him, he takes one last look at his beloved homeworld and comments how beautiful and perfect Earth is in his eyes.
• Ambition Is Evil: He, alongside Cerberus as a whole.
• Appropriated Appellation: His anti-alien manifesto was derided by Alliance command after first contact as "survivalist rhetoric written by an illusive man". He kinda rolled with it.
• Bad Boss:
  • Don't betray him. Just ask Paul Grayson, who gets Reaper technology implanted into him. In the third game, he uses Reaper technology to create an army of slaves, among other atrocities.
  • Don't disappoint him, either. The entirety of the Overlord DLC happens because Gavin Archer is worried as to what'll happen to him if the project is a failure, the desperation driving him to soar over the moral event horizon.
  Dr Gavin Archer: For a man who lectures on morality's grays, he has a black-and-white view of loyalty. You do the job, or die trying to quit.
• Bait the Dog: The entirety of Mass Effect 2 is one long sequence of this for both him and Cerberus as a whole. He initially comes across as an Affably Evil Well-Intentioned Extremist who just wants what's best for humanity. Then you cut ties with him, and he begins to show the true depths he is willing to sink to in order to ensure human dominance in the galaxy.
• Batman Gambit:
  • He pulls off quite an impressive one in order to eliminate his rivals in between the second and third games. He plays Liara and the Shadow Broker against each other, resulting in the latter's death. After that, his Cerberus forces sweep in and force Liara to destroy the resources she gained as the Shadow Broker (the original plan was to obtain them but Liara made sure this didn't happen; it's still a win in their favor, just not as much) and are only unable to kill Liara herself because of Shepard's intervention. In addition to that, he pulls a ploy to divide Omega (depicted in the tie-in comic Mass Effect: Invasion) by luring Aria and her best forces away by unleashing an army of Adjutants on the station and feigning friendship, knowing that she was the only thing keeping the various mercenary groups on Omega from tearing the station apart. After that, Cerberus once again swept in and eliminated any remaining resistance.
  • His plan to revive Shepard as-is through the Lazarus project is one of these, and it is even lampshaded at the beginning of the game by Miranda. His gambit pays off big in the Renegade ending, but he winds up hoisted by his own petard in the Paragon ending and undergoes a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Attempts an enormous one against the Reapers in 3, in order to take control of them to subdue other species and put humanity on top. However, his plan fails because he doesn't fully anticipate just how out of his league his own (very strong, but only human) mind is in the face of an Eldritch Abomination and ends up being indoctrinated. Worse, it's even implied that he wasn't the first one with that brilliant idea; other extinction cycles had their own Cerberus/Illusive Man equivalents.
• Benevolent Boss: He will do everything in his power to help out his subordinates... so long as they remain loyal and useful.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Subverted, despite what Shepard and other characters believe. While Harbinger and Cerberus largely ignore a direct confrontation throughout most of Mass Effect 3, the Illusive Man took great steps to control the Reapers in the meantime — he ordered Henry Lawson to study indoctrination, buffed Cerberus to N.G.O. Superpower status and modified himself with Reaper tech so he could use the Crucible. Once Harbinger finds out, the Reapers storm Sanctuary in a brief moment of Evil Versus Evil. However, that research ultimately led to the Illusive Man himself becoming indoctrinated (or strengthening it, since his eyes are Reaper tech). By the final confrontation, it's made clear that TIM was little more than The Starscream.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He's the second most recurrent antagonist throughout the Mass Effect series, including the comics and books.
• Big Bad Wannabe: In the end, the Reapers are just a far greater threat than he could ever hope to be and he ends up being their Unwitting Pawn. The Alliance barely treats him as a threat during the Reaper invasion and the very moment he and Cerberus finally does start to become a problem, they swiftly launch an offensive on Cerberus's main base and effectively end the organization.
• Big Good: In 2. "Good" is a strong word for him, but at the end of the day he's the one who's funding and directing your efforts to stop the Collectors and save humani-uh, the galaxy from the Reapers.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: In 3, it is revealed that he had the ship crew of the second team put together with the explicit goal to allay Shepard's suspicions, putting only Naive Newcomers and Token Good Teammates into it, as well as assembling parts of Shepard's old team to make them feel more comfortable.
• Body Horror: His cybernetic implants during the final confrontation, which have twisted and warped most of his visible skin and cause him to look sorta like a Husk.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In the third game, he gets just a little too close to Reaper tech and gets indoctrinated. Luckily, Shepard can snap him out of it and get him to kill himself.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: His creepy glowing eyes are even commented on in-universe.
• Call-Back: Just like Saren, you can convince him that he's been indoctrinated, and he'll shoot himself. Not as gory, though, and he doesn't get reanimated afterwards as a Husk.
• The Casanova: His dossier in the Shadow Broker DLC reveals this.
  Sexual liaisons (past week):
  Sani Shelani, Illium Entertainment's Sexiest Human Alive
  Brooke Karrigar, Skyball Champion
  Vela Vicious, Fornax Dream Girl 2185
  Staci and Stephi Strong, the "Terra Firma Twins"
  Matriarch Trellani (twice)
• The Chessmaster: He pretty much is Cerberus, ensuring that he's personally involved in all of their operations. Considering how intricate and far reaching their influence is, that's a lot of pawns.
  • He also successfully manipulates the galaxy's most skilled soldier into working with him by making it so that they really didn't have much of a choice in the matter, completely boxing them in. Add on the fact that for all of Mass Effect 2, he was responsible for pretty much everything that happened and even out-thought the Collectors a few times.
  • Strategically leaking Shepard's return and association with Cerberus, perhaps while Shepard was still unconscious, ensured that the Alliance and the Council would deny any effort on Shepard's part to get them to help, leaving Shepard only with Cerberus and anyone else the Illusive Man allows to have access. It helps that the Council are in denial about the whole Reaper business anyway, and that the Collectors are focused on the Terminus systems whose inhabitants have a fraught relationship with the Council.
  • He strategically leaks information to both the Alliance and the Collectors to get a human colony assaulted by the Collectors, and then directs Shepard to the location of the attack. This actually serves multiple purposes:
    • Directly studying the Collectors' tactics and behavior, as they attacked a colony of his choosing, and thus he had the ability to intercept them.
    • Confirming his theory that the Collectors had taken a new-found interest in humanity as a result of Shepard's actions by selecting a colony that Kaidan/Ashley just happened to be stationed in.
    • Removing any chance of Kaidan/Ashley's interference by either getting them abducted by the Collectors, or forcing Shepard to confront them regarding Shepard's newfound allegiance to Cerberus, which very likely looked worse than it actually was. Either Kaidan/Ashley will cut all ties with Shepard, or begrudgingly accept the decision as a necessary one. All three outcomes work out for the Illusive Man.
  • The Illusive Man is visibly conflicted over whether he should allow Shepard near any of the original squad. In addition to what he did to Kaidan/Ashley:
    • He claimed that Liara couldn't be trusted because she was working for the Shadow Broker, when that couldn't be farther from the truth (she was trying to take revenge against the Broker). However, he later goes back on this and actually provides Shepard with intel that results in the Shadow Broker's downfall, giving him the opening to try to take Liara down once she was no longer useful.
    • Garrus was only allowed to join by accident, since TIM had no idea that the enigmatic figure known as "Archangel" just so happened to be a former acquaintance of Shepard's. By the time the Illusive Man found out, he couldn't remove Garrus without jeopardizing Shepard's loyalty to Cerberus. He instead sees it as an advantage, hoping Garrus will keep Shepard invested in the fight against the Collectors.
    • Tali was only allowed to join because the chance encounter with her on Freedom's Progress was enough to convince the Illusive Man that she was a factor that could be controlled.
  • In the third game, the player can see retroactively how much he controlled during the second game. He rejects the highly-skilled crew already selected, stating that he wanted both relatable faces Shepard would be comfortable with (tapping Dr. Chakwas and Joker) as well as sympathetic faces like Kelly Chambers, Ken Donnelly, and Gabby Daniels.
• Consummate Liar: It's nearly impossible to tell when he's being truthful or lying. Case in point, he's one of the few people capable of successfully lying to Aria T'Loak, who notes that his very body language is cultivated to be just as inscrutable as his words.
• Contemplative Boss: He spends an awful lot of time staring at that star.
• The Corrupter: Gavin Archer even equates him with the devil when quitting Cerberus. If the Overlord DLC was never followed, he just outright says TIM corrupts everything he touches.
• Creepy Blue Eyes: And they glow. What's especially noteworthy is that they look similar to Saren's eyes from the first game, possibly to hint that both have been touched by Reapers.
• Cunning Linguist: Apparently can speak the asari and turian dialects unaided by universal translator, although this is seemingly because of the Reaper tech he was implanted with.
• Cutscene Boss: At the end of the third game, you will either be able to convince him to kill himself, like with Saren in the first game, or you'll have to take him out using one of two Renegade interrupts. Not taking either of them results in a Nonstandard Game Over.
• The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: The Illusive Man was already a Well-Intentioned Extremist at best, racist NGO at worst, but Shepard reminds him that being indoctrinated has made him stray from his original goals.
  Paragon Shepard: You've forgotten everything you've stood for, Cerberus was supposed to be humanity's sword, not a dagger in our back.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Doesn't matter whether Shepard is Paragon or Renegade; you always get dialogue options about whether or not the Illusive Man is trustworthy and whether he knows more than he lets on at the end of several missions (in both cases, often to his face). Granted, a lot of this has to do with Cerberus's reputation and the player's experience of them in the previous game, but even so, it's clear that Shepard and other characters are wary of him and his organization, especially as the game goes on and it becomes more and more obvious that they are still up to no good.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He is the last hurdle Shepard has to overcome before meeting the Catalyst, the true Big Bad of the trilogy. Appropriately enough, Shepard also first deals with Cerberus as a whole before the final battle against the Reapers.
• Driven to Suicide: If Shepard can make him realize that he's being indoctrinated during their last conversation, he will choose to shoot himself.
• Dying as Yourself:
  • If Shepard shoots TIM, his final words are: "There... Earth. I wish you could see it like I do, Shepard. It's so... perfect."
  • If Shepard helps him realize he has been indoctrinated, he says "I... tried." in regards to controlling the Reapers. He then kills himself to prevent them from using him any more.
• Electronic Eyes: After being blinded by a Reaper artifact sometime in the past, he underwent cybernetic implants to his irises in order to restore his vision.
• Empathic Environment: His office, after the Suicide Mission. If Shepard made the Paragon decision at the end of the mission, the star will turn blue. Otherwise (i.e., the Renegade decision) it will turn red. Averted if Shepard doesn't survive. Regardless of what became of the Collector Base, the star will remain its normal color (orange with hues of blue).
• Enemy Mine:
  • Mass Effect 2 revolves around an uneasy alliance between him and Shepard. Previously, he had one with Liara to secure Shepard's body from the Shadow Broker.
  • He seems to consider cooperating with non-humans as this kind of arrangement. Which is ironic, considering that he helped save the entire turian race from indoctrination back when he was still a mercenary.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Cerberus facility that created Jack was actually a rogue facility outside his approval, and he ordered all of the surviving scientists from the project executed once he learned precisely what they were doing. Furthermore, his e-mail responses to both the Paragon and Renegade endings of the Project Overlord incident give further credence to the idea that he still tries to maintain some ethical standards in his research projects.
  • However, his response to "Overlord"'s Renegade ending claims that while he thought the experiments went too far, he's happy that Shepard decided to keep the research subject within Cerberus. For the Paragon ending, he complains that "Though your decision is understandable, it has set our efforts to understand the geth back several years." It's possible that while the Illusive Man would happily reap the fruits of even the most unethical projects, he values Shepard's loyalty enough to go along with what they choose to do.
  • An email found in one quest in Andromeda shows he fired two scientists for this, though it's case of this and "Evil Thinks Your Idea is Completely Stupid" (which, given some of the other ''brilliant'' ideas Cerberus signed off on...). He thought their idea for creating a hive mind was insane and impractical.
    • Which actually makes sense. He has Collector/Reaper tech on hand to do any brainwashing he wants to do, rendering a hive mind device pointless. He outright states in the scientists' termination letter that they have other "methods that show great potential for mental control over large groups of people."
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He believes that Shepard will always understand what he hopes to accomplish, even when it means using a base where hundreds of thousands of humans were liquefied as fuel for a Human Reaper-Larva. He also fails to see Miranda ever betraying him because he thought she was completely loyal to him.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Serves as one for Admiral Hackett in 3, where they both are described as leaders of humanity (Cerberus and the Alliance respectively), both are gathering resources and intel to defeat the Reapers and both have sent Shepard on black ops missions in previous games.
  • His backstory in the comic Mass Effect Evolution also makes him one to Shepard. Both were soldiers who received visions from an alien artifact that would lead them on the path to become major players in galactic civilization. Both of them were also willing to fight the Reapers rather than lay down and die. The difference is that Shepard understands the need to work with others whereas the Illusive Man arrogantly tried to shoulder the burden alone.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: As magnificent as he was, he was still way out of his league attempting to take control of the Reapers.
• Evil Mentor: Tries to be one to Shepard in Mass Effect 2, though it's entirely up to the player whether or not Shepard actually follows him.
• The Extremist Was Right: His conviction that the Crucible can be used to control the Reapers is taken as simply further evidence of his rapidly-advancing insanity by Shepard and their allies, but not only does he turn out to be right, but there's an argument to be made for it being the most moral (or, at least, least immoral) resolution to the war. The one thing he was mistaken about was his own ability to control the Reapers, since he'd already been indoctrinated.
• Face Framed in Shadow: Although his facial features can occasionally be seen.
• Fallen Hero: For a given definition of hero. From a self-made power broker who’d been thwarting Reapers since the First Contact War to an incoherently rambling slave, the Illusive Man ends his life as a faint shadow of what he stood for as Jack Harper.
• Fantastic Racism: Sort of; while he clearly seeks to see humans dominate the other races, at the same time he does express respect for the achievements of others, and he did save the turians from being enslaved by Desolas (Saren's brother) back before he founded Cerberus. He's also willing to work with nonhumans towards important goals so long as they benefit Cerberus and humanity, like stopping the Collectors, and his openness to doing so is actually a major reason why Brooks abandons Cerberus. This mostly stops in the third game, with him becoming a full-blown liability to the galaxy's fight against the Reapers but that's because he's been indoctrinated.
• Fatal Flaw: His pride. He's so convinced that the ends justify the means, it leads to himself and the entirety of Cerberus getting indoctrinated by the Reapers.
• Felony Misdemeanor: In the third game, his reaction to seeing Shepard after they storm his base:
  Shepard, you're in my chair.
• Fiction 500: He was able to get a multi-billion credit project to bring a person back from the dead together on fairly short notice. And build an improved version of the most advanced experimental starship in the galaxy while he was at it. And this didn't really impede any of his other operations.
• Fighting from the Inside: A Paragon Shepard can help the Illusive Man realize he is indoctrinated. He starts to noticeably struggle more and more to justify his actions almost as if he is in physical pain. Continuing this path can finally help him break their control long enough for him to kill himself.
• Final Boss: He is the last antagonist confronted in the trilogy, although he's a Cutscene Boss.^note Unused concept art indicates the developers were considering the idea of turning him into a Reaperfied monstrosity and having a proper final battle with him, but it was scrapped for not being true to his character and for being too "videogamey" — and they did that with Saren already.
• Foreshadowing. In 2, TIM mentions his eyes are enhanced by Reaper technology. You don't say.^note Reaper technology, however, doesn't indoctrinate. Contact with Reapers, even dead ones, does, so it's probable TIM could have investigated the Leviathan of Dis or his experimentation in creating Husks got him too close to the Reapers' influence.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: It's mentioned that he was once an average man with a family.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even if you've finished the game depriving him of Reaper tech, he'll still go out of his way to get Kasumi in your team even though they've already finished their mission. The same goes for the Overlord mission, begging the question of why he'd request your aid in stopping his project after you blew up the Collector Base. In addition, you still get Cerberus funding when completing missions.
• Glowing Mechanical Eyes: Bizarrely, almost nobody comments on them.
  Joker: The Illusive Man has some crazy eyes for a guy trying to lay low.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: We never see him without a cigarette. Made fun of in the Shadow Broker DLC: He smokes at least four a day and has seven drinks a day.
• He Who Fights Monsters: How did he raise such a huge army in Mass Effect 3? Indoctrination. Unfortunately, indoctrination based on Reaper tech. He wasn't just playing with fire, he was playing with randomly spontaneously combusting thermite. And naturally, he succumbed himself.
• The Heavy: His actions guide a significant chunk of the plot of the second and third games.
• Heel Realization: Like Saren before him, can be talked into having one, both into realizing that he's indoctrinated and how much his actions have hurt humanity, causing him to commit suicide.
  The Illusive Man: I tried...Shepard [BANG]
• Hidden Agenda Villain: He's trying to make humanity dominant in the galaxy. Beyond that, not even Miranda, his most loyal agent, has any idea what he wants. In the third game, he shows a solidly-formed one: looking for a way to control the Reapers.
• Hypocrite: Despite being the leader of a pro-human organisation, according to his Shadow Broker dossier, he has had numerous sexual liaisons with aliens.
• I Am the Trope: CERBERUS IS HUMANITY!
• Ink-Suit Actor: He resembles Martin Sheen. It's also fairly obvious that the photo of him in the Codex◊ is a photoshopped picture of a younger Sheen.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Whatever his research ethics were like before, it becomes clear in the third game that he's thrown off any remaining restraints, to the point of attempting to institute a second Project Overlord, which disgusts even the head of the original project. And this is before the big reveal of the atrocity factory known as Sanctuary.
• Knight Templar: He believes that everything he does will be justified later on.
• Large Ham: Normally, he's not like this. But in 3, during his Villainous Breakdown, he starts channeling Palpatine when Shepard points out the fact he's indoctrinated and his plan to control the Reapers will not work.
• Last-Second Chance: Paragon Shepard will keep offering this. The only reason TIM doesn't accept is that he's indoctrinated.
  The Illusive Man: Your idealism is... admirable, Shepard.
• Manipulative Bastard: Although he is not as manipulative as he wants to think, what with trying (and failing) to persuade Paragon Shepard to save the Collector Base.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Martin Sheen has gone on record saying that he finds the Illusive Man "horrible" and untrustworthy.
• Meaningful Name: Everything, everything related to this man is covered in layers upon layers of meticulously planned deception.
• Mirror Character: The Illusive Man's development in 3 is rather parallel to Saren's from the first game: they both are Well-Intentioned Extremists who cross many moral boundaries to deal with the Reaper threat. While Saren feels that he can work with the Reapers to save all organic life, TIM decides to try to find a way to control them and uplift humanity. They both even justify their actions with the exact same argument; "the Reapers never truly wiped out all organics". Both of their paths lead to them getting Reaper implants, making them easier to be indoctrinated. In the end, they both can also die in the same exact way, committing suicide if Shepard manages to convince them that the Reapers are controlling them.
• Motive Decay: Indoctrination can do that. If every Paragon response is chosen, you can see him visibly struggling against his indoctrination during the Thessia mission, where he falters for a moment when Shepard asks him how can he possibly justify betraying humanity by fighting them, instead of the Reapers?!
• My God, What Have I Done?: If you convince him that he's been indoctrinated and that his actions have brought humanity to the brink of destruction, he shows great regret before committing suicide.
• Mysterious Employer: None of his subordinates know anything about him and the smart ones know better than to attempt to rectify that. In fact, many who work under his agents have no idea they're following his orders. Doubles as a Mysterious Backer in general.
• Near-Villain Victory: The only thing that stopped him from achieving his goal — dominating the Reapers as Shepard potentially can do as an ending — is the fact that he was indoctrinated.
• Necessarily Evil: His stance on some of his actions in 2 and just about everything he does in 3.
  "You think because I'm willing to use the enemy's tactics, that they're no longer my enemy?"
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He vetoed Miranda when she suggested implanting Shepard with a control chip, when it would've undoubtedly made his job much easier in the long run. Shepard even comments on this when told by Miranda in 3, saying that they figured it would've saved the Illusive Man a lot of trouble.
• Non-Action Big Bad: In every appearance with him as an antagonist. He never takes to the battlefield himself in these appearances, instead sending his lackeys to do all the heavy lifting. Justified because his real strengths are his charisma, his vast monetary resources and his ability to manipulate people, and with a number of powerful specialists and a whole army of Elite Mooks at his disposal, there's no reason to take to the field himself.
• Not Me This Time: At the end of Jacob's loyalty mission, Jacob accuses him of doing his usual manipulative thing by forwarding the Hugo Gernsback information to him. The Illusive Man truthfully denies it - it was actually Miranda.
• Not So Stoic: For most of the two games he's in he maintains a calm demeanor. However, during the final confrontation, if you use the persuasion options he starts to sound increasingly angry and desperate, culminating in him trying to shoot Shepard or taking his own life.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: He claims he wants the best for humanity, but humanity and Cerberus are the same thing in his mind. Even though he is very sincere in leveraging Shepard's talents to combat the Reaper threat and has a knack for drawing in genuinely honorable and talented people, he fails to truly appreciate the severe downsides of his ethically compromised operations. By Mass Effect 3, the reputation of Cerberus has decayed to the point where some of his most talented and even most dedicated employees want nothing to do with him and his goal has shifted from fighting the Reapers to controlling their power, though ironically, at this point, he's been indoctrinated, dooming his plans from the outset.
• No, You: A sign of just how far he's fallen in 3, on Thessia, when a Renegade dialogue prompt has Shepard call him out on his actions thus far and how they're hurting humanity, is that he responds with a slightly more eloquent version of this.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He remains extraordinarily calm and coolheaded in basically all of his scenes, even in Mass Effect 3 when the Reapers have invaded and Cerberus is completely falling apart. He only gets upset in two very specific scenes: the Paragon ending of Mass Effect 2, in which he chews out Shepard for destroying the Collector Base, and the ending of Mass Effect 3 when he's confronted by Shepard and Anderson on a Reaper-occupied Citadel. Both are extremely important character moments for him.
• People Puppets: He gains this power after getting Reaper implants. He uses it to hold Shepard and Anderson in place as he monologues and also to force Shepard to shoot their mentor.
• Personality Powers: He's a skilled manipulator and chessmaster who gains the ability to control people's bodies. Ironically, he only gains these powers because he himself is being manipulated.
• Pragmatic Villainy: He complies with his employees' requests and is willing to work with aliens so long as it suits his goals. He even went as far as refusing to contain Shepard with a control-chip, despite knowing full well that their morals were at odds with those of Cerberus, because he believed that preserving Shepard's true personality was critical to stopping the Reapers. The fact that he abandons this pragmatism in Mass Effect 3 despite this making him an enemy of both Shepard and all of galactic civilization is a telltale sign that something has gone very wrong with his mind.
• Psychotic Smirk: Give him the Collector Base at the end of the game, and he'll have a rather creepy one of these.
• Really Gets Around: According to his Shadow Broker dossier, he's something of a pornomancer, though there could be one, maybe two reasons for that.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Presents himself as such during his working relationship with Shepard. He gives the commander plenty of resources and broad discretion about how to oppose the Collectors. The only time when he stops acting this way is in the Paragon ending of 2, where he makes it clear he would've stopped Shepard from destroying the Collector Base if he could have.
• Red Right Hand: Creepy, synthetic, glowing eyeballs.
• Shadow Archetype: He's essentially what a Renegade Shepard could grow into after becoming too old to fight on the front lines.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • What Paragon Shepard does to him after destroying the Collector Base. Bonus points for Miranda doing it too, when asked to convince them not to do it. Extra bonus points for "Shut up" being the actual dialogue option that shows up on screen.
    Renegade Shepard: I'm sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you, I'm getting a lot of bullshit on this line.
  • The whole of the final confrontation with him in the third game consists of this combined with a healthy dose of Kirk Summation and "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: In 3, he tends to stumble a bit whenever Shepard reminds him that it is illogical for them to be fighting each other amidst the Reaper invasion, and resisting Shepard's Last Second Chances actually causes him pain, but he is still able to bite back with this.
  Don't ever question my intentions. I've sacrificed more for humanity than you'll ever know.
• Slouch of Villainy: He sits rather casually in his lounge chair most of the time.
• Smug Snake:
  • Not as bad as Leng (being voiced by Martin Sheen helps), but prevalent in 3. Constantly giving arrogant lectures to Shepard whenever they meet, never truly explaining his motives beyond human supremacy, and never willing to admit there could be a better option. As with most smug snakes, many of his arguments are full of holes. A number of his remarks are also often accompanied by an annoyingly smug grin. Of course, indoctrination has the effect of making even the best Evil Genius into a Smug Snake. A telltale sign he's indoctrinated is when he politely tells Shepard not to interfere anymore, as if that's supposed to deter them. Both Saren and Amanda Kenson before him had done the same, and all three ultimately devolved into child-like whining when the indoctrination became most severe and when their plans started to fall apart.
  • This is also very much present in 2, though hidden more because most of his questionable schemes do not involve antagonizing Shepard. Several of the operations he funds result in hilarious failures causing him to beg Shepard to clean up said messes. However, this trope truly reaches its head at the Collector Base, where he's utterly shocked (and enraged) if Shepard chooses to blow up the base rather than hand it to him. Even if Shepard had spent the whole game as a Paragon whose every word to TIM dripped with contempt.
• The Social Darwinist: Develops shades of this in 3 (an attitude Kai Leng embraces wholeheartedly). In this case, "evolution" = becoming Reaper-tech transhumans.
• Spanner in the Works: Part of how Cerberus operates in 3. Attacking Sur'Kesh to kill the fertile females, and attempting to set off a turian bomb on Tuchanka in order to prevent races from uniting. And if Shepard is diligent, Shepard spanners them right back every time.
• Space Base: The Illusive Man's personal base - the Cronos Station - is an unobtrusive mobile space station that periodically moves from system to system to remain hidden. Primarily orbiting minor supergiant stars, using the bursts of solar output to become nearly imperceptible. Only top-level agents are allowed to know about its existence, much less visit, mainly using steganographic extranet messages or personal quantum communicators to relay information.
• Start of Darkness: The events of Mass Effect Evolution detail his.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Saren in Mass Effect 3. Both seek to use the Reapers as a means to secure the dominance of their race, and end up indoctrinated and implanted with Reaper tech for their efforts. Shepard can even talk the Illusive Man into suicide in an almost exact replication of Saren. According to a Prothean VI, every cycle has groups like these that emerge.
• Talking the Monster to Death: You can convince him to kill himself at the end of Mass Effect 3. However, unlike with the encounter with Saren in the first game, which just requires a bunch of points in the Charm or Intimidate skills, the dialogue option to do this with the Illusive Man is very difficult to unlock; you have to have a completely full Reputation bar, and have to have taken all of the Persuade options in every conversation you have with him during the game, which means taking every left "tell me more" option to add additional dialog options.
• Touched by Vorlons: Before becoming the Illusive Man, he was exposed to a Reaper artifact that had an effect on him and is strongly implied to be the reason behind some of his personal abilities.
• Tom the Dark Lord: His real name is Jack.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: It's quite telling how he tends to refer to his employees as "resources".
• Tranquil Fury: If you destroy the Collector base it's pretty clear that despite his relatively calm demeanor he's absolutely livid when Shepard confronts him in the debriefing. Given that he invested untold money and resources into resurrecting Shepard, rebuilding the Normandy, and preparing the mission only to have the resources he was after be destroyed it's easy to see why.
  Illusive Man: Shepard. You're making a habit of costing me more than time and money.
• The Unfettered: Is willing to allow any manner of horrible experiments happen to people in order to secure human dominance, even if those experiments are on other humans.
• The Unfought: In Mass Effect 3. This is slightly justified since he is a Non-Action Big Bad. ^note Unused concept art indicates that the developers were considering the idea of turning him into a Reaperfied monstrosity and having a proper final battle with him, but they decided that it didn't fit his character whose weapon had always been his mind/ideals and for being too "videogamey" — and they already did that with Saren in the first game.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Cerberus will oppose Shepard in Mass Effect 3 regardless of whether or not they decided to destroy the Collector Base, though it later becomes clear that this is largely due to indoctrination.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the Reapers. He thinks he is working against them, but is unwittingly indoctrinated by them. He also serves as a case of History Repeats Itself, as during the Prothean cycle, there was also a faction who tried to control the Reapers instead of destroying them and only helped them divide the galaxy to make the harvest more easy and were later discovered to be indoctrinated.
  Shepard: So...the Illusive Man was right after all?
  The Catalyst: Yes, but he could never have taken control, because we already controlled him.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: His grand Utopian vision is that of a galaxy where humanity is in charge and never has to fear being threatened or dominated by another alien race ever again. There are very few (if any) lengths he'll not go to in the name of realizing that vision.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • If you destroy the Collector Base. He doesn't rant and rave, but he's clearly not pleased that Shepard basically gave him the middle finger and told him they're doing things Shepard's way from now on, or he can sod off. His last words before being cut off are even a pathetic "Think about everything Cerberus has done for you!"
  • In Mass Effect 3, he has a pretty epic one when confronting Shepard and Anderson at the endgame, especially if Shepard keeps pointing out that his plan to control the Reapers is failing because he himself is indoctrinated and playing into their hands. It ends with him either ranting violently at Shepard and trying to shoot them and Anderson, or fighting off his indoctrination and committing suicide.
• Villain with Good Publicity: While he's painted as a terrorist by the Alliance, he does get an ambiguous portrayal in the second game that makes it possible for Shepard to ally with him. In the third game, it turns out he's worked very hard on that facade by carefully selecting the Cerberus operatives that Shepard comes into contact with while never letting them get close to his more traditionally villainous schemes or henchmen. This is why the Normandy SR-2 is staffed by people like "Cerberus is not anti-alien, it's pro-humanity" Kelly Chambers rather than "Only a dead alien is a good alien" Kai Leng and why Shepard's technological assets are an upgraded version of their old ship and a fairly benign AI rather than whatever husk-related crimes against sapience Cerberus cooked up in its atrocity factories.
• Villain Respect: The Illusive Man has a great deal of respect and admiration for Shepard, even after they become clear enemies. He is always attempting to make them see his point of view and bring them to his side, and even when they don't, he still admires their will and idealism. He tries to get Kai Leng to show this respect, but it doesn't work.
• Visionary Villain: Designed to be the best and worst of humanity all at once.
• We Have Reserves: Played with in 2; he prefers not to get rid of a valuable resource if he can, but he's not above sacrificing Cerberus personnel to further his goals, demonstrated when he shrugs off the death of the entire Project Lazarus team except for Miranda and Jacob as acceptable casualties — as do Miranda and Jacob themselves, albeit the latter is a little more uncomfortable with it — and later describes the indoctrination of the team aboard the derelict Reaper as "unfortunate, but unsurprising". Played straight in 3, where he's prepared to throw away anyone and anything if it helps his goal of controlling the Reapers.
• Wicked Cultured: Has pretty high class tastes and is a Necessary Evil at best.
• Worthy Opponent: In 3, he views Shepard as one, respecting them as an adversary despite their ideological differences.
  Illusive Man: Your idealism is... admirable, Shepard.
  • Also shown when he chastises Kai Leng for clearly underestimating Shepard.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: He approves of a lot of extremely shady and unethical scientific experiments to advance Cerberus' cause, but apparently took action to shut down the Teltin facility on Pragia, which was running brutal experiments on children like Jack to create super biotics. Later averted when he uses the refugees, including entire families, on Horizon as test subjects in his experiments into indoctrination. Though at that point he's pretty deep into being indoctrinated himself.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Shepard outright tells him that he had the power, intelligence, knowledge (his information network nearly rivals the Shadow Broker's), and charisma to stand a significant chance of defeating the Reapers. Indeed, without his intervention, Shepard would not have recovered from the destruction of the original Normandy. Too bad his pride led to him getting too close to Reaper tech and becoming one of their biggest assets against Shepard.
  Paragon Shepard: You've forgotten everything you've stood for, Cerberus was supposed to be humanity's sword, not a dagger in our back.
• You Have Failed Me: More than one of his project leads have engaged in reckless, truly unethical, or recklessly unethical methods in their efforts to avoid this when their deadline was coming close.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: When he turns on Shepard in Mass Effect 3, he outright calls them a tool that's served its purpose and is no longer needed. He's also quick to turn on his people who were working on technology from the Collector Base, terminating their contracts once they'd done their jobs. This flies in the face of the sheer lengths he went to in resurrecting Shepard, as well as refusing Miranda's suggestion of implanting them with a control chip, not to mention that there was no prior evidence of him killing off his own employees provided they were competent at their jobs. Sure enough, there's more to the story. He's actually been indoctrinated.

Captain Armando-Owen Bailey

Captain (later Commander) Armando-Owen Bailey

Not too old for this shit just yet.

"I'm with them [formalities] up until they keep people from doing their jobs."

Voiced by: Michael Hogan

A human Captain of C-Sec, he unofficially acts as a liaison during Shepard's time on the Citadel. He's not big on formalities, but nevertheless gets promoted to Commander by the start of Mass Effect 3.

---

• Anti-Hero: He is mostly a good guy, but he is more than willing to bend the law and work with criminals if it helps keep the peace.
• A Day in the Limelight: Mass Effect: Inquisition, where it's revealed that Bailey ended up killing Pallin while investigating him under Udina's orders. Of course, he believes that Pallin's innocent of whatever he was accused of despite evidence to the contrary.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Engages in some with Shepard during the Cerberus attack on the Citadel.
  Shepard: Bailey! What are you doing here?!
  Bailey: I'm getting my ass shot off me trying to retake headquarters!
• Commanding Coolness: Gets promoted to this by the time you meet him in 3. He hates it.
  Shepard: ...Congratulations?
• Cowboy Cop: Bailey compares policing the Wards to patrolling New York City, and prepares himself and his officers accordingly.
  Bailey: [when Shepard questions some of his actions] This isn't the Presidium! [...] Down here we've got drugs, organized crime and murder. Policing a Ward is like policing New York City.
• Da Chief: For Zakera Ward in 2, then moves up into even higher echelons in 3.
• Desk Jockey: He complains about being one of these after being Kicked Upstairs in the third game.
• Dirty Cop: A Zig-Zagging Trope. Bailey is obviously crooked, as he's willing to torture suspects and makes under-the-table deals with thugs, but at the same time he's more of a Pragmatic Hero; he's actually a good person since he's doing these things because adhering the inflexible rules wouldn't get the job of keeping the peace done in the gritty life of the Wards. He's also not obstructive in any way to Shepard, Paragon or Renegade.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first meeting with Shepard when Shepard is listed as dead. He demonstrates his willingness to bend the law for the sake of good by making a technically illegal altercation of records, saving Shepard a lot of bureaucratic headaches.
• Foil: Towards Executive Pallin. Unlike Pallin, who was a by-the-book cop and deeply distrusted Spectres because of their disregard for rules, Bailey is willing and able to bend the rules if he feels it gets the job done, and is perfectly willing to request and use a Spectre's authority granted to him to move things along.
• Friend on the Force: Acts as one to Shepard.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Will bargain with crooks if it ultimately means it'll keep peace on the Citadel.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Willing to engage in dirty business to keep the peace, but he's anything but a thug — see below.
• Knight in Sour Armor: His divorce, estrangement from his children, and the things he's seen on the job have made him pretty sour. Still does his best on the job though.
• Made of Iron: During the Citadel coup in 3, he takes a shot to the gut and just shrugs it off.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: If Wrex confronts Shepard for sabotaging the genophage cure and is subsequently gunned down, Bailey will wonder what set him off. If you don't tell the truth and say Wrex just went crazy, he'll say that it doesn't surprise him, given how the genophage has devastated the krogan and left them with nothing to live for, not knowing that it was thanks to a decision you made.
• Old-Fashioned Copper: On your first trip to the Citadel, you overhear him encouraging a younger officer to "make [the suspect] scream a little" to extract a confession, and then offers to do it himself if she can't handle it.
• Odd Friendship: With Paragon Shepard. Shepard might disapprove of his style and methods of policing, but nonetheless it's clear the two have nothing but an honest respect for each other.
• Noble Bigot: Subverted. Although this trope often goes hand in hand with Old-Fashioned Copper, Bailey is one of the few NPCs in the series to avoid this. During Thane's quest he shows empathy towards the alien population's fear of humans, observing that many of them have lived on the station since before humanity discovered space travel. All the more impressive given that many of the C-Sec officers throughout the game are very openly speciesist, including (at first) Garrus.
• Parental Abandonment: He considers this the root of many of the Citadel's social problems, which is why he jumps at the chance to help Thane and Kolyat. He'll eventually admit, albeit implicitly, that he's been in Thane's shoes himself — "You think he's the only man who ever screwed up raising a son?"
• Pragmatic Hero: He does whatever he needs to for the job to get done, but he is unfailingly just.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Perfectly willing to help Shepard out, even when it involves breaking the law.
• Retcon: An accidental one regarding his name. A background news report in the second game refers to him as Owen Bailey, but the Lair of the Shadow Broker archives refer to him as Armando Bailey. A later Cerberus Daily News report patched up the mistake by giving him the rather unwieldy first name "Armando-Owen."
• Retirony: Defied. He tells you he wants to retire to a nice place in the foothills on Earth, but then quickly adds that he won't be doing so any time soon.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: His excuse for being a dirty cop.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Basically how he got his job, though unintentionally.

Detective Anaya

Nice guns. Try not to use 'em in my district.

"You're free to go, justicar. It's been an honor having you in my station... and it's nice you didn't kill me, too."

Voiced by: Cindy Robinson

Anaya is a cop on Illium that Shepard meets when looking for Samara. She is quite helpful, as Shepard's cause might draw Samara away from Illium — and therefore keep Anaya from having to arrest and be subsequently killed by the justicar.

---

• Bullying a Dragon: Though not by choice, only by proxy: her superiors ordered her to detain Samara, even though Samara's code would force her to kill Anaya to avoid it. Fortunately, both of them are willing to be reasonable about it.
• By-the-Book Cop: She only accepts your evidence against Pitne For because Samara vouches for you.
• Da Chief: To the cops in her district.
• Deadpan Snarker: Very much so.
  Shepard: You're not going to lock her up?
  Samara: Any attempt to put me in a passive restraint system will be regarded as a hostile action, and I will be forced to attack.
  Anaya: Yeah, that.
• Friend on the Force: Will follow up on some of Shepard's leads if you go to her.
• Hero-Worshipper: Like most asari, is in total awe of a justicar like Samara, even if that justicar will probably end up eventually killing her.
  "It's a great honor to have her here, but I could do without the honor of having her kill me."
• Honor Before Reason: She'll follow orders even if it's guaranteed to get her killed by a Justicar.
• I Want Grandkids: States once everything's over she now has a story to tell her grandkids. And that she might now live long enough to have them.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: She makes it very clear that she will follow her orders to detain Samara if Samara does not leave Illium, even knowing that her odds of survival are close to zero.
  Anaya: I'm a cop and I know my duty.
• Noble Bigot with a Badge: At the end of Samara's recruitment mission, Anaya admits that she didn't expect so much from a human.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She's willing to work with Shepard and Samara to make sure they can do what they need to.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When dealing with Renegade Shepard, who's much ruder toward her for no real reason. At the end of everything, she'll admit she's not sorry to see them go.

Niftu Cal

"I am a biotic god! I think things...and they happen!"

Voiced by: Mark Meer

Yeah. This guy. A member of Pitne For's trade group, he ran afoul of the Eclipse sisters after Pitne neglected to tell them the red sand he sold them was potentially lethal. Niftu wound up pumped full of his own product and left to wander Nos Astra, stoned out of his gourd, while Pitne scrambled to get off-world.

He has a higher "meme-per-character" count than anyone short of Harbinger.

---

• A God Am I: A biotic god, to be exact.
• Ascended Meme: So popular that he spawned a number of in-jokes in the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. The biotic challenge group rewards you with the banner "Biotic God" with a picture of a biotic volus. There's also a volus adept character called, you guessed it, a biotic god.
• Battle Aura: Unfortunately, it's the most impressive trick he has.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The victim of one if he faces Wasea.
• Intoxication Ensues: The reason for his odd behavior. If he is spoken to afterwards, he is rather embarrassed.
• Large Ham: His "biotic god" speech is quite over-the-top.
• No, You
  Shepard: You need help.
  Niftu: You need help! You stand before the mightiest biotic ever!
• Shaped Like Itself: "I am a great wind that will sweep all before me like... a great wind! A great biotic wind!"
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Tanked-up merchant with no combat experience versus the leader of a murderous Amazon Brigade. "I shall toss Wasea about like a rag doll!" He does not. You can knock him out to prevent this or...
  Shepard: Charge...
  Jack: That was mean. But damn funny.
  [Niftu proceeds to get absolutely slaughtered]
• Took a Level in Badass: Implied to have achieved this off-screen in Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC, as he managed to somehow get the second-highest score in the Armax Arsenal Arena, with Aria T'Loak being the only one with a higher score.
• Wizard Duel: He fires a tiny Warp field that 'pops' an inch from Wasea's nose, then turns and walks away. She unceremoniously one-shots him, knocking him into the air and behind a few barrels just as Shepard and co. walk in.

Matriarch Aethyta

Sorry. My father was a krogan.

"What can I get ya, babe? Sorry, no sex. I just cleaned the bar."

Voiced by: Claudia Black

An asari Matriarch working in the Eternity bar on Illium because she had the blue laughed off her ass when suggesting her people get their maiden stages doing more productive things, and make the effort to study and build more mass relays. Bothered, but not too worried, about being confronted by Conrad Verner, and implies she would have dealt with him a lot more violently than Shepard.

---

• All Girls Like Ponies: Lampshaded by Aethyta, saying she got Liara a squad of asari commandos because she was too old for a pony.
• Art Evolution: She gets a slight redesign in the third game, with more purple skin and older facial features.
• The Bartender:Shepard notes that Matriarchs are usually wise elders who give advice. She replies basically that's what a bartender does. She only takes bartending jobs to keep an eye on Liara without arousing suspicion.
• Bouncer: Implied to be Aethyta's other job at Eternity. Fittingly, her father was a krogan.
  Eternity's Owner: Take her away! Before I have my bartender throw her out!
• Brain Bleach: Talks about her mother putting on her old commando leathers for 'special nights with Dad' with embarrassment, and later evokes a similar response from one of her kids while reminiscing about the other parent's breasts.
• Cassandra Truth: Whether or not she believes in the Reapers before 3, the events of the first game led her to advise her people on Thessia that "art and philosophy and political prowess wasn't gonna cut it", but they didn't want to hear it.
  Aethyta: We can't go one asari lifetime without some big war breaking out! We need to get our daughters working earlier, not spending their wild maiden years stripping or in merc bands.
• Combat Pragmatist: Notes that the asari aren't made to fight Reapers, so is willing to let others do it.
  Liara: My reports don't show a lot of activity from the asari military against the Reapers.
  Aethyta: Cmon, you know how asari work. Infiltration and sabotage.
  Liara: But against Reaper forces, that's...
  Aethyta: I know. About as useful as tits on a hanar. Good thing we've got the turians and the krogan do the heavy lifting. Our people just aren't built for the front ranks.
• Cool Old Lady: Thanks to being a Deadpan Snarker and Dirty Old Woman.
• Deadpan Snarker: Nearly everything she says includes a sarcastic quip.
• Dirty Old Woman: Says she goes for asses in 2. And in 3 she waxes poetic about Nezzy's rack. She also makes a pass at Shepard the first time they talk to her by implying that she would have sex with Shepard if she hadn't just cleaned the bar.
  Aethyta: If it's all civilized, you're not doing it right.
• Disappeared Dad: Well... technically.
• Easter Egg: If you order a "mystery drink" at the kiosk or just get flat smashed, then talk to her again, her character model is of a much younger and more attractive asari due to Shepard having the Beer Goggles on.
• Flat "What": Her reaction when Conrad says that he heard the bar is a front for dealing red sand.^note For one, even if the bar did sell it, it's legal on Illium.
• Funny Background Event: Her reaction to Conrad's wife paying for his ticket out is a Face Palm.
• Hard Head: It might be partially because she is half krogan, but that is most likely not the only cause since she can take out a full krogan with a headbutt.
• Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Has had sex with at least one elcor.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: She gives Shepard a barely-veiled threat along these lines if they've been romancing Liara in the third game. Shepard can throw it right back at her once they find out exactly why Aethyta has been spying on her.
• Insistent Terminology: She insists that she's Liara's father, not her other mother, because she "didn't pop her out. Anthropocentric bag of dicks."
• Ironic Echo: If you're romancing Liara, a Renegade interrupt lets you throw "Nobody messes with my girl" back in her face by saying you won't allow any assassination attempts on Liara. She is impressed.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Asks Shepard to rein in Conrad Verner before she decides to beat him to death with his own spine.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: She's faced a lot of crap.
• The Lad-ette: To be expected. Her dad was a krogan, after all.
• Lamarck Was Right: "Scientists say that stuff about us getting genetic material from our fathers is crap. Seems like I got a bit of his mouth, though."
  • Nature Versus Nurture: She was raised by a krogan father, so it would have rubbed off, genetics or no.
• Made of Iron: In one of the Shadow Broker archive videos, Matriarch Aethyta headbutts a krogan... and the krogan falls to the ground.
• Misplaced Retribution: Due to her not realizing how insidiously powerful Reaper indoctrination is, she always believed that Benezia joined Saren more-or-less of her own will. It's not until speaking with Liara in the third game that she learns that Benezia truly did try to fight Sovereign's indoctrination to the end.
• Mrs. Robinson: She flirts with Shepard quite a bit. The fact that she's Liara's dad plays it even closer.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Her view towards asari's hat. She believes that they should be doing more constructive things with their Maiden years, and warns that there's a big war every asari lifetime, so they ought to focus less on culture, more on preparing.
• Never Mess with Granny: As Aethyta herself puts it, she's no commando but she's had a thousand years to learn how to fight dirty and is implied to be a powerful biotic even for an asari. When she worked at Eternity it was implied that she doubled as the bouncer and a video in Lair of the Shadow Broker shows her taking down a krogan with a headbutt.
  Aethyta: Thanks for taking care of that crazy guy. Saves me having to beat him to death with his own spine. That makes the other customers nervous.
• The Nicknamer:
  • Well, she only gives one example rather than tendency, but it's memorable enough to stick to mind: she calls Matriarch Benezia "Nezzy". And refers to Shepard as 'babe' in 2.
  • Also inspired Benezia's pet name for Liara, "Little Wing".
• Noodle Incident: She uses one from her late-maiden/early-matron years to stress the importance of not eating food from the wrong chirality. Namely, what happened the time she witnessed a krogan drink a liquefied turian on a dare.
  Aethyta: Nobody came out of that one looking pretty.
• Only Sane Man: Was laughed off Thessia for suggesting that they make a serious effort to study and duplicate the Mass Relays. After the third game becomes even more so after the relays blow or are damaged in any ending in which the asari species survives. In 3 it does seem like she has a lot more authority; keeping watch on the Shadow Broker aside, two random sidequests have her namedropped. A commando has her approval to get writings on being a warrior made into required reading, and another asari looking into improved biotic amp interfaces mentions her.
• Papa Wolf: Technically falls under this rather than Mama Bear since she's the father in the situation. Either way, she has been making sure nobody messes with Liara. The jobs at both Eternity and Apollo's Café were to keep the other matriarchs satisfied that Liara was under control so they wouldn't order a hit.
  • Mama Bear: Presumably played straight in regards to Liara's unseen half-hanar sister.
• Parental Abandonment: In a hilarious, if a bit twisted, way. Her father fought in the Rachni Wars, while her mother fought in the Krogan Rebellions. Aethyta's mother figured it out very early, but stayed quiet while her husband boasted. When he found out when he was pushing a thousand and she was a matriarch, they told Aethyta, who was barely over a hundred, that they would fight each other to the death, and that she should "love whichever one survived. Turned out to be damned easy! Since neither one did."
• Really Gets Around: "You find peace in whatever arms will hold you." Apart from Benezia, the lovers she sees fit to mention are a turian, an elcor, and a hanar, the latter one whom she even had a child with.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Benezia's Blue. Aethyta is a Deadpan Snarker with a rebellious streak and who's not afraid to solve arguments with a headbutt, whereas Benezia was reserved, traditional and diplomatic.
  • Which is possibly why she has concerns about Shepard's friendship (or relationship) with Liara, as they are likewise the Red to her Blue. This is also likely the reason why she approves more if Shepard takes the Renegade Interrupt and stands up to her, defending their relationship by using her own words against her.
• The Reveal: She has been confirmed to be Liara's father. Not that Liara didn't already figure it out. (seen here.)
• Seen It All: Almost. When told Benezia was indoctrinated, she'll state wistfully that even though she's lived over a thousand years, she hasn't seen it all.
  Aethyta: Thousand years old and I still don't know crap.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Uses the terms "anthropocentric" and "bag of dicks" in the same breath.
• Too Much Information: Liara's reaction to what she says about Benezia's magnificent rack.
• The Unreveal: If Shepard tells Liara that Aethyta is her father, she'll reply she knows already. She'll also tell Aethyta that she knows that the latter is keeping an eye on her for the Asari government. Aethyta will tell her what did she expect when she was threatening to flay people alive as an information broker?
• Use Your Head: As stated above, there a video in Lair of the Shadow Broker shows her take down a krogan with a headbutt. She insists to her daughter that this is perfectly normal for asari who have krogan in their family tree.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Shep can ask her about what it's like to live for a thousand years. Rather than talk about comparative lifespans, Aethyta says it's violent, good news is the exception, and you take comfort where you can.
  "Then one day you wake up, your figure's gotten matriarchal, and everyone else is too young to remember how the quarians looked inside those suits."
• Wolf Whistle: Whistles the two-note glissando when fondly recalling Benezia's rack.

Pitne For

Shepard: Why are the mercs after you?
Pitne: I have no idea! We're innocent merchants!

Voiced by: Chris Postle

A volus merchant in the Nos Astra spaceport on Ilium. After his business partner is killed by Eclipse mercenaries, he finds himself involved in Samara's investigation. It's later revealed that Eclipse is after him for selling them a biotic-enhancing drug and mysteriously neglecting to mention its potentially lethal side-effects.

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• Affably Evil: He's awfully polite to Shepard despite being a smuggler and drug-peddeler. If you give him the proof of his criminal activities rather than turn it over to Detective Anaya, he'll compliment your advice to not write it down when he's doing something illegal, and notes that Shepard is a better criminal than him.
• Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel sorry that the mercs are hunting him when he conveniently withheld information about the drugs he sold them. His partner is also likely one of these.
• Blatant Lies: It's immediately obvious that he's not being straight with Shepard when the latter asks him about his involvement.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Well, more like Card Carrying Dirtbag Salesman.
  Shepard: It sounds like you're a swindler and your actions have finally caught up with you.
  Pitne: True and true.
• Cracking Up: Shep does this to procure Pitne's passcard into the Eclipse base, prompting Pitne to hand it right over.
• Dirty Coward: He's caught trying to escape all the trouble he caused with Eclipse.
• Villain Has a Point: He forewarns you that all members of the Eclipse Sisterhood are cold-blooded killers who commit a murder to earn their uniform. This information becomes pertinent during your encounter with Elnora, an initiate of the Sisterhood who claims not to have understood what they were really like but is pulling a False Innocence Trick on you and was in fact responsible for the killing of Pitne's murdered partner.
• With Friends Like These...: Shepard and co. encounter Niftu Cal, a fellow volus who was part of Pitne's trade group, while hunting the mercs. In retaliation for Pitne selling them biotic-enhancing chemicals without telling them how dangerous they were to the user, they pumped Cal so full of drugs that by the time Shepard finds him, he's as high as a kite. Also applies to Pitne's murdered partner, for whom Pitne sheds no tears, insisting that he knew the risks when he took to spacing. Referenced when your squadmates make comments about how Pitne cares more about money than friends.

Lantar Sidonis

"I wake up every night, sick and sweating. Each of their faces staring at me, accusing me. I'm already a dead man. I don't sleep. Food has no taste. Some days...I just want it to be over."

Voiced by: Jason Singer

A turian former member of Garrus's vigilante crew in Omega who betrayed the team, resulting in the deaths of the entire crew except for Garrus. This makes him the focus of Garrus's rage when the latter finally tracks down Sidonis.

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• Anti-Villain: Everything he did was only out of fear for his safety.
• Bond One-Liner: Garrus delivers one of these if he succeeds in killing Sidonis.
  Garrus: Betrayal repaid, Sidonis.
• Boom, Headshot!: What Garrus does to him if you don't stop him.
• Cruel Mercy: When Shepard points out that Sidonis is badly suffering.
  Garrus: He still has his life!
  Shepard: Look at him, Garrus. He's not alive. There's nothing left to kill.
• Despair Event Horizon: So much so that Sidonis invites death by walking out into view of Garrus, whom he knows is attempting to kill him.
• Dirty Coward; He sold out his entire team to save his own skin, then ran before Garrus could catch up to him. He deeply regrets his actions later on, driven so far over the Despair Event Horizon out of shame, he practically feels dead inside.
• Forced into Evil: Mass Effect: Homeworlds reveals that the Blue Suns captured him and "coerced" him into selling Garrus out. Given he was a member of Garrus' squad said coercion was likely Cold-Blooded Torture.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: It's more, "If You Kill Him, You Will Completely Lose Yourself", but Paragon Shepard spends the mission trying to convince Garrus that it's not like him to be so intent on killing his former friend. What truly separates the Paragon approaches for Garrus's loyalty mission and Zaeed's mission are a difference of 20 years. Whereas Zaeed had only recently met Shepard and before that had spent 20 years hunting down the man whom he thought was his friend, Garrus was friends with Shepard before, and had only recently turned to vigilantism. As a result, it's unnecessary to charm Garrus into realizing that he was only out for revenge like it takes with Zaeed, as Garrus knows and trusts Shepard enough that he can let it go on his own.
• Mercy Kill: With how empty Sidonis' life is, his death can be seen this way.
  Sidonis: No more sleepless nights...
  Garrus: For either of us, Sidonis.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He deeply regrets selling out Garrus' team.
• Precision F-Strike
  Shepard: I'm the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head.
  Sidonis: ...Fuck.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: What Garrus thinks he's doing.
• That Man Is Dead: When Shepard calls him by his real name, Sidonis angrily retorts with "Don't ever say that name aloud!"
• Tragic Villain: Talking to him shows just how guilty he feels over betraying Garrus, and he can't even eat or sleep because of what he's done. If spared, he attempts to turn himself in to C-Sec for the "murder" of their squad, with the police being unsure what to do since he didn't directly kill anyone, it happened outside Citadel jurisdiction, and there's technically no proof.
• We Used to Be Friends: Was one of Garrus' partners until he sold out the team. Tragically, this sentiment seems to be one-sided on Garrus' part as the deeply regretful Sidonis seems to still think highly of his former boss.

Joram Talid

"Taking back our ward is only the first step! We must remove the cowards and appeasers on the Council!"

Voiced by: William Salyers

A turian politician on the Citadel campaigning for office. In reality, is extremely anti-human and is affiliated with Blood Pack mercenaries. He becomes the target of Thane's son, Kolyat, when the latter is hired by a pro-human criminal to kill Talid, forcing Shepard and Thane to intervene to prevent Kolyat from becoming like Thane.

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• Arc Villain: While he's technically the target whom Shepard and Thane are trying to prevent Kolyat from killing, it's immediately clear that Talid isn't a morally clean individual.
• Asshole Victim: It's hard to feel sorry for this guy if Shepard puts a slug in his head. Shepard even states how badly Talid deserved it, and Bailey doesn't even bother to arrest anyone over it, though this likely also has to do with Shepard being a Spectre.
  Shepard: He was a racist and a criminal. Isn't that enough?
  Thane: To some, I suppose.
• Call-Back: Talid has no markings, something that Garrus noted was the mark of liars or politicians.
• Corrupt Politician: He hires Blood Pack mercenaries to shake down business owners on the Citadel.
• Dirty Coward: Even though one of his talking points is the number of humans in c-sec, he doesn't resist calling them to save his own skin.
• Evil vs. Evil: Elias Kellum is a criminal human who hires Kolyat to assassinate him.
• Fantastic Racism: The entire point of his campaign.
• Hypocrite: Naturally. His entire campaign is based around cleaning up organized crime on Zakera Ward, which he preaches to voters before going to extort human businesses. But his hypocrisy is especially noteworthy in that while he complains about the human presence in C-Sec, his first reaction upon being sighted by Kolyat is to call for C-Sec.
• Irony: For all his rhetoric, the Paragon outcome has him saved from a non-human by humans.
• Karma Houdini: The Paragon ending, though what happens with his campaign once it comes to light that he's working with the Blood Pack to extort human businesses is unclear. Considering he's not heard of at all after Mass Effect 2, it can be assumed that his campaign failed.
• No True Scotsman: Like Saren and Warden Kuril, Talid lacks the clan markings that most turians have on their face. This serves a dual meaning, as Talid is both untrustworthy and a politician, with the term "barefaced" being turian slang for politicians.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The Renegade solution to dealing with him.
• Shoot the Hostage: Shepard puts it best.
  Shepard: Hostages only work when your enemy cares that they live.
  Thane: ...Interesting solution.
• Shout-Out: When asking what the humans have done for any of the other races, a salarian replies that he likes their food in a reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian.

Kolyat Krios

"What, so you came to get my forgiveness? So you can die in peace or something?"

Voiced by: Quinton Flynn

Thane's son. After Irikah's death and Thane's disappearance, Kolyat sets out in his father's footsteps, on his way to becoming a professional assassin. He ends up accepting a contract to kill Joram Talid, a turian anti-human politician on the Citadel. Kolyat becomes the subject of Thane's loyalty mission, where Shepard helps them reconnect and tries to stop the assassination before it happens.

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• Alliterative Name: Though his full name is never actually used by anyone.
• Antagonistic Offspring: Subverted. Kolyat isn't evil, just misguided, nor is he directly after Thane. Shepard can even suggest he's trying to follow in Thane's footsteps on some level. Thane doesn't care for the idea.
• Calling the Old Man Out: He's really got it out for his father when you show up.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: It turns out that Thane had set out to avenge Irikah by hunting down her killers. He left Kolyat for too long, however, causing the rift between them to develop.
• Due to the Dead: If you completed Thane's loyalty mission and Thane survived until the Citadel Coup, Kolyat will be there at his side during his death, during which he will say prayers for his father and Shepard to see them to the afterlife. In Citadel, he asks Shepard to hold a memorial ceremony for Thane at their apartment.
• Flat "What": Says one when Thane explains that it was his fault Irikah died, that her killers went after her to get to Thane.
• Heel–Faith Turn: If convinced to turn away from his destructive path, in the third game he mentions spending the last year studying the Drell Religion, with the implication that he's decided to honour his father by becoming a priest, rather than an assassin.
• Hidden Depths: Despite the hatred he's built up for Thane, it's generally implied he doesn't want to. He notes that he used to look up to his father as a child, and Shepard can propose that his attempts to become a Professional Killer are an attempt to feel closer to Thane, which is the latter's greatest fear. If you get him out of trouble, Captain Bailey can get him running vigilante for a time, before he takes a more legitimate job after 2 and he cements his positive turnabout by becoming a priest of the Drell Religion, which Thane notes is exceedingly rare among young drell nowadays.
• Morality Pet: Together with his mother, for Thane. Thane's greatest wish as a father is that Kolyat will not follow his path and become a good man.
• Professional Killer: Or at least, he's on his way to becoming one.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: This speech from Citadel sums up his new feelings about his father nicely.
  Kolyat: When I was little, I thought my father had it all figured out. He said men must be loyal to their friends and dangerous to their enemies. But when he prevented me from... from hurting someone, he had changed. He said enemies and ego are not as important as loved ones. I didn't want to hear it. I was... lost. I called him a hypocrite in a thousand different ways, said that he was going soft. Now... I think maybe he did have it all figured out.
• Say Your Prayers: Finishes Thane's prayer as he lays dying in 3.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Bears a strong resemblance to his father, albeit with a more bluish skin tone and a recolored set of clothes.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?: He reminds Thane that he was barely around while Irikah was alive, much less when she died. Bonus points for the Achievement being called "Cat in the Cradle".
  Thane: You're angry because I wasn't there when your mother died.
  Kolyat: You weren't there when she was alive! Why would you be there when she died?!

Doctor Gavin Archer

Even amid chaos there are lessons to be learned.

"If my work can spare a million mothers from having to mourn a million sons, my conscience will rest easy."

Voiced by: Simon Templeman

A Cerberus researcher that was in charge of Project Overlord, a Cerberus project designed to find a way to communicate with and fully control the geth in an attempt to prevent a possible second war with them by linking a human mind to the geth Hive Mind via a VI. His younger brother, David, volunteered for the project (or so he claims), but the VI went rogue, leading to disaster.

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• All for Nothing: He comes to this horrifying realization if David remained with Overlord, and the geth conflict was resolved before meeting with him again. This pushes him into committing suicide.
  • What’s worse is that even without these conditions, the Project was still ultimately pointless, as Legion reveals that the majority of geth have no interest in war with organics and he himself willingly acts as a conduit to communicate with organics.
• The Atoner: He quit Cerberus after the events of Overlord and is more than willing to help Shepard to defeat the Reapers in Mass Effect 3.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: If Shepard never did the Overlord DLC, Gavin will sadly say of having to kill his brother with a nuclear strike, "It all seemed so harmless."
• Cain and Abel: A non-lethal version, where he presses his own brother into an overwhelming, mind-destroying VI link.
• Crocodile Tears: A variation. He makes a seemingly heartfelt plea for Shepard to let him become The Atoner and take care of David. If Shepard says no, it slips very quickly and he shouts "No! He's too valuable!" and tries to shoot Shepard.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Reveals in 3 that he refused the Illusive Man's demands to restart Overlord by finding a replacement for David and handed in his resignation by telling his employer that if "his intention was to deal with the Devil, he only had to look in the mirror". The Illusive Man's response was to put a price on Archer's head.
• Driven to Suicide: If David was sent to Grissom Academy and you fail to save him from the Cerberus attack or just keep quiet about it to make Gavin squirm; or if David wasn’t sent to Grissom and the geth issue was resolved before speaking to Gavin, (meaning what he did was completely pointless), he pulls out a pistol and walks away to "escape from this nightmare." You hear a gunshot a second later.
  Archer: God be with you, Commander. He was never with me.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He does love David in his way, but his desire and desperation for vindication lead him to horrifically exploit his brother. That said, he is deeply relieved if Shepard tells him they rescued David from Grissom Academy when Cerberus attacked it.
  Archer: ( if Shepard freed David and rescues him from Grissom Academy) Commander? Thank you for saving David. both times.
• Fatal Flaw: In 2, his desire for vindication. You can already see the signs of him realising how badly wrong things have gone and the horror of his own actions, such as him looking wistfully at a picture of him with his brother David, both smiling, and his comment about "Man's reach exceeding his grasp" at the start of the DLC, but he lacks the moral fortitude to be completely upfront about what happened at Overlord and to admit to himself and others that it was not worth it, even if "It all seemed harmless." Even at the end, when the monstrosity of his actions is screaming at him from his brother's torturous position, he still wants to keep doing what's he's been doing to get something out of it all. Later averted in 3, at which point he's all done rationalizing, and if the Paragon ending was picked what he wants most is to know that his brother is alright.
• Heel–Face Turn: In 3. Shepard's still not happy with him.
  Shepard: I have to go, and I'm not gonna pretend it was nice to see you again.
• Heel Realization: By 3, he realizes the horror of what he did; if Shepard took David away, the Illusive Man asks him to do a second Project Overlord. Gavin responds by telling him that "if he wanted to find the devil, he need only look in the mirror." Subsequently, he quits Cerberus, destroys his research notes and hardware, and is among the ex-Cerberus scientists that Jacob is protecting. If you go so far as to screw with him or let David die or resolve the geth issue without saving David and before speaking to Gavin, he commits suicide.
• I Did What I Had to Do: What he claims, but it doesn't come anywhere near justifying what he did.
• Kill on Sight: Every Cerberus soldier was given this order on him after he ended Project Overlord and defected from Cerberus.
• My God, What Have I Done?: A delayed one, but he eventually has this reaction to what he did with Project Overlord.
• Pistol-Whipping: Delivered to him by Paragon Shepard.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He callously experiments on and exploits his autistic brother, David; even prior to the final experiment, Gavin was happy to use him as a human dictaphone, even shouting at him for not reacting on time. He even dehumanizes him as "a human computer," and claims that his mind is "more alien than an actual alien," bringing to mind all-too-real issues of the discrimination and abuse people with mental illnesses and neurodivergent outlooks suffer.
• Reformed, but Rejected: While he does attempt to become The Atoner in 3, he's well aware that nothing can make up for his horrific actions against his brother.
  Archer: [talking to Shepard] I know you think I'm a monster, and you're right.
  • If Shepard never did the Project Overlord DLC, enough prodding on what happened will make Shepard a little suspicious that Archer did something far worse than he's letting on.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: His project turns into this. Almost everyone associated with the project gets killed. Legion reveals the majority of the geth have no interest in another war, and Legion himself is perfectly happy to communicate voluntarily with humans. So in the end, everything that Gavin put David through was pointless. This is especially evident if you play the mission after recruiting Legion. If Shepard never did the Project Overlord DLC, Archer reveals the area had to be nuked to stop David.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: At the end of the DLC, Archer will insist he must try to continue the experiment because he needs to not have wasted time and lives on nothing. By 3, he's given up.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Averted. Gavin fully understands why Shepard views him as a monster and admits that even he knows that nothing he does can make up for what he did to his brother.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Shepard's stance on his actions by 3, Archer doesn't think any better of himself.
  Archer: Not a day goes by where my dreams aren't haunted by what I did to David. All I can do is hope that one day he forgives me.
• Too Clever by Half: Pressure from the Illusive Man to produce results pushed Archer to run a dangerous experiment without even running any simulations beforehand. It all went downhill from there.
• Too Dumb to Live: In the Paragon ending, when Shepard declares his intention to free David, Archer pulls a pistol- probably not the wisest move to use on a man/woman with infinitely more combat experience who doesn't need another excuse to kill him. Fortunately for him, Shepard merely settles for disarming Archer, then kicking his ass.
  Shepard: I've seen enough of your cruelty to know [David] will never be free from it here. I'm taking him away.
  Archer No, leave him! He's too valuable!
  Shepard: [pistol-whips Archer, then jams the Carnifex pistol under his nose] You even think about coming after your brother, and this bullet will be waiting for you. Then we'll see who's valuable.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: In this case, it doesn't.
• Villainous Breakdown: Has a brief one in Overlord's Paragon ending.
• Walking Spoiler: Aside from the fact that he's a scientist working for Cerberus, nearly everything else about him would constitute a spoiler for Overlord.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: What he does to his brother is morally abhorrent but his ultimate goal is to save lives by preventing future conflicts with the geth. By the time of the third game he's had a full Heel Realization and refused the Illusive Man's offer to make a second attempt at controlling the geth.

Blasto

"Enkindle this."

"This one does not share top billing!"

Voiced by: Mark Meer

The fictional star of ''Blasto the Jellyfish Stings'", a popular hanar Exploitation Film. By the third game, his series has expanded to six movies, and in the Citadel DLC, in production of a seventh and pre-production of an eighth.

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• Anti-Hero: In his movies.
• Ascended Meme: Started out as a joke on Bioware forums, and then was incorporated into the games as a fictional character.
• Big "NO!": Gets a completely flat one after his elcor partner Bubin is shot.
• Beware the Silly Ones: He's a hanar who also happens to be a Spectre.
• The Casanova: "He's got a lover in every port..."
  "Did someone mention an Enkindler? This one is familiar with enkindling. It has enkindled multiple females across the galaxy."
• Casting Gag: Blasto is voiced by Mark Meer (Male Shepard), while his Love Interest in Blasto 6 is voiced by Jennifer Hale (FemShep).
• Cowboy Cop: Plays one.
  Da Chief: Bottom line: You can't touch the vorcha. He's got diplomatic immunity.
  Blasto: Then this one will not attempt diplomacy.
• Day in the Limelight: He got an official tie-in comic called "Blasto: Eternity is Forever".
• Dull Surprise: He's a hanar, so this comes naturally.
• Expospeak Gag: "This one has grown tired of your solid waste excretions."
• Expy: Basically a Hanar version of Dirty Harry.
• Guns Akimbo: "...and a gun in every tentacle." Exemplified in the Citadel DLC where he brandishes half a dozen Carnifex Pistols at Shepard.
• It's All About Me: "This one does not share top billing."
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Blasto may be a Cowboy Cop, but he genuinely cares about Bubin and Bubin's sister, honey.
  • Jerkass: His actor, on the other hand, just comes across as this.
• Loophole Abuse: Bubin insisted Blasto bring in the corrupt vorcha ambassador by the book. Blasto lets the ambassador draw a gun on him, letting Blasto immolate the guy in self-defense.
• Lost in Character: The actor doesn't seem quite clear on the concept that he isn't really the SPECTRE and badass hero he plays in the movies. Of course, he is on set at the time.
• Memetic Badass: In-Universe, though Shepard is rather unimpressed.
  Shepard: I've been in the "club" for 3 years now.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Invoked by Bubin, who's naturally furious when he find Blasto in bed with his sister.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Both his character and his actor.
  • The Council thought that Blasto, the first hanar SPECTRE would play by the rules. They were wrong.
  • The hanar are well known for being ceaselessly polite, but Blasto's actor is smugly dismissive to Commander Shepard, the Hero of the Citadel, and Javik, an individual whom the hanar revere as gods. The only other hanar that's a jackass is the one who's indoctrinated, and he's not even as big a jackass (though he is far more evil and dangerous).
• Narm Charm/So Bad, It's Good: Blasto 6 and the cheap production values of Blasto 7 imply that this is the large reason it's so popular in-universe.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: Blasto isn't exactly nice, but he is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, while his actor is a smugly dismissive prima donna.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In-universe, he takes a lot of Shepard's traits. He's a badass Spectre who doesn't play by the rules, tried to warn the Council about the Reapers and killed Sovereign in the Battle for the Citadel. His next movie involves him curing the genophage. Shepard thinks he's just a "big stupid jellyfish". He's also voiced by Mark Meer, which means he will even sound like male Shepard, which leads to one of the most epic Acting for Two scenes in the Citadel DLC.
• The Prima Donna: His actor appears to be one in the Citadel DLC, immediately insulting Shepard and Javik by refusing to share top billing for Blasto 7 with them. Even Paragon Shepard, who seemed willing to go along with it at first, eventually finds it too hard to put with him. To emphasize this, it's the Paragon interrupts that cause you to intercede and tell him to stuff it.
  Shepard: Uh, THIS one is the hero of the Citadel! I'll handle this.
  Blasto: This one insists! (shove)
  Shepard: (shoves him back even harder) This one DOESN'T CARE!!!
  Javik: (blasts the Vorcha councilor) THIS one wishes he was still frozen in the refridgerator!
  • The size of his ego is also shown when he's downright dismissive of Javik, a member of the race the hanar revere as Gods.
• Primal Scene: In Blasto 6, between Blasto and Bubin's sister. As they are a hanar and elcor, it consists of ridiculously polite, monotonous "dirty talk", that is as hilarious as it sounds. The fact that they are voiced by Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale only makes it even more hilarious.
• Show Within a Show: One of the most popular film series in the Mass Effect universe.
• Sibling Murder: Blasto killed Sovereign, and now his brother Sluggard wants revenge.
• [Verb] This!: "Enkindle this."

Gunnery Chief

Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space!

Voiced by: Mick Wingert

An officer in the Systems Alliance Marines, most famous for a Large Ham explanation of momentum he is overheard giving to two servicemen in the Citadel's Zakera Ward.

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• Arbitrary Weapon Range: Defied hard. He makes it abundantly clear that if you shoot a weapon in space, it will ruin someone's day whether that is a ship, the planet behind that ship, or some planet ten thousand years from now.
• Genius Bruiser: While never seen fighting, he is a Marine. The genius part comes in with his clear knowledge of physics.
• Large Ham: His explanation on firing a rocket certainly counts.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: His hamminess aside, the point he is trying to make is that once fired, a slug will ultimately hit something with more force than an atomic bomb, so they must aim carefully and be very sure they are firing at the right target.
  Gunnery Chief: That is why you check your targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Cheung, we do not "eyeball it"! This is a weapon of mass destruction! You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!

Erinya

"The galaxy would be a better place if nobody but the asari had ever dragged themselves out of the primordial muck!"

Voiced by: Jane Singer

A rather speciesist representative for Baria Frontiers, currently embroiled in a conflict with any survivors of Zhu's Hope over the terms of a contract to help with their ongoing medical care.

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• Bring It: States she hasn't lost a contract negotiation in three hundred years, and if the Zhu's Hope colonists want to settle the matter in court, "try it."
• Broken Bird: As a pureblood, Erinya was probably always at least a little snooty, but it was the deaths of her wife and daughters which truly pushed her into xenophobia. Once this is found out, Shepard can get her to make concessions to the Zhu's Hope colonists.
• Death of a Child: Her bondmate died on Rannoch in the first stages of the geth rebellion, but it was losing both of her daughters during Sovereign's attack on the Citadel which really broke her.
• Fantastic Racism: One dialogue option has her go on a rant about (in turn) the salarians, the turians, and humans, blaming all of the galaxy's current ills on their combined actions.
• Heel Realization: Shepard can either sympathize with or bully her into understanding that her behavior is completely opposite to that of her bondmate and daughters, all three of whom loved learning about and interacting with other races.
• Hypocrite: Depending on the player's choices, her actions risk harm to another asari, but she doesn't acknowledge that.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Suffice to say her low opinion of every other Council species goes hand in hand with a belief in asari moral supremacy.
• Rules Lawyer: Very haughtily informs Shepard that the terms of the contract the Zhu's Hope colonists signed were perfectly clear and are completely ironclad.
• Saying Too Much: No matter what tack her conversation goes in, Shepard can quickly peg that it's the loss of her family that's motivating Erinya's act of spite.
• While You Were in Diapers: Brings up to Shepard that she's been dealing with contracts while Shepard's ancestors were still burning witches.

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