Unfortunately where Mass Effect is concerned, this is where I belong in the realms of fandom, or weirdness as others might call it. Well, it was ME that brought me to write fan fiction so I think that says a lot about my feelings on the franchise. As game franchises go, this was the one that brought me to the whole world of 'fandom' and all the strangeness that goes with. I was also exposed to many other fandoms, usually via banners protesting the end of ME3, and I just fell right into it.
Now, I said in an earlier post about waifus (common term for a perceived relationship with a fictional character) but I will say that that is said with tongue firmly in cheek. As much as I 'love' the character of Liara T'Soni, I do know where reality lies. You might think that that qualifier is not necessary, but then, you've probably never been to the Bioware Social Network, where it escalated to the point where whole areas of the forums were shut down due to the vitriolic attack and defence of different fanbase's preferred love interest from the game (there is a romance element to Mass Effect).
Our first encounter with the lovely Doctor Liara T'Soni is in the first game, where she is initially introduced as a kind of 'damsel in distress', stuck fast in an ancient technologies' trap. The actress, Ali Hillis, gives an almost ethereal quality to Liara's voice, and certainly part of the character's charm. She is 'asari', another species from our galaxy. Liara is blue, with tendrils on her head as opposed to hair, and in the original game has markings akin to pink freckles; the freckles become darker over the series perhaps to show that she is maturing. That she is blue and quite alien (though not bodily...) doesn't make her impenetrable (no pun intended), and she is reserved and understated.
In the first game, when you have some free time aboard the SSV Normandy (the protagonist, Commander Shepard's craft) you can go around the squad and have a chat about stuff, potentially opening new missions. Liara's conversations revolve around her culture much more, telling us that despite her being 109 years old, she is still relatively young for her species; asari can live in excess of a thousand years. She tells us how her discoveries into the long gone 50,000 year old Prothean Empire are ignored by scholars due to her maturity, not quite being a 'maiden' yet. Asari go through three stages of life, very much akin to the triple goddess Earth Mother religions of the early pagan Europeans: the asari go through Maiden stage, Matron stage then Matriach stage. Though the early pagans labelled them Maiden, Mother and Crone, so slightly more flattering terms from Bioware.
I've come this far down and failed to mention something rather unique about the asari, for those who may have not had the pleasure. They are an all female race, relying on a form of pathogenesis to reproduce. As such, they may mate and produce off-spring with any other species. Now this gives them a sordid reputation across other species, that they'll have sex with anything. This specific issue is part of the dialogue with Commander Shepard.
Shepard: "So... you'll have sex with anything?"
Liara: "Now you see how rumours get started!"
Yup, they chose the perfect character for some Kirk style shenanigans. I don't think though that this is what quite David Bowie had in mind...
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