| “ | Shepard, I backed you when I was just a kid on her Pilgrimage. I backed you when the Normandy was a Cerberus ship. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t back you now? | „ |
| ~ Tali'Zorah in ME3 |
Tali'Zorah vas Normandy is one of the main protagonists of the original Mass Effect trilogy, including its remaster, the Legendary Edition.
She is a quarian engineer who Commander Shepard originally meets when she is on her Pilgrimage and becomes a member of the Normandy crew. Tali holds the distinction of being one of only two squad members available in all three games, the other being Garrus Vakarian. Starting with Mass Effect 2, she also becomes a potential love interest.
She is voiced by Ash Sroka (credited as Liz Sroka in the first two games).
What Makes Her Pure Good?[]
In General[]
- Although she initially had a rather xenophobic attitude towards the Geth, mainly because she was initially quite naïve and did not know the whole truth, this changed with the next parts of the series. After working with Legion and learning history from the Geth's perspective, she began to sympathize with them more and more, until she was finally ready to make peace with them in ME3, completely disagreeing with the rest of the admirals about going to war with them.
Mass Effect[]
- During her pilgrimage, she managed to extract sound files from one of the Geth units, according to which Saren Arterius, the main antagonist, was behind the Geth attack on Eden Prime at the beginning of the game. As part of repaying a debt to Shepard in return for their help in defeating the assassins sent by Fist and Saren, Tali gave this evidence to Udina and Anderson, which they later gave to the Citadel Council, causing Saren to lose his Spectre status and Shepard being named the new and first human Spectre and sent by the Council to Attican Traverse, to find and stop him.
Mass Effect 2[]
- When reunited with Shepard two years later on Freedom's Progress, Tali was delighted to see her commander alive, but also quite disappointed to see their new comrades belonging to Cerberus, a galaxy-wide infamous terrorist organization that was attempting to sabotage the Flotilla. However, despite this, Tali gladly accepted the offer of working with Shepard to find the missing quarian Veetor'Nara.
- When Shepard, Jacob and Miranda found Veetor (who turned out to be traumatized by the Collector's attack on the colony), and the latter offered to take him for further questioning to get any information on the Collectors out of him, Tali was completely against such a scenario, claiming that Veetor needed help and treatment above all, not an interrogation. As it later turned out, her fears were completely correct, as if Shepard decided to send Veetor to Cerberus, he is completely mentally unstable after meeting him again in the Migrant Fleet, as it was implied that he was subjected to torture during the interrogation.
- When Tali joined Shepard's team after the mission on Haestrom, she made it clear that she did so because she wanted to work with them, not Cerberus, showing her unwavering loyalty and devotion to Shepard.
- During further interactions with her on the Normandy SR-2, and one conversation with Kelly Chambers, it will be strongly implied that Tali has started to have really strong feelings for a male Shepard, but she doesn't want to admit it because she is so afraid of rejection. This is later revealed to be true, as seen during her romance arc, where even after Shepard returns her feelings, Tali is unsure about it and believes that Shepard deserves to be happier with someone, and she is afraid that she is unable to offer it to him. Also, if Shepard doesn't reciprocate her feelings, as he doesn't want to endanger her health or accidentally hurt her, Tali understands and accepts it. All this shows her modesty and complete lack of selfishness.
- During her loyalty mission, when Shepard and Tali found out on Alarea's ship that Tali's father, Admiral Rael'Zorah, was involved in a secret project, networking the Geth to test weapons on them, resulting in the Geth taking over the entire ship, killing everyone on it, including Rael, Tali decided that she and Shepard could not, for any cost, turn this evidence over to the Admiralty Board, as her father would be remembered as the greatest war criminal in the history of her race and would be portrayed as a monster to future generations. This shows that Tali completely puts her father's good name above her own situation and the risk of banishment from the Migrant Fleet, not wanting his good name to be ruined.
- Even if Tali is exiled from the Migrant Fleet, she will remain loyal to Shepard, grateful to them for not presenting evidence slandering her father.
- As Tali and Legion argue about the Flotilla data being sent by the latter to the other Geth, Shepard can lead to a truce between the two, resulting in Tali thanking Legion for finally deciding not to send the data, and as part of of compensation offered to send non-classified data about the Fleet.
Mass Effect 3[]
- If Tali hadn't been banished from the Migrant Fleet and had been appointed a new member of the Admiralty Board, she was willing to act on behalf of the 17 million quarians, even if she felt pressured to do so.
- Upon reuniting with Legion aboard the Geth Dreadnought, Tali greets it warmly, no longer treating the Geth unit with distrust like in ME2.
- At the climax of the entire quarian-geth war arc, if Shepard sided with the quarians and killed Legion with Tali's help, or brokered peace between them and Legion sacrificed its own life, Tali sympathetically tells it that the answer to its question ("Does this unit have a soul?") is "Yes".
- After the end of the war between the quarians and the Geth, if Tali survived, she decides to join Shepard's team anyway, knowing that she will fight for her homeworld.
- When she became the quarian ambassador to the Citadel after the war and was in the middle of a conversation with a turian official, she revealed to Shepard that it was the same turian who had insulted her and refused to give her asylum when she obtained evidence against Saren during her pilgrimage and was pursued by his people. She, however, felt no resentment towards him and never intended to remind him of past indiscretions, stating that the war with the Reapers is not the time for petty grudges from the past.
- After the failed mission on Thessia, when the Asari homeworld fell to a massive Reaper attack and Liara sat in complete despair in her room, Tali, standing in front of the memorial wall, desperately wanted to go and comfort her, however she confessed to Garrus (or Samantha Traynor) that she might not be the right person for it, as Tali had just regained her homeworld while Liara had just lost hers. She even suggested to Garrus or Samantha that they try to cheer her up.
- Also after that mission, when Shepard was clearly concerned about where the whole war was going, as first Earth had fallen, then Palaven, and now Thessia, Tali reassured them by saying that Shepard had always won so far, sometimes they overcame theoretically impossible adversity and will always be able to come up with something to save the whole situation. In addition, she assured them that she would always believe in them, no matter what.
Trivia[]
- So far, Tali is the only character in the Mass Effect series to be Pure Good.
External Links[]
- Tali on the Heroes Wiki
- Tali on the Mass Effect Wiki