Hello, Ric here with a Spoiler warning for the entire Mass Effect universe ahead. So.
Liara T’Soni is one of the many poster characters of the Mass Effect series and
one of the few characters that canonically survives the entire run. Unless you run the
ending of Mass Effect 3 with a poor ready rating, in which case, everybody is fair game to die.
She survives the ending of Mass Effect one, is absent from the suicide mission in Mass Effect
2 and re-joins the party for the finale of the Trilogy. So her cropping up in the
trailer for the untitled continuation of the series is not too surprising,
although after the absence of familiar faces in favour of these tired ones in Andromeda,
it was heart-warming to see her appear again, even a little older than last we saw her.
This video aims to map out her life across her 109 years as depicted in the games
and spin off narratives in the comics and brief cartoon appearance.
Liara was born to Matriarchs Benezia and Aethyta. Aethyta can be found tending bars and dispensing
wisdom around the galaxy as she was effectively shunned from Thessia because of her controversial
opinions on the roles that Asari should take on the galactic scene. She wished for them to
take a more active role in affairs and even attempt to recreate Mass Relay technology.
She even wished that young Asari, those in their Maiden stage would contribute more
to society rather than pursue their curiosity. Possibly in part to her beliefs, her and Benezia’s
relationship did not last and Aethyta even lost track of their pureblood daughter, Liara, who was
born in 2077. We don’t know exactly when Aethyta left, but Liara has no memory of her father.
Benezia in the meantime was left to raise Liara, but as a prominent figure in Asari culture,
their relationship was strained at times. Because of Benezia’s importance there
was much expected of Liara, who had the added stigma of being a pureblood Asari,
one born of two Asari, something considered rather unbefitting of such a prestigious Matriarch.
Eventually, Liara grew fascinated with archaeology and the long lost Prothean Empire, the precursor
civilization to most species of the galaxy. As was common knowledge, this galaxy spanning empire
had vanished 50,000 years ago but supposedly left behind the faster-than-light travel and
all the building blocks for a new interstellar power. Such a mystery was naturally enticing to
the young Asari who began to study them in order to shy away from any philosopher or political role
that was expected of her, even talking Doctor Passante to letting her into the
Asari Prothean archives on Thessia once or twice. She also visited Palaven for a time and in 2182,
she was contacted by Alec Ryder of the Andromeda Initiative regarding her field of study.
Her choice of personal curiosity over expectation led Liara and Benezia to drift apart somewhat and
by the time Liara was 106, she hadn’t even spoken to her mother for two years. In these two years
however, Benezia was indoctrinated by the Reaper Sovereign and fell, alongside the Spectre Saren
into acting on its will. She had originally intended to talk down the Spectre and change his
ways, only to fall victim to the ancient Reaper’s corruption herself. One of her actions is to fund
Binary Helix, (a suspected wing of Cerberus) in the creation of Rachi clones for Saren’s forces.
Eventually, Liara had pursued leads into unravelling the Prothean mystery to the planet
Therum in the Knossos system of the Artemis Tau sector block. The second planet in the system held
ruins of interest for the archaeologist and it is here that she is first encountered by the party,
unaware of her mother’s involvement with the rogue Spectre agent. Alongside the Normandy
crew looking for her, Saren has dispatched a team of Geth to recover the Prothean expert,
probably based on Benezia’s information and recommendations. Well, expert by human standards,
at 106 she was still considered a young twenty-something by older Asari.
Nevertheless, Liara allies with the party in order to confront her mother,
although it’s down to the player to decide if Liara is present for meeting Benezia. Either way,
the Matriarch is eventually killed on Noveria, in the same labs she helped create.
Liara continues to accompany Shepard and the Normandy crew in their mission to prevent
the Reaper invasion from beginning in 2183, and, importantly for her, uncovering the truth behind
the disappearance of the Protheans, that they too fell to the Reaper’s cycle of harvesting, 50,000
years ago. She aids in deciphering the information left by the Prothean beacons and other sources
to locate the Conduit to the Reaper’s main mass Relay on Ilos, the site of a large Prothean ruin.
Upon postponing the Reaper invasion by defeating Sovereign, Liara continues to travel with
Shepard and crew while they were assigned to investigate vanishing human colonies
and was therefore present for the destruction of the SSV Normandy SR-1
and the death of Commander Shepard. Two months after this, she embarks on a
personal mission to recover Shepard’s remains from the crash site on Alchera, which brings her into
contact with Cerberus agents who are also looking for the hero’s remains for their own purpose,
project Lazarus. Miranda Lawson tells Liara that they may be able to bring her friend back if she
assists, but also learns that the Collectors are hiring mercenary groups to also retrieve
the corpse of the Commander. She teams up with Feron, an agent of the mysterious Shadow Broker
in order to help track down Shepard (well, Feron’s actually a triple agent but that’s complicating
matters even more). But, being the hot commodity that it apparently is, the Shadow Broker also
wants Shepard’s remains to sell on for himself, something Liara naturally disagrees with. After
many repeated swindles and fails, Liara and Feron manage to catch up to the actual location of the
Commander’s body and she recovers it, delivering it to the Lazarus Project, however she loses
Feron to the Shadow Broker in the process. This entire string of misses, failures,
backstabbings and shady deals wears heavily on Liara and erodes both her patience and to
an extent, her merciful compassion. In 2185, the Lazarus Project is completed
and Shepard is revived from the dead. Liara in the meantime has taken up office
on Illum and is dealing in her own information trade, channelling her mother’s harsh streak
and her darker, learned aspects from her months chasing Shepard’s corpse.
One of her goals is to exact revenge on the Shadow Broker, but she also provides aid to Treeya Nuwani
in her own Prothean research. This darker path is alleviated somewhat by both the
return of Shepard and the reveal that Feron is still alive. Shepard, agrees to help Liara,
(not to mention technically Shepard owes Feron a debt) and teams up to help Liara to rescue him.
When they finally track down the Shadow Broker’s vessel at Hagalaz, a battle ensues where the team
take over his base and kill the Yahg. The identity of the Shadow Broker was such a secret, even from
his own operatives, that Liara is able to simply adopt the role in place of the former Broker,
much as this Yahg had done, and run the information network herself. In one momentary
press of a button, Liara T’Soni had become one of the most influential people in the galaxy.
From these resources, she was able to vastly improve the galaxy’s odds at combating the
upcoming Reaper invasion. Admiral Hackett, of the Human Systems Alliance, a long-time supporter of
Shepard, works with her to find something to combat the Reapers. She begins her search on
Thessia, meeting up again with Passante, but soon her search for something to fight the Reaper’s
with took her to the Hanar world of Kahje. During an exploration of their Prothean archive,
she is attacked by a Cerberus Phantom and comes into contact with the Illusive Man’s hologram
communications again. Despite his offering of a partnership and working together in the past, she
is rightly suspicious of his activities and denies any further amiable contact between Cerberus
and the Shadow Broker’s network. In the end, this is the right move because Cerberus has been
corrupted by Reaper indoctrination at the highest levels through their pursuit of Reaper tech.
Her findings on Kahje mention the Mars archive as a repository for information
on an anti-Reaper weapon, the “Crucible”, so her next destination is set. Arriving at Mars,
she helps the teams here uncover the schematics for the device
as the Reaper’s invasion begins in 2186. Shepard and team, currently evacuating Earth as it fell,
stop of at the Mars Archive to find Cerberus violently pursuing Liara,
and recruit the Asari once again. She sets up a mobile Shadow Broker base on the Normandy SR-2
and travels with Shepard throughout the events of Mass Effect 3 to combat the Reaper invasion.
If the group uncover the Prothean, Javik, Liara spends a great deal of time questioning him
about Prothean culture, based on her childhood notions of the species, however Javik’s view of
his people is very militant, imperialistic and forged in a time of constant turmoil
against their own Reaper invasion. This clashes with the research she had previously compiled
and initially leads her to shun and rebuke him before eventually coming to an understanding.
Her early conversations with him are some of the few times that we witness a return of the more
optimistic mind-set of the pre-Broker Liara. On a personal note, Matriarch Aethyta moves
from Illum to the Citadel to keep an eye on Liara, who she knowns is her daughter.
Likewise, by using her information network, Liara had uncovered who her father was
and the two can reconcile somewhat in the face of the looming threat. Liara also sends a message to
Alec Ryder, knowing that the Andromeda Initiative arks have already launched,
explaining the arrival of the Reapers and the state of the Milky Way to the team.
As the Cruicible is completed, Liara creates a beacon of her own, inspired by the Protheans,
to record the struggles of the galaxy, just in case they all fail to stop the Reapers.
She is shocked by the reveal that the Asari government knew more about the Prothean’s than
they let on, a secret that Benezia knew, but Liara did not, even with her network.
When the final confrontation takes place in London, she offers an Asari gift of swapping
some memories before the final battle to Shepard. As for what happens post-ending, well we will
have to see what ending Bioware makes canon, of if they have a system for all three main ones.
It seems probably however, that Shepard dies in the halting of the Reapers, and if not,
they’d be long dead by the time of new game which appears to have a noticeably older Liara.
So, that covers the timeline of Doctor Liara T’Soni, archaeologist, Shadow Broker and often
one of Shepard’s best friends. She begins the series as very naïve and optimistic,
and while she may lose the naivety, the optimism is arguably still there, just tempered by realism.
She doesn’t give up searching for a way to stop the Reaper invasion,
but she also creates backup plans in case they fail. One trait that is maintained however,
despite being threated during her time on Illium, is her compassion. She feels for the Commander’s
experiences, romance option or no and even spares a thought for Saren, who was indoctrinated.
However, she didn’t let her compassion cloud her judgement and could pull out a ruthless
streak. She was seen to hold a grudge against the Shadow Broker, and her immersion in the deceitful
lifestyle threatened to erode that compassion, but instead she utilised her network and was
guided by her morality. Rejecting the more nefarious Cerberus in the end, she became
an important asset in the fight against the Reapers and contributed majorly in their defeat.
So where does she head now? Well, she has extensive experience with Protheans, Reapers
and many other culture’s technology, a front row seat to the Galaxy’s most changing events,
and for a time at least, access to the Milky Way’s largest information network. So she’s a veritable
encyclopaedia of historical events and ultimately a force for good, despite her willingness to delve
into the shadows to accomplish this. She also kept in touch with the Andromeda Initiative,
so she is the strongest link between the Andromeda games and the original Trilogy.
Thanks for watching this video on the life of Liara T’Soni and I hope you found something
enlightening, not everyone has the comics or played the DLC. Of course exactly how her
narrative unfolds is partially down to the player, so your depiction of Liara might differ somewhat
from Shepard’s influence and the order you do thinsg, but that’s also why I enjoyed
Mass Effect so much. Thanks again for watching, and I’ll see you again for another sci-fi video,
probably a Trek one, but with more Mass Effect on the horizon,
I’ll be open to tackling the topic again. I’ve been Ric, Goodbye!