Dr. Liara T'Soni is a fictional character in BioWare's Mass Effect franchise, who serves as a party member (or "squadmate") in the original Mass Effect trilogy. She is an asari, a female-appearing species from the planet Thessia who are naturally inclined towards biotics, the ability to "manipulate dark energy and create mass effect fields through the use of electrical impulses from the brain". Within the series, Liara is noted for being the galactic scientific community's foremost expert in the field of Prothean archaeology and technology, specifically evidence concerning the demise of the ancient Protheans, believed by the galactic community to be the pre-eminent civilization in the Milky Way galaxy until their sudden disappearance fifty thousands years before the events of the first Mass Effect.
Liara is voiced by Ali Hillis in the video games. Outside of the trilogy, Liara appears as the protagonist in the Mass Effect: Redemption series, and the fourth issue of Mass Effect: Homeworlds, a comic series with individual issues on each of several Mass Effect 3 squad mates prior to the Reaper invasion. Liara also has cameo appearances in Mass Effect: Andromeda, and in the animated feature film, Mass Effect: Paragon Lost, where she is voiced by Jamie Marchi.
Liara has been received positively, with placements on several "top character" critic and fan lists. Various merchandise for the character, as with other of the series' squadmates, has been released. The character was the subject of some controversy in 2007 following the release of the original Mass Effect, with at least one case of government scrutiny over a potentially intimate in-game cutscene between Liara and a female Shepard.
Character overview Liara is an asari; a species of galactic hyperpower dominance within the Citadel Council, unanimously considered the most advanced organic race in the Milky Way galaxy, whose members can live for over a millennium; and a species which is perceived to have a feminine appearance by non-asari standards, and which is sometimes described as "all female". Most asari choose to use feminine third-person, singular personal pronouns as an efficient means of conversing with gender binary species on terms they could understand. However, Liara has on at least one occasion responded to perceived gender bias and denied that she is a "woman", claiming that her species has "one" gender. Liara is a possible romantic interest for a male and female Commander Shepard throughout the entire Mass Effect trilogy.
Liara is the estranged child of Matriarch Benezia, a well-respected and powerful asari biotic. She is 106 years old during her first appearance, which is the equivalent to a young adult and within the Maiden stage of asari life. As a "pureblood", a term often used as a cruel insult for children born of two asari, Liara grew up being socially stigmatized by asari society. If Shepard discusses her parentage in the original Mass Effect, Liara would speculate that her parents were possibly embarrassed by the union as the asari believe that for them to improve themselves, they should mate with other species to gain new genetic properties. Mass Effect 3 reveals that Matriarch Aethyta is Liara's other biological parent, making her "one-quarter krogan" on Aethyta's side. Matriarch Aethyta is first encountered in Mass Effect 2 as a bartender in Illium, where Liara was based as an information broker. If Shepard questions her about this she initially claims that no one on Thessia wanted to listen to her council, hence the reason she works in a bar. She later moves on to tend a bar at the Presidium in Mass Effect 3, where she is revealed to have been spying on Liara all along.
Liara is a polymath, having earned over a dozen doctorates from the galaxies' most prestigious universities on the home planet of Thessia. Liara is the leading authority in her field of Prothean archeology, which is a feat in and of itself given her relative youth within her race. She's also a capable combatant, herself stating that until an entire geth platoon and Krogan Battlemaster ambushed her, she never found herself in a battle her biotics couldn't handle. While she is legally age of majority under Citadel law, her research is not taken seriously by other asari who consider her to be too young to be academically reputable. In spite of her culturally young age, she is depicted in the series as a child prodigy, possessing the skills and experience of a computer scientist, xenoarchaeologist, philologist, and cryptanalyst that far exceed her developmental age.
Concept and design
Unlike other alien characters made for the game, Liara's face did not have a specific design; her face was taken from the original concepts of the asari, who are conceived as "beautiful, blue aliens" to add a familiar science fiction element to the series. Instead of facepaint which is often used by the design team to diversify asari characters, Liara's facial design incorporates blue-colored freckles. The asari's human-like faces helped the designers in making the characters distinct; face and/or body scans of professional models have been used as the basis for their facial features. American actress Jillian Murray provided her likeness for Liara's final design.
Liara's default appearance in the first Mass Effect is a green medical uniform, while her outfit from the Mass Effect 2: Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC pack was retained as her default appearance for Mass Effect 3. The white jacket is a reminder of her background in science, while the more armor-like pieces serves a reminder to the player that the galaxy is at war, and that civilians are part of the war effort where they have to arm and defend themselves.
As part of BioWare's efforts to create a more realistic aesthetic when remastering the original trilogy for Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Liara's character model from the first Mass Effect underwent some changes: in Legendary Edition, the texturization of her face is better defined with the application of graphical tweaks and lighting adjustments. This is intended to accurately reflect the story canon of her personality, having transitioned from a "doe-eyed" character to a confident and powerful information broker over the course of the original trilogy. Legendary Edition environment and character director Kevin Meek explained in an interview that the team took precaution with their creative decisions for the remaster and tried not to alter how she fundamentally looks in the first game by augmenting her body style or outfit of choice, as they had to "live within the rails of what narratively was her art".
Portrayal Liara T'Soni was Ali Hillis' first voice acting role for a video game. When she first began voicing Liara, she only had a still drawing of Liara to refer to; Hillis was unfamiliar with voicing video game characters nor did she expect much out of the character. To prepare for the role, particularly for a complicated character like Liara, she would try to "find an essence, a simplicity of a character". She credited voice director Ginny McSwain for guiding her through the entire process by explaining to her Liara's background, who she was and the different layers of her personality.
Hillis interpreted her core personality to be an inquisitive and observant scientist who is always learning everything that she could, and is deeply emotional, childlike, and reactionary in the way she goes about things. She noted that everything in Liara's life, especially in her relationships before she "started to evolve" after the first game, is akin to a coming-of-age discovery for the character. Hillis envisioned Liara to be so pure, that she lacked the capacity to be mean-spirited or self-serving in any way.
Appearances In video games Mass Effect
Following the exposure of Benezia's involvement with the disgraced Spectre Saren Arterius and their search for an artifact known as the Conduit, Shepard is given a lead to search for Liara and discover what she knows. Liara pleads with Shepard for help when they encounter her in Therum, offering to explain her circumstances and means to be freed. If Shepard pursues other leads first and significantly delays rescuing Liara, she mistakes her rescuers for figments of her own imagination, and decides to humors her "hallucinations" by answering their questions. She only realizes Shepard's squad are real when they reappear to release her.
On her first debriefing aboard the Normandy, Liara shares her theory of cyclical extinction: the Protheans were just the latest in a long line of civilizations to reach a violent end after reaching their apex. Liara notes that there is remarkably little evidence of the Protheans' existence, and speculates that their final fate has been deliberately covered up. As Shepard obtains fragmented visions from various sources during the hunt for Saren and his agents, Liara offers her melding abilities to try and make sense of the data. She constantly exhausts herself after each encounter, prompting frequent suggestions to report to Dr. Chakwas, but collects herself together long enough to explain what she saw. Once Shepard obtains the Cipher, the Mu Relay's location, and the distress call from the Prothean Beacon on Virmire, Liara finally recognizes enough clues to deduce the lost planet of Ilos as the Conduit's true location.
Mass Effect 2
Liara's role in the original trilogy is reduced in Mass Effect 2, set two years after the first game. Liara has become an information broker on Illium in direct rivalry to the Shadow Broker. She is initially presented with an apparently changed personality due to her experience working as a black market information dealer in the two years since Mass Effect; having improved her biotic abilities, she also uses threats and other intimidation tactics to extort information, mimicking Benezia's demeanor and speech tactics when confronting others. After speaking to her, the player may discover that her seemingly darker personality is nothing more than a façade. Liara explains that Shepard's body was recovered by the Shadow Broker, who was prepared to sell it to the Collectors during the events of Mass Effect: Redemption, but was thwarted by her and her drell associate Feron. Liara declines Shepard's offer to join the suicide mission to rescue human colonists in order to continue her vendetta against the Shadow Broker and save Feron, who was captured while she successfully escaped with Shepard's body.
Liara accompanies Shepard temporarily in the Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker if the player decides to help her hunt down the Shadow Broker. Shepard gradually breaks her hardened shell after lecturing her about reckless behavior in battle, but at the same time she states that she won't stop "to enjoy the scenery" until she's done. After the Shadow Broker is killed, Liara takes the opportunity to usurp his now vacant role. She says she will use her position and resources to help assist Shepard's ongoing mission to fight the Reapers. It is also possible to resume the player character's romance arc with Liara at the end of "Lair of the Shadow Broker".
Mass Effect 3