The Dads of "Mass Effect" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Garrus Vakarian

Garrus Vakarian and his dad were both Citadel Security officers. They both wanted to stop bad guys, but had different methods. Garrus' dad insisted on following all rules and laws while enforcing them. Garrus saw some rules as red tape that let criminals get away.

Garrus' dad did not like the Spectres, who had carte blanche from the Council to do whatever they deemed necessary for the good of the galaxy. Garrus was happy to join Shepard, a Spectre, to go after Saren without any hindrances in "Mass Effect." After hunting down Saren, Garrus quit C-Sec and went to Omega, the "Citadel of the Terminus Systems," where there were no laws and plenty of bad guys. Garrus remarked that "all [he] had to do was point his gun and shoot." Garrus' dad did not care for the move, but they started patching up their relationship in the "Homeworlds" comic, right before Shepard saved Garrus on Omega in "Mass Effect 2."

Answer: Grunt

Okeer was a rare krogan scientist trying to breed a new krogan that would ignore the genophage, a species-wide population-control infection developed by the salarians. Okeer bred hundreds of krogan in tanks in his attempts to make the perfect krogan. The failures were used by the Blue Suns for training, but he had a single success. Okeer died when Shepard went to recruit him, but Shepard did pick up the tank-bred perfect krogan who, if decanted, became the squad member Grunt. Grunt had implanted memories from Okeer, notably, old simmering hatred for the salarians and turians.

But Grunt dismissed those as Okeers feelings. Grunt would form his own opinions.

Answer: Miranda Lawson

Miranda Lawson was genetically tailored to be perfect by her dad, Henry Lawson. Because of her "perfect" genes, Henry had demanding expectations of Miranda, so she rebelled. Henry created a second daughter, Oriana, who was a baby when Miranda ran away with her, with the help of the Illusive Man. Oriana was hidden with a foster family on Ilium until she was a teenager. Miranda's Loyalty mission in "Mass Effect 2" was to help keep Oriana safe.

Miranda left Cerberus by "Mass Effect 3," so the Illusive Man started helping Henry find both of his daughters, culminating in the mission to Horizon.

Answer: Jacob Taylor

Jacob Taylor's dad, Ronald, was the First Officer on the MSV Hugo Gernsback, which disappeared ten years before "Mass Effect 2." Jacob had assumed his dad was dead, and had moved on. Then the emergency beacon was activated. Jacob found the source of the signal on 2175 Aeia.

A lot of the crew had survived the crash, but had to eat local vegetation while the beacon was fixed. The plants on Aeia decayed brain function, so the good food stores were saved for the officers and essential personnel to fix the beacon. Except the social structures started to fall apart, and when the beacon was fixed, it wasn't activated. Ronald was the last fully competent human on Aeia, using mechs to keep everyone online while creating a harem for himself.

It was only when he felt he was in danger from the feral former crew that he finally called for help. Jacob was furious with his dad for multiple reasons when they met each other.

Answer: Liara T'Soni

Liara was the daughter of Lady Benezia, an asari matriarch. Asari could "mate" with any other species. They would use the partner's DNA to help remix the DNA of their offspring. Obviously an asari could reproduce with another asari, but by the time of "Mass Effect," there was a stigma against it. Socially, it was thought that different species brought in new traits. Liara was a rare example of an asari with two asari parents, but she only knew one.

As the Shadow Broker, Liara learned the identity of her "father" in "Mass Effect 3." It was Matriarch Aethyta, who was tending a bar on Ilium near Liara's offices in "Mass Effect 2." If Shepard suggests it, they will have a conversation on the Citadel.

Answer: Tali'zorah nar Rayya

The quarians lived on the flotilla, having been driving off their homeworld 300 years before "Mass Effect." Their culture revolved around ships and the safety of the fleet. Anyone who compromised that was a traitor of the highest order.

Tali's dad, Rael'Zorah, was an admiral of the fleet and a scientist. He was working of ways to defeat the geth, the synthetic race that had displaced the quarians. Tali, during her travels, would send back inert geth technology she found. During "Mass Effect 2," she was called back to the fleet to answer charges of treason. Somehow, geth had infected her father's ship, the Alarei, killing the crew. Tali and Shepard went to the ship to clear out the geth and discovered that it wasn't Tali's fault that the geth had come alive. It was her own father who had ignored safety measures and accidentally activated hostile geth. Shepard, speaking for Tali at the trial, could either not reveal any new evidence, getting Tali exiled, or reveal Rael's actions, which would prove Tali's innocence while upsetting the unstable political climate in the fleet. The third option Shepard had was to expose the trial as a sham and a proxy conflict among the admirals, which would keep Rael's data secret without having Tali exiled.

Answer: Urdnot Wrex

The krogan, as a species, were generally more violent than others. The genophage was designed to keep their numbers manageable, but their culture was still dying. Wrex, as a young clan leader, tried to get his clan and others to focus on breeding for a generation or two, just to get their numbers up. The larger clans disagreed, wanting to keep fighting each other.

To resolve their dispute, Wrex met his father, Jarrod, a leader or a stronger clan, on neutral sacred ground. While surrounded by the graves of their ancestors, they tried to convince each other, but got nowhere. Jarrod signaled an attack of Wrex's clan, which killed them all. Only Wrex escaped, but not before killing his own father. Afterward, Wrex was disilusioned with trying to rebuild the krogan. He became a mercenary, racking up an impressive collection of stories.

After working with Shepard in "Mass Effect," Wrex returned to Tuchanka to try again to rebuild the krogan. If Shepard was a paragon player, Wrex was largely successful.

Answer: Ashley Williams

When humans first discovered the Mass Relay network, they obviously did not know about the other species in the galaxy or conventions, so they ran afoul of a few rules. The turians saw human ships activating dormant Mass Relays, which could be dangerous, so they fired on the humans, beginning the First Contact War (The Relay 314 Incident to the turians). The entire war was an accident and a misunderstanding that flew out of control. The turians used overwhelming displays of force in what they thought was a simple policing action. The humans startled the turians (who had the largest military in the galaxy) with their own displays of overwhelming force.

During the conflict, which occurred only twenty years before "Mass Effect," General Williams surrendered the garrison at Shanxi, becoming the only human to ever surrender to an alien. The Williams were a military family, and this shame hurt the careers of both his son and his granddaughter, Ashley Williams. Both were exceptional soldiers who were held back and given terrible assignments because of their name.

Answer: Thane Krios

Thane Krios was the drell assassin squad member in "Mass Effect 2." He'd had a brief happy life, marrying Irikah and raising Kolyat. Relatives of his former contracts found out who he was, and murdered his wife while he was away. Thane hunted down those responsible, but fell into a funk and became an absentee father. Kolyat grew up resentful of his father, but cached in on his name when he tried to become an assassin himself. Thane's loyalty mission was to stop Kolyat during his first contract. Father and son had a rocky reunion, but they at least started talking again.

Answer: Kaidan Alenko

Kaidan was a nice, level-headed man with nice, level-headed parents (which seems to be a rarity in "Mass Effect"). His parents had a home in Vancouver that was "... an inland home that matured to new beachfront." His parents were supportive after Kaidan returned from BAaT, where he'd accidentally killed his harsh biotic teacher, Commander Vyrnnus.

Kaidan was often the realist on the team. Instead of making sweeping assumptions about alien species or groups, he knew there were good people and bad people in every population.