Cape and Cowl Application
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Lettie
AGE: 22.
JOURNAL: elarion
IM: Lettie347 (AIM)
E-MAIL: lettie347@gmail.com
RETURNING: Yes; 1 character (Andromeda Tonks)
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Tali'Zorah vas Normandy
FANDOM: Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2
CHRONOLOGY: After the conclusion of Mass Effect 2; before the Arrival DLC
CLASS: Hero; Tali will likely keep her dog tags.
SUPERHERO NAME:
ALTER EGO: Talia Norman; Mechanic
BACKGROUND: General universe information: The Mass Effect world revolves around many races of aliens coexisting with their newly-discovered brethren, the humans. In the year 2148, human explorers om Mars discovered the remains of an ancient civilization -- in the following years, the artifacts discovered here revealed new technology that allowed humankind to travel far beyond their home galaxy. These devices, called mass relays, allowed instant transportation of starships to any other relay connected to the mass effect network. Mass relays function by creating a mass-free 'corridor' of space-time between each other that transports a ship based on its measured mass. The relays have existed since the time of the Protheans, far before any of the current surviving species can remember. A machine race called the Reapers, older even than the Protheans, returned from their apparent dormancy to track down every settled planet and attack them, stripping the worlds of resources and enslaving the populations. This 'cycle of extinction' has apparently happened before, and is evidently destined to happen again. At the conclusion of the first Mass Effect game, Commander Shepard, a human agent sent to the governmental centre of the Mass Effect world known as the Citadel to inform them of the Reapers' plans, has stopped the initial attempt at destroying the current universe.
Mass Effect 2 centres around a group of beings known as the Collectors, who have been abducting human colonies. The Collectors live beyond the Omega 4 Relay, previously inaccessible to the rest of the universe. The Normandy SR-2 crew and Shepard eventually locate a way to pass through the Omega 4 Relay in order to destroy the Collectors and the threat they pose to the rest of the universe. Once this task is achieved, Mass Effect 2 concludes.
The quarian race itself is a nomadic group of creatures who exist in what is called the Migrant Fleet, or large band of ships that travel together. They value the group over the individual, and are forced to travel without a home planet because of a lost war between themselves and the robotic species that they created, the geth. Quarians are often looked down upon by other races and many people consider them to be thiefs and scoundrels, although most of the quarians encountered in the game are highly intelligent and honourable. The immune system of quarians has always been poor, since their home world's biosphere had relatively few pathogenic microbes. Their immune systems worsened as they lived for longer and longer on their sterile ships. It became necessary for them to wear bio-suits to protect them from outside bacteria and viruses, even when living on their ships.
Tali-specific history: Born Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, the daughter of a member of the quarian Admiralty Board has had an exciting life for her young age. She was raised on the flotilla by her mother until her death when Tali was seventeen -- infection from an airborne virus. While Tali was upset, it was an unfortunately common occurrence on the flotilla. Eventually, when she was of-age, Tali was slated for the machinist track in the quarian fleet1.
When she first met up with the crew of the original Normandy, she was participating in her Pilgrimage - a quarian tradition where young members of the fleet go out into the rest of the universe seeking information or technology that will help the fleet to advance. She was being pursued by an agent of the Reapers named Saren; Shepard and the rest of the crew managed to rescue her from being killed by his men during a double-cross with a man named the Shadow Broker. Whilst on the Normandy, Tali proved herself a capable machinist with technical skills to rival few others outside of the Migrant Fleet. Commander Shepard helped Tali to recover important data on the early years of the geth, a machine race that the quarians themselves created (which then went rogue and attempted to destroy all organic life). Returning the data to the Migrant Fleet and joining the ranks of the ship Neema, she gained the name Tali'Zorah vas Neema and became a fully-fledged adult.
Over the next two years, Tali gained great reputation with the Migrant Fleet. She headed a rescue mission to Freedom's Progress, the location where an entire human colony disappeared with no visible struggle, to rescue a quarian named Veetor who was on his Pilgrimage. Here she encountered Commander Shepard again (despite greatly exaggerated rumours that Shepard was dead), and she aided Shepard in the rescue of Veetor.
Tali was then sent on an important and mostly-classified mission to the planet of Haestrom. Tali and a group of quarian marines were eventually spotted on the planet's surface by the geth; they began dropping troops onto the ground and only Tali and a marine named Kal'Reegar survived the prolonged attack. Commander Shepard rescued them both after arriving on the planet in hopes of recruiting Tali to his latest cause against a group called the Collectors. She revealed to Shepard that she was on the planet collecting information about Haestrom's sun; that was only partially true. She was also collecting dormant parts of destroyed geth to send back to her father in the Migrant Fleet, believing he was conducting research on how to better fight the geth. Hurt and angry over the death of so many quarians on the planet, and still feeling as if she owed Shepard a debt for helping her with her pilgrimage, Tali joined the crew of the Normandy SR-2.
While posted on the Normandy, Tali received a distressing message from the Migrant Fleet telling her that she had been charged with treason. Commander Shepard accompanied her to the deck of the Rayya, where Tali discovered her charges were smuggling active geth into the fleet. She also found that her name had been changed by the fleet to vas Normandy, effectively stripping her of any ties to the Migrant Fleet. Tali had been sending her father deactivated geth samples that she was sure had not been dangerous. At the hearing, she was told that her father's research ship, the Alarei, had been overrun by geth and her father was assumed dead.
Along with Commander Shepard, Tali reclaimed the Alarei and wiped it of any remaining geth ... but Tali was also bombarded with the fact that her father was in fact committing crimes against the Migrant Fleet in an attempt to reactivate the geth neural networks and use them against the geth. This amounted more or less to charges of torturing live subjects, violating sacred laws that had been in place since before the quarians had been forced to flee their home planet. He had promised her a house on a new home world when she was young, and was preparing to help the Fleet go to war against the geth to do so. The Migrant Fleet had been divided on this issue for years. His body was found on the ship with a datapad instructing Tali to destroy the geth hub on the Alarei and take his research to the rest of the fleet.
Commander Shepard earned Tali's loyalty by convincing the Migrant Fleet that Tali's actions on the Alarei were proof enough that she had no idea what was happening on the ship; she was not exiled, and her father's secrets were kept buried. Tali was overjoyed, and agreed to follow Shepard on to the suicidal mission to wipe out the Collectors beyond the Omega 4 Relay. He needed her help and expertise, after all.
PERSONALITY: Being born into the Migrant Fleet means that Tali'Zorah is more comfortable in bustling, loud environments than she is in a quiet household. In fact, she finds it rather distressing to be anywhere that the machinery runs quietly -- in the Migrant Fleet, this usually means that life support is failing or worse. She enjoys crowds and being around large groups of people because it reminds her of home.
Having found little time for the nurturing of relationships in her ambitious life, Tali is notoriously awkward with expressing her feelings toward anyone and is prone to fits of rambling around people that she cares about. Canon states that Tali is a mechanical genius, having few matches outside of the Migrant Fleet. There are downsides to this, though, primarily that if she isn't busy with some sort of project she has a need to start one. She can't stand feeling useless or like she isn't contributing to anything. She is aware that she's good at what she does, but tries not to make too big a deal out of it -- unless someone is trying to stop her from helping them because they think she's young and incapable.
Her whole life has centred around trying to make her father (and by extension, the rest of the Migrant Fleet) proud of her, and she thinks that joining Shepard's crew to save the universe is a worthy way to do this. In some ways, Tali is still very immature -- she's very frank and open with her body language, and when she finds someone attractive she can't be subtle about it; she'll talk constantly about them. Although she is cautious around people until she finds out their true beliefs about quarians, she is friendly enough and tries to offer up information to others that she believes is helpful.
Having never had a human form, Tali is in all likelihood going to attempt to 'overdose' on many of the things she's never experienced: she'll eat different foods until she gets sick, she'll probably go out in the sun for too long and get a nasty burn, and she'll likely try and smell everything in sight -- this last curiosity is probably going to take a while to go away.
Although she was not close to her father, his death and finding out that he was lying to her about the reasons she needed to send him geth has upset her greatly. The fact that her father would keep anything from her hurt her deeply; she had always convinced herself that her father had just been too busy rising in the ranks of the Migrant Fleet to show her how much he loved her, but his keeping secrets from her made her believe that perhaps he'd just gotten too obsessed with providing for her to realize what would be best for their family.
The safety of the group she is affiliated with is Tali's prime concern; she will put herself at risk for the 'greater good' without a second thought as long as she respects the leader of said group. Her loyalty is built on an entire childhood being taught that you protected your own no matter what the cost, so although it is going to be hard-earned it is well worth the effort.
POWER: Form shifting: Tali will be able to shift from her human form to her quarian one (including the suit, for the sake of ... not dying) at will. She won't be able to control this at first, and it will happen unexpectedly. This is how she'll arrive in the city.
Combat Drone generation: Tali is able to summon one combat drone at a time; drones draw fire and can electronically shock (and potentially stun) targets. When the drone is destroyed, it will explode and inflict high damage on any nearby enemies. The drones are round and float in mid-air - they are about fourteen inches in diameter and are capable of being quite speedy. Tali is able to control the drones; they obey her commands and can also sense her thoughts and desires. Any drone generated by Tali will be violet in colour.
Omni-tool: Like Mordin Solus' omni-tool, Tali's can generate a hard-light construct over her arm. Not really a power so much as equipment, her omni-tool is most adept at hacking electronics (including hacking AI to fight for her), running repair diagnostics, and draining energy from enemy shields (including multiple enemies in an area).
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE: [Tali opens her comm. device. She fiddles with it for several minutes before anything actually happens, and when she does start the live feed, it's with voice only. It appears that someone is having a mild identity crisis.]
Hello. I'm afraid that I'm not sure exactly what's going on here.
[There is some background clicking that sounds like it's separate from her phone, followed by a a short whirr -- she's starting up her omni-tool, attempting to do some preliminary scans of the room that she's found herself in. She thinks it's probably also pertinent to put up her shield, just in case this is some sort of ambush. It honestly wouldn't be the first time.]
My name is Tali'zorah, and I am a member of the Normandy SR-2 crew. I have found myself in a strange building with an -- information pamphlet and some identification tags, but...
[Her voice trails off after a moment, and it's a few more seconds of silence before she gets it back.]
...but I feel like I'm having a bit of an ... identity crisis. Is anyone else having this problem? Has anyone else had this problem? Because this is not the sort of thing that's kind to dump on someone who has just arrived in a strange place, and does not at all put me at ease that I am not going to suddenly be shot at by angry batarians. In fact, it makes me feel like I should probably have my shotgun.
[She's rambling and she knows it, but the fact that she suddenly has five fingers instead of three and more importantly, that she isn't inside her suit is, well ... a bit much to handle all at once, even for someone who is used to the unexpected. Normally at least some of the crew tagged along for the suicide missions.]
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE: It was the middle of the night and Tali'Zorah was staring up at the roof of her cabin, noticing that even though this ship, the Normandy SR-2, was built to look more or less the same as the SSV Normandy, the differences are noticeable to anyone who spent even a few minutes on the original ship. The SSV Normandy had never been a luxury vessel; the crew quarters had been bare bones and the kitchen had been a military-grade mess. Cerberus' intentions to impress the former Normandy crew with their comfortable dining hall and cushioned leather chairs had, she thought, actually had the opposite effect. Everything felt strange, comfortable but not-quite-right. There were no panels peeling back on her roof, no characteristic bends to the metal that made her think they'd skimped on crew quarters just to make sure the rest of the ship was a little stealthier, a little safer.
This was why she didn't spend much time in her quarters on this new ship. No matter what the rest of the ship looked like, her engine room would always be the same. She'd been utterly relieved to see that Cerberus hadn't taken it upon themselves to try and improve the engineering deck, presumably because the people who were working there had been intended to be Cerberus crew only (not that Donnelly or Daniels seemed like bad people, really). The core room was the only place on the Normandy that still felt like home, and she'd expressed that opinion to both Garrus Vakerian and Shepard. They'd both agreed, although Shepard had been less willing to do so.
If she wanted to be honest with herself, it wasn't just the fact that the ship's layout had changed: it was the fact that their crew now housed a member of the species that she'd always been taught to hate. Legion, in fact, was not just one geth - it was a whole network of geth (1,183 of them, in fact) that formed a collective consciousness. Tali had to admit that seeing Legion made her feel more guilty about what her people (and her father, him most of all) were doing to the geth even now. Legion had told Shepard (and Shepard in turn had told her) that the majority of the geth were in fact apathetic toward humanity and other organic creatures ... but the quarian fleet had been pursuing any and all geth. Legion's statement had explained much about the differences in the geth that the quarians had encountered since the end of the first major war; some geth had seemed completely content to ignore quarians in their space, while some had been intent on running any and all organics out of their zones.
They had, for who knew how long, been killing creatures that held no ill-will against them. It left a bad taste in her mouth, especially when she considered how often the members of the Admiralty had stated revenge as a motivation for the continuation of their war against the geth. She had thought of trying to convince the Admiralty of the genuineness of some of the geth, no matter how uncomfortable it made her -- but she was sure that they wouldn't believe it. Worse yet, after what she had seen her father do -- she feared they would capture Legion and attempt to extract information out of it. She might not have cared for the creature, might not have understood it -- but that didn't mean it deserved to be tortured based on the flimsy-at-best logic that it was a machine that didn't feel pain. She had seen enough of Legion to know that while it might not have appeared to feel pain in the strictest sense, it could still understand loss. That was a step in the right direction.
The war had to end eventually, after all. If the quarians continued their vendetta forever, it would only result in their destruction -- Tali'Zorah just hoped that somehow the fleet could be convinced.
She sighed, finally looking away from the ceiling.
Perhaps it was appropriate that this Normandy wasn't the same as the one from the past: the ship had in fact changed with her crew. The future was uncomfortable and strange, but they would adapt as they always had - and hopefully become better for it.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER: [Tali's appearance as a quarian]: Tali is of average height for a quarian, shorter and slighter of build than most humans. Like all quarians, she has three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot, and her legs are bowed backward. Oh, and don't ask about her ears, if you've heard the rumours -- they are a topic of some great sensitivity. Features of Tali's face (and even whether she is blushing or making any sort of facial expression) are greatly obstructed by the screen of her suit. The only thing visible through the screen is the faint glow of her eyes. Her voice is modified slightly as it moves through her breathing apparatus, but she still comes across as soft-spoken and even quiet. Few people see the faces of quarians because it is so dangerous to their health to be exposed to the outside environment.
Like all quarians, Tali wears her enviro-suit constantly. It is a close-fitting, compartmentalized and extremely sophisticated cover that protects her from having severe allergic reactions to ... almost everything, really. Her particular suit is embellished with a violet headdress covered in swirling designs; this particular style of headdress signifies her as a full adult of the Migrant Fleet. All enviro-suits are also equipped with nerve stimulators for the adventurous quarian who wants to experience pleasure and sensation without risking their health.
[Tali's appearance as a human]: While human, Tali remains shorter and slighter than your average human -- but she's lacking in her bowed legs and unique colouration. In fact, she appears for all intents and purposes to be a perfectly normal young woman of approximately 24 with dark eyes and olive-coloured skin. I've made her PB Sarah Shahi, who is of mixed Mexican and Iranian heritage -- the quarians cover their bodies completely with their suits and are as a people discriminated against for their beliefs and practices, so it seemed like the most logical choice. Her features closely mimic the ones that she has when she's quarian and in her suit.
[Random facts]:
-Dancers are highly respected in the quarian culture, probably for their grace and ability to entertain.
-Tali is a renowned machinist -- this means that she is adept at fixing most things mechanical and that she has a talent for hacking other sorts of machines. This is not a power that she has, just an ability that she's built up through years of tireless study.
Superscripts/Things that are headcanon:
1. The flotilla functions as best it can as a closed system, so it makes sense that people with the most aptitude for each type of job would be slated for them (much in the same way that people take job aptitude tests in the 'real world', but with less leeway for doing jobs you didn't test well for).
NAME: Lettie
AGE: 22.
JOURNAL: elarion
IM: Lettie347 (AIM)
E-MAIL: lettie347@gmail.com
RETURNING: Yes; 1 character (Andromeda Tonks)
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Tali'Zorah vas Normandy
FANDOM: Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2
CHRONOLOGY: After the conclusion of Mass Effect 2; before the Arrival DLC
CLASS: Hero; Tali will likely keep her dog tags.
SUPERHERO NAME:
ALTER EGO: Talia Norman; Mechanic
BACKGROUND: General universe information: The Mass Effect world revolves around many races of aliens coexisting with their newly-discovered brethren, the humans. In the year 2148, human explorers om Mars discovered the remains of an ancient civilization -- in the following years, the artifacts discovered here revealed new technology that allowed humankind to travel far beyond their home galaxy. These devices, called mass relays, allowed instant transportation of starships to any other relay connected to the mass effect network. Mass relays function by creating a mass-free 'corridor' of space-time between each other that transports a ship based on its measured mass. The relays have existed since the time of the Protheans, far before any of the current surviving species can remember. A machine race called the Reapers, older even than the Protheans, returned from their apparent dormancy to track down every settled planet and attack them, stripping the worlds of resources and enslaving the populations. This 'cycle of extinction' has apparently happened before, and is evidently destined to happen again. At the conclusion of the first Mass Effect game, Commander Shepard, a human agent sent to the governmental centre of the Mass Effect world known as the Citadel to inform them of the Reapers' plans, has stopped the initial attempt at destroying the current universe.
Mass Effect 2 centres around a group of beings known as the Collectors, who have been abducting human colonies. The Collectors live beyond the Omega 4 Relay, previously inaccessible to the rest of the universe. The Normandy SR-2 crew and Shepard eventually locate a way to pass through the Omega 4 Relay in order to destroy the Collectors and the threat they pose to the rest of the universe. Once this task is achieved, Mass Effect 2 concludes.
The quarian race itself is a nomadic group of creatures who exist in what is called the Migrant Fleet, or large band of ships that travel together. They value the group over the individual, and are forced to travel without a home planet because of a lost war between themselves and the robotic species that they created, the geth. Quarians are often looked down upon by other races and many people consider them to be thiefs and scoundrels, although most of the quarians encountered in the game are highly intelligent and honourable. The immune system of quarians has always been poor, since their home world's biosphere had relatively few pathogenic microbes. Their immune systems worsened as they lived for longer and longer on their sterile ships. It became necessary for them to wear bio-suits to protect them from outside bacteria and viruses, even when living on their ships.
Tali-specific history: Born Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, the daughter of a member of the quarian Admiralty Board has had an exciting life for her young age. She was raised on the flotilla by her mother until her death when Tali was seventeen -- infection from an airborne virus. While Tali was upset, it was an unfortunately common occurrence on the flotilla. Eventually, when she was of-age, Tali was slated for the machinist track in the quarian fleet1.
When she first met up with the crew of the original Normandy, she was participating in her Pilgrimage - a quarian tradition where young members of the fleet go out into the rest of the universe seeking information or technology that will help the fleet to advance. She was being pursued by an agent of the Reapers named Saren; Shepard and the rest of the crew managed to rescue her from being killed by his men during a double-cross with a man named the Shadow Broker. Whilst on the Normandy, Tali proved herself a capable machinist with technical skills to rival few others outside of the Migrant Fleet. Commander Shepard helped Tali to recover important data on the early years of the geth, a machine race that the quarians themselves created (which then went rogue and attempted to destroy all organic life). Returning the data to the Migrant Fleet and joining the ranks of the ship Neema, she gained the name Tali'Zorah vas Neema and became a fully-fledged adult.
Over the next two years, Tali gained great reputation with the Migrant Fleet. She headed a rescue mission to Freedom's Progress, the location where an entire human colony disappeared with no visible struggle, to rescue a quarian named Veetor who was on his Pilgrimage. Here she encountered Commander Shepard again (despite greatly exaggerated rumours that Shepard was dead), and she aided Shepard in the rescue of Veetor.
Tali was then sent on an important and mostly-classified mission to the planet of Haestrom. Tali and a group of quarian marines were eventually spotted on the planet's surface by the geth; they began dropping troops onto the ground and only Tali and a marine named Kal'Reegar survived the prolonged attack. Commander Shepard rescued them both after arriving on the planet in hopes of recruiting Tali to his latest cause against a group called the Collectors. She revealed to Shepard that she was on the planet collecting information about Haestrom's sun; that was only partially true. She was also collecting dormant parts of destroyed geth to send back to her father in the Migrant Fleet, believing he was conducting research on how to better fight the geth. Hurt and angry over the death of so many quarians on the planet, and still feeling as if she owed Shepard a debt for helping her with her pilgrimage, Tali joined the crew of the Normandy SR-2.
While posted on the Normandy, Tali received a distressing message from the Migrant Fleet telling her that she had been charged with treason. Commander Shepard accompanied her to the deck of the Rayya, where Tali discovered her charges were smuggling active geth into the fleet. She also found that her name had been changed by the fleet to vas Normandy, effectively stripping her of any ties to the Migrant Fleet. Tali had been sending her father deactivated geth samples that she was sure had not been dangerous. At the hearing, she was told that her father's research ship, the Alarei, had been overrun by geth and her father was assumed dead.
Along with Commander Shepard, Tali reclaimed the Alarei and wiped it of any remaining geth ... but Tali was also bombarded with the fact that her father was in fact committing crimes against the Migrant Fleet in an attempt to reactivate the geth neural networks and use them against the geth. This amounted more or less to charges of torturing live subjects, violating sacred laws that had been in place since before the quarians had been forced to flee their home planet. He had promised her a house on a new home world when she was young, and was preparing to help the Fleet go to war against the geth to do so. The Migrant Fleet had been divided on this issue for years. His body was found on the ship with a datapad instructing Tali to destroy the geth hub on the Alarei and take his research to the rest of the fleet.
Commander Shepard earned Tali's loyalty by convincing the Migrant Fleet that Tali's actions on the Alarei were proof enough that she had no idea what was happening on the ship; she was not exiled, and her father's secrets were kept buried. Tali was overjoyed, and agreed to follow Shepard on to the suicidal mission to wipe out the Collectors beyond the Omega 4 Relay. He needed her help and expertise, after all.
PERSONALITY: Being born into the Migrant Fleet means that Tali'Zorah is more comfortable in bustling, loud environments than she is in a quiet household. In fact, she finds it rather distressing to be anywhere that the machinery runs quietly -- in the Migrant Fleet, this usually means that life support is failing or worse. She enjoys crowds and being around large groups of people because it reminds her of home.
Having found little time for the nurturing of relationships in her ambitious life, Tali is notoriously awkward with expressing her feelings toward anyone and is prone to fits of rambling around people that she cares about. Canon states that Tali is a mechanical genius, having few matches outside of the Migrant Fleet. There are downsides to this, though, primarily that if she isn't busy with some sort of project she has a need to start one. She can't stand feeling useless or like she isn't contributing to anything. She is aware that she's good at what she does, but tries not to make too big a deal out of it -- unless someone is trying to stop her from helping them because they think she's young and incapable.
Her whole life has centred around trying to make her father (and by extension, the rest of the Migrant Fleet) proud of her, and she thinks that joining Shepard's crew to save the universe is a worthy way to do this. In some ways, Tali is still very immature -- she's very frank and open with her body language, and when she finds someone attractive she can't be subtle about it; she'll talk constantly about them. Although she is cautious around people until she finds out their true beliefs about quarians, she is friendly enough and tries to offer up information to others that she believes is helpful.
Having never had a human form, Tali is in all likelihood going to attempt to 'overdose' on many of the things she's never experienced: she'll eat different foods until she gets sick, she'll probably go out in the sun for too long and get a nasty burn, and she'll likely try and smell everything in sight -- this last curiosity is probably going to take a while to go away.
Although she was not close to her father, his death and finding out that he was lying to her about the reasons she needed to send him geth has upset her greatly. The fact that her father would keep anything from her hurt her deeply; she had always convinced herself that her father had just been too busy rising in the ranks of the Migrant Fleet to show her how much he loved her, but his keeping secrets from her made her believe that perhaps he'd just gotten too obsessed with providing for her to realize what would be best for their family.
The safety of the group she is affiliated with is Tali's prime concern; she will put herself at risk for the 'greater good' without a second thought as long as she respects the leader of said group. Her loyalty is built on an entire childhood being taught that you protected your own no matter what the cost, so although it is going to be hard-earned it is well worth the effort.
POWER: Form shifting: Tali will be able to shift from her human form to her quarian one (including the suit, for the sake of ... not dying) at will. She won't be able to control this at first, and it will happen unexpectedly. This is how she'll arrive in the city.
Combat Drone generation: Tali is able to summon one combat drone at a time; drones draw fire and can electronically shock (and potentially stun) targets. When the drone is destroyed, it will explode and inflict high damage on any nearby enemies. The drones are round and float in mid-air - they are about fourteen inches in diameter and are capable of being quite speedy. Tali is able to control the drones; they obey her commands and can also sense her thoughts and desires. Any drone generated by Tali will be violet in colour.
Omni-tool: Like Mordin Solus' omni-tool, Tali's can generate a hard-light construct over her arm. Not really a power so much as equipment, her omni-tool is most adept at hacking electronics (including hacking AI to fight for her), running repair diagnostics, and draining energy from enemy shields (including multiple enemies in an area).
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE: [Tali opens her comm. device. She fiddles with it for several minutes before anything actually happens, and when she does start the live feed, it's with voice only. It appears that someone is having a mild identity crisis.]
Hello. I'm afraid that I'm not sure exactly what's going on here.
[There is some background clicking that sounds like it's separate from her phone, followed by a a short whirr -- she's starting up her omni-tool, attempting to do some preliminary scans of the room that she's found herself in. She thinks it's probably also pertinent to put up her shield, just in case this is some sort of ambush. It honestly wouldn't be the first time.]
My name is Tali'zorah, and I am a member of the Normandy SR-2 crew. I have found myself in a strange building with an -- information pamphlet and some identification tags, but...
[Her voice trails off after a moment, and it's a few more seconds of silence before she gets it back.]
...but I feel like I'm having a bit of an ... identity crisis. Is anyone else having this problem? Has anyone else had this problem? Because this is not the sort of thing that's kind to dump on someone who has just arrived in a strange place, and does not at all put me at ease that I am not going to suddenly be shot at by angry batarians. In fact, it makes me feel like I should probably have my shotgun.
[She's rambling and she knows it, but the fact that she suddenly has five fingers instead of three and more importantly, that she isn't inside her suit is, well ... a bit much to handle all at once, even for someone who is used to the unexpected. Normally at least some of the crew tagged along for the suicide missions.]
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE: It was the middle of the night and Tali'Zorah was staring up at the roof of her cabin, noticing that even though this ship, the Normandy SR-2, was built to look more or less the same as the SSV Normandy, the differences are noticeable to anyone who spent even a few minutes on the original ship. The SSV Normandy had never been a luxury vessel; the crew quarters had been bare bones and the kitchen had been a military-grade mess. Cerberus' intentions to impress the former Normandy crew with their comfortable dining hall and cushioned leather chairs had, she thought, actually had the opposite effect. Everything felt strange, comfortable but not-quite-right. There were no panels peeling back on her roof, no characteristic bends to the metal that made her think they'd skimped on crew quarters just to make sure the rest of the ship was a little stealthier, a little safer.
This was why she didn't spend much time in her quarters on this new ship. No matter what the rest of the ship looked like, her engine room would always be the same. She'd been utterly relieved to see that Cerberus hadn't taken it upon themselves to try and improve the engineering deck, presumably because the people who were working there had been intended to be Cerberus crew only (not that Donnelly or Daniels seemed like bad people, really). The core room was the only place on the Normandy that still felt like home, and she'd expressed that opinion to both Garrus Vakerian and Shepard. They'd both agreed, although Shepard had been less willing to do so.
If she wanted to be honest with herself, it wasn't just the fact that the ship's layout had changed: it was the fact that their crew now housed a member of the species that she'd always been taught to hate. Legion, in fact, was not just one geth - it was a whole network of geth (1,183 of them, in fact) that formed a collective consciousness. Tali had to admit that seeing Legion made her feel more guilty about what her people (and her father, him most of all) were doing to the geth even now. Legion had told Shepard (and Shepard in turn had told her) that the majority of the geth were in fact apathetic toward humanity and other organic creatures ... but the quarian fleet had been pursuing any and all geth. Legion's statement had explained much about the differences in the geth that the quarians had encountered since the end of the first major war; some geth had seemed completely content to ignore quarians in their space, while some had been intent on running any and all organics out of their zones.
They had, for who knew how long, been killing creatures that held no ill-will against them. It left a bad taste in her mouth, especially when she considered how often the members of the Admiralty had stated revenge as a motivation for the continuation of their war against the geth. She had thought of trying to convince the Admiralty of the genuineness of some of the geth, no matter how uncomfortable it made her -- but she was sure that they wouldn't believe it. Worse yet, after what she had seen her father do -- she feared they would capture Legion and attempt to extract information out of it. She might not have cared for the creature, might not have understood it -- but that didn't mean it deserved to be tortured based on the flimsy-at-best logic that it was a machine that didn't feel pain. She had seen enough of Legion to know that while it might not have appeared to feel pain in the strictest sense, it could still understand loss. That was a step in the right direction.
The war had to end eventually, after all. If the quarians continued their vendetta forever, it would only result in their destruction -- Tali'Zorah just hoped that somehow the fleet could be convinced.
She sighed, finally looking away from the ceiling.
Perhaps it was appropriate that this Normandy wasn't the same as the one from the past: the ship had in fact changed with her crew. The future was uncomfortable and strange, but they would adapt as they always had - and hopefully become better for it.
FINAL NOTES ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER: [Tali's appearance as a quarian]: Tali is of average height for a quarian, shorter and slighter of build than most humans. Like all quarians, she has three fingers on each hand and three toes on each foot, and her legs are bowed backward. Oh, and don't ask about her ears, if you've heard the rumours -- they are a topic of some great sensitivity. Features of Tali's face (and even whether she is blushing or making any sort of facial expression) are greatly obstructed by the screen of her suit. The only thing visible through the screen is the faint glow of her eyes. Her voice is modified slightly as it moves through her breathing apparatus, but she still comes across as soft-spoken and even quiet. Few people see the faces of quarians because it is so dangerous to their health to be exposed to the outside environment.
Like all quarians, Tali wears her enviro-suit constantly. It is a close-fitting, compartmentalized and extremely sophisticated cover that protects her from having severe allergic reactions to ... almost everything, really. Her particular suit is embellished with a violet headdress covered in swirling designs; this particular style of headdress signifies her as a full adult of the Migrant Fleet. All enviro-suits are also equipped with nerve stimulators for the adventurous quarian who wants to experience pleasure and sensation without risking their health.
[Tali's appearance as a human]: While human, Tali remains shorter and slighter than your average human -- but she's lacking in her bowed legs and unique colouration. In fact, she appears for all intents and purposes to be a perfectly normal young woman of approximately 24 with dark eyes and olive-coloured skin. I've made her PB Sarah Shahi, who is of mixed Mexican and Iranian heritage -- the quarians cover their bodies completely with their suits and are as a people discriminated against for their beliefs and practices, so it seemed like the most logical choice. Her features closely mimic the ones that she has when she's quarian and in her suit.
[Random facts]:
-Dancers are highly respected in the quarian culture, probably for their grace and ability to entertain.
-Tali is a renowned machinist -- this means that she is adept at fixing most things mechanical and that she has a talent for hacking other sorts of machines. This is not a power that she has, just an ability that she's built up through years of tireless study.
Superscripts/Things that are headcanon:
1. The flotilla functions as best it can as a closed system, so it makes sense that people with the most aptitude for each type of job would be slated for them (much in the same way that people take job aptitude tests in the 'real world', but with less leeway for doing jobs you didn't test well for).