Liara T'Soni

Liara is an asari, a species whose members can live for over a millennia and a species which is perceived to have a feminine appearance by non-asari standards,[5][2] and which is sometimes described as "all female".[1][2] 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.[5][2] 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.[6] Liara is a possible romantic interest for a male and female Commander Shepard throughout the entire Mass Effect trilogy.[7]

Liara is the estranged child of Matriarch Benezia, a well-respected and powerful asari biotic.[8] 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.[9]

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.