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Mass Effect 2: Lanius

Loyalty Mission: Tali

Tali is accused of treason. Tali stands trial. Tali goes to the Alarai to look for her father, and to find proof of her evidence. Tali slowly realizes that her father made a grave sin of treason, and finds the proof she didn't want to admit.

Rael Zorrah was working with Cerberus.

Rael and Cerberus had a common threat, the Geth, and a common interest, defeating the Geth. The Alarai was a black project, a joint Quarian-Cerberus effort to find out how to bypass the Geth's cyber-defenses. Sharing the costs, sharing the effort, sharing the data, Rael's team and Cerberus scientists worked side by side for two years, even after Cerberus blew up a Migrant Fleet ship during the events of Ascension.

As Shepard and Tali push through the Alarai, they find more and more damning evidence. The human corpses of Cerberus scientists, recordings of both sides. Tali is half in shock, half in denial at the idea of her father collaborating with Cerberus, and keeps pushing forward hoping to find something to the contrary. Something that would suggest her father didn't know, didn't realize, had wanted to stop but was being blackmailed. Something. Anything.

What they find, however, is Rael saying that Cerberus's actions didn't matter, that he'd keep working with them because he promised his daughter a house on the home world.

This evidence would save Tali… but exposing a Cerberus conspiracy at the highest levels of the Quarian government would throw the Migrant Fleet into chaos, and blacken Rael forever.

Mission Choice:

To expose the truth, defend a friend, and reveal a betrayal of the public's trust. Or to commit perjury, be complicit in a false conviction, and hide a treasonous conspiracy at the highest levels of governance?

Why handing over the evidence was Renegade was always beyond me. Now it isn't. Just as the Paragon option was the only way to win Kasumi's personal loyalty, the Renegade option is the key to Tali's.

The Paragon option of exposing the data is based on the premise of doing the honorable, correct thing even when it's inconvenient to you… and even when it's inconvenient to your friends, but in their best interest. Paragon shouldn't be holding the law to strangers, and breaking it for friends. Besides all that Truth and Justice and Corruption of Government idealism, there's also the matter of Tali's exile… and there's also the matter of Geth-Quarian peace. Exposing Rael's conspiracy with Cerberus discredits all the War Hawks: a peace-nik like Quib-Quib would be appointed in reaction to Rael's failure, and the Admiralty board might actually shift towards being willing to make peace with the Geth. Tali may be emotionally devastated, but there's much to be said about it being better for the Quarians in the long run.

The Renegade option avoids the proper societal expectations and goes for the personal, more pragmatic interests and aggressive position against the Reapers. Tali's wish to be exiled rather than see her father vilified is granted. The Admiralty board covers up the shameful secret. Another hawk is promoted to the Admiralty board, and the Quarians remain primed towards war with the Geth and Reapers. The conspiracy remains hidden… and according to Admiral Xen, may even be resumed. Tali may be loyal, but the cancer of Cerberus remains hidden in the Quarian government.

There are no third options, or persuasion outs.

Analysis:

This choice, more than all others, is meant to make players question a hard choice: balancing what's right versus what's sympathetic, and balancing a personal friend against collective interests. Easy outs like a persuade check ruin that.

Obviously, there is a contrast to the Kasumi loyalty mission's play against the players. There, the prospect of being angry at Kasumi was used to contrast risking a dangerous secret or helping a friend. Here, sympathy for a fan favorite is used to act as a motivation for the subversion of justice. Helping Tali is nice: it's what she wants. It is not, however, what's right by most standards of morality. You're putting her own emotional interests ahead of a treasonous conspiracy.

If it was integrity alone, most players would choose Tali without a second thought. Breaking the rules to help a friend? Bah. Commit perjury or allow a treasonous Cerberus conspiracy to remain in place? Meh. Tie in the prospect with peace with the Geth, and make it opposed to Tali's loyalty? Well…

Geth-Quarian Peace should be hard. It should also not be the result of two ideal routes converging: if the sympathetic choice with Tali was just as good as the one where she shouts she hates you, and if the 'make the Geth stronger' option wasn't bad in some way, people would have little reason to not take the easy routes for maximum gain. They'd take their emotionally-easy choices and get the best deal, while everyone else would have to rationalize paying more for less.

Geth and Quarian peace should be better than either one apart… and challenging the player with options that are 'better' for one side or the other, but ruins peace, makes the player weigh in what they really value. Does Tali's loyalty outweigh a Migrant Fleet willing to make peace? Does a much stronger Geth and the end of a war with most organics justify ruining compromise with one species in particular?

Doing the right thing should be hard, or else there would be no virtue in doing so. Tali's loyalty mission should be about doing the right thing.

Author Note:

You know what would be a cool in-game cameo? A Cerberus recording referencing Project Overlord. Even before you install the DLC.

Other than that, linking Cerberus into the loyalty mission makes an exotic tie-in back to the main plot lines. Even without showing up they have a presence, and an effect. Plus, an actual basis for what Rael did actually being so horrible. 'Cyber-eapons tests on our historic enemies' doesn't really seem like high-class treason to me, the way Bioware presented it. 'Working with terrorists who attacked, even after they attacked us,' does.

And, of course, putting personal loyalty against Geth-Quarin peace is a wringer of a decision. It's not the only one to do that (Kasumi's grey box is bad news of a different sort), but sometimes you have to step over friends who are being emotional in order to do what's 'best' for more people. Tali, who was never hardly conciliatory towards the Geth in ME1, makes an ideal sympathetic, likable character regardless of the addition of a flaw of note.