Turians

Turians are an extraterrestrial species that features in Mass Effect.

History

The Turians were an alien species native to the Milky Way Galaxy who evolved on the planet Palaven. At some point, it was noted that their home system had a Mass Relay located in it. Later on, the Protheans were said to had been aware of the Turian race who they remarked as being a primitive species.

After developing space flight, the first turian starship to travel through a relay was called the THV Ravuna.

Their world later became embroiled in a bitter civil war known as the Unification War when hostilities began between the colonies furthest from Palaven. These colonies were run by the local chieftains with many distancing themselves from the Hierarchy. Without government influence, the colonies became increasingly isolated and xenophobic. The colonists began wearing emblems or facial markings that differentiated themselves from members of other colonies with open hostilities becoming common. After war broke out, the Hierarchy maintained strict diplomacy and refused to become involved in the tensions. It was only after several years of fighting that the Hierarchy finally intervened when less than a dozen factions remained. By this point, the chieftains were simply too weak to resist and were forced to put an end to the fighting and renew their allegiance to the Hierarchy. As a result, peace was restored but it took several decades for the animosity to fate completely between the colonists. However, traces of this time remained among the Turian people as many of their kind still wore the facial markings of their home colonies.

In the midst of the Krogan Rebellions, the Citadel Council made first contact with the turians. At the Council's behest, the turians brought their considerable war machine to bear on the krogan, now a recognized threat. While the initial turian offensive was successful in routing many krogan warrior bands, it provoked a massive counterattack from the krogan which devastated several turian colonies. Three turian worlds were rendered completely uninhabitable after the krogan used fusion torches to throw asteroids at them, and the bloodiest battle in turian history occurred at Digeris, where the planet was severely bombarded and the turians sacrificed many frigates and fighters to take out a fleet of krogan dreadnoughts. Rather than scaring off the turians with this show of force, the turians only fought with more resolve to quash the krogan utterly. Eventually, the turians implemented the salarian-developed genophage. With their advantage in numbers removed, the majority of krogan were subdued by 800 CE, although scattered insurgent actions would continue for decades.

Around 1,200 years ago, the turians were invited to join the ranks of the Citadel Council where they were offered the role of galactic peacekeepers. Thus, their military came to fill the role that had been left over by the decimated krogan.

In the aftermath, there was lingering animosity between the turians and humans following the Relay 314 Incident but had since managed to become allies with civil yet cool diplomatic relations.

Overview

In appearance, Turians were a bipedal race that evolved on a world with a metal-poor core that generated a weak magnetic field allowing for more solar radiation into the atmosphere. As a result, life forms on Palaven developed a metallic exoskeleton to protect themselves. The reflective plate-like skin made the Turians less susceptible to long-term, low-level radiation exposure. Despite this protect, the exoskeleton was not a natural armor as it was not thick enough to stop projectiles or directed energy bolts. Life on Palaven also was carbon-based and oxygen-breathing that were built on dextro-amino acids making them one of the few sapient species that were dextro-protein. A result of this was that food from levo-amino acid-based biospheres such as humans, Asari or Salarians at best passed through Turian digestive systems without providing any nutrition. In more extreme cases, such food could trigger an allergic reaction that could be fatal to the Turian if it was not treated immediately. Turian biotics were relatively rare with their ability only manifesting in a small percentage of Element Zero exposed members of their kind.

Their society was autocratic that valued discipline with turians holding a strong sense of personal and collective honor. They were taught to have a strong sense of personal accountability with this 'turian honor' being something that other races found remarkable. Turians were taught to take responsibility for every decision they made whether it was good or bad. In Turian culture, the worst sin that could be made among them was to lie about their actions. In fact, Turians that committed murder attempted to get away with it but when directly questioned most tended to confess to their crimes.

Turian society was highly regimented and very organized, and the species was known for its strict discipline and work ethic. Turians were willing to do what needed to be done, and they always followed through. They were not easily spurred to violence, but when conflict was inevitable, they only understood a concept of 'total war'. They did not believe in skirmishes or small-scale battles as they used massive fleets and numbers to defeat an adversary so completely that they removed any threat of having to fight the same opponent more than once. They did not exterminate their enemy, but so completely devastated their military that the enemy had no choice but to become a colony of the turians. It was theorized that another conflict between the rapidly advancing humans and the turians could annihilate a large portion of known space.

The turian military was the center of their society. It was not just an armed force; it was an all-encompassing public works organization. The military police were also the civic police. The fire brigades served the civilian population as well as military facilities. The corps of engineers built and maintained spaceports, schools, water purification plants, and power stations. The merchant marine ensured that all worlds got their needed resources.

They enjoyed broad freedoms so long as one completed their duties and did not prevent others from completing their own. As a result, nothing was forbidden from the Turians with no laws against recreational drug use but if someone failed to complete their duties due to said drug use then their superiors stepped in. Judicial proceedings acted as a form of intervention with peers expressing their concern and attempted to convince the offender to change their ways. If rehabilitation failed, then the Turians had no qualms about sentencing dangerous individuals to life of hard labour for the state. Turians had a strong inclination towards public service and self-sacrifice which made them poor entrepreneurs. It was this reason that they accepted the mercantile Volus as a client race to compensate for this shortcoming and offered protection in exchange for their fiscal expertise.

Their government operated as a form of hierarchical meritocracy that operated due to the civic duty and sense of personal responsibility that Turians learnt from childhood preventing it form being misused. Turian society was divided into 27 citizenship tiers that started with civilians along with client races and children. The initial period of military service led to a citizen entering into the second tier. Formal citizenship was conferred at the third tier following boot camp. Client races gained citizenship after the individual mustered out. Higher-ranking citizens were expected to lead and protect subordinates. Meanwhile, lower ranking citizens were expected to obey and support superiors. Promotion to another tier of citizenship that was based on personal assessments of one's superiors and co-rankers. During their lives, Turians ascended to higher tiers that were occasionally demoted to lower ones. Stigma was associated with demotion lying not on the individual but on those that promoted them when they were not ready for their additional responsibility. As a result, this curbed any tendency to promote individuals to positions that were beyond capabilities. Settling into a role and rank was not considered stagnation as it was expected that a Turian's value was by them knowing their limitations rather than their ambitions.

At the top of the hierarchy were the Primarchs who each ruled a colonization cluster and voted on matters of national importance. They otherwise maintained a hands-off policy with them trusting citizens on each level below them to do their jobs competently. Hierarchy line of succession was clear on who became the new leader if the former one was killed.

The Turian term 'barefaced' referred to an individual who was beguiling or not to be trusted with this also being a slang for politicians.

Turian troops adhered to the strict moral code of, "The needs of the group outweigh that of the individual" with discipline being a foundation of their society. As a result, their lines never collapsed but instead their military simply fell back in order and setting up ambushes as they moved with it said that the only time one saw the back of a Turian was when they were dead.

One body within their government was the Office of Technological Reconnaissance that included technology recovery specialists and were responsible for salvaging for salvaging advanced technology. The Turian Engineering Corps (TEC) was a body responsible for maintaining everything from sidewalks to making spaceports.

Within Citadel space, they held the largest fleet and made up the single largest portion of the Council's military forces. Over time, their territory and influence began to grow with the turians coming to rely on the salarians for military intelligence whilst the asari provided diplomacy. Whilst holding a colonial attitude to the galaxy, the Turian Hierarchy understood they would lose more by losing their fellow Council member races yet gained more by their cooperation.

One elite unit within the Turian military were the lethal 26th Armiger Legion who were a respected and feared frontline assault squad. Their Havoc Soldiers on the battlefield made use of propulsion packs that were built into their armor to launch lightning-quick airstrikes on unsuspecting enemies. Another exceptionally skilled group was the Blackwatch that consisted of Special Ops soldiers that were sent on missions where there was a threat to the safety of Palaven. The majority of their operations were classified but they were accepted as holding the highest success rate of any Turian unit. Another elite unit consisted of biotics were the Cabals whose dictim was 'the intangible is unstoppable' that tended to be small and only consisted of 10-15 individuals led by a commanding officer called a kabalim. They were typically deployed covertly as shoock troopers and saboteurs or alternatively sent on long recon missions for the Hierarchy. Turians received advanced biotic training along with being highly skilled in small arms, explosives, infiltration tactics and piloting. Despite their use in this role, Turian biotics received much stigma due to their use as black ops assassins in the Unification Wars. As a result, the Turian Hierarchy normally isolated them from other branches of the military with them claiming that this was for safety and unit cohesion. Even those not skilled in combat were forced into such roles preventing them from becoming medics or maintenance officers. As such, Cabal soldiers tended to be professionals who were required to adapt or be weeded out of the ranks leading to strongly unified teams of experienced deadly biotic soldiers that endure the isolation for the benefit of the Hierarchy.

After the Battle of the Citadel, the Turians attempted to reverse engineer the main weapon of the Reaper Sovereign. This led to the development of the Thanix Magnetic-Hydrodynamic Weapon that was a miniaturised version of the gun. It involved an element zero core that was powered by an electromagnetic field that suspended liquid iron-uranium-tungsten alloy that was shaped into an armor-piercing projectile when fire. The jet trail of molten metal was accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light with it destroying targets by impact force along with the irresistible heat.

Members

• Septimus Oraka :
• Saren Arterius :
• Garrus Vakarian :
• Macen Barro :
• Nihlus Kryik :
• Tiran Kandros :
• Vetra Nyx :
• Sidera Nyx :
• Nyreen Kandros :

Notes

• The Turians featured in the setting of the Mass Effect universe.
• In Mass Effect 3, Turian characters were playable in the multilayer mode with numerous classes available.

Appearances

• Mass Effect:
• Mass Effect 2:
• Mass Effect 3:
• Mass Effect: Andromeda:

External Links

• Mass Effect Wiki Entry

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