Liara T'Soni

Prior to Mass Effect 3, fans were most familiar with Liara's outfit in the original Mass Effect.[12]

Liara is the estranged child of Matriarch Benezia, a well-respected and powerful asari biotic.[16] Following the exposure of Benezia's involvement with the disgraced Spectre Saren Arterius and their search for an artifact known as the Conduit, Shepard is given a lead to search for Liara and discover what she knows. Liara pleads with Shepard for help when they encounter her in Therum, offering to explain her circumstances and means to be freed. If Shepard pursues other leads first and significantly delays rescuing Liara, she mistakes her rescuers for figments of her own imagination as a result of being stuck for so long. Nevertheless, she humors her "hallucinations" and answers their questions. She only realizes Shepard's squad are real when they reappear to release her.

On her first debriefing aboard the Normandy, Liara shares her theory of cyclical extinction: the Protheans were just the latest in a long line of civilizations to reach a violent end after reaching their apex. Liara notes that there is remarkably little evidence of the Protheans' existence, and speculates that their final fate has been deliberately covered up. As Shepard obtains fragmented visions from various sources during the hunt for Saren and his agents, Liara offers her melding abilities to try and make sense of the data. She constantly exhausts herself after each encounter, prompting frequent suggestions to report to Dr. Chakwas, but collects herself together long enough to explain what she saw. Once Shepard obtains the Cipher, the Mu Relay's location, and the distress call from the Prothean Beacon on Virmire, Liara finally recognizes enough clues to deduce the lost planet of Ilos as the Conduit's true location.

Liara's role in the original trilogy is reduced in Mass Effect 2, set two years after the first game. Liara has become an information broker on Illium in direct rivalry to the Shadow Broker. She initially depicts a radically changed personality due to her experience working as a black market information dealer in the two years since Mass Effect; having improved her biotic abilities, she also uses threats and other intimidation tactics to extort information, mimicking Benezia's demeanour and speech tactics when confronting others. If the player imported a Shepard from the original Mass Effect that romanced Liara, she greets Shepard with a kiss. Liara's anger at the Broker stems from when he recovered Shepard's body and was prepared to sell it to the Collectors during the events of Mass Effect: Redemption. After certain dialogue choices, the player is finally able to break through her shell and reveal the real Liara, revealing that her seemingly darker personality is nothing more than a facade. Liara took pains in getting Shepard's body from the Broker and gave it to Cerberus so they could bring Shepard back to life. Liara knew that Cerberus would use Shepard for their own uses, but still gave them Shepard's body as she cares for Shepard and could not let the Commander go. She feared that Shepard would hate her for this, and apologizes. In spite of wanting to join Shepard, she declines Shepard's offer to join the suicide mission to rescue human colonists, in order to continue her quest for revenge against the Shadow Broker.

Liara joins Shepard's crew temporarily in the Mass Effect 2 DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker if the player decides to help her hunt down the Shadow Broker. Shepard gradually breaks her hardened shell after lecturing her about mindlessly running into battles, but at the same time she states that she won't stop "to enjoy the scenery" until she's done. After the Shadow Broker is killed, Liara takes the opportunity to usurp his now vacant role. She says she will use her position and resources to help assist Shepard's ongoing mission to fight the Reapers. It is also possible to resume the player character's romance with Liara at the end of "Lair of the Shadow Broker".

Liara returns in Mass Effect 3 as a mainstay of Shepard's squad. Liara becomes the Shadow Broker regardless of whether the player imports a Mass Effect 2 saved game where Lair of the Shadow Broker was completed; if not, she tells Shepard that she took on the Shadow Broker with dozens of hired mercenaries, but it resulted in Feron's death. If Shepard assisted her in taking out the Shadow Broker, she mentions that during the time that Shepard was in Alliance custody, Cerberus managed to track down the Shadow Broker's ship. Liara and Feron loaded as much equipment as they could onto a shuttle as possible, then remotely sent the aging ship crashing into a pursuing Cerberus cruiser, resulting in the destruction of both ships. Liara notes that she has retained the crucial part of the Broker's operation, the galaxy-wide spy network.

After the events of Arrival, Admiral Hackett commissioned for Liara's aid, and they both realized what little time the galaxy had left before the Reapers arrived. However, this brought her into direct conflict with the Illusive Man and Cerberus. Eventually, through a process of elimination, mixed with desperation, she discovered plans for a "Prothean superweapon" on Mars. However, by then the Reaper invasion has reached Earth. Liara's familiarity with Prothean artifacts as well as asari culture and history, along with the significant resources at her disposal as the Shadow Broker, means that she plays a pivotal role in Mass Effect 3's narrative and often provides additional dialogue for plot exposition purposes if she is included in the party during certain missions.[17] During the war, Liara recorded a collection of intel on the Reapers and her current cycle, as well as the complete history of the species of Liara's time and their accumulated knowledge of how to fight them.[18] She stores the information within Glyph, her VI drone assistant, and stashes it away as a time capsule.[19] The time capsule represents a contingency plan if the allied races of her time are not able to defeat the Reapers in this cycle and are wiped out, ensuring the next cycle will have a better opportunity to prepare for the Reapers' arrival, and a complete set of plans to start out from.[18]

If the From Ashes DLC is installed and the Prothean endling Javik is recruited as a squad member, she is initially overjoyed to have one serving aboard the Normandy, but slowly becomes disillusioned; she admitted that she had previously imagined the Protheans as the "keepers of wisdom and enlightenment" of their era, only to find them to be "cold and ruthless warlords". Eventually, her relationship with Javik reaches a breaking point after the fall of Thessia; Liara confronts Javik at him quarters and vents her frustration at him for "not having the answers". If Shepard intervenes to defuse the situation instead of allowing Liara to walk away, the two will begin to respect and appreciate each other.

During the main narrative of the downloadable add-on Citadel, Liara calls in a favor to find information on the gun found by Shepard after they are attacked by an unknown mercenary group during the crew's shore leave. She will later participate in the raid on the Citadel Archives with the rest of Shepard's crew to pursue the instigators behind the group's attack. The DLC also adds a number of character moments for the character, such as Liara playing the only song she knew how to on the piano located on the lower floor of Shepard's apartment, and her friendly rivalry with James Vega through debates and card games during the big party, culminating in Liara demonstrating her levitation powers on Vega while intoxicated.

Liara T'Soni makes a minor appearance in Mass Effect: Andromeda, in the form of voice messages sent to Alec Ryder in his quarters aboard the Hyperion. Pathfinder Ryder can unlock and listen to Liara's voice messages, which were originally sent in 2182, a year before her encounter with Shepard, where she discussed her research into the Protheans and their lost empire. Eventually, Ryder will unlock a message by Liara from 2186, sent to Alec while he was in stasis on the Hyperion traveling to Andromeda, informing him that the Reapers have arrived. She mentions the Crucible but warns Alec to expect the worst, and asks him and his children to not forget the people they left behind.

The narrative in Redemption begins with Commander Shepard mysteriously disappearing in the Terminus Systems, out of contact with the SSV Normandy and its crew. Both the Shadow Broker and Liara T'Soni are to find and retrieve the dead body of Commander Shepard. Just as Tazzik, an agent of the Shadow Broker wants to turn over the corpse to the Collectors, Liara manages to capture it, with the help of the drell Feron, who is captured in the process, and turn it over to Cerberus, hoping that they may be able to revive Shepard.

Liara appears as a minor character in the animated feature film Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. This marks the only instance where Ali Hillis did not reprise her role as the character.

Liara is the protagonist of the fourth issue of Mass Effect: Homeworlds, which takes place after the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. As the new Shadow Broker, Liara desperately searches for a way to stop the Reapers. Journeying to Thessia to examine the Prothean archives there, she is disappointed to learn how little they contain. A former colleague recommends investigating Kahje since its Prothean ruins are much more vast. Once there, Liara persuades a hanar official to allow her to visit a submerged Prothean site that had become a hanar shrine. A drell named Quoyle takes her to the shrine, but on arrival the shrine launches torpedoes at Quoyle's craft; a Cerberus Phantom had killed the shrine's staff and activated the defenses. When the craft is hit, Liara uses her biotics to keep it from flooding while Quoyle guides it to the dock.

At the shrine, Liara encounters and kills the Phantom, using her biotics to slam a piece of debris through the Phantom's skull. Quoyle is wounded, but not mortally and tells Liara to go on to the archives. There, Liara discovers a promising lead in the form of encryption keys for other Prothean archives, but is interrupted by the Illusive Man. He insists that the Phantom is not his doing, blaming the attack on a rogue faction within Cerberus and proposes that they form an alliance against the Reapers. Liara agrees that to pool her resources with Cerberus's against the Reapers might be a mutually beneficial move, but she insists that he upload his information first. When the Illusive Man remains silent, Liara opines that either he wants to keep the information he has to himself, or that he doesn't have any information in the first place.

As Liara goes to leave, the Illusive Man insinuates that she doesn't have what it takes to be the Shadow Broker, claiming that his black market contacts think the Broker has become soft, weak and vulnerable to usurpation, insisting she needs his help; Liara retorts that he is the one trying to make a deal, advises him to send an army the next time he tries to kill her and leaves. As she helps Quoyle to the shrine's shuttle bay, she informs Admiral Hackett of her possible lead and asks for access to a top-secret facility on Mars.

Like Shepard's other squad members, merchandise was made of Liara T'Soni. A bishoujo figure of her was released by Kotobukiya in May 2012.[20] BioWare initially released preview images of the figure in September 2011,[21] and later reduced the surface area around the breasts from the initial design following fan feedback.[22] Other notable merchandise include a Liara mimobot flash sold by BioWare's store,[23] and a figure of Liara released by Gaming Heads in early 2015.[13]

Liara T'Soni has been well received by video game journalists and series fans since the inception of the Mass Effect franchise, and the potential romance with her has also been of some interest. In a 2007 article written for GameSetWatch, Chris Dahlen explained that while he found Mass Effect disappointing, particularly the lacklustre characterization of its non playable characters, he noted that Liara was the "less obnoxious" of the available romance options and her explanations about the asari species to be well articulated.[24] UGO.com included Liara in their list of the 50 sexiest female scientists.[25] GamesRadar's Jordan Baughman cited Liara's characterization in the first game as an example of BioWare's "The Awkward Hottie" character archetype, specifically a "naive beauty who doesn’t truly understand how harsh the world/universe can be" and who "turns into an absolute mess when placed in social settings".[26] IGN ranked her fourth on their list of best Mass Effect teammates published in 2012.[27]

Following the release of Mass Effect 3, various media outlets have identified Liara as one of the best characters of the Mass Effect Trilogy in various character lists. Daniel Nye Griffiths from Forbes argued that Liara is the real hero of the Mass Effect series as she played an important role throughout the original trilogy with assisting Shepard's struggle against the Reapers and their indoctrinated servants, noting that the time capsule Liara has prepared may still play a pivotal role in preparing future Milky Way races for the Reapers' threat if the organic races of their cycle are ultimately extinguished.[18] UGO.com ranked Liara as the second best Mass Effect 3 squad member, noting that "with a complete biotic skill set, Liara is a powerful ally against armored, shielded and barriered foes alike."[28] Liara was included by Escapist Magazine in their 8 Most Badass Videogame Ladies list.[29] Michael Rougeau from Complex ranked Liara as one of the fifty greatest heroines in video-game-history, noting that she is "much more than a simple love interest for Commander Shepard — she's also a way for players to connect with the game's alien races on a deeper level".[30] Gamestm named Liara one of BioWare's 8 most memorable companion characters.[31] In a 2016 article, PC Gamer ranked Liara the fourth best companion of the Mass Effect series. PC Gamer staff lauded the character's "killer story arc", her role in "providing counterbalancing compassion to Shepard’s necessary cynicism", and giving the Mass Effect series heart "without it having to be constantly bleeding".[17] Green Man Gaming included Liara in their top 5 list of the best characters from the Mass Effect franchise.[32]

A fan cosplaying as Liara.

Liara remained a fan favorite after the conclusion of the Mass Effect trilogy, and is one of the more popular characters in the series, particularly for fan art and cosplay activities.[33]A reader's poll published by IGN in December 2014 for their top ultimate RPG party choices placed Liara at #15 under the reserves section.[34] Another reader's poll published by PC Gamer in 2015 reveal that Liara was overall the fourth most popular Mass Effect character, and the most popular love interest for Shepard.[35] Player statistics published by Guinness World Records revealed that Liara T'Soni was the most popular Mass Effect 3 squad member with 24.1% of the votes, as well as the overall most popular romance option among respondents with 29% of the vote.[36][37] Tim Clark from PC Gamer ranked Liara as his personal favorite Bioware companion,[38] as did Aidan Simonds from Playstation Lifestyle. Clark commented that "it's testament to the skill of BioWare's writers that she isn't reduced to just being the drippy, peace-loving, science-y one. I mean, she's all those things, but she's also more complex", and claimed that the character motivated him "to be a better Shepard". Mike Fahey from Kotaku praised Liara's freckles as a design choice, saying it gives the character "a life I wouldn't normally expect from an alien creature in a brand-spanking new science fiction universe."[13] Jess McDonell from Gamespot picked Liara as her ideal real-life date.[39]

In a retrospective examination of Liara's story arc in the trilogy, Simmonds said Liara's well rounded characterization is a very good example of a character who benefits from a consistent narrative through the original trilogy.[40] Lee Hutchinson from Ars Technica reflected on the various romance options and subplots integrated throughout the trilogy, and concluded that BioWare designed Mass Effect 3 with Liara "as the canonical romance choice—you run into her first, and she’s with you the longest, and she has tons of dialog and is one of the more complete bedroom scenes near the end".[41] Stacey Henley from VG247 in March 2020, noted that Liara's arc "doe-eyed, schoolgirl naivety hardened into something steelier" by the events of Mass Effect 3.[42]

Liara T'Soni is seen by some sources as a notable example of the consistently positive portrayal of LGBT characters in the Mass Effect series, and by extension an important representation of LGBT characters in video games due to her non-binary gender identity as well as potential romance with a female player character which is coded as lesbianism.[42] The Advocate, Gay Community News and the gay social network app Hornet considered Liara to be one of the best or greatest queer video games characters of all time.[43][44][45]

A cutscene from the original Mass Effect containing depictions of partial nudity and sexual activity between Liara and Shepard, particularly if the latter is female, was notable for attracting controversy and objections from certain neoconservative media outlets for allegedly obscene content in late 2007.[46] There was also at least one case of government scrutiny over Liara's intimate scene with a female Shepard. The game was initially banned in Singapore, which led to an outcry amongst the local and international gaming community;[47][48] censors in the country specifically blamed the lesbian encounter between a female alien (Liara) and a female Shepard as the main reason why the game was subjected to the ban.[49] The ban was quickly lifted after Mass Effect was issued with a M18 rating.[50]