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You know I've done many posts about Khalisah Al-Jilani, why I enjoy her character and don't understand the sheer joy players get out of punching her (people can do what they want obviously, I just think some people enjoy it too much for a specific reason, let's leave it at that).

Anyway. If you look at Shepard's first meeting with Khalisah in ME1, which I had yesterday (finally done planet hopping!!!!), her questions are so... general and obvious, the kind you expect Shepard to get. They're nowhere near controversial.

Sure, she's biased: very focused on humanity and having huge expectations put on people like Shepard.

But her questions? Rather harmless considering everything she could ask. How is Shepard feeling as a Spectre? Did the Council ask Shepard to put their needs before humanity? How does Shepard feel about being in command of the Normandy? Etc.

When Shepard mentions turians helping to build the Normandy, she reacts to it in the most obvious way:

So the turian have knowledge of the Normandy that is being kept secret from the Alliance public? Do you think it was appropriate to hand Earth's most advanced warship over to the Citadel?

Again, very humanity-focused, but those are valid questions and humans viewers might be concerned about that. Her role is not to ask questions that will please the person being interviewed. Journalists/reporters ask difficult questions sometimes, but they also give the person the opportunity to answer. And Shepard does answer.

Now the question about Noveria is my favorite:

"Speaking of your new job, did the Council order you to sabotage human research concern on Noveria?"

The woman knows what she's doing. In French, I would say "prêcher le faux pour savoir le vrai" - saying something false to learn the truth.

Because if you replied that there was an accident in a Binary Helix lab, she said: "That's a surprising revelation, Commander. We've had nothing but stonewalling from Binary Helix".

And look... If you live in the world of Mass Effect, wouldn't you want someone to ask questions and bother Binary Helix, the company at the center of the Peak 15 incident on Noveria, the one who tried to breed rachni???? Because I'm in support of Khalisah bothering them, 100%.

Next she asks about a rumor (Shepard tracking a rogue spectre), and if you said you can't answer her (neither confirm nor deny), she doesn't insist, she just says: "Don't worry. We'll find out."

And she ends with "The eyes of Earth are on you. Don't let us down"

So of course, she's biased. She has this need to represent the "Alliance public"/"the people of the Alliance" (as she said in ME3). She's scared that they will be let down.

"What about all the people suffering (...)" is a sentence she said in ME3 during the Reaper War. And while we can see her as anti-Council, anti-authority, anti-Spectres or even anti-Shepard, I think she's desperate to see people with authority do their job well. I think she wants them to be good people. And her fear that they might not be scares her, because it means the "people" will be forgotten, put aside.