#linron

now, as i keep saying so often people are probably tired of hearing about it, bioware has a very bad habit of writing characters that we are very obviously not supposed to like (the council, the admiralty board... anybody who even vaguely disagrees with shepard, really) and then assuming we either a) read the supplementary material b) are willing to put the thought into analyzing things for themselves c) memorize the wiki or d) all or multiple of the above in order for the other party to be more sympathetic or at least understandable. linron is a victim of this just as much as any of the others.

by the time of me3, we have had two games of learning both the krogan side of the story (wrex, okeer, grunt, etc.) and the salarian/turian (mordin, the virmire salarians, garrus, etc.). shepard has a fuller perspective than linron; they know both arguments, and thus are an effective neutral party (or they would be, if not for bioware’s heavy bias).

linron doesn’t have this benefit. all she knows is the salarian side, which has likely been drummed into her since she was in the egg: krogan are brutish and cruel, the genophage was a desperate measure for a desperate time, and if it were cured now, there would be no saving both her people and victus’ from krogan retribution.

if wrex is alive, shepard knows him and his policies as a leader. they trust him not to lead the krogan to war against the turians and salarians. linron, on the other hand, knows nobody at the summit. where we see a trustworthy friend, linron sees:

commander shepard, who up until very recently was considered a walking, talking crockpot of bullshit casserole who probably carries dynamite just in case something that really shouldn’t be blown up needs to be

victus, a brand-new primarch who only just inherited the position and hasn’t had time to either get used to the expanded responsibilities or establish himself as an effective leader

wrex, a krogan

she has no reason to trust anybody in that summit. she might be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt at first, but once the genophage cure comes up, all of a sudden she doesn’t think any of them have their heads on straight.

as dalatrass, linron has given her life to serving and protecting her people through diplomatic means. as the salarian representative to the war summit, she has been entrusted by the salarian people to find a mutually beneficial arrangement that will save them. as far as she or any of the salarians she represents knows, allowing a genophage cure would be the exact opposite of that.

does that mean she’s at all in the right for suggesting sabotage? no, of course not. by suggesting the sabotage, she is potentially sending a species to extinction to save her own. she is, without a doubt, completely wrong. but it does explain why she does it: plain and simple, she’s scared.

she knows what she’s been told all her life, and she knows all simulations run by the stg, as mordin tells you, point to war with the krogan. she does not have the faith in wrex shepard does, she does not have the benefit of knowing both sides of the story. she thinks that by giving you the go-ahead to retrieve the krogan females, she’s allowing you to put things in motion for the extermination of her people. and given the faith her people put in her, that thought must terrify her to no end.