#mass effect 1

"Mom was right. I should've brought a sweater."

And not just in an ‘oh I really like this character and wish they were in the game more’ bit (though that is of course a factor I imagine we can all agree on), but also in that I feel like Tali joins weirdly late in the game? Both in contrast to her joining in previous games, and in contrast to the rest of the ME3 squad.

Because if you think about, not only is Tali the last of the squad to join in ME3, she really does join pretty late in the game. Pretty much at the end of the game’s Second Act, just prior to what I think we could reasonably consider the start of the game’s Third Act with the Thessia mission.

(to clarify, I think the three ‘acts’ of Mass Effect 3 can be cleanly broken into ‘Earth Prologue to Palaven’ as the First Act, ‘Sur’kesh to Rannoch’ as the Second Act, and ‘Thessia to Retake Earth’ as the Third Act.)

And this feels rather in contrast to when Tali can be recruited in the previous games. In Mass Effect 2, Tali can be recruited as early as the start of that game’s Second Act after the Horizon mission. And of course, in Mass Effect 1 she joins practically right at the start of the game.

Which is notably in stark contrast to the other three-time member of the Shepard Squad; Garrus, who consistently joins very early in all three games.  

In addition to all that, as I said I feel like it also feels in contrast to the rest of the squad in Mass Effect 3 itself.

Because if you think about it, much like the first game, ME3 definitely front-loads much of your squad-mate acquisition, with five out of your seven total party members able to be recruited by end of the First Act, ie; prior to the Sur’kesh mission and the start of the whole ‘Genophage Cure’ arc of missions.

Only to then have the remaining two squad-mates join halfway through, and at the end of, the Second Act. The Virmire Survivor after the Citadel Coup and finally Tali during Rannoch.

Now the thing is, I feel like Ashley/Kaiden having this major gap before they can properly join compared to the rest of the squad actually works fairly well. After all, their entire arc in ME3 is based on their estrangement from Shepard and doubts about them, and the uncertainty of their relationship (whether platonic or romantic), so it makes sense that they take the longest to join. Heck, if they actually were the last squad-mate to join, it would make a nice bookend to the first game: In ME1 Ashley/Kaiden are the FIRST to join Shepard’s squad, and in ME3 they would be the last.

So then why does TALI have to be strung out even further before she can join?

Now one thing I should mention before going any further is that the narrative justification for Tali taking so long to join DOES in fact make perfect sense. We have the big question running through the background of the first half of the game that the Quarians are up to something BIG, but nobody really knows what. And with the reveal that they’ve recalled all of their people to make their big push to reclaim their homeworld from the Geth, it does make sense that Tali would get roped up in all that and be likewise unaccounted for across much of the game until the Quarians reenter the picture.

HOWEVER, I also still can’t help but wonder if there is nonetheless a way that Tali could have still joined up earlier in the game, even while retaining the overall Quarian/Geth plotline.

And the funny thing is, when considering the two ‘standard’ endings of Tali’s Loyalty Mission in ME2, I think we can easily come up with a way for Tali to potentially join WAY earlier in ME3.

As in, joining during the mission to PALAVEN alongside Garrus.

Think about the two basic outcomes for Tali’s Loyalty Mission: Either Shepard can withhold the evidence of what Tali’s father did, which gets Tali exiled but secures her loyalty, or Shepard can present the evidence, which gets Tali exonerated and not exiled, but doesn’t secure her loyalty.

Now the thing is, the ‘not exiled but not loyal’ outcome plays seamlessly into how Tali joins in standard Mass Effect 3, ergo; at the end of ME2 when the Normandy gets impounded after the whole Alpha Relay incident, Tali can simply return to the Migrant Fleet and also doesn’t have as much reason to try and reach out to Shepard until circumstances bring them together in ME3.

But what about the other option with a ‘loyal but exiled’ Tali? After the Normandy is impounded Tali can’t simply return to the fleet AND has every reason to try and help Shepard, or at least their cause in trying to prepare for the upcoming Reaper invasion.

(Yes, I am aware that standard ME3 basically wipes this issue with a whole ‘the fleet just forgave Tali’s exile because they needed all the help they could get’ excuse, but I think we can come up with something WAY more interesting, no?)

So since Tali doesn’t exactly have anywhere to go and doesn’t exactly have any real contacts in the Alliance or Council Space outside of the Normandy, what if she were to, say… join up with GARRUS as part of his plan to try and get people ready for the Reapers however he/they can? Which in turn leads to Tali also being part of that ‘Anti-Reaper Task Force’ that Garrus is able to set up and is thus also on Palaven’s moon ready to join Shepard when they show up.

Really, it does kind of make perfect sense that an exiled Tali could be essentially rooming with Garrus in the time between ME2 and ME3. He’s basically the only member of the Normandy crew that she’s particularly close with and isn’t going to be under close Alliance monitoring like Shepard or Dr. Chakwas. Plus, they can actually share food. And despite ME2 being criminally underrepresenting of inter-squad interactions off-mission, the fact that an unromanced Tali actually hooks up with an unromanced Garrus by the end of ME3 (notably the only other romance either can have in the games) implies that these two are fairly close, even if we don’t actually see much of it.

Now admittedly this does still leave the other two potential outcomes for Tali in Mass Effect 2 (aside from ‘dies in the Suicide Mission’, but obviously we don’t need to account for that one); either Shepard manages to get the ‘Golden Ending’ for Tali’s Loyalty Mission via persuasion checks or The Power of Friendship™, or Shepard simply doesn’t do Tali’s Loyalty Mission at all. However, I do think these two can be fairly easily folded into our other two options.

In the latter case, Tali simply returns to the fleet after the Suicide Mission to face trial, only to find that in the intervening time the evidence of her father’s experiments has been discovered and thus exonerating her, thus putting her in the same position as the ‘not exiled but not loyal’ option we discussed earlier.

And in the former case, I don’t think it’s too difficult to imagine a loyal Tali (perhaps even more loyal after getting the best ending for her Loyalty Quest), despite still having the option to return to the fleet, instead deciding to stay in Citadel space and team up with Garrus to do whatever they can to prepare for the Reapers. And by the time Tali gets the general ‘Shits going down, EVERYBODY come home’ order from the Migrant Fleet, she decides she’s too deep in her work preparing for the Reapers and sticks it out with Garrus.

So that’s how I think you could have Tali join in the early stages of Mass Effect 3 like with most of Shepard’s squad.

And there are certainly quite a few interesting ripples that could spread out from this potential change:

Obviously we have the potential impact and interactions Tali could have by being on the Normandy much earlier. Like I think we can all agree we’d like to see Tali around for the big reunion with Wrex XD And you just know that Tali would have ENDLESS snarky commentary on fighting Cerberus during the Citadel Coup lol

Heck, you know what I said about Ashley or Kaiden joining last being a narrative bookend to Mass Effect 1? Well if Tali and Garrus join together then that would mean that Shepard’s returning squadmates in Mass Effect 3 (Liara, Garrus, Tali and Kaiden/Ashley) would actually all join in the reverse order that they joined back in the first game! Liara -> Garrus and Tali -> Ashley/Kaiden.

And of course we have the potential for ‘Talibrations’ happening a lot earlier XD Like imagine if Shepard hits certain criteria in Mass Effect 2 that is meant to show that they are not interested in a romantic relationship with Garrus or Tali (reaching the end of their dialogue tree and deliberately not choosing the Romance option, starting but then ending a romance before the end of the game, romancing another character, etc.), which leads to Garrus and Tali having hooked up in the gap between games.

Or heck, just the potential for a fun outright love-triangle between the three of them? Or even the prospect of the mythical ‘Shepard/Garrus/Tali Polycule’ route…