Aria T'Loak
From FABT
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Biological information | |
Born: |
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Died: |
5 September 2221 CE |
Physical information | |
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Gender: |
Feminine (Mono) |
Height: |
6.5ft |
Eyes: |
Blue |
Political and military information | |
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Equipment: |
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Command(s): |
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Rank(s): |
Corporal |
Era: |
Asari Cycle |
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- "I am Omega. But you need more...everyone needs more something and they all come to me. I'm the boss, CEO, queen...if you're feeling dramatic. It doesn't matter. Omega has no titled ruler and only one rule...don't fuck with Aria."
- — Aria T'Loak to Commander Shepard in his first meeting with her in 2185 CE.
Ruler of the Terminus Aria T'Loak (former name: Ishlee M'Loak) was a former asari commando, a dancer for Khurdok Chaggu, the third Ruler of Omega, the head of her personal syndicate, the leader of the Omega Liberation Front, and the founder and ruler of the Omega Republic. Born on Korlus to a corrupt ex-turian military commander and asari huntress, Ishlee, as she was formerly named, was privy to the clashing ideologies of her parents, who only agreed to remain together to raise their daughter, who they both loved. Ishlee grew up listening to them argue, growing bitter with her family life and taking out her anger at school, getting into numerous fights where she quickly became feared by her classmates. Wanting to discipline their child but hone their abilities, Ishlee's mother taught Ishlee how to harness and control her biotics, using her huntress training to put Ishlee through a harsh training regimen that Ishlee resented her for, but ultimately made her more powerful for it: when she grew older, she taught Ishlee about the harsh realities of the outer galaxy and how to survive. Her father disciplined Ishlee regularly, teaching her to be strong and relentless in pursuit of her goals, and to not tolerate bullies. This combination of teaching honed Ishlee at a young age, and by the time most asari at her age were looking to travel the galaxy, becoming strippers or mercenaries, Ishlee pursued a career in the military as an asari commando. Armed with the knowledge her parents had taught her, Ishlee became one of the youngest asari accepted into the commandos at the time, and she proved extremely effective at her job, if not highly insubordinate and often butting head with her superiors. Ishlee's tenure in the commandos was ultimately short, her success ratio not enough to balance out her combative nature, and she was dishonorably discharged within three years. Believing her destiny lay beyond the military, Ishlee turned her gaze to the Terminus Systems, and from there, her ambitions began to grow. Armed with only the clothes on her back and nothing but her wits and raw biotic power as her allies, Ishlee set out to leave Council space, determined to see her ambitions brought to life as she sought to carve out a slice of the galaxy for herself, a firm believer in the "survival of the fittest" her mother had taught her. Around this time her father was arrested by the turian government for selling classified documents to a PMC, and when Ishlee arrived at her mother's summons, she unwittingly discovered her mother's plan to frame her own daughter in order to exonerate the father. Unable to comprehend why Ishlee wanted to protect someone she despised, she confronted her mother about it, and the mother came clean, revealing that the father took the blame to protect the mother, as the mother was the one who sold the documents, in addition to classified asari military documents as well: however, the father was unaware of the asari government coming after her, and therefore didn't know she planned to sell out their daughter to get the asari off her tail. Furious, Ishlee lashed out and killed her mother and then fled offworld before asari authorities could take her into custody. Taking her mother's name as her alias, ditching her old one, Aria T'Loak fled into the Terminus Systems, believed to be dead.
Aria's exact whereabouts between the time of her exile beginning in 1616 CE and 1759 CE are somewhat unknown, but Aria claimed to have travelled across the Terminus, fighting in numerous PMCs, wiping out gangs, killing people she didn't like, starting a corporate war on Sanctum, briefly tangling with the likes of Urdnot Wrex and Aleena T'kajah in their prime, assassinating a youth pastor who called her a harlot and more. Whatever the case may be, Aria T'Loak achieved much and more in just over a hundred years before she finally arrived on Omega, finally deciding upon what she wanted most: Omega itself. Analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of her rival, Khurdok Chaggu (then the second Ruler of Omega and having reigned for close to a millennium), Aria decided the best course of action, lacking any army of her own and knowing Chaggu's reputation as a veteran warrior, was to infiltate Chaggu's organization as a masquerading as a dancer, playing dumb and stupid so as to lower Chaggu's guard and slowly, but surely, plant the seeds to turn his own syndicate against him and over to her side. This long process became known as Patriarch's War, a name Aria gave to it after it concluded, but at the time it was less of a war and more of a power grab, with the actual conflict coming too late to have a meaningful impact on Aria's plans. Getting hired as a stripper at the Afterlife nightclub, where she manipulated the sleezy manager of the club and eventually killed him, taking over the club. Still playing the "dumb hooker" card, Aria began visiting Chaggu's many lieutenants and enforcers, persuading them as to why she would be a better fit for leadership, playing to their lusts and desires in order to win them over: as she was doing this, she also reached out to people outside Chaggu's syndicate, people she met and knew she could trust, wanting them to be her chief lieutenants. By 1762 CE, Aria's syndicate had grown in size, to the point where it could no longer be hidden who Aria truly was, and she unveiled her true self for the first time when she first met Chaggu. The two syndicates were at a breaking point: Aria's syndicate implemented espionage and more subtle actions to keep her enemies off balance, while Chaggu held the muscle and preferred clear demonstrations of violence to get his point across. In 1765 CE, Chaggu could no longer tolerate Aria, seeing her growth and consolidation of power as a threat to his own, and Aria too realized the time to strike had come. When Chaggu led his men into Afterlife with the intention of dealing with Aria, she sprung her trap, having her men attack Chaggu's, while most of Chaggu's own men turned on him, having defected to Aria's cause and been working as her sleeper agents. Deprived of his men, Chaggu stormed up to the top of Afterlife to kill Aria himself, and the two dueled one-on-one, Aria finally revealing her true capabilities as she battled Chaggu for hours. She considered it the hardest fight of her life, but in the end she was victorious, allowing the defeated Chaggu to remain alive as a trophy, mockingly naming him "Patriarch" in reference to her people's "matriarch", a title intended to hold paradoxical value. Chaggu would remain as her "advisor", a status that shrouded his true purpose in being a symbol of what happens to those that challenge Aria. With Chaggu overthrown, Aria became the new Ruler of Omega, with Afterlife as her throne, and she would reign for 400 years, her power unquestioned and would-be usurpers quickly crushed to set examples. In 2167 CE, Aria had a fateful meeting with Nyreen Kandros, an ex-Cabal Corps officer and mercenary, and the two struck an accord, with Nyreen attracted to Aria's fierce nature and determination, wanting it to rub off on her, and Aria attracted to Nyreen's own moral convictions, despite it clashing with the efforts of her own syndicate. The two became sexually involved for a time, and in 2170 CE, Aria would have a daughter named Sata T'Loak. Despite this, the two often clashed, with Nyreen's moral compass inevitably causing her to object to Aria's beliefs and occupation, and Aria believing Nyreen to be soft and too weak. In the end, the two drifted apart, Nyreen afraid she was becoming too much like Aria, and leaving to pursue her own life free of Aria's controlling influence, leaving Aria to raise her daughter alone.
Aria continued to rule Omega with an iron fist, maintaining business as usual while her syndicate protected her interests abroad, and Aria's influence even extended beyond Omega itself: during her time in high school, Aria had been in a sexual relationship with another student named Tevos D'gois, a relationship that would end with Aria fleeing into the Terminus after killing her mother, and Tevos going on to pursue a career in politics on Thessia: Tevos would ultimately become the asari councilor in 1772 CE, a fact that Aria would take advantage of in order to use Tevos to protect her interests on the Citadel, as her syndicate did a lot of business on the station and having a Citadel councilor on their payroll would get their goods and activities the seal of approval. Tevos initially opposed this but Aria used political blackmail to secure her loyalty, reminding her of the political scandal that would be involved with an asari councilor having been in a relationship with the pirate queen of Omega during her childhood, and Tevos was forced to acquiesce. This ultimately proved extremely useful when Aria and her syndicate were forced into exile in late 2185 CE when Cerberus invaded and captured Omega, with General Petrovsky allowing her to leave peacefully. Forced to consolidate and regroup on the Citadel, Tevos, at Aria's instruction, waved customs inspection, processing and background checks by C-Sec, with Aria using an alias to hide her true identity. Determined to reclaim her station, Aria built alliances and resources, and through some small manipulation, used Commander Shepard to secure the allegiance of the Blue Suns, Eclipse and Blood Pack under her banner, using the excuse of "helping him" build up the then-nascent UGC's pool of resources during the Reaper War in 2186 CE. When she finally felt ready, Aria cashed in on the debts owed to her, secured the assistance of a small UGC task force commanded by Shepard himself, and invaded Omega to liberate it from Cerberus, and was ultimately successful, with Petrovsky captured as a POW and the surrendering Cerberus troops transported off the station to be taken into UGC custody. During the invasion, Aria met Nyreen again, who had never left the station and, shortly after the original Cerberus invasion, had staged a coup in the Talons drug cartel and taken over as their leader, reforming them into a paramilitary resistance group to fight the Cerberus occupation. Nyreen and Aria clashed once more, Aria determined to return Omega to the status quo and ruthless in her assessment of achieving victory over Cerberus at any cost, while Nyreen opposed Aria's controlling influence, agreeing with Petrovsky's beliefs of reforming the station and establishing a proper government, and wanting to save as many civilians as possible. Nyreen would ultimately sacrifice her life in the final assault on Afterlife to stop a rogue horde of adjutants from converting a group of civilians, a death that deeply distressed Aria, who secretly still loved Nyreen, even despite their ideological opposition. Nyreen's death changed Aria almost completely, and even before the Reaper War was over, she had plans to honor Nyreen's view for Omega.
Upon returning to Omega following the Reaper War's conclusion, Aria declared the founding of the Omega Republic, with Aria as its head-of-state, and made her plans to shape Omega into a fully independent nation. Her plans were doomed to failure however, as Aria's focus quickly became militaristic in nature, and try as she might, Aria could not shake off centuries of learned motivations and political views, and her "survival of the fittest" mentality clashed with Nyreen's "brighter future" initiative, creating an Omega that was now rapidly descending into imperialism rather than the peaceful future Nyreen really wanted. Knowing her mother had good intentions, but that Aria was simply incapable of leading this new future (as it required fresh perspective and she was too deeply entrenched in her own ideology), Sata secretly plotted against her, scheming with the Talons under Walter Pike to sabotage Aria's military efforts, especially after she allied with the Titan Covenant in the lead-up to the Post-Apocalyptic War. When Aria dragged the Omega Republic into the PA war in 2205 CE, she proved she was not committed to Nyreen's vision and so Sata ramped up her efforts, and eventually the conflict escalated into civil war, forcing the Omega Republic to pull out of the war and abandon their Covenant allies. Aria would ultimately be defeated by her daughter, only discovering Sata's treachery at the last minute, Aria met her end on the floor of Afterlife, executed by her own daughter in an effort to purge Omega of the last of the influences holding it back, allowing it to fully step forward onto a brighter future.