Batarian

A race of four-eyed bipeds native to the world of Khar'shan, the batarians are a disreputable species that chose to isolate itself from the rest of the galaxy. The Terminus Systems are infested with batarian pirate gangs and slaving rings, fueling the stereotype of the batarian thug. It should be noted that these criminals do not represent average citizens, who are forbidden to leave batarian space by their omnipresent and paranoid government.

Despite several disagreements with the Citadel and simmering hostility toward humans, most batarians prefer profitable pursuits such as drug running and slave grabs to out-and-out warfare. They have a reputation for being shrewd businessmen and merchants, though in more lawless regions of the galaxy like Omega, negotiations with a batarian are likely to be conducted at gunpoint.

Biology
Batarians are an anthropoidal race like humans and asari. Their most distinctive physical feature is their four eyes. The batarians are one of three known intelligent organic races in the galaxy to have developed more than a single pair of eyes; the other such races, the yahg, have four pairs, and the protheans have two pairs. Batarians also exhibit different skin tone colors: while most encountered batarians are a dark, brown-red hue with pale facial ridges, at least one, Balak, has a black and yellow striped pigmentation with light green facial ridges.

History
The Citadel Council made first contact with the batarians in approximately 200 BCE, and granted the batarians an embassy on the Citadel a century later. Despite being welcomed into the galactic community, batarian aggression provoked several crises in galactic relations over the years. Sometime around 1785 CE, a batarian fleet bombarded the salarian colony world of Mannovai; in 1913, the Batarian Hegemony annexed the independent asari colony of Esan; and in 2115, Citadel forces skirmished with batarian forces on the planet Enael.

In the early 2160s, humans began to colonize the Skyllian Verge, a region the batarians were already actively settling. The batarians asked the Citadel Council to intervene and declare the Verge an area of "batarian interest". When the Council refused, the batarians closed their Citadel embassy and severed diplomatic and economic relations, becoming an inward-looking rogue state.

Money and weapons funneled from the batarian government to criminal organizations led to many brutal raids on human colonies in the Verge, culminating in the Skyllian Blitz of 2176, an attack on the human capital of Elysium by batarian-funded pirates and slavers. In 2178, the Alliance retaliated with a crushing assault on the moon of Torfan, long used as a staging base by batarian-backed criminals. In the aftermath, the batarians retreated into their own systems, and are now rarely seen in Citadel space.

Mass Effect
Edan Had'dah, an extremely rich and powerful batarian living on Camala, is a major player in the events of Mass Effect: Revelation, but despite the fact they have their own Galactic Codex entry and are still a part of galactic society (though active mostly outside of Citadel Space), batarians make no appearance in the retail release of the game; as Lieutenant Zabaleta notes with relief, batarians no longer come to the Citadel.

They are, however, mentioned during a few planetary scans. Batarian surveyors were responsible for bankrupting several human corporations by claiming that the planet Klensal was a rich mining prospect when it is actually mostly barren rock. The batarians are also accused of stealing the so-called "Leviathan of Dis", supposedly the remains of a genetically engineered living starship found on Jartar. They now claim no such remains were ever found despite the fact that the salarians documented it before the Leviathan mysteriously vanished.

Among humans, batarians are now known mostly for their slaving practices, particularly their raid on the planet Mindoir in 2170. Once captured, the slavers implant control devices in the skulls of their slaves without bothering with anesthetic. Talitha, abducted from Mindoir, was a victim of this practice. The batarians are also known to enslave addicts of the biotic drug red sand when they can no longer afford to support their habit. Rear Admiral Kahoku was well-known for his victories over the batarians in the Skyllian Verge.

Several of the background choices for Commander Shepard involve the batarians:


 * Colonist - Shepard's friends and family were killed by batarian slavers during the raid on Mindoir.
 * Spacer - Shepard meets Lieutenant Zabaleta, a former Alliance marine, who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing the batarian raid on Mindoir.
 * War Hero - During the Skyllian Blitz, Shepard held off the batarian ground troops single-handed until reinforcements arrived.
 * Ruthless - At Torfan, Shepard sacrificed several team members to finish off the batarians hiding underground, even those who surrendered.

Bring Down the Sky
In Mass Effect's first downloadable content add-on, Bring Down the Sky, batarian extremists were responsible for hijacking Asteroid X57 and using it to attack the human colony of Terra Nova. Originally intending to just snatch X57's human engineers and take them as slaves, the batarians brutally executed them and decided to use the asteroid as a weapon. Balak, the ringleader, claimed this was the will of the "batarian rebellion", and revenge for human activities in the Traverse. However, some of his underlings, most notably Charn, Balak's second-in-command, did not want to commit this act, but initially signed up thinking it would just be just another slave raid. The attempted asteroid drop - which would have destroyed Terra Nova and killed millions of people - was thwarted by Commander Shepard.

The batarian extremists on X57 consist of several kinds of troops:


 * Batarian Trooper. A basic grunt armed with an assault rifle and shotgun.
 * Batarian War Beasts. Despite the name, these are varren, identical to those found on Feros (and referred to as such by the batarians).
 * Batarian Shock Trooper. Biotic troopers with Vanguard-type abilities and shotguns.
 * Batarian Rocket Soldier. Another basic grunt who is armed with a assault rifle which has the ability to fire rockets by switching fire mode.
 * Batarian Engineer. Essentially a batarian engineer who can Sabotage weapons and use Neural Shock.
 * Batarian Sniper. A batarian soldier who is armed with a sniper rifle and pistol.

Mass Effect Galaxy
Batarians also play an integral role in Mass Effect Galaxy as the main antagonists. As the batarian ambassador Jath'Amon attempts to negotiate a peace treaty between the batarians and the Citadel, batarian terrorists try to stop the meeting by exposing the Citadel to a biological weapon. Fortunately for the Council, the terrorists, secretly led by Jath'Amon himself, are defeated by Jacob Taylor before having a chance to use the weapon.

Mass Effect 2
In Mass Effect 2 batarians are commonly found on the Omega station, both as mercenary antagonists as well as civilians. On Omega there is a mad batarian preacher claiming that humanity is a blight on other races. In the lower level of the Afterlife club on Omega you can start a quest by receiving a drink from the batarian bartender who poisons humans.

During the assignment where Shepard is working to recruit Mordin Solus there is the opportunity to interact with batarian civilians and win their trust. If the player uses paragon choices in interacting with batarian civilians, many of them will be surprised that the concept of "human nobility" exists.

In N7: Javelin Missiles Launched assignment, batarian terrorists attempt to destroy the colony on Watson with two Javelin missiles.

Arrival
The events of Arrival result in the total destruction of the batarian-controlled Bahak system and the deaths of its over 300,000 inhabitants. The Batarian Hegemony believes that the destruction of their system is a terrorist attack undertaken by Systems Alliance agents. Tensions between the Hegemony and the Alliance rise sharply, with the batarians speculated to be willing to go to war.

Mass Effect 3
The batarian systems were the first targets of the Reapers, who enter the galaxy through the Vular system after the Alpha Relay is destroyed. If Balak escaped during Bring Down the Sky, he goes on to lead the study of the Leviathan of Dis, the billion-year old corpse of a Reaper. The Leviathan indoctrinates the science team and batarian officials. When the Reapers invade, the indoctrinated officials sabotage Hegemony defenses, allowing the Reapers to easily conquer batarian systems. Balak, now the highest-ranking member of the Hegemony's military still alive, makes his way to the Citadel where he directs the remnants of the batarian fleet against the Reapers by hacking Council transmissions to learn Reaper locations. Shepard can convince Balak to lend his fleet's support and retaking the galaxy from the Reapers.

Culture
Batarians place an extremely high value on social caste and appearance, and overstepping one's place is frowned upon. Casting aspersions on the monetary worth of a social better is considered a serious insult. Batarians strongly believe that species with fewer than four eyes are less intelligent; they often gain the upper hand in interspecies arguments because other races find it difficult to know which eyes to focus on when speaking to them.

Slavery is an integral part of the batarian caste system, despite being illegal according to Council law, and it is currently unknown how the batarians maintained standing on the Citadel for so long with slavery still actively practiced. The custom is so deeply ingrained in batarian culture that batarians consider the Council's anti-slavery standing to be prejudicial. Rogue batarian slave rings are feared throughout the galaxy, especially among colonists.

Body language is an important part of batarian society. For example, tilting one's head to the left is a sign of admiration and respect. When a batarian tilts his head to the right it is a sign that he is (or considers himself to be) superior to the one that the gesture was directed at. Therefore, this gesture can also be interpreted as an insult.

Religion
Little is known about batarian religious beliefs. Mordin Solus has noted that batarians do believe in an afterlife. When a batarian dies, his soul leaves the body through the eyes. Treatment of the corpse is considered unimportant, unless the batarian's eyes have been removed by an enemy.

In Mass Effect 3, a mission is given to Shepard from a batarian preacher to find the Pillars of Strength scroll. It suggests that the batarians' religious beliefs are based on words from sacred texts, similar to human Hindu sutras or the Qu'ran.

Government
The rest of the galaxy views the batarians as an ignorable problem. Their government, known as the Batarian Hegemony, is still hostile to the Systems Alliance, but beneath the notice of the powerful Council races. It is not known what the average batarian thinks about their enforced isolation, as the Department of Information Control ensures that only government-approved news enters or leaves batarian space. Given the batarian government's oppressive nature, it is speculated their supreme leadership is autocratic or totalitarian in nature. The batarians blame humanity for their troubles and claim they were forced to fend for themselves, despite the fact that their exile is largely self-imposed.

The batarian homeworld, Khar'shan, is still divided amongst nation-states.

However, the batarians still provide up-to-date glossaries and linguistic rules to the rest of the galaxy (allegedly so they can continue distributing propaganda). Possibly due to the prevalence of batarian criminal gangs, batarian languages have become "lingua franca" in the Terminus Systems.

Military
Little is known about the batarian military. Most batarian military hardware is produced by a nationalized institution called Batarian State Arms.

The batarian fleet is known to operate at least one dreadnought (as a non-Citadel race, they are not bound by the Treaty of Farixen and may have more). They also field smaller vessels, including the Hensa class of cruisers. However, given one member of this class -- later obtained by the quarians and refurbished as the Idenna -- was twenty years old in 2183, the batarians may have retired the Hensa class from active service by this time.

Their military capacity may have been weaker than the Systems Alliance as early as 2160 (when colonisation of the Skyllian Verge began) as Balak claims that the Council and batarians themselves knew the humans were stronger but nothing was done to protect them, and they were left to defend themselves.

The batarian military has a special forces division known as the Special Intervention Unit. All that is known about the SIU is that their training program is brutal. After the Blue Suns hired a group of former SIU operatives to run a hostile environment training camp on the planet Xetic, an investigation by Illium authorities into the camp found that the mortality rate was as high as 18%; however, an independent Blue Suns inquiry found that the batarian operatives' harsh training techniques were consistent with those employed in the SIU training program.

Whatever the true size and strength of the batarian military, it has been virtually wiped out by the Reaper onslaught and the few ships that survived the fall of Khar'shan fled to Alliance space along with thousands of refugees.

Notable Batarians

 * Balak
 * Charn
 * Edan Had'dah
 * Eluam Ran'perah
 * Groto Ib-ba
 * Jath'Amon
 * Jella
 * Forvan
 * Solem Dal'serah
 * Tarak

Batarian Worlds

 * Khar'shan - homeworld
 * Adek
 * Anhur
 * Aratoht
 * Erszbat
 * Camala
 * Logasiri
 * Lorek
 * Vana

Trivia

 * In the French version, batarians are called "butarians". This may have been because the French word "batard" means "bastard".
 * Despite the resentment felt by batarians towards humanity and the Council, many batarians seem willing to work and cooperate with the Blue Suns mercenary group alongside humans and turians.
 * Before the Bring Down the Sky add on is downloaded, the Codex entry for batarians under non-council races features a picture showing a different concept of a batarian.
 * An early iteration of Mass Effect's story featured the batarians as the primary enemies in place of the geth. The batarians were also originally intended to be "small bat-like people".