Batarian

A race of four-eyed bipeds, 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.

The rest of the galaxy views the batarians as an ignorable problem. The government 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.

The batarians place an extremely high value on social caste and appearance, and overstepping your place is frowned upon. Casting aspersions on the monetary worth of a social better is considered a serious insult. In appearance, batarians have a slimmer build than the average human but are about the same height. They strongly believe that species with less than four eyes are less intelligent. Batarians often gain the upper hand in arguments because other species find it difficult to know which eyes to focus on when speaking to them. One set of eyes is located relatively low on the face and farther off to the side in bony sockets. Another smaller pair, the "inner eyes," is located above them.

Edan Had'dah, an extremely rich and powerful batarian living on Camala, is a major player in the events of Mass Effect: Revelation.

Source: Galactic Codex at BioWare: Batarians.

History
In 2171, 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.

The batarians blame humanity for their troubles, forced to fend for themselves, despite that fact it was their fault in the first place that they've lead a self-imposed exile.

Mass Effect
Mass Effect: Revelation features the batarians prominently, but despite the fact they have their own Galactic Codex entry and are still very much a part of galactic society, batarians make no appearance in the retail release of the game; as Lieutenant Zabaleta notes with relief, batarians no longer come to the Citadel. However, they are 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. A batarian calling himself 'Captain Zaysh' used his ship weapons to carve a claim about his battle prowess and virility into the surface of Prescyla (along with a postscript "alluding to the questionable parentage of all humans"). 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 anaesthetic. Talitha, abducted from Mindoir, was a victim of this practice. The batarians are also known to buy 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. 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 a pistol.
 * Batarian War Beasts. Despite the name, these are varren identical to those found on Feros. A soldier even screams "Release the varren"
 * Batarian Shock Trooper. Biotic troopers who are heavily armed.
 * Batarian Rocket Trooper. Another basic grunt who is armed with a rocket launcher.
 * Batarian Engineer. Essentially a batarian sentinel who can Sabotage weapons and use Neural Shock.
 * Charn. Balak's second-in-command.

Notable batarians

 * Balak
 * Charn
 * Edan Had'dah
 * Eluam Ran'perah
 * Groto Ib-ba
 * Jella (Had'dah's contact at the Dah'tan Manufacturing Company)
 * Captain Zaysh