Talitha

Talitha
Former Slave
Race	Human
Gender	Female
Appearances	Mass Effect

Talitha is a former slave who was captured by batarian slavers on Mindoir. Following her liberation, she ends up on the Citadel where she has barricaded herself on a docking bay with a weapon.

Background

Talitha was six when batarian slavers slaughtered her family and forced her to watch her parents be incinerated by their weapons. The young Talitha tried to play dead to fool the batarians, hoping they would go away, but they tossed her into the holding pens anyway and implanted a control device in her head. She was mistreated and beaten even for crying, but Talitha gradually adjusted to her new life.

Treated like an animal, Talitha was branded with batarian symbols on her back without painkillers. When not being used to perform manual labor, she could only lie quietly as the slavers "did things" to her. She learned to refer to herself and other humans as animals, since animals did not have names according to her 'masters'.

Talitha was a slave for 13 years. Eventually, Alliance marines raided the slaver encampment, killed the batarians and freed their captives. Talitha was so inured to her existence as a slave that she even tried to help her masters after they had been killed.

Mass Effect

Commander Shepard is called by Lieutenant Girard to handle Talitha, who is at Dock 422 threatening to kill herself with a pistol. If Shepard talks to Talitha, the Commander discovers she is a fellow survivor of the same Mindoir raid that killed Shepard's family.

Confused and speaking in the third person, Talitha can be coaxed to tell her story gradually. Shepard believes she developed Stockholm Syndrome over the years of her captivity. When she was rescued she believed her suffering wasn't real and only happened to a more unfortunate girl: if other humans saw her, then the chains and beatings she endured were real. She thinks other humans look at her differently, seeing only an abused animal. Talitha wants to kill herself because remembering her past causes her pain.

On learning Shepard's a fellow survivor, Talitha angrily calls them a liar at first, but then wonders why they didn't end up broken like her. If Shepard disagrees, Talitha muses she isn't capable of killing to feel better about her past. If Shepard reveals the Alliance saved them, Talitha thinks it isn't fair as everyone she knew ended up dead or an animal. If Shepard claims they bounced back from the tragedy, Talitha wishes she too could do the same.

If Shepard approaches Talitha too fast, she will shoot herself. However, with careful persuasion, Talitha can be gently made to face her past, take a sedative and be taken to a psychiatric facility for treatment. Alternatively, Shepard can decide she is too much of a threat and give Lieutenant Girard the order for a sniper to kill her.

Mass Effect 2

In 2185, should Shepard be from the Colonist origin and Talitha was sedated, the Commander receives an email from her entitled Thanks.

From: Talitha Shepard, I don't know if you remember me. I had a gun and you stopped me from hurting myself. My doctors say I am doing better. One of them works with the people you work for. He told me he could get a message to you. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't talked to me that day, but the doctors are helping me. I am getting better. They put me in a special school, and they say I am doing good. The doctors say that other people are getting taken like I was. I hope you can help them like you helped me. Thank you. Talitha

Trivia

• 'Talitha' is an Aramaic word for a maiden or virgin. The Bible recounts that Christ restored a girl to life by speaking the phrase "talitha kum," meaning "maiden, get up" in Aramaic.