Ygara Menoris is a former subcaptain of the Talein's Daughters commando unit. She is taller, more muscular, and proportionately more well-endowed than the average asari, biotically stronger than some matriarchs despite being at the tail end of her maiden years, and one of the few close aquaintances Cora Harper made during her time with the asari.
Background[]
Having been a commando for about 300 years, Ygara amicably parted ways with her unit and is currently trying to build her own mercenary group. Part of the reason she quit, as she tells Cora, was because she disliked going on missions with shady dealings. She used the part of her earnings not earmarked for enticing specialists to her group to buy and refurbish a small, surplus asari destroyer she named Audacity, and she plans on starting out on the Kepler Verge as she deems Council space as too tame.
Ygara once spent 20 years on Palaven and developed a relationship there, although it ended one way or another and she had to return to Thessia. The experience left her with minor culture shock that took her weeks to adjust to.
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“You’ve got to be kidding me.” — Spoilers for Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation follow. |
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Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation[]
Ygara runs into Cora at the Tamayo Point station in Sol where she helps the human fend off wannabe harassers. Apparently she was just passing through on her way to Illium, although she happily reconnects with Cora before going their separate ways.
A short while later, Ygara lends her mercenary group's services to Cora for a software retrieval job. Posing as Council-agency eezo converter inspectors, Ygara and her crew assist Cora in infiltrating the Home Away station to get the code package located at a data center on-site. Cora completes the retrieval while Ygara's crew keep the local administrators distracted, although the station's facial recognition systems detect Cora's intrusion when an interview by Khalisah al-Jilani about her unexpectedly airs. After causing some damage fighting their way out the group manage to escape the station without casualties, albeit Ygara is nearly knocked unconscious by a drone blast just outside their waiting shuttle.
It is not until the group reaches the safety of Audacity below Mars orbit that Ygara's treachery is discovered. As it turns out, Ygara had been bought by moneyed parties to steal the code package Cora's tasked with retrieving and their "chance encounter" at Tamayo Point has been an engineered ruse aimed at getting Cora and the code package right where she wants. Funding a mercenary startup is expensive, and the money being offered outweighs the future (and friendships) Ygara spent centuries building for herself, so she accepted the job, briefed her mercenaries of the true situation, and made sure they were all grouped together at Home Away while Cora was in a disadvantaged position while she was transferring the code to their shuttle's storage systems. It was Ygara who alerted al-Jilani to run her story after the transfer was complete, in the hope that Home Away security would take care of Cora before she rejoined the mercenaries.
Ygara didn't kill Cora during their escape from Home Away because she just saved the asari's life during the drone blast, and didn't kill her on the shuttle ride back to Audacity on the off chance the struggle might compromise the shuttle and leave them stranded or spaced. She claims she isn't a complete asshole, but that does not stop her from throwing a shockwave at Cora's direction once her mercenaries are positioned and fully equipped to take the human down.
During the firefight Ygara tries to convince Cora that she'll merely be sold to batarian slavers if she surrenders. The human doesn't buy it and escapes from the bay airlock before the Audacity jumps to FTL. Ygara doesn't bother to come back and shoot her down; a human stranded in the middle of nowhere isn't worth the time and effort, and Cora had never known her to be patient enough.
On Illium, Ygara rents rooms for her crew at the Bulwark mercenary hotel in Nos Astra and allows them to relax. She intends to betray her original client and sell the stolen code to the highest bidder instead of bringing it back, although before she could do so she is assassinated by an unknown party who also copied then deleted the kernel from Audacity. Ygara had been stabbed in the back with an omni-blade and the ambient temperature of her room had been lowered, making it difficult to determine when she died. Cora discovers her body lying in a pool of blood after infiltrating the Bulwark using credentials supplied to her by another of Ygara's double-crossed associates, the volus information broker Eppo Wen.
Mercenary Crew[]
Prior to her demise Ygara assembled a motley group with various skillsets and backgrounds, collected over a few decades' worth of missions, for her unnamed mercenary outfit. Her team was carefully chosen to be capable of fabricating weapons on the fly or be weapons themselves. What happens to them after the incident on Illium is unknown.
- Tella Namir, Leri T'Eln and Bannyn T'Dahn - three asari ex-commandos. Tella and Leri are the designated "muscle" while Bannyn is a sapper who served with Talein's Daughters prior to 2084 CE and managed to save Ygara's life on one particular mission. They are able to effortlessly project an air of friendliness although they prove to be just as unscrupulous as Ygara was. They attempted to kill Eppo Wen on Ygara's orders after a fraudulent business transaction, and showed no qualms trying to kill Cora after working with her. Last seen heading out to Nos Astra for a night off.
- Jorgal Kih - a human-sized krogan. Small for his race and touchy about the subject, he's the pilot, drone-recon, and heavy weapons specialist. Tends to see all humans as pyjaks, and tends to think of pyjaks as snacks.
- Octavia Suran - turian "researcher" adept at uncovering secrets and spreading disinformation. Ygara may have been paying her a lot to keep her in the group since information brokers tended to do well as free agents. Deemed sloppy at her job by Eppo Wen since Suran failed to properly ascertain the identities of their would-be auctioneers. May have studied human greeting customs since it's unusual for the taloned turians to extend their hands for handshakes. Suran has a deadpan, drawling demeanor.
- Hanon'Milah nar Qwib-Qwib and Shilu'Milah nar Qwib-Qwib - twin quarian brothers with almost identical suits undergoing their Pilgrimage. Suran's assistants in forging documents and hacking extranet sites. Hanon has a scuff along the upper right edge of his faceplate, and is helpful enough to actually inspect Home Away's eezo converters and log an authentic maintenance report. Shilu monitors Home Away transmissions during the mission.