Ka'hairal Balak

Ka'hairal Balak was a batarian extremist who led a terrorist cell against human interests in the Skyllian Verge, and who clashed directly with Commander Shepard on more than one occasion. His deep hatred of humanity stemmed from the early years of mankind's expansion, when humans claimed territory and resources he believed rightfully belonged to the batarians. His actions, and the consequences they carried, depended heavily on the choices Shepard made when their paths first crossed.

Hatred of humanity#

Balak's grievance against humanity ran to the core of his ideology. He believed that during the early stages of mankind's major expansion into the Skyllian Verge, humans had seized territory and resources that ought to have belonged to the batarians. He framed his violence as reprisal, holding the failed Skyllian Blitz against Elysium as a particular point of resentment. To Balak, terror against human colonies was not crime but retribution, and he carried that conviction without apology.

Asteroid X57 and Terra Nova#

In 2183, Balak led a batarian raiding party to Asteroid X57. Unlike the other batarians in his group, who intended only a quick slave grab, Balak had a far more destructive aim. He rigged the asteroid's three fusion torches to execute burns that would put it on a collision course with the human colony of Terra Nova. When Shepard landed and began shutting down the torches, Balak sent his forces to intercept the Commander and hunted the engineers hiding in the main facility who were aiding the operation. Finding a colonist named Kate Bowman, he demanded to know who was attacking his people, and when she refused to answer he killed her brother.

When Shepard assaulted the main facility, Balak had planted a bomb in the offices where his hostages were held. He spoke bitterly of the thwarted Skyllian Blitz and presented the Commander with a choice: attack him and ensure his death, or release him in exchange for the lives of the hostages. If Shepard moved against him, Balak detonated the bomb, killing the captives, before falling under the Commander's assault. Cornered and wounded, he taunted Shepard about the similarity of their actions, asking who the real terrorist was. From there his immediate fate diverged: he could be executed once Shepard had learned all there was to learn from him, left to die where he lay, or dropped on Terra Nova to be handed to the Systems Alliance.

Return during the Reaper War#

Balak's survival, if Shepard had let him go or left him for dead, allowed him to resurface in 2186 on the Citadel during the chaos of the Reaper War. He introduced himself, to any who did not already know him, as Captain Ka'hairal Balak of the Batarian External Forces, and he blamed Shepard for the misfortunes that had befallen the batarians. He recounted that after his attack on Terra Nova was thwarted, the Hegemony had accelerated research on the Leviathan of Dis, which proved to be a dormant Reaper. Hundreds of batarian scientists were indoctrinated and served as sleeper agents, disabling defense grids and turning batarian ships against one another, bringing about the destruction of the Batarian Hegemony.

Having escaped to the Citadel, Balak aided the remnants of the batarian fleet against the Reapers by hacking Council transmissions. His prior conduct colored what came next. If Shepard had once let him go in exchange for hostages, he had continued his anti-human vendetta, using old batarian diplomatic codes to cut power to life-support machines at a hospital and to cause a fatal crash at the docks. If he had instead been left for dead, he turned the same codes toward securing provisions for his people. He claimed to be the highest-ranking military officer left in the Hegemony.

When he and Shepard met again, Balak initially held a pistol to the Commander's back. Shepard could either gain the upper hand and kill him with his own weapon, or appeal to his sense of patriotism and convince him to lend his support against the Reapers. If reasoned with, Balak walked free, the investigation into his actions dropped under Shepard's Spectre authority, and his leadership and barely restrained fury proved valuable to the batarian war effort. If he had been executed or arrested earlier, accounts held that his removal threw batarian external operations into chaos, contributing to their defeat against the Reapers.