Feron: the drell double agent who lost Shepard's body on Omega

Feron was a drell information trafficker, hired by Liara T'Soni to help her find Commander Shepard after the Normandy went down, and simultaneously under orders from the Shadow Broker to make sure she never did. He was working a third angle as well. By the time the whole thing collapsed on Alingon, he had cost the Broker the body, saved Liara's life, and put himself into the hands of the person he had betrayed.

Who is Feron in Mass Effect?#

Feron was a drell information trafficker who ended up at the centre of the fight over Commander Shepard's body, working for three parties at once and finishing the job as a prisoner of the one he had crossed.

Liara found him first. His answer to her question about Shepard was that the Commander was neither dead nor alive, which did nothing to put her off. The two of them were then ambushed on Omega by Blue Suns mercenaries the Shadow Broker had sent to slow Liara down, and were saved by a sniper neither of them could identify. The next people they ran into were Cerberus agents, Miranda Lawson among them, claiming to be after Shepard as well. That led to a meeting with the Illusive Man, and to the disclosure that the Shadow Broker was dealing with the Collectors.

Afterwards Feron told Liara the truth about his orders. He had been sent to lead her away from Shepard. Given what he had just heard, he was prepared to help her instead.

Omega, and the shot that missed#

Feron took Liara back to Afterlife on Omega, where Aria T'Loak held court, and worked out where the Blue Suns were bringing the body. Then he spotted Tazzik, the Broker's personal enforcer.

Liara wanted to charge him. Feron had a better idea involving a nearby turret, and he missed. The shot alerted the Suns, and Tazzik lifted off Omega with Shepard aboard. Liara accused him of still working for the Broker, and Feron did not deny it. He had never stopped working for the Broker, he said, and that was exactly what would let them find Tazzik.

Alingon#

The two of them infiltrated the Broker's main base on Alingon with Feron passing Liara off as his prisoner. Before going for the body he insisted on the command centre, because he wanted to know what the Broker was getting from the Collectors.

Inside they found a shadowy hologram of the Broker himself. Liara kept him talking while Feron pulled down everything on the Broker's dealings, and when he had it he told her to cut loose with her biotics and wreck the room's communications so nobody could pin their location.

On the way to Shepard he told her the rest of it. Cerberus had approached him more than once and he had turned them down every time, right up until he learned about the Collector deal. After that he went to the Illusive Man directly and the two of them worked out a plan for Feron to take the body himself. The Broker found out. Using Liara was how Feron salvaged the plan.

The end came at the handover. Feron told Tazzik the Broker wanted the full payment up front, and Tazzik was inclined to believe him until the Collector in the room announced that Feron was a traitor. Feron held Tazzik in place. Liara escaped with the body, not knowing whether he had been killed on the spot or taken, and left carrying a determination to destroy the Shadow Broker for it.

Two years on the rig#

Ask Liara about herself on Illium in 2185 and she eventually mentions a friend she has been looking for, someone who did not get out of an ambush she survived. She thought he had been captured or killed and could not tell which.

Cerberus intelligence settled it. Handed the Broker dossier by Shepard, Liara worked out that Feron was alive and in the Broker's custody. After surviving an assassination attempt by Tela Vasir, a Spectre on the Broker's payroll, she went to the Shadow Broker Base on Hagalaz with Shepard and found Feron strapped into a torture device. There was no way to get him off it without killing him. Liara and Shepard went past him to confront the Broker, and killed him.

Feron chose to stay on the base afterwards to help Liara, who had taken the Broker's chair herself, and admitted he had no idea what he would do beyond that. Liara worried openly about the state he was in. He told Shepard he had used the drell talent for stepping back into old memories to get through the worst of the torture. Asked whether the two of them are involved, Liara says no, with the phrasing shifting slightly depending on whether Shepard is romancing her, and in the version where Shepard is not she leaves it a little open: Feron is too unstable for a relationship and it would be irresponsible to take advantage. Feron's own answer is that Liara is a better friend than he deserves.

Both endings#

What happens to Feron in Mass Effect 3 depends entirely on whether the player ran Lair of the Shadow Broker.

If Shepard took the Broker's ship with Liara, Feron is there when Cerberus attacks it, and he helps her get clear with the equipment worth saving. He becomes one of her agents and takes over Terminus operations, which Tazzik is not happy about. He emails Shepard about it: glad the Commander got off Earth, glad Liara is aboard, glad to be off her old ship, sick of that cabin and of tripping over the drone that kept finding him no matter how big the vessel was or how thoroughly he disabled its tracking. He attaches information and tells Shepard to have Glyph sort the data.

If Shepard never helped her, Liara explains that she had to hire dozens of mercenaries to storm the lair instead. Feron did not survive that version of the assault.