Garrus Vakarian

Garrus Vakarian was a turian marksman and investigator who grew up on Palaven and followed his father into the Citadel Security Service before frustration with its rules drove him out. He became one of Commander Shepard's most steadfast comrades, fighting at the Commander's side against the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius and later against the Reapers. Calm and courteous off the battlefield and ruthless on it, he spent his life caught between his father's belief in doing things by the book and his own conviction that what mattered was getting the job done. (Mass Effect; Mass Effect 2; Mass Effect 3)

C-Sec and the case against Saren#

Like most turians, Garrus underwent military training at fifteen, but he later followed his father into the Citadel Security Service. He came to the attention of the wider galaxy when he was put in charge of investigating Saren Arterius after Ambassador Udina accused the Spectre of attacking a human colony. Because Saren's activities were classified, Garrus found himself blocked at every turn, and when he asked Executor Pallin for more time, his investigation was ordered closed for lack of evidence. Convinced of Saren's guilt and holding a single remaining lead, Garrus chose to pursue it regardless. (Mass Effect)

Commander Shepard encountered Garrus during the same investigation, and Garrus left C-Sec to join the Commander's crew, eager to take Saren down outside the constraints that had bound him. He had no qualms about hunting a fellow turian whose actions he regarded as a disgrace. Aboard the Normandy he debated the merits of the law with Shepard, arguing that it should not matter how a thing was done so long as it was done. He had grown up under a by-the-book father whose mantra was to do things right or not at all, and he had once been considered, then quietly blocked from, candidacy as a Spectre. By the end of the campaign against Saren he had learned a great deal from Shepard and resolved not to waste it. (Mass Effect)

Archangel of Omega#

After the Battle of the Citadel, Garrus grew disillusioned as the galaxy dismissed the threat of the Reapers and returned to ordinary life. Frustrated with C-Sec's red tape, he left and traveled to Omega, where he believed he could make a real difference. There he assembled a squad of twelve specialists and declared war on the station's criminal gangs, operating under the name Archangel. His campaign was so effective that Omega's three most powerful mercenary groups, the Blue Suns, the Blood Pack, and Eclipse, set aside their own feuds and allied to destroy him. (Mass Effect 2)

The squad was undone by betrayal. One of its members, Sidonis, was captured and forced to lure Garrus away, and the gangs struck while he was gone, killing the rest of his team. Garrus came to regret having ignored what his father tried to teach him about strength and the courage to do right even when it was hard. Cornered and alone, he held off the mercenaries until help arrived. (Mass Effect 2)

With Shepard against the Collectors#

Advised to recruit a tactical genius known as Archangel, Shepard's team fought through the besieging mercenaries to reach him, and Garrus removed his helmet to reveal himself. During the battle he was struck by a Blue Suns gunship and badly wounded across the right side of his face, requiring treatment and cybernetics to keep him alive aboard the Normandy SR-2. The two years since the Battle of the Citadel had left him bitter and violent, and he half-joked that the discipline expected of a good turian had deserted him in the face of the coming extinction. (Mass Effect 2)

Garrus carried a personal grievance against Sidonis, who had cleared out and fled to the Citadel. With Shepard's help he tracked the traitor down, and the Commander could choose whether to aid his attempt at vengeance or to talk him out of it; either path settled the matter between them. For a female Shepard, Garrus also became a possible object of affection, his usual confidence giving way to an awkward nervousness in those private moments. (Mass Effect 2)

The Reaper War#

If Garrus survived the assault on the Collector Base, he returned to fight the Reapers. After the suicide mission he had gone at last to his father, told him everything, and through him secured a small Reaper task force to reinforce Palaven's defenses. Shepard found him on the moon Menae serving as a military consultant, and he helped seek out the next turian Primarch, General Adrien Victus, before rejoining the Normandy and taking up his old post at the main battery. (Mass Effect 3)

As the war ground on, Victus placed Garrus in charge of coordinating turian fleet activity, a burden he found difficult, knowing that millions of lives turned on his decisions. He came to accept the cold arithmetic of war while still recoiling from it, and he advised Shepard to channel anger and grief into the moments when they could be turned against the enemy. In quieter hours he reminisced with the Commander, shooting bottles from the heights of the Presidium and reflecting on how far they had come together. His fate at the war's end turned on the course of the final battle and on the relationship he and Shepard had built: a romanced Garrus shared a last farewell with the Commander before the charge on the conduit, and he could be among the crew who stepped off the Normandy after the Crucible fired. (Mass Effect 3)