Nakmor Kesh: the krogan engineer who keeps the Nexus running

Nakmor Kesh was the Superintendent of the Nexus and a member of Clan Nakmor, one of the core team of station engineers who built the thing she now spends her days holding together. Her own job description is "fixer-in-chief", which covers maintaining systems, folding returning arks into the station and running construction. She is also the reason the krogan still have a voice on the Nexus after the rest of her people left it.

Who is Nakmor Kesh?#

Kesh is the krogan engineer in charge of keeping the Nexus alive, responsible for its systems, its construction work and the integration of any ark that finds its way home.

She grew up on Tuchanka and says she was considered frail as a child. What saved her was attention. Nakmor Drack, her grandfather, raised her closely enough that she came through it, and unlike most krogan of her age she spent real time reading. That is where the interest in engineering and civil construction started.

The interest in destruction never went anywhere. Drack tells the story of the first toolkit: Kesh used the blunt side of it to open up a power generator, enjoyed the fireworks that came out, and worked out that bigger things made bigger sparks. She was not a natural. She got there by grinding at it, which is a slightly unusual origin story for a krogan and entirely consistent with how she runs a station.

The uprising and the exile#

Kesh's reputation on the Nexus was made during the uprising. The records of it show her keeping the station operational while everything around it came apart, and her combination of management and deep familiarity with the hardware made her impossible to replace afterwards.

The krogan departure came next. Assistant Deputy Director William Spender reneged on a deal with Nakmor Morda, and the situation was close enough to violence to threaten the Nexus itself. Kesh talked Morda into exile instead of a fight. Morda took the krogan to Elaaden and founded New Tuchanka there. Kesh stayed on the station, which is exactly why the krogan still get heard in Nexus leadership meetings despite having walked out of them.

Kesh and Tann#

Her relationship with Director Jarun Tann is best described as functional and hostile. She enjoys irritating him, most reliably by addressing him as "Number Eight", and she is happy to explain the nickname: Tann was eighth in the line of succession for control of the Andromeda Initiative. She keeps saying it so he keeps remembering it.

Practical avoidance works too. Catch her in Operations at the wrong moment and she will fake a bad comm connection at Tann rather than have the conversation he wants. With almost everyone else she is straightforward. Tiran Kandros needs a console working and she promises an engineer immediately. Del Jasin is being harassed by Spender and she quietly arranges for Spender to go away.

She also recruited people into the Initiative herself, among them the smuggler Vetra Nyx and the life support engineer Calix Corvannis along with his crew.

Backing Ryder#

When Pathfinder Ryder first meets the Nexus leadership, the room is not pleased. They had been expecting Alec Ryder and got his child instead, and they doubted the replacement could fix anything. Kesh argued the other way and pushed the others to give Ryder a chance.

Then she showed them the reason. The Hyperion's core was now feeding the Nexus's depleted generators, which meant Ryder had already kept the lights on and bought the station hope it had not had that morning. That is what earned her support in the first place.

She keeps score afterwards. Reporting to Tann over vidcon following the founding of Prodromos, she has to tell him the commons area is still being prepared and Hydroponics is running at partial capacity, that she lacks people and that the ones she has need rest, and Tann is not interested in excuses. When she and Kandros come to Pathfinder HQ to discuss outposts, her position depends on Ryder's: she approves of Prodromos as a scientific outpost, because better research means better food supply, and she voices concern if it is built as a military one, on the same grounds.

The choices that involve her#

Several of Kesh's later moments only happen if the player makes particular decisions.

If Ryder chooses to keep the Ancient AI from Voeld, Kesh sends a message acknowledging receipt in the driest possible terms. The AI has already spaced a couple of crates of supplies bound for Prodromos and displaced the gravity in Pathfinder HQ. She has it tethered in SAM node, she has not told Tann or the others, and she says it will stay between the two of them.

If Ryder rescues Vorn from outlaws, Vorn can reveal that he is courting Kesh, and can ask Ryder to hand her a flower on his behalf. Kesh's first reaction is to criticise the gift for doing nothing for krogan survival. She then makes it clear she intends to keep the plant and look after it.

And if Ryder saved Drack's scouts earlier, Drack later tells the Pathfinder that Kesh gave birth to a healthy clutch of krogan infants some time after the Archon's defeat, with the instruction to keep it quiet. Vorn can confirm that he is the father.