Samara

Samara was a nearly thousand-year-old asari justicar, a member of an ancient monastic order that followed a stark and unyielding honor code. Though skilled with weapons, she relied chiefly on her powerful biotics. Justicars rarely left asari space, but Samara's centuries-long pursuit of her own daughter brought her to Illium, where she swore herself to Commander Shepard's mission against the Collectors. (Mass Effect 2)

Early life#

Like many asari, Samara's Maiden phase was marked by adventure. For a time she ran with a mercenary gang and discovered a talent for combat, until a transport mission revealed its cargo to be slaves bound for sale to the Collectors. When her crew resisted her order to turn back, she was forced to kill them, freed the captives, and left her mercenary life behind. She eventually settled with an asari mate and raised a family of three daughters. (Mass Effect 2)

To her horror, all three of her daughters were Ardat-Yakshi, asari born with a genetic condition that compelled them to kill their partners during the meld. Samara, a pureblood asari herself, came to believe that the stigma against purebloods stemmed in part from their greater likelihood of bearing such daughters. Two of the three, Falere and Rila, accepted lives of seclusion. The third, Morinth, whom Samara regarded as the smartest and bravest, refused confinement and fled to indulge a growing addiction to killing. (Mass Effect 2)

The Justicar Code#

Recognizing the threat her daughter posed, Samara gave up her worldly possessions, swore herself to the Justicar Code, and became a justicar. The Code was a stark and uncompromising philosophy that bound her to act against injustice without hesitation, even at great cost, and she followed it in the belief that the most brutal path was sometimes the only honest one. She hunted Morinth across the galaxy for centuries, at one point breaking a village her daughter had corrupted into worship, and on another occasion crossing paths with the turian Spectre Nihlus Kryik in a days-long pursuit through the wilderness. (Mass Effect 2)

Service with Shepard#

By 2185, Samara had pursued Morinth out of asari space to Illium. Following a lead that Eclipse mercenaries had helped her daughter flee offworld, she killed a mercenary who would not reveal the name of Morinth's ship, just as Commander Shepard arrived hoping to recruit her. Constrained by the Code to surrender into local custody for a time, Samara asked Shepard's help in learning the ship's name before the Code would oblige her to escape by force. When Shepard returned with the name, Samara swore the Third Oath of Subsumation, binding herself to the Commander's moral judgment and vowing to fight the Collectors, though she made plain she would turn on Shepard should the Commander ever drive her to violate the Code. (Mass Effect 2)

Aboard the Normandy, Samara spent most of her time in silent meditation, speaking with Shepard chiefly of her life as a justicar. With the Commander's aid she tracked Morinth to Omega, where she proposed using Shepard as bait to lure her daughter into a trap. The confrontation ended in a struggle between mother and daughter, and depending on Shepard's actions, one of the two did not survive. (Mass Effect 2)

The Reaper War#

Should she have survived the campaign against the Collectors, Samara returned during the Reaper War. She reunited with Shepard on Lesuss, where Reaper forces were assaulting an Ardat-Yakshi monastery and converting its asari into the monstrous Banshees. Samara was able to rescue her youngest daughter, Falere, but her daughter Rila, already being converted, chose to stay behind and destroy the other Banshees with a bomb. (Mass Effect 3)

With the monastery in ruins, Samara explained that the Code would compel her to kill the last of her daughters, since Falere as an Ardat-Yakshi could not live outside the monastery. Unwilling to do so, she turned to take her own life. Shepard could choose to restrain her or to let her fulfill her Code. Should Shepard stop her, Falere's vow to remain and rebuild the monastery satisfied the Code, and mother and daughter parted at peace before Samara joined the fight against the Reapers. Should Shepard let her die, her name was added to the Normandy's memorial wall. In the final reckoning, the fates of Samara and her surviving daughter rested on the choices made along the way. (Mass Effect 3)