Turian

Known for their militaristic and disciplined culture, the turians were the third race to join the Citadel Council, gaining their seat after defeating the krogan on the Council's behalf during the Krogan Rebellions. To end that war they deployed a salarian-created biological weapon called the genophage, then filled the peacekeeping niche the krogan had once occupied. Originally from the planet Palaven, the turians were best known for their military role and their contributions of soldiers and starships to the Citadel Fleet, and they were respected for the public service ethic that led them to first propose the creation of C-Sec. (Mass Effect)

Biology#

Turians had two thick fingers and an opposable thumb tipped with talons on each hand, and a set of mandibles around the mouth. Their most distinguishing feature was a metallic carapace, evolved as a defense against the heavy solar radiation that penetrated Palaven's weak magnetic field. Females lacked the sweptback cranial crests of the males and had larger, cat-like eyes. Turian blood was a dark blue. (Mass Effect; Mass Effect 2; Mass Effect 3: Omega; Mass Effect: Andromeda)

Although life on Palaven was carbon-based and oxygen-breathing, it was built on dextro-amino acids. This placed the turians in a distinct minority, sharing the trait only with the quarians; the food of levo-amino-acid species such as humans, asari, or salarians passed through turian systems without nourishment at best, and at worst triggered a potentially fatal allergic reaction. (Mass Effect)

The Unification War#

Turian civilization spanned fifteen thousand years. While the asari were forming the Council with the salarians, the turians were embroiled in a civil war next door. The Unification War began with hostilities among the colonies furthest from Palaven, which had distanced themselves from the central government, the Hierarchy. Colonists began wearing emblems and facial markings to distinguish their colonies from one another, and open conflict became common. The Hierarchy maintained strict neutrality until only a handful of factions remained, then intervened to force a renewal of allegiance. To this day most turians still wore the facial markings of their home colonies. (Mass Effect)

The Krogan Rebellions#

In the midst of the Krogan Rebellions, the Citadel Council made first contact with the turians and asked them to bring their war machine against the krogan. The initial turian offensive routed many krogan bands but provoked a massive counterattack: three turian worlds were rendered uninhabitable by asteroids hurled with fusion torches, and the bloodiest battle in turian history was fought at Digeris. Rather than be cowed, the turians fought with greater resolve, and eventually implemented the salarian-developed genophage, subduing the majority of the krogan by 800 CE. By 900 CE the turians were granted full membership on the Citadel Council in gratitude, and their military took up the peacekeeping role the decimated krogan had left behind. (Mass Effect; Mass Effect 3)

The Relay 314 Incident#

In 2157 CE, following Council laws prohibiting the activation of uncharted mass relays, a turian force opened fire on explorers from an unknown race: humanity. The Systems Alliance retaliated, and the conflict escalated into war. A turian fleet broke through Alliance lines and besieged the human colony of Shanxi, occupying it until the Alliance's Second Fleet evicted them a month later. Before a protracted war could develop, the Citadel Council intervened, revealing the galactic community to humanity and negotiating peace. The turians were ordered to pay heavy reparations for instigating what became known as the Relay 314 Incident, and mistrust between the two races lingered for years. (Mass Effect)

The Reaper War#

During the Reaper invasion of 2186, the turian colony of Taetrus was among the first worlds attacked. The Reapers met heavy resistance at Palaven and its moon Menae, where much of the turian fleet remained operable and a heavily armed citizenry supported the troops, but casualties mounted rapidly. Relief came from an unlikely ally: the krogan, who joined the war once the genophage was addressed. In a coordinated counterattack, krogan reinforcements smuggled warp bombs and fission weapons aboard Reaper ships and detonated them across the globe, retaking large swathes of territory in what became known as the Miracle at Palaven. Recognizing the larger situation, Primarch Victus ordered the surviving warships to withdraw and join the Allied assault on Earth, where turian forces fought in both the space and ground battles while Commander Shepard reached the Citadel to trigger the Crucible. (Mass Effect 3)

Culture and the Hierarchy#

Turians were defined by a strong sense of public service; every citizen from age fifteen to thirty served the state in some capacity, and it was rare to find one who put personal needs ahead of the group. Their society was highly regimented, and they were taught a powerful sense of personal accountability, the "turian honor" other races found hard to credit, in which the worst sin was to lie about one's own actions. When conflict became inevitable they understood only "total war," using overwhelming numbers to so completely devastate an enemy's military that the threat could never recur. (Mass Effect)

The turian government, the Turian Hierarchy, was a meritocracy organized into twenty-seven citizenship tiers, from civilians at the bottom to the Primarchs who each ruled a colonization cluster. Promotion and occasional demotion were based on the assessment of one's superiors and peers, and the stigma of demotion fell on those who had promoted an individual too soon rather than on the individual. Turians enjoyed broad personal freedoms so long as they completed their duties, and they channeled their rare biotics into specialist teams called Cabals. Their navy, divided into at least thirty-two fleets and allotted more dreadnoughts than any other race under the Treaty of Farixen, served as the single largest component of the Citadel Fleet. (Mass Effect; Mass Effect 2; Mass Effect 3: Omega)