Poll: unmasking Quarians/Tali

[Hader]

I am indifferent towards it. Especially with Tali. I could care less about her face specifically.

However, I think it would be wise to eventually do so, after reading the first two ME books, the descriptions of the aliens (from the female genders of salarians, turians, krogan, batarians, etc., as well as the face of the quarians and other small hidden things up to this point in the game) is so blunt and yet vivid that I think the games need to do the books some justice and really flesh out all the aspects of the different alien races much more than they are doing. The books get right into describing batarian women, and in the second book even a little about the quarian face and anatomy (though not extensive).

So yes, I think the games should try to ease into a revelation of the quarian facial structure. As well as give us a better visual representation of the females of many other species.

 

[Souplex]

They have breasts, therefore they are mammals.
Can't say much else.

 

[Infernai]

...People STILL havn't figured it out? Ok fine, here's what the Quarians all REALLY look like:

Betcha didn't see that coming did you? xD

 

[Arkley]

I know what I'd do if I were BioWare. I'd make sure Tali wasn't unmasked or even prominently featured in Mass Effect 3. Just a cameo/minor role, like Liara had in the vanilla ME2.

Then, just as nerd rage rose to its maximum capacity, I'd release a Tali-centric DLC in which she is unmasked - but only if one has a successful Tali romance save file imported from ME2.

Mass profits from fanboys roll in as everyone who ever noticed Tali has hips snaps up the DLC on launch day, and those who don't want Tali to be unmasked can just import a save without Tali romance, or not import a save at all.

Everybody wins, especially me, 'cause I'll have everybody's money.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

Unmasking them would ruin the subtle mystery that surrounds them and I would be quite sad. However, I don't spend that much time with Tali, so it wouldn't really affect me. Unless Kal Reegar was allowed to be part of your squad, he's a badass.
Frankly, I don't think it would ruin the game, they would have to get rid of Ashley to do that. I just think it would take away so much of what makes the Quarians the Quarians instead of just some random alien race.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

...I'd still tap that. I like her character, not because she's a nerd. >.> She's just less annoying than the others. ..And in ME2, not super exaggerated in her character flaws.

Because that mission where their sworn arch enemies, the geth, assaulting their fleet being a footnote to Tali whining about how daddy never hugged her was so subtle and nuanced.

Think about the -other- characters. Like Jack. or Miranda. ..God I hate Miranda. Stupid snobby high poly... *walks of mumbling completely forgetting the rest of what he was going to say*

At least Miranda isn't a racist. Same can't be said about Tali.

I assume you're talking about Ashley. If you took the time to talk to her, you would realize that she wasn't in fact racist. She has completely legitimate reasons for being distrusting of other alien races, I mean, the first time we ever have contact with the Turians, they almost wipe out a whole planet, completely destroying the Williams family reputation and getting Ashley shit postings like the one on Eden Prime. Before she met Shepherd she would probably never have been able to get higher than gunnery chief and she would probably have never had a shipboard posting.

 

[FalloutJack]

I say no, they've been masked this long, and many people have their own idea what they'd look like.
If they got unmasked, a lot of people would no doubt be disappointed.
It'd be like if Master Chief was unmasked.

Spoiler: You mean like this?

I am going to hell for this.

 

[Lizmichi]

I say do it, I think the fan base is curious enough. Also I lol'd at this :

lol the video you posted was made by a friend of mine. XD

 

[Vitum]

Honestly I don't think it makes much of a difference if they show a quarian's face or not, after all, they'd still be humanoids, but I do think it would be cool if they should their faces if they ever take back their planet

 

[Agayek]

I assume you're talking about Ashley. If you took the time to talk to her, you would realize that she wasn't in fact racist. She has completely legitimate reasons for being distrusting of other alien races, I mean, the first time we ever have contact with the Turians, they almost wipe out a whole planet, completely destroying the Williams family reputation and getting Ashley shit postings like the one on Eden Prime. Before she met Shepherd she would probably never have been able to get higher than gunnery chief and she would probably have never had a shipboard posting.

He(She?)'s actually referring to Tali.

Tali is fanatically racist against the Geth. All of the Quarian are, for extremely questionable reasons. They literally hate the Geth because the Geth stopped them from committing genocide. It's extremely ridiculous, and anyone with the slightest ounce of logic can prove it.

And Tali refuses to admit even the possibility that the Quarians were not morally justified in their actions.

Edit: On topic, from a game/story/whatever-else perspective, I think the BioWare should never actually show what a Quarian looks like unmasked. The mystery is part of their schtick. It shouldn't be changed.

That said, I really wanna know what one looks like.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

...People STILL havn't figured it out? Ok fine, here's what the Quarians all REALLY look like:

Betcha didn't see that coming did you? xD

Haha, most freaky Doctor Who episode ever, thats saying something.

OT: Unmask em, just...do it.
Even without their shroud they are still pretty interesting and enigmatic.

 

[War Pony]

That said, if they do decide to reveal how Quarians might look in general, I imagine the best way to do it - without it feeling like a contrived "ZOMG look no mask!!11!" moment - is for your team to perhaps come across a group that had been ambushed. They find a few dead quarians, and some of them - it doesn't need to be more than one or two - had their masks broken/shattered in the attack. You can make out their features more clearly, but they still might be obscured with dirt/glass/blood/whathaveyou. The community gets a clearer glimpse under the mask, but the mystery of what an unblemished quarian might look like remains intact.

Just an idea.

Your idea is something that played out in my head more than a few times when I first went to Haestrom and did Tali's loyalty mission. I totally expected for there to be quarians with damaged and missing masks that I could look into. Or maybe on that one planet with the quarians that were decimated by varren. You'd think varren would have torn one apart enough for the suit to be undone or something.

When I came across none I was like, "Maybe Shepard can just pry one off a dead one and I can get a little peak. Surely he or she won't mind since they're dead and all, and I can do it with Tali's back turned. Maybe that red and white flashing RT will come up as a pass a dead one and I can pistol whip the mask. C'mon, anything!"

 

[Vrex360]

I assume you're talking about Ashley. If you took the time to talk to her, you would realize that she wasn't in fact racist. She has completely legitimate reasons for being distrusting of other alien races, I mean, the first time we ever have contact with the Turians, they almost wipe out a whole planet, completely destroying the Williams family reputation and getting Ashley shit postings like the one on Eden Prime. Before she met Shepherd she would probably never have been able to get higher than gunnery chief and she would probably have never had a shipboard posting.

Nah he isn't talking about Ashley, he's talking about Tali with her... questionable views of the Geth. I've actually seen Internet Kraken around here inm threads like this quite a bit and he's actually one of the more vocal defenders of the notion that Ashley isn't a racist or at least, isn't even close to being as bad as people say she is.

Tali is fanatically racist against the Geth. All of the Quarian are, for extremely questionable reasons. They literally hate the Geth because the Geth stopped them from committing genocide. It's extremely ridiculous, and anyone with the slightest ounce of logic can prove it.

And Tali refuses to admit even the possibility that the Quarians were not morally justified in their actions.

No kidding, I mean I can accept that the Quarians have it rough but I could never get over the fact that most of their population seemed to just deny that their hands were just as dirty as the Geth's in this war, I mean they did start it after all.
Plus, even after three hundred years they haven't learned much from the experience. Rather than try, at least try to make peace they seem much more content with staging attacks on Geth owned territory and stealing data from them to do research on them, including Tali's father trying to create a way to rob them of their free will and turn them back into drones.

I mean nothing has been learned and nothing has changed in over three hundred years and rather than try for peace the Quarians are instead content to keep trying to wage war on the Geth, even though apart from being morally iffy and kind of stubborn it's also just well, stupid. I mean the Geth have a huuuuuuge army, insanely advanced technology and own and entire systems worth of resources and they almost wiped the Quarian race out the first time.

To me it seems that these are all pretty good reasons NOT to go to war with them. But so far it seems like only one Admiral on the entire board doesn't want war, only one. Makes it kind of hard to sympathise with them, they seem like the aggressors here.
And if they keep pushing this way, all they are going to do is get themselves killed.

Yes, because the resulting nerd rage will be hilarious. No matter what Tali looks like, some part of her creepy fanbase will ***** and moan about it. They all have this perfect little dream image of Tali, and showing her face would crush that dream into pieces. That would be wonderful.

Unless Quarians are space elves. In which case, no. The last thing Mass Effect needs is space elves.

To be fair I don't think they are all like that, I've seen plenty of fans of Tali who aren't hysterical fanatics, enough at least that I am game to give them a chance.
That said, it is kind of true, some of the stuff that we see that is fanfiction for Tali or fanart or whatever word there is for 'creepy obsession' really does hit into the realm of the 'seriously fucked up', like even by the standards of people obsessed with video game crushes.

Also I agree with your whole stance on Tali being faceless, it actually is kind of like 'Masterchief syndrome' in the sense that, while Masterchief was faceless so any player could project their face onto him, a person romancing Tali can do the same thing. She looks like whatever you want her to look like, whatever your fantasy is. I don't know if that's intentional and I'm certainly not going to call it fact, but it certainly seems like it at points.
So yeah, some of the fans would love it, but I think the loss of her mystery would lose that allure and would make the others pretty mad.

And yes, no space elves. Please GOD no space elves, we already have one fetishized alien race in Mass Effect. Can't that be enough?
I am of course referring to those damned sexy Krogans.

Anyway OT:

I'm not really a big enough fan of Tali to be bothered either way. I don't hate her but I'm not insanely in love with her either. If they want to show the Quarian's faces, by all means. However at the same time that would mean getting rid of the 'mystery' that Quarians are supposed to have, which in turn might turn people off them or make them seem less attractive but then again, I can't know that for sure.

Whatever, it won't effect me but I reckon in the long run Bioware would be better off just leaving them as they are. True, this would mean a lot of people would get mad about the mystery but odds are the mystery is what intrigued them in the first place.

 

[P.Tsunami]

I say no, they've been masked this long, and many people have their own idea what they'd look like.
If they got unmasked, a lot of people would no doubt be disappointed.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

 

[SovietSecrets]

Meh. Let her stay masked. Shes annoying enough already.

 

[P.Tsunami]

I assume you're talking about Ashley.

You would be wrong. Internet Kraken was clearly talking about Tali.

If you took the time to talk to her, you would realize that she wasn't in fact racist. She has completely legitimate reasons for being distrusting of other alien races, I mean, the first time we ever have contact with the Turians, they almost wipe out a whole planet, completely destroying the Williams family reputation and getting Ashley shit postings like the one on Eden Prime. Before she met Shepherd she would probably never have been able to get higher than gunnery chief and she would probably have never had a shipboard posting.

So... she has legitimate reasons for being racist. Racism isn't defined by legitimacy, you know.

 

[Catinks]

what i think they should do is a sort of choice between whether or not you get to see tali un-masked, this way, it keeps the -very few- people who like the mask, keep it that way, and the enormous amount of people wanting to see whether or not the fan speaks truth or lies (if you dont know what i mean, google image "tali with no mask" or something similar... and turn off safe search if you REALLY want to)

 

[jamesworkshop]

No, as punishment for ruining all ME2 discussions with their strange obssesions

 

[Yassen]

This is one of those moments where either option is going to piss someone off, like a presidential election. There's nothing you can do to please everyone and so it's up to Bioware to think of a moment where doing it could fit in a way that it would at least please most fans, because I believe not doing it would piss off the most amount of people.

Someone said earlier that a moment where if you manage to return Rannoch to the Quarians, they could all simultaneously take off their masks to take a breathe for the first time on their planet. If Tali joined in this then that would be the best moment. It could be seen as a reward for forging peace between the Geth and Quarians so it won't happen in every playthrough and instead is a reward if you did everything right.