Melaani T'soa

Full Name: Melaani T'soa
Born: 1976 (220 years old in 2196)
Species: Asari
Gender Female asari
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 140
Hair: n/a
Eye Color: Light blue
Homeworld: Thessia
Affiliation Spectres
Past Affiliation: Undercover agent for Thessian and Luisan police. Eclipse, Goddess' Path, Memory of Thessia infiltrated.
Squad name: Circe


Talents:

Class:
Vanguard/Infiltrator 15

Stats
Str: 12
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Int: 18
Wis: 14
Cha: 20

(at level 15, she has 3 stat increases to distribute; added them to Con and Charisma over time)

Abilities:

Barrier 3 (Shifting Barrier)
Charge 3 (Biotic Burst (Grants additional Barrier and/or Shield integrity upon Charge completion)
Close-quarters combat 1 (asari basic kata)
Heavy armor
Move 3 (Heavy move)
Reave 3 (Punishing reave, DOT)
Sabotage 3 (Sundering Sabotage (Increases activation speed, length of duration, and amount of damage for weapons sabotage)
Tactical armor
Past Life Regression 1
Empty Glass — Melaani assumes a state of no-mind, and/or rapidly oscillates between various personas in her head. This makes her, functionally, if not immune to domination, then at least *highly* resistant to it. She also eludes biotic detection while in the no-mind state. (+15 to rolls vs. domination)

Skills:
Background: Law enforcement (Undercover): Disguise +5 Stealth +5

Athletics: 14
Biotics: 24 + 4 for age bonus = 28
Disguise: 20+5=25
Electronics: 10
First Aid: 12
Investigate: 15
Perception: 15
Persuasion: 20
Stealth: 20+5=25

Special: Past Life Regression

Melaani can re-assume skills and abilities known by her previous cover identities.

**Current Level: **// Rank 1, Haunted: Must declare up to 3 ability points to "trade" for the duration of assuming the persona who held those abilities. 3 ability points, in any combination (3 level 1, 1 level 2 and 1 level 1, or 1 Specialized skill), may be traded out. Ability grants access to 1 persona per day. Up to 40 skillpoints may be reassigned to maximize 1 skill. Using this ability is emotionally and mentally draining.//

Past identities:


Dossier:

Melaani has worked undercover for over seventy years for asari law enforcement agencies, infiltrating groups such as the Memory of Thessia, Eclipse and, and the Goddess' Path, often for years or decades at a time. As such she has an excellent sense for how to deal with both criminal and fanatic organizations. She's marked by a light sense of humor and the ability to be fully in a cover identity… and sometimes has to work to come out of that identity. She keeps journals when not undercover to remember who is really is.

She was originally trained as a classical asari dancer, in a style very similar to ballet, and idolized Ylara growing up. A bombing on Thessia that destroyed the theater in which she was scheduled to start her first starring rolewhich resulted in the deaths of many of her friends and her first-mothercaused her to change careers from acting/dancing to law enforcement.

Has infiltrated Eclipse (15 years), Memories of Thessia (5 years), Goddess' Path (15 years, starting at age 90, or 130 years ago) and currently working on infiltrating the Moons of Luisa/Tears of the Moons.

She was once roommates with Pelia, but it's an on-again-off-again relationship (mostly, off), that never quite works out because they're both so often undercover, on separate worlds. They do trust one another and consider each other to be great friends, however.

Melaani T'soa led the Spectres jointly with Samiel Viridian and Siege Moreau following the retirement of James Allen Dempsey and Zhasa'Maedan.


Quotes:

Chapter 104, Crucible
A picture had emerged—a loyal, dedicated person, with a strong identity at her core. Early in life, she’d wanted to be a classical dancer, in a mode similar to Earth’s ballet. A bomb planted at the local theater had destroyed it, and had angered her enough for her to decide to search for paths towards justice. Simple enough. She’d shown good team skills, adapting fluidly to whomever she was with, but had yet to demonstrate leadership. A chameleon. She’d go along with anyone to get the job done.

Chapter 105, Annealing

“Yes, I actually infiltrated the Goddess’ Path when I first became a cop. Over a hundred years ago; I was ninety, then, and was embedded in their organization for fifteen years. Religious zealots, I’m afraid. Asari aren’t as prone to that kind of mania as, say, humans are, but we do have a few embarrassing exceptions.”

“And what was the group’s goal?” Seheve asked, quietly.

“They believe that the Goddess’ shadow face must be venerated equally with her nurturing one. While most asari understand the tripartite Goddess as maiden, mother, and crone, they see the huntress, the soldier, and the reaper of crops. It reflects a duality of thought foreign to most asari.” Melaani’s lips tightened. “And they believe that in order to venerate the Goddess’ shadow self, they must force others to believe as they do. They also offer blood sacrifices at their initiation. Some of their own flesh, and some of … victims. It’s a cult, and not a pleasant one. I was glad to remove myself from their company and to cleanse my mind of their worldview.”

“And how did you do that?” Seheve’s voice was actually fascinated.

“I joined in their view enough to pass for one of them. Believed in my role as completely as I could. And when I got out, I spent five years training myself to think like an asari again. Sharing myself with as many people as I could to cleanse the pollution from my mind.” Melaani sighed. “I felt rather as if I were using them, to be honest. Most of them were trained, however, and didn’t mind helping me. It’s difficult to recover one’s mental equilibrium after an assignment that lasted for fifteen years.”

“Such a thing is not possible for someone who is not asari, however.” Seheve’s voice sounded disappointed. And then she murmured, oddly, “Fifteen years. Almost exactly as long as this… as I served the Master.”

107, Battle Lines

“All right.” She paused. “This song is so sad, don’t you think? It’s about how, for asari, love is a transitory thing. When you live for a thousand years, you come to accept that love dies.”

Rel bared his teeth in a snarl of frustration. Not the time for this topic. “Real love doesn’t.”

“Of course it does.” Simple, calm assurance. “You take a salarian for a mate, and in the blink of an eye, they’re gone. Even a turian or a human, you might get a century out of, if you’re lucky. And if you happen to choose a fellow asari or a krogan, over the course of the next three, four hundred, five hundred years… you’ll grow apart. Fall out of love. Fall in love with someone else. Probably with several someones. Because the person you were at a hundred, isn’t the person you are at two hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand.”

“That’s not true.” Rel had sat up, combatively. “You’re always the same person. The same flesh. The same spirit.”

“Is the river that passes by you today, the same as it was yesterday? It has the same name, but it’s not the same water. That water has already flowed to the sea. It doesn’t even have the same sediment. The same fish. So, too, even your flesh changes. In ten years, every cell in your body will have died and a new one will have replaced it.”

“But the spirit is the same.”

“Is it?” Melaani asked, leaning her head back, and half-closing her eyes to listen to the music. “I’ve been undercover so many times, I have to keep a diary when I’m not in a disguise. So I can read about my life. My thoughts. What I think is important. What I like, and don’t like. So that when I come out of cover again, I can read those words, and try to remember who the hell I am.”

“That’s mental conditioning. The mind. Not the spirit. Not the life. The… animae.”

“What a human would call the soul.” She shrugged. “Asari don’t differentiate the mind and the spirit. I’ve touched plenty of minds, in my life, Rellus. Without a mind, there’s no life. And I’ve never seen or touched a spirit that wasn’t a mind.”

121, Arvuna
Rinus looked up at her dubiously from where he sat around the long conference table with the rest of them. “Rumor has it, every Eclipse sister has to murder someone to earn her uniform.”

Melaani grimaced. “Wasn’t always true. A hundred years ago, before the Blood Pack started picking up vorcha, and before the Blue Suns even existed, the competition between merc bands wasn’t as, hmm, intense. It’s become much more a battle in which the most vicious survive and thrive. And when I joined on Luisa, the whole ‘murder’ initiation was just getting started on Illium. Wasn’t actually required by my local commander, but just to establish my bona fides as a crazy bitch that no one wanted to cross, my fellow officers and I set it up so that it looked like I shot a cop to death in front of other Sisters. They were so rattled that they didn’t stop to check the body. A nice hard suit vest under the clothes and a kinetic dispersion field near the ground to break her fall when she toppled off the balcony was really all we needed. That and a news feed article planted about a cop killed in the line, funeral pyre arrangements pending notification of the family. And so on and so forth.” Melaani passed it off as if it were no big thing, but Seheve could see a faint strain in her face. It had been a lot of work, just setting up to infiltrate the Sisterhood.

“How many years?” Seheve asked, quietly.

“Fifteen. Fifteen with them, another fifteen with the Goddess’ Path, and five with Memory of Thessia.” Melaani grimaced. “In between work with gangs, gun-runners, and narcotics. Don’t let the vids fool you. Pretending to be scum every day of your life isn’t glamorous. At the end of every assignment, I felt about as clean as… what’s that stuff that humans used to chew on, and spit, Dara?”

Dara blinked. “Gum.”

“No, the other stuff. Brown. Leaf-derived.”

“Ewww. Chewing tobacco.”

“Yes, that. I felt about as clean as a used mouthful of that.” Melaani shrugged. “I’d take a break between the long-term assignments and try to get my bearings. It’s the only way to survive, really. Otherwise, eventually, you wind up not knowing who you are.”


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