Mass Effect - Can You SAVE THE THORIAN???

Can you save the Thorian in Mass Effect? Today we’ll be answering this question, exploring the background lore surrounding the Thorian, and examining the long term consequences of this quest for Mass Effect 2 and 3.

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0:00 Introduction
0:58 Thorian Background Lore
3:01 Meeting the Thorian on Feros
4:03 Destroying the Thorian
4:45 The Thorian in Mass Effect 2
7:13 The Thorian in Mass Effect 3
8:13 Final Thoughts

Shepard and crew will typically destroy the Thorian at the end of the Feros mission in Mass Effect 1. But is it possible to save the Thorian instead and forge an alliance with this creature? The short answer is no - and we’ll explore the specifics in this video.

The Thorian is one of the most fascinating alien species in Mass Effect - which doesn’t receive much exploration after our initial contact with the creature in ME1. It is a unique lifeform, even by the standards of the Mass Effect universe, and it may be the oldest living organic species in the entire galaxy. It’s believed that the Thorian predates the Protheans and survived the last harvest which wiped out the Prothean people. This would make the Thorian at least 50,000 years old, and likely even older.

Commander Shepard and crew first encounter the Thorian on Feros, while the team is investigating reports of Geth attacks on the colony of Zhu’s Hope. While fighting through Geth units at the Exogeni Corporate Headquarters, Shepard meets Lizbeth Baynham, an Exogeni employee who reveals the truth about the company’s interest in the colony.

Zhu’s Hope was considered a failed project by Exogeni until the Thorian was discovered, hibernating beneath the surface of the colony. Exogeni quickly learned that this ancient plant life, dubbed Species 37, could infect other organic beings with airborne spores and condition them to do its bidding. Within a short period of time, 80% of Zhu’s Hope colonists were infected with Thorian spores, essentially becoming its thralls or slaves.

Through the spore infection, the Thorian is able to control its thralls by means of mental conditioning, using pain as a motivator. Whenever a thrall gets out of line, he is subjected to a great deal of pain until he begins to act as the Thorian wishes. A handful of colonists, such as Ian Newstead, are able to resist this means of control at great personal cost. But the vast majority fall in line.

When Shepard encounters the Thorian face to face, it speaks to us through an Asari clone. We discover how Saren made a deal with the Thorian. He provided one Benezia’s Asari commandos, Shiala, as a thrall to the Thorian in order to receive the Cipher, which is the shared experience of the Prothean people, absorbed by the Thorian over the course of thousands of years. Saren then betrayed the Thorian, ordering his Geth units to destroy the creature to prevent Shepard from gaining access to the Cipher.

Sensing that Commander Shepard was likely a threat, the Thorian coerced the Zhu’s Hope colonists into attacking the Commander. You can dispatch with the colonists by simply shooting them or using a non-lethal nerve agent to incapacitate them.

When you reach the Thorian it is in no mood to make any more deals, sending its minions to attack you instead. In order to complete the quest, you must destroy the Thorian nodes. Otherwise the doors that lead to the top of the tower will remain closed. In other words, you cannot save the Thorian; you must kill it in order to complete the Feros mission.

When the last node is destroyed, the Thorian plummets to its death, freeing the Asari thrall Shiala. Shiala will answer our questions about Saren and the Thorian before sharing the Cipher with Commander Shepard. At this point, we have the option to spare Shiala and allow her to remain on the colony or execute her because of her alliance with Saren. This choice has implications for a side quest on Illium in Mass Effect 2.