Garrus Vakarian

Garrus Vakarian is one of the main characters from the Mass Effect franchise.

Garrus is a turian, formerly part of C-Sec's Investigation Division. Like most turians, Garrus had his military training at fifteen, but later followed in his father's footsteps to become a C-Sec officer. He was responsible for the investigation of Saren Arterius, the Council's top Spectre, after the Alliance claimed Saren had gone rogue. Although Garrus was told that the investigation was over, he decided to defy the Executor's order and pursue another lead on his own. Eventually, Garrus attempts to join Commander Shepard's team to help defeat Saren and the geth.

Appearance
Garrus is a turian, a tall, bipedal, bird-like species.

Personality
Garrus is consistently portrayed as strong-willed, sarcastic, courteous, calm and reassuring. Although Ashley was initially suspicious of him (despite the fact he was a C-Sec officer), he tends to get along well with the rest of the crew, enjoying the chance to get off the Citadel and see how things are done outside C-Sec. Regardless of whether or not Shepard convinced him to be more by-the-book, Garrus quits C-Sec during the two years Shepard spends being rebuilt by Cerberus, having decided to take the law into his own hands, though now he prefers to avoid hurting innocents if he can help it. Garrus also appears to enjoy fighting, almost to the same level of a krogan, which was brought out in particular during his days as a vigilante on Omega. He even has favourite places to fight through, of which include gardens, electronic shops, antique stores (but only if they're classy) and the CIC of a warship. Hospitals, however, are not among these.

Although he's mostly a kind person, Garrus can also be innocently insensitive at times, such as when he said he was surprised by Wrex not being a savage brute and ridiculing Tali about her race unleashing the geth upon the galaxy. When Tali counters that the turians are no better for unleashing the genophage upon the krogan, he claims that they were in the right for doing that. He gets better in later games, however, and by the third game, apologises to Tali for ever saying those things to her, despite it being three years ago and her saying it didn't matter anymore, since losing Palaven put things in perspective.

Despite being a turian, Garrus had no problem with hunting down Saren; in fact, he stated that this was the reason he chose to hunt him, as he considered Saren to be not only a threat, but a disgrace to their species. Garrus is also shown to be bitter at times, especially when it comes to being reminded of his failures. He blamed himself for the death of his squad by the hands of Sidonis and viewed bringing him to justice as his own personal task, saying no-one else knew or cared about what he had done and the thought of him getting away with his crimes disgusted him.

While he's by no means naive, Garrus generally prefers to see the universe in black and white, even admitting he doesn't know what to do with gray. It's because of this that it apparently never once occurred to him that while Sidonis betrayed him, which in turn cost the lives of all of their twelve-man team except the two of them, he was ridden with guilt over it to the point that he was haunted by the faces of his former teammates, in addition to being insomniac and borderline suicidal. All in all, Garrus tends to be driven solely by his emotions, a fault he's well-aware of and even admits if he's convinced to spare Sidonis.

In general, Garrus tends to be very honest about his faults, to borderline self-deprecation levels. An example of this is when he states that he doesn't consider himself a very good turian; turians are taught to value discipline and self-responsibility and their government is based on hierarchical meritocracy. As such, they are expected to always follow orders, regardless of how they may personally feel about them. Garrus, however, is nothing like that, as evident by his decision to quit C-Sec and take up life as a vigilante on Omega. He simply doesn't see the point in staying quiet and polite, especially if the galaxy is at stake. Despite his honesty, Garrus tends to be a very reserved person; Tali even claims the reason he uses a sniper rifle is because he prefers to keep everything at a distance.

Abilities
Garrus is a capable hand with most firearms, most specifically sniper and assault rifles. Outside of that, he is decent enough with electronics, being able to do some hacking. He's better at making repairs on said electronics, and even automotives when the need arises. He's had police training, due to his former occupation, and was, by most accounts, a very good investigator. At one point, he states he was considered one of the best in hand-to-hand combat during his military service, and is renowned for his sniping ability.

Garrus' turian biology gives him a small amount of resistance to radiation, as well as sharp, elongated talons on each hand and foot. However, due to his genetic make-up, he could very well experience a deadly allergic reaction, should he ingest any material that is not based on the same genetic material as the turians themselves—that is, anything not produced on their homeworld.

In general, turians "exhibit the characteristics of predators rather than those of prey species. Their forward-facing alert eyes give the impression that they possess outstanding eyesight and their teeth and jaws mimic the structures possessed by apex predators such as crocodiles or ancient, carnivorous dinosaurs. Needless to say, their talons on both their feet and hands seem capable of ripping flesh. Their slender bodies also seem to suggest that they are also capable of moving at high speeds" (As quoted from the Mass Effect wikipedia entry on turians.)

Because of his life on the Citadel, a galactic hub, it's reasonable to assume Garrus is multi-lingual. He at least speaks his native language, as well as the major human dialect (English, for the purposes of this game). It's stated in Mass Effect canon, that the asari language is predominant on the Citadel, so, therefore, it's likely he can speak it conversationally as well.

Trivia

 * Along with Ashley, Garrus is one of the "poster" characters for Mass Effect and appears on most of the promotional art and demo footage.
 * During the Xbox 360 demo, a conversation with Garrus was used to demonstrate the dialogue system, where Shepard interrupted Garrus' complaint about endangering the mission to rescue civilians, and ordered the turian to fall in line.
 * There is currently a bug on the PC version of Mass Effect where even on Ultra-High detail, Garrus' face is remarkably low textured. This is known by the developers of the game, who have said that a patch is not currently in the works and most likely never will be, since due to the way the game is made, it would require a multi-gigabyte patch to fix. It can be mitigated, however, by modifying the BIOEngine.ini file in the game's install directory.[1][2]
 * Garrus' trademark visor is explained to be a custom targeting visor based on the turian version of the Kuwashii Visor. It holds great personal significance to him, as he is never seen without it, even during his romance subplot. He also has the names of his former Omega team members carved into the frame, removing Sidonis' after his betrayal.
 * Early promotional screenshots for the first Mass Effect show Garrus would originally be able to wear heavy turian armor; however, this was scrapped later during development. As of Mass Effect 2, heavy turian armor is his default outfit.
 * Shepard and Garrus' relationship is, to a degree, one of mentor and protegé, respectively, as Garrus usually seeks out Shepard's advice and opinions regarding missions and always follows Shepard's example.
 * As observed in the E3 2006 and X06 demos, Garrus underwent many revisions, including changes to his visor, turian insignia markings, and armor.
 * Writer Patrick Weekes pegs Garrus Vakarian's age at 2-4 years younger than Shepard.
 * As with all squad members, Garrus has unique dialogue that can be heard at various locations, during missions or assignments, or if a specific squad member is in the selected team.
 * The Shadow Broker has files on Garrus which can be accessed aboard his ship.