A/N: Happens just after the mess on Bekenstein.

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STG Report on Matriarch Trellani:

Senior Agent Grathir to the STG Master

As requested, I've put together an initial briefing document covering everything we currently know regarding the so-called Dark Matriarch, Trellani. Based on numerous sources, including recent information from the mess on Bekenstein, we can definitely confirm her connection to Cerberus.

While normally a figure of Trellani's importance would be relegated to an intel dossier rather than a full-blown STG Report, Trellani is not some reclining figure. She was the Stellarch of the Temple of Athame for quite some time, well-known and powerful even before that, and is probably one of the most dangerous data brokers in the galaxy.

Her having joined forces with Cerberus opened our eyes to just how flexible the humans could be even in bigotry. It's curious as well as to why she would have decided to join such a group, rumors about her relationship with Jack Harper aside. Then again, given the amount of effort the Thirty have made at finding and killing her, I suppose Cerberus might be the safest place to hide.

By the Wheel, the nerve it must have taken for her to do that. This is a very dangerous asari.

As with all reports, by necessity, this document is not all-inclusive with details, but instead provides high-order information that can be queried in depth at a later time. I'm afraid a great deal of this is speculation, guesswork, and inferred hypothesis.

This file is classified Dashan-Black, the forty-third such file and the third iteration since initial compilation.

Caution : Read FIRST

As usual, most, if not all, information on Trellani is based on four sources: existing historical accounts records, eyewitness accounts, extranet information, and accumulated scans and examinations. Under no circumstances can this file be assumed complete, and as always, assume that this file is a baseline of his abilities, not a comprehensive coverage.

Trellani's abilities as Stellarch are not well documented, and even the Solarch has reluctantly admitted that while Trellani's sheer power may not match her own, the Stellarch did a staggering amount of biotic research, both in asari archaeological digs as well as independent study. Several invocations lost to the Temple over the years, created by asari who did not pass them on before their death, have emerged in Trellani's hands.

It does not help that Trellani delights in surprising people, and specializes in making people either underestimate or overestimate her.

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Matriarch Trellani, daughter of Tieress, Twice-Blessed of Clan Moondance

Overview:

Formal Titles: High Stellarch of the Temple of Eternal Flame of Athame's Light (former), CEO of Trellani Enterprises (former), Dean of Archaeology and Reclamation of Culture, University of Thessia (former),Clan Representative to the Citadel Council, (former), Clan Matriarch (former), Twice-Blessed Redeemer of the Order of the Black Remembrance (former). Current titles unknown.

Nicknames: The Dark Matriarch, Athame's Fury (formerly), Sorrow's Tide

Race: Asari. Genetically, of the Clans, although there is heavy speculation (despite her short height) that she might have ancestors of the Thirty due to her biotic power.

Age and sex: Nine hundred and sixty-three years old. Asari monogender. Two known children, deceased.

Wealth: Difficult to ascertain. At the time of her flight from Asari Space, she was worth at least three hundred million credits, due to work with her corporation. Much of this was seized by Clan Moondance or the Asari Republic, but some sixty million in hard specie, precious metals, artifacts, and raw eezo was missing, as well as untold millions of credits worth of biotic texts she stole. That does not include the ritual armor or warp sword of the Stellarch she took with her, conservatively valued at well over fifty million credits.

Attempts to trace her current holdings have failed due to Cerberus interference. Two assets converted to Shieldbreaker status for this failure.

Psychological Summary: There is some disagreement in PsyProf about her classification. Based on her actions against the asari and statements about the fate she wishes on the Thirty, she would seem to fit into the Omnicidal quadrant of Malevolent personalities. On the other hand, she falls more into the Corruptive/Plotting quadrant of Villainous personalities for all other actions, a curious bifurcation (and a realization that not all aliens will neatly fit into salarian mental boxes.)

Regardless of which is correct, Trellani's morals are nonexistent, and she has committed well over a hundred murders by her own hand, not to mention terror acts that have killed tens of thousands of asari already.

Military Summary: As with most Clan Moondance members, Trellani had no formal military training, and while she was eventually educated as a war priestess, this did not provide any real military experience either. Based on video evidence, she is at least somewhat capable with using pistols, and is an excellent warp sword dancer.

Education: Early educational efforts were modest, but later in life she held doctorates in economics and xenoarchaeology from the University of Thessia. She also held full certifications in biotic studies from both the Serrician Biotic Council and the Salarian Institute of the Mind.

A caution: She spent over fifty years teaching and working with salarian biotic researchers and is very well-acquainted with salarian-specific biotics, and taught several of our own Transcendentals.

Employment: Owned and operated her own shipping and cross-border transport firm (Trellani Enterprises) as well as several other small businesses prior to her flight from the Asari Republic. Some evidence of involvement with Aethyta's Black Blades, but we were unable to find out anything else. Currently, employed by Cerberus for reasons and purposes unknown.

Significant Family: None that remain alive. Her mother, both children, two sisters, and nearly a dozen extended family members were either massacred by the Republic's Nightwind, or murdered by Tazzik. Two more distant relatives were tortured to death by P. and all of her acolytes have been killed.

Overall Threat Rating: Black-Collapse Six. Possibly higher, depending on how badly informed we are about her biotic abilities.

Historical Notes:

Trellani was born to clan parentage. Her mother was a Clan Moondance siari celebrant, who traveled widely outside of the Republic to share siari – specifically, in the Salarian Union. Her father was a salarian of Clan Di Daaso who had been exiled from the family to the Black Rim colonies after a failed business venture that cost the family heavily.

Trellani's early years were spent in the Black Rim colonies, specifically Shersho and Vitha 9, but she was often mobile as her mother traveled widely. Her early years are nearly a blank and she only became 'known,' as it were, almost two hundred years after her birth, when she began working with salarian and asari archaeological teams on old Prothean digs.

She spent a great deal of time in Salarian Space, and returned throughout her life, often withdrawing from her career for a handful of years before heading back out. (A note: she is extremely familiar with most aspects of salarian society, writes in nineteen cants and speaks flawless Sur'kai with a Di Daaso accent.)

She was only two hundred and twenty when she was selected among several other clan members to accompany the Church of Athame on an expedition and excavation of an old asari colony believed to have been founded in the exodus of Matriarch Dilinaga's group. A small number of salarian researchers were also invited, which is probably how she got onto the list.

Trellani's research camp was attacked by pirates (turian separatists) and several team members were killed. Trellani herself stood off a turian heavy mercenary and her biotics saved the life of the expedition's leader – then Matron Benezia T'Soni, who took an interest in Trellani's biotic strength.

Trellani spent a good century working as an adjunct or assistant to Benezia before being offered the almost unheard of opportunity to join the Church of Athame directly. Normally, only the Thirty or the Lesser Houses were allowed to join, but she was sponsored by Benezia and several other Priestesses who were impressed by her abilities.

After a grueling trial, she became the first not of the Thirty to join the ranks of the Temple, and almost immediately began ascending the ranks. As she grew in power, she continued her archaeological digs, and used the funds from those (selling discovered Prothean artifacts, mostly) to found and expand her own shipping company.

Trellani's next few centuries were spent in a mix of research, missions for the Temple, and increasingly becoming involved in trade and economic matters for the Republic. Several times she led combat missions against powerful and dangerous ardat-yakshi, and was awarded the highest awards of the Asari Republic not once, but twice, a rare honor for even a member of the Thirty, much less the Clans.

Trellani was highly vocal and visible, and worked ceaselessly to reduce intersocietal stresses between the Thirty and the Clanless. Eventually, this led to her election to the post of Stellarch and her being named Matriarch of Clan Moondance entire, a staggering honor in the eyes of almost all Clan asari – and the only non-Thirty to ever hold the post.

Trellani spent a good ninety years as one of the most sought-after Clan members in the Republic, with several powerful houses (including T'Armal) maneuvering for the possibility of adoption. She resisted this, implying she was more useful to the Temple and Republic as an example that the asari were flexible in how far Clan and Clanless could go and what they could achieve.

We are unsure exactly what or how Trellani angered the Republic. She was heavily involved, in the months prior to her flight, in some archaeological digs on Ilium and was writing a paper on the origins of the Church of Athame. All we know is that at some point she accessed some kind of secret area in the Temple of Athame and was attacked by Benezia and the Temple Guard.

How she managed to escape Thessia alive also remains a mystery. Her family and many of her close friends were executed by the Nightwind, and the Shadow Broker sent entire kill teams after her. She singlehandedly destroyed two such teams, but was apparently overmatched by Tazzik, who killed the few acolytes that had fled with her, but was unable to bring her down.

Trellani's activities since her flight from Thessia have been hard to pin down. She was involved in several turian separatist movements, specifically that of Hantahar, who believe the asari are responsible for turian economic troubles. She has worked with several known ardat-yakshi and ardat-rekshi, as well as certain crime syndicates.

Her involvement with Cerberus appears to have been one of serendipity, as there is no evidence that she was involved with them prior to her fall, although certainly she did business with Jack Harper at some point through Trellani Enterprises.

Motivations:

Based on both her statements and actions, Trellani's ultimate goal is the obliteration of the Thirty, possibly the lesser houses, and the destruction of the Temple of Athame. Given her earlier zeal and dedication to this, we can only make surmises as to why she would pursue such a goal, all of them revolving around the concept that something in the Temple triggered this.

Given the extreme reactions of the asari towards her (she has a higher bounty than P.!) one can assume whatever she knows is extremely dangerous for the Asari Republic, possibly enough to cause wide-scale civil disturbance. As this would no doubt negatively affect the galaxy, but also allow the Salarian Union to take the leading role in galactic events, obtaining this information is a high priority.

Secondary motivations are harder to determine. She has made common cause with Cerberus for well over twenty years, and it is possible (although we must admit, seemingly unlikely) that she has decided to somehow mesh her own plans with that of Cerberus. Given that since its 'destruction' at the hands of the Spectre Assault and the loss of its HQ, Cerberus appears to have gone back to mostly economic and intelligence based work, her focus here is something we do not understand.

Organizations and Affiliations: Currently, she is only affiliated with Cerberus. If she has other connections, we are unaware of them.

That being said, she was once connected to a great many groups, both legal and sub-legal. It is very possible she has other affiliations we are unaware of.

Tactics:

Every warning one is usually given about a war priestess should go double for Trellani. While clan members are usually not as strong as members of the Thirty in sheer biotic power, Trellani gets close. The real danger is she has specialized in biotic research for centuries and has not only developed many unknown abilities and invocations, but has uncovered lost ones that violate what we understand about the Laws of Limits in their usage.

Trellani is not a soldier, nor is she a military combatant. That being said, she is a very skilled and cunning sword dancer and has centuries of experience in using her biotics in combat. She can use almost every single biotic ability known to the Salarian Union, including several STG-specific invocations she helped us to create, as well as a handful of what appear to be drell-style biotics.

Trellani's primary weapon is her warp sword, although she has been noted to use light pistols and, on occasion, SMGs. She has no cybernetics, but does have extensive and unknown levels of bionetic enhancement – known improvements include all major muscle groups and probably some kind of adrenaline pump.

She is not the fastest or strongest, but both her biotics and her sword attacks are extremely accurate. More importantly, unlike most war priestesses who seem to believe they are invulnerable, Trellani is cautious and fully ready to call for backup support if overmatched.

Trellani is also apparently a skilled pilot, something she must have picked up in the building of her corporation.

Specific Tactical Methods, Ground Combat:

As with all war priestesses, there isn't really a good range to attack from, but some are definitely worse than others.

Keep in mind that Trellani has anger issues, and will almost certainly use her most powerful attacks first. She is famous for specialization in extremely large area of effect attacks.

Long-range: At long-range, Trellani will utilize siege and area effect biotics in blistering combinations, often aiming for wide-scale biotic detonations. She has specialized in this skill and can create biotic firestorms and shockwaves that can level entire buildings.

She will utilize the Lance of Athame or Meteorfall on powerful opponents, often followed up with the terrifying ability to project a long-range 'cloud' of black biotic force much like an Annihilation field. This will create a titanic biotic explosion if done in combination.

Foes attempting to close range will be ignored, but snipers will be targeted with flares. Despite the dangers of this, long-range is the only range where her biotic power is at least somewhat evadable.

Medium-range: At medium-range, Trellani will usually focus more on single-target attacks of exceeding power, such as disrupt, Fell Sword of the Goddess, and warpfire blasts. The goal is to kill or cripple attackers with effective medium-range weapons or biotics, and to break up any organized approach. Agents are warned against finding cover – upon doing so, she typically reacts by using Athame's Fury (a very powerful trio of singularities) at any cover, the blast radius of which ensures instant death to anyone in range.

Short-range: At short-range, Trellani will utilize the spear kanquess and warpfire, throw, and her warp sword to attack surviving enemies directly. While she is not the equal in sheer speed to one of the Thirty, her bionetic enhancements give her a terrifying level of strength – and she is more than capable of weaving biotic attacks and her sword attacks into smooth and flawless motion. In particular, Trellani is the only known asari who regularly uses the disgusting batarian biotic ability known as Flay.

Warning Advisory: Trellani is known to specialize in biotic defenses – in particular, her Wall of Athame has been capable of blocking attacks a normal barrier field could not, including very powerful biotic attacks and even a direct hit from a SPEAR minigun.

Additionally, despite her lack of professional military training, Trellani is a hardened operator, who has killed with her bare hands, sword, biotics, and skills many times. She will not panic even under extremely heavy fire and does not make mistakes or underestimate her enemies. STG cells without a Transcendental are extremely unlikely to even wound her, much less kill her.

Like all asari biotics of great power, the easiest way to kill her would be a surprise long-range attack. Keep in mind, she has studied a great amount of biotic lore and can hold up a very strong barrier for days on end with little strain.

It should be noted that, despite the above warnings, Trellani is not, as mentioned earlier, trained in a military fashion. Any operation against her should use STG War Specs rather than conventional cells, and while she has some abilities to deal with poisonous gas, high-explosives, and mines, her mind will probably not predict such being used if done in a sudden fashion.

Physical Abilities:

Trellani is a matriarch, and like all priestesses of Athame is in magnificent shape for a being of her age, with clearly defined muscles and graceful movements. She ran marathons and performed a wide array of endurance-based sports as a hobby throughout most of her life, and is notable for being rather hard to kill.

As mentioned earlier, Trellani has undergone significant bionetic enhancement at some point, with muscular strength far surpassing that of some batarians. While her body is not durable enough to use this level of strength to the fullest effect (that we know of), melee combat is not advised, as even a glancing blow is likely to incapacitate an STG agent.

Her senses are baseline for an asari, although her hearing is somewhat weaker than that of one of the Thirty. She has several large scars and older wounds that have, according to eyewitnesses, caused her some lingering pain.

Trellani wears highly customized battle armor, forged out of several asari-specific metals and crystals and lined with Silaris plating and advanced spall liners.

Mental and Psychological Notes:

Bluntly put, Trellani is a psychopath the likes of which should even frighten P.

In her years since she left the Asari Republic, she has been involved in the deaths of tens of thousands of asari, many of them from the Lesser Houses or the Thirty. This includes at least a dozen asari tortured to death, an entire Lesser House nursery incinerated, and more than a handful of gruesome biotic attacks that collapsed entire buildings or (in one instance) destroyed all the life-support equipment for a space station with over three thousand asari on board.

Trellani's intellect was measured at 154 on the asari/human scale – near genius. Her well-organized thought patterns, history of research and study, and skill at half a dozen varied fields – economics, archaeological matters, political influence, and more – shows she has a powerful mind. She is a multilinear thinker who spent well over a century studying with salarian Wheel Mystics and is one of the few asari who employ salarian thinking-problem pattern sets when planning.

She is very familiar with STG tactics since she spent a great deal of time with the di Daaso in her youth.

As indicated earlier, her psychological state is ambiguous in the scale of its malevolence, but not the fact that she is one of the most amoral operators involved in the various shadow wars across the galaxy. Trellani is not stable – no matriarch who suffers the death of literally all of her bonds could be. There is both long-term mental and psychological damage as well as warped beliefs, and working for years with a group like Cerberus has probably not helped matters at all.

Trellani has the tendency to plan her actions far in advance, in exacting detail, and then to simply 'follow the tides' and see how events impact her plan. This is crucial, as she has most likely already modeled and prepared for her ultimate goals even if in the short-term certain aspects of her plans are derailed.

Notable Allies:

Aside from the obvious (Cerberus), it is worth noting that Edat Kurass has been very reluctant to actually proffer any aid or accept any contracts from the Thirty to hunt her down. There is fragmentary evidence that the two may still be in contact.

Trellani also has an unknown and strange relationship with Aria T'Loak, who provided some level of resources and cover during her flight from Asari Space.

Political and Social Notes:

Politically, Trellani is an unmitigated disaster.

Whatever she knows, it was enough to have the Thirty send entire Oceans of Nightwind after her, six Royal Hunting Parties, twenty Spectres, and offer over ten billion credits in bounties. She is clearly a threat to the survival of the Thirty, or at least their dominance, yet has not released whatever information or knowledge she has.

Yet.

As a ticking time bomb, we don't know how bad the situation will be when she decides to share her information. Worse, given her association with Cerberus and the still unknown goals of Jack Harper, there is every likelihood whatever is done will be to the detriment of galactic stability.

Trellani is a cunning and seasoned political operator in civil, business, and intelligence circles, and is far too cunning and careful to allow herself to be maneuvered into a disadvantaged position. There is every chance that, given her inability to operate openly in Citadel Space, she may have connections to elements in the Terminus, or even possible contacts with the Hanar Ascendancy.

Trellani is also a master social manipulator, beyond the match of most intelligence operators to match in the area of interactions with various elements of society. It is extremely likely she operates in some sort of disguise, and certainly her deep knowledge of both asari and salarian culture, economics, and military forces is used for the good of Cerberus. As an example, in the aftermath of Cerberus's destruction, she changed her facial markings, put on a veil, and openly traveled with an equally disguised Jack Harper on a public transport and no one even managed to identify the fact until almost five hundred hours after the event.

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Warnings:

The following advisories are considered mandatory reading.

Any contact with Trellani is to be reported immediately to the STG Master: Regardless of the outcome, at least one agent in a cell that sees or interacts with Trellani is to flee at top speed and notify Command of her whereabouts.

Combat is contraindicated, but not forbidden. However, all efforts must be expended to capture her alive, or failing that, prevent her from leaving the world she is on. Termination is NOT authorized: Whatever Trellani knows, we need to know to apply leverage to the Asari Republic. And it is very likely that she has set up a dead-transmit system, if she dies unexpectedly, she may have set up a way that files of what she knows are transmitted publicly, which could kick off a disastrous civil war or worse.

Combat should only be entered with War Specs and Transcendental specialists: Conventional STG teams have almost a zero percent chance to survive any combat with Trellani due to her specializations.