Turian
Turians are the native sapient species of Palaven. One of a minority of spacefaring species with a dextro-amino-acid-based biology, turians are incapable of digesting foods intended for levo species, but despite this turians cohabitate widely with other species.
Originally from the planet Palaven, turians are best known as being of a very militaristic and disciplined nature, and are particularly useful in their contributions of soldiers and starships to the Federation Navy. They are highly respected for creating C-Sec — but are sometimes seen as too imperialist or rigid by other races. There is some tension between turians and humans, largely due to the turian role in the First Contact War. This conflict is slowly beginning to heal — as shown by the cooperation of the two races to construct the UFNS Normandy — but many turians still hate humans, and vice versa.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Turians typically stand over six feet tall, have two long, proportionately thick fingers and an opposable thumb on each hand, each tipped with talons, and a set of mandibles around their mouths. The most distinguishing feature of turians is their metallic carapace, which contains trace amounts of thulium. The turians evolved this trait as a defense against the greater levels of solar radiation that penetrate their homeworld's weak magnetic field.
Turian features are avian, making them resemble humanoid birds or raptors. However, unlike most Earth avian creatures, turians are viviparous and give birth to live young. In 2365, David Anderson claimed that turians reminded him of the evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs. Turians are also recognizable by their voices, which have a distinctive flanging effect. Males and females do not differ greatly in physical appearance, but female turians lack the crest of horns found in the males of the race. The lifespan of a turian is comparable to that of a human.
Biological Traits
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. Their talons on both their feet and hands seem capable of ripping flesh. As such, their diet is primarily meat-based. Their slender bodies also seem to suggest that they are also capable of moving at high speeds.
The turian homeworld, Palaven, has a metal-poor core, generating a weak magnetic field and allowing more solar radiation into the atmosphere. To deal with this, most forms of life on Palaven evolved some form of metallic "exoskeleton" to protect themselves. Their reflective plate-like carapace makes turians less susceptible to long-term, low-level radiation exposure, but they do not possess any sort of "natural armor". A turian's thick skin does not stop projectiles and directed energy bolts. They can, however, experience the equivalent of a "massage": turians can feel vibrations through the carapace with the use of a hammer.
Turian blood has a dark blue colouration.
Although life on Palaven is carbon-based and oxygen-breathing, it is built on dextro-amino acids. This places the turians in a distinct minority on the galactic stage; the quarians are the only other sapient dextro-protein race. The food of humans, asari, or salarians (who evolved in levo-amino acid-based biospheres), will at best pass through turian systems without providing any nutrition. At worst, it will trigger an allergic reaction that can be fatal if not immediately treated.
The turian mechanic Lilihierax on Noveria uses the idiom, "if you can polish enough gizzard". This suggests that the turians have a digestive system similar to birds and reptiles on Earth, some of whom swallow stones to help break down harder foods in the stomach.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Turian food includes the following:
Dulglyci: A confection analogous to chocolate.
Lecra: A meat.
Orakan: A distinct "Palaven style" exists.
Pulan toast: A breakfast item similar to French toast.
Sithurin
Yamtin
Zampta: Often served boiled.
Colonial fare: Craticula: Macedyn style barbecue.
Solregit cuisine:
Charra - A fruit.
Old country style - Translates into "spicy as all hell" for those not raised with Solregit’s spices.
Kheelie: A (delicious) game animal. Think venison or moose.
Krautchi - A farm family staple of fermented vegetables with spicy sauce; often considered an acquired taste by those not raised on it.
Rouladen - A roll of tenderized meat containing pickled vegetable, tangy sauce and covered in gravy. The human equivalent is made with pickles, mustard, onions, and beef with beef gravy.
Solregit spicy wrap - A popular ethnic dish on North Solregit "discovered" by a fastfood chain and marketed all over turian space as a watered-down, more-mainstream-ingredient, less-flavourful, cheap-meat version of itself.
Quite a few aspects of turian cuisine are adapted from quarian culinary arts (pre-Geth War). Being the only other dextro-based species in known space made it inevitable that they’d share recipes.
Drinks:
Black Tooth: An alcoholic cocktail of palma juice and cana.
Olukir: Unspecified 'strong' alcohol.
Gimgin Kanasus: Unspecified 'strong' alcohol.
Forilia Veridium: Unspecified dextro wine.
Ultamita Teronis
Uklatia: A type of wine.
Civilization and Culture
Major Organizations
The turian government, known as the Turian Hierarchy, is a hierarchical meritocracy. While it has great potential for misuse, this is tempered by the civic duty and personal responsibility turians learn during their childhood.
Turians have 27 citizenship tiers, beginning with civilians (client races and children). The initial period of military service is the second tier. Formal citizenship is conferred at the third tier, after boot camp. For client races, citizenship is granted after the individual musters out. Higher-ranked citizens are expected to lead and protect subordinates. Lower-ranking citizens are expected to obey and support superiors. Promotion to another tier of citizenship is based on the personal assessment of one's superiors and co-rankers. At the top are the Primarchs, who each rule a colonization cluster. The Primarchs vote on matters of national importance. They otherwise maintain a "hands-off" policy, trusting the citizens on each level below them to do their jobs competently.
Throughout their lives, turians ascend to the higher tiers and are occasionally "demoted" to lower ones. The stigma associated with demotion lies not on the individual, but on those who promoted them when they weren't ready for additional responsibility. This curbs the tendency to promote individuals into positions beyond their capabilities. Settling into a role and rank is not considered stagnation. Turians value knowing one's own limitations more than being ambitious.
Turians enjoy broad freedoms. So long as one completes their duties, and does not prevent others from completing theirs, nothing is forbidden. For example, there are no laws against recreational drug use, but if someone is unable to complete their duties due to drug use, their superiors step in. Judicial proceedings are 'interventions.' Peers express their concern, and try to convince the offender to change. If rehabilitation fails, turians have no qualms about sentencing dangerous individuals to life at hard labor for the state.
The turian imperial anthem is called "Die for the Cause."
Courtship Ideals
Skin tones similar to Mordin Solus' own are apparently attractive by turian standards. For male turians at least, complimenting a potential partner's waist or head fringe seems to be a way of expressing attraction. Male grooming practices for attracting potential mates, for example if going out on dates, include filing their talons and buffing their fringes.
Relationship Ideals
It’s important to note that the following perspective assumes that a turian is raised traditionally. Turians raised in cosmopolitan or completely alien environments like the Citadel or Thessia are likely to take a more heterodox, nuanced view of "turianhood", especially if they are homeschooled, sent to a pan-species school, or have at least one parent that isn’t a Hierarchy citizen. Regardless of the relationship between two turians - drill instructor and recruit, Primarch and citizen, parent and child, paired mates - all stable turian relationships are based on the "dominant/submissive" or "mentor/protégé" dynamic. When any two turians interact, one individual normally acts as the "mentor," while the other acts as the "protégé." "Mentors" take on the role of protector, tutor, and decision-maker; they’re expected to nurture the "protégé" and take an active hand in molding them into the Hierarchy ideal, while acting as a beacon of moral character and stability. A "protégé," on the other hand, is a good listener. He or she is usually allowed to ask questions and offer suggestions, but almost always falls in line with the "mentor’s" suggestion or command once the "mentor’s" decision is finalized.
Ideally, a turian’s mate should be the person who enriches his or her loyalty to the Hierarchy and the Cause the most. The selection is often made after considerable input from family members, peers, and superiors and is often drawn from the pool of relationships that an individual cultivated during boot and active duty. Mates are highly committed and loyal, though relationships are often partially open due to the turians’ tolerant attitude toward casual sex. Occasional sexual encounters outside the relationship are normally accepted provided an individual’s mate signs off in advance, but outright cheating, as a form of lying, is considered a grievous offense, and is one of the most shameful acts for a turian other than desertion.
Turians normally slide easily and naturally into a dominant or submissive role with one another. There are many factors that they consciously and unconsciously use to make this distinction when they first meet someone new.
Most conventional turians parent their children in a similar manner to how they’re supervised by the Hierarchy. From a young age, turians are taught ‘rules of fair play’, teamwork, and a healthy amount of deference to authority figures like teachers, military police, and Primarchs. Children are encouraged to perform to the best of their abilities, but outright competition with their peers is discouraged. As long as these core precepts are met, turian parents tend to be watchful but laissez-faire in the affairs of their children, trusting that if a child does begin to get on the wrong track, either they or someone else in the community will notice. Mainstream turian culture typically depicts raising a child as one of the highest and most beautiful expressions of loyalty to the Hierarchy - they enrich the population, and, when properly raised, can contribute an immeasurable amount of good to society. The ideal love of a turian parent isn’t based on blood or a strong sense of personal pride in a child’s accomplishments. Instead, it is based on the satisfaction of molding a child into a model, self-sacrificing instrument of the Hierarchy. It’s a slightly more personal version of the same sort of philia that any supervising turian is expected to give their subordinates.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Turian languages include:
Ark Palaven, an archaic language which is now spoken fluently only by a small number of scholars, in addition to the elders of the Viy Tora Kay.
Aplis: The primary language on Solregit.
Palaven Standard
Pardavox
Catus Imperative - a special and important mode in Ark Palaven and Palaven Standard.
Phrases:
“Reciting to the legion” is a turian equivalent of “preaching to the choir”: presenting an argument redundantly to those already clearly in agreement.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Turians are noted for their strong sense of public service. It is rare to find one who puts his needs ahead of the group. Every citizen from age 15 to 30 serves the state in some capacity, as anything from a soldier to an administrator, from a construction engineer to a sanitation worker. Turians have a strong inclination toward public service and self-sacrifice, so they tend to be poor entrepreneurs. To compensate, they accepted the mercantile volus as a client race, offering protection in exchange for their fiscal expertise.
Turian society is highly regimented and very organized, and the species is known for its strict discipline and work ethic. Turians are willing to do what needs to be done, and they always follow through. They are not easily spurred to violence, but when conflict is inevitable, they only understand a concept of "total war." They do not believe in skirmishes or small-scale battles; they use massive fleets and numbers to defeat an adversary so completely that they remove any threat of having to fight the same opponent more than once. They do not exterminate their enemy, but so completely devastate their military that the enemy has no choice but to become a colony of the turians. It is theorized that another conflict between the rapidly advancing humans and the turians could annihilate a large portion of known space.
The turian military is the center of their society. It is not just an armed force; it is an all-encompassing public works organization. The military police are also the civic police. The fire brigades serve the civilian population as well as military facilities. The corps of engineers builds and maintains spaceports, schools, water purification plants, and power stations. The merchant marine ensures that all worlds get needed resources.
While turians are known for military-grade discipline, males and females of the species alike aren't averse to more relaxed forms of social interaction
Other species see turians as "men of action," and they are generally regarded as the most progressive of the Federation races (though some species believe humans are rivalling this position). Since their culture is based on the structure of a military hierarchy, changes and advances accepted by the leadership are quickly adopted by the rest of society with minimal resistance.
While turians are individuals with personal desires, their instinct is to equate the self with the group, and to set aside all personal desires for the good of all. Turians are taught to have a strong sense of personal accountability, the 'turian honor' that other races find so remarkable. Turians are taught to own every decision they make, good or ill. The worst sin they can make in the eyes of their people is to lie about their own actions. Turians who murder will try to get away with it, but if directly questioned, most will confess the crime. Nepotism, while present, is rare and looked down upon by the turians, most of whom instead espouse and practice meritocracy in regards to the handing of positions of power.
Although they lack the brutality of the krogan, the refined biotic skill of the asari, and the adaptability of the humans, the turian military has formidable discipline. Officers and NCOs are "lifers" with years of field experience. Enlisted personnel are thoroughly trained and stay calm under fire. Turian units don't break. Even if their entire line collapses, they fall back in order, setting ambushes as they go. A popular saying holds: "You will only see a turian's back once he's dead."
Boot camp begins on the 15th birthday. Soldiers receive a year of training before being assigned to a field unit; officers train for even longer. Most serve until the age of 30, at which they become part of the Reserves. Even if they suffer injuries preventing front-line service, most do support work behind the lines.
Biotics are uncommon. While admired for their exacting skills, biotics' motives are not always fully trusted by the common soldier. The turians prefer to assign their biotics to specialist teams called Cabals.
Command and control is decentralized and flexible. Individual squads can call for artillery and air support. They make extensive use of combat drones for light duties and VI-controlled fighters, and practice combined arms: infantry operates with armor, supported by overhead gunships. Strategically, they are methodical and patient, and dislike risky operations.
Tradition is important. Each legion has a full-time staff of historians who chronicle its battle honors in detail. The oldest have records dating back to the turian Iron Age. If a legion is destroyed in battle, it is reconstituted rather than being replaced.
The turians recruit auxiliary units from conquered or absorbed minor races, like the volus. Auxiliaries are generally light infantry or armored cavalry units that screen and support the main battle formations. At the conclusion of their service in the Auxiliaries, recruits are granted turian citizenship.
Turian wars are often marked by citizen resistance. Most turian families keep small arms in their homes and take basic training courses that include instruction on how to create simple anti-vehicle explosive devices. To suppress citizen militias, the Turian Hierarchy makes use of "execution squads" known as hastatim. First, "safe camps" are established in cities to incentivize surrender. Next, hastatim soldiers are deployed door-to-door; anyone who refuses to be transported to a safe camp or demonstrates hostile intent will be shot. Hastatim burial units then retrieve and cremate the bodies. This approach is necessary because without the safe camps, no turian would ever surrender, and without the hastatim, it would take years for a population to be pacified.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
Since the Unification War, turians normally wear elaborate tattoos marking their colony of origin, though it is not known which markings distinguish which colony or if color has any meaning. These markings are usually white — particularly on turians with darker carapaces — but can be of other colors such as blue for Garrus Vakarian or red for Nyreen Kandros. The lack of facial markings is looked down upon in turian society; the turian term "barefaced" refers to one who is beguiling or not to be trusted. It is also a slang term for politicians.
The turian media mirrors their wider economy; the lion’s share of music, Extranet vids, news, and games are produced by the government, either directly by the Ministry of Culture or indirectly via Ministry-endorsed megacorporations trusted to produce material considered acceptable for mass consumption. While there are few overt restrictions on self-produced and self-hosted Extranet content, any material that appears within a state-sanctioned medium needs to pass the muster of MoC censors, who ensure that classified material is redacted, opinions critical or dismissive of the Hierarchy are ‘objective’, and dead bodies of soldiers -- a long-held turian taboo -- are not displayed. Because of the collectivist nature of the Hierarchy, turian fiction rarely has a central individual as a protagonist. Sympathetically-portrayed loners are normally good people at heart who simply need a little more friendship and Hierarchy in their lives, while those portrayed unsympathetically are dangerous, subversive antagonists. A common trope is the ‘squad story’, a small group of Hierarchy citizens each using their unique talents to complement one another in solving some kind of problem that would be insurmountable alone.
Turian games, such as the smash-hit Galaxy of Fantasy, emphasize player-player interaction that is usually cooperative in nature. MMOs, for example, emphasize team-based PVE content, while simulation games often pit teams of human players against a VI. PVP elements are ways to resolve inter-player conflict and ‘blow off steam’, just as they are in off-Extranet interactions. Common themes in fictitious media include turian history (especially pre-Hierarchy), conflicts such as the Unification War and the Krogan Rebellions, and, in the closest equivalent turians have to human romantic comedies, finding one’s ideal mate by putting aside personal first impressions and listening to the advice of one’s peer group.
Common Taboos
The turian ‘right’ to free expression is much closer to a privilege -- a contract drawn up by the Hierarchy and extended to each individual rather than a natural right, a privilege that exists because the members of the Hierarchy have tried it and found that it works toward the goal of promoting societal stability. The rest of the broad turian social freedoms (drug use, relatively loose sexual mores, the choice to opt-out of boot, and so forth) can all be explained in a similar manner to religion; hedonism -- provided that it operates at a positive or neutral net benefit to the state -- is respectively either encouraged or generally permissible. Turians being taught to ‘own their decisions’ isn’t trivial; although the Hierarchy is willing to provide resources necessary for individual pleasure, it also reminds turians that these resources come from the rest of society and should be used wisely. The take-away point about turian civil liberties is that there are very few things that the Hierarchy explicitly bans, but there are a variety of behaviours that are considered taboo, and because of the massive emphasis that turians place on community, societal pressure on its own is usually enough to discourage turians from any actions that the state considers undesirable.
History
Turian civilization spans fifteen thousand years of history. Before the dawn of their civilization, the race was known to elder spacefaring species like the Protheans, who viewed them as primitive as the other ruling races of the modern era.
The turians had already discovered several mass relays and spawned colonies throughout the galaxy when the asari reached the Citadel. At about the time the asari were forming the Council with the salarians, the turians were embroiled in a bitter civil war next door. The Unification War, as it was later named, began with hostilities between the colonies furthest from the turian homeworld, Palaven.
These colonies were run by local chieftains, many of whom had distanced themselves from the Hierarchy. Without the galvanizing influence of the government, the colonies became increasingly isolated and xenophobic. Colonists began wearing emblems or facial markings to differentiate themselves from members of other colonies and open hostilities became common.
When war finally broke out, the Hierarchy maintained strict diplomacy and refused to get involved. After several years of fighting, less than a dozen factions remained and the Hierarchy finally intervened. By that time, the chieftains were too weak to resist; they were forced to put an end to fighting and renew their allegiance to the Hierarchy. Though peace was restored, it took several decades for animosity between colonists to fade completely. To this day, most turians still wear the facial markings of their home colonies.
n the midst of the Krogan Rebellions, the Citadel Council made first contact with the turians. At the Council's behest, the turians brought their considerable war machine to bear on the krogan, now a recognized threat. While the initial turian offensive was successful in routing many krogan warrior bands, it provoked a massive counterattack from the krogan which devastated several turian colonies. Three turian worlds were rendered completely uninhabitable after the krogan used fusion torches to throw asteroids at them, and the bloodiest battle in turian history occurred at Digeris, where the planet was severely bombarded and the turians sacrificed many frigates and fighters to take out a fleet of krogan dreadnoughts. Rather than scaring off the turians with this show of force, the turians only fought with more resolve to quash the krogan utterly. Eventually, the turians implemented the salarian-developed genophage. With their advantage in numbers removed, the majority of krogan were subdued by 800 GS, although scattered insurgent actions would continue for decades.
By 900 GS, the turians were granted full membership on the Citadel Council in gratitude for their service during the Krogan Rebellions. The turian military fills the military and peacekeeping niche left by the decimated krogan.
In 2357 CE, following Council laws in place since the Rachni Wars which prohibited the activation of uncharted mass relays, a turian force opened fire on explorers from an as yet unknown race: humanity. One human starship managed to escape and warn the United Federation of Nations, which retaliated and destroyed several turian vessels. The situation quickly escalated to war.
Over the next several weeks, the outnumbered Federation lost multiple scouting parties and patrols to turian offensives. The conflict came to a head when a turian fleet broke through Federation lines and besieged the human colony of Shanxi. With no other options, the Federation garrison on Shanxi surrendered, and the turians proceeded to occupy the world, confident that the majority of Federation forces had been defeated. However, one month later the Federation's Second Fleet caught the turian occupiers by surprise and evicted them from the planet. Both sides began preparations for a protracted interplanetary war.
Before that could happen, the Citadel Council intervened and revealed the galactic community to humanity. Terms of peace were negotiated and the conflict effectively brought to an end. The turians were ordered by the Council to give heavy reparations to the Federation for their part in instigating the conflict, known to the galaxy as the "Relay 314 Incident". Mistrust between both races would linger for years to come.
Common Myths and Legends
Turians believe that groups and areas have "spirits" that transcend the individual. For example, a military unit would be considered to have a literal spirit that embodies the honor and courage it has displayed. A city's spirit reflects the accomplishments and industry of its residents. An ancient tree's spirit reflects the beauty and tranquility of the area it grows within.
These spirits are neither good nor evil, nor are they appealed to for intercession. Turians do not believe spirits can affect the world, but spirits can inspire the living. Prayers and rituals allow an individual to converse with a spirit for guidance or inspiration. For example, a turian who finds his loyalty tested may appeal to the spirit of his unit, hoping to reconnect with the pride and honor of the group. A turian who wishes to create a work of art may attempt to connect with the spirit of a beautiful location.
Turians enjoy absolute freedom of religion and can practice whatever appeals to them so long as it does not impede anyone's ability to perform their duties. There are many practitioners of the asari siarist philosophy. Since opening dialog with the human United Federation of Nations, some turians have embraced Confucianism and Zen Buddhism.
In the past, turians believed that titans strode across Palaven, reaching for the heavens. They worshiped these deities and communicated with them at a structure called Temple Palaven. The temple was tended to by a religious order called the Valluvian Priests, who wear special purple robes which obscure their forms. In order for turians to join this order, they had to be considered worthy enough through some action. When the turians spread out from Palaven and discovered other life among the stars, however, they sealed Temple Palaven because they no longer needed legends to prod them upward. With the temple abandoned, eventually the Valluvian Priests fell into legend.
Although turians have a strict moral code, their belief in individual responsibility means that the concepts of good and evil are simply the individual's choice between egotism and altruism in any given decision. They have no concept of 'good' deities that encourage noble behavior or 'evil' ones that tempt individuals to misdeeds.
Lifespan
115 - 135 Years
Average Height
1.8 - 2.1 Meters
Average Weight
60-100 kg
Geographic Distribution
Related Organizations
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