Bioware's space opera game series Mass Effect is fairly young, but it has already joined the greats like StarCraft, Halo, and X-COM in the gaming community. In the original trilogy, the player is Commander Shepard, an Alliance Navy hero with a squad of elite soldiers, operatives, and biotics at his or her command. Many of them are friendly aliens, and that includes a Quarian, Tali'Zorah, and a Drell named Thane Krios.

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Commander Shepard only chooses the best and brightest to serve on the Normandy, and even then, some squad mates prove to be a little sharper and more powerful than others. When it comes to their personalities, skills, and gameplay mechanics, who is the top squad mate in the series: Tali, or Thane? There is a case to make for each.

10 Tali: Voice Recording

tali mass effect

Tali'Zorah has an advantage over not just Thane, but almost everyone on the Normandy: she provided vital intel that helped Shepard and Anderson prove that Saren was behind the geth attack on Eden Prime. Without her, Shepard never could have taken Saren down.

How did she do it? Behind the scenes, Tali found a damaged geth that had overheard Saren and Matriarch Benezia discussing the Eden Prime attack and the conduit, and with this audio recording, Tali moved Shepard's mission forward in a way no one else could have.

9 Thane: Battle Sleep

What makes Thane such an effective assassin? It's not just his skills (more on that soon), but his ability to completely separate his mind and his body. This is a phenomenon that appears unique to the Drell race, and Thane makes the most of it.

He can put his mind in a sort of standby mode, and his body operates all on its own, like an automaton. Thane calls it his "battle sleep,' and it allows him to assassinate all kinds of people without feeling personally accountable. It's a fascinating and unique ability of his.

8 Tali: Tech Genius

Tali can hold a gun, but Commander Shepard didn't recruit her to the Normandy as just another soldier. Instead, Tali shares her race's affinity with machines and computers, and technology is her prime focus.

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She knows all about ships, and she claims to be able to assemble just about anything into a vehicle capable of FTL travel. Tali is also a premiere geth expert, though she mainly uses this expertise to fight them.

7 Thane: Ultra Assassin

thane krios assassinating

Any discussion about Thane Krios simply must include his incredible assassination skills. He freely admits that he was few other skills, so once his contracts were over, he started freelancing, since that's how he makes a living.

He's been trained expertly by the Hanar, and he has primary and secondary assassination methods for any target of any species. He's quick, clever, precise, and has all the tools for the job. Even his bare hands can snuff out a life in an eyeblink.

6 Tali: Cool Loyalty Mission

quarian admirals mass effect

Out of all the loyalty side missions in Mass Effect 2, Tali's is arguably the best of them all. It starts when Tali receives a distressing message from the Migrant Fleet, demanding that she return and face serious criminal charges.

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Once Shepard and Tali arrive, a trial begins where Tali is accused of bringing live (and deadly) geth to the Fleet. Shepard's squad destroys all the geth on a captured Quarian ship, but there's a snag: the evidence that clears Tali's name would shame that of her father! What is Shepard to do? And what's even more interesting is how the trial ties into the larger issue of whether or not the Quarians should wage war on the geth to reclaim their homeworld, Rannoch.

5 Thane: Perfect Memory

Like all Drell, Thane has a perfect memory that goes back to his early childhood. In his case, he uses it to recall pleasant memories and times of his life while enduring the hardships of an assassin's lifestyle in cold space.

During conversations with Shepard, Thane will recall the aborted assassination where his future wife stepped in to protect the target. Overall, Thane's memories are bittersweet, and always worded so poetically and vividly, making for a cool narrative.

4 Tali: Anti-Geth Powers

tali'zorah

Tali is an expert on the geth, and this is represented not only in her ability to study and fight the geth in the lore, but also her powers as a character during gameplay. This makes her a bit narrow, but if the enemies are geth, Tali shines.

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This is especially true in the first Mass Effect game, where most enemies are Saren's geth. In all three games, Tali can heck geth opponents and turn them against each other, create combat drones, and more. No geth will last long against her.

3 Thane: Heroic Sacrifice

Thane is already dying of a disease called Kepral's Syndrome in Mass Effect 2, meaning that he will gradually suffocate and die within a year. He has already made peace with that fact, but he still has some fight left in him.

In fact, he has a moment of unmitigated glory in Mass Effect 3. Despite slowly dying and having trouble breathing, he takes on Kai Leng, and buys Shepard time to rescue the council from Udina and the Illusive Man's insidious plot. He is properly honored for this and more during his funeral service later on.

2 Tali: Homecoming

tali sheapard rannoch mass effect

Thane's role in Mass Effect 3 ended in tragedy, but Tali's story takes a very different route. By now, the Quaians have gone to war with the Reaper-enhanced geth, and Commander Shepard is there to help.

Based on player choices, this story can turn out in several different ways, but the happiest involves peace between the geth and Quarians, and Tali chooses a spot where her new house will be built. She can still hardly believe that her own two feet are standing on the homeworld, and the drama with the geth is finally over.

1 Thane: Flexible Abilities

While Tali's skills are tailored for fighting geth, Thane is useful against almost everything else, which is helpful since Mass Effect 2 has a much wider variety of enemy types than the first game. And Thane is ready.

He can use Warp, which is wonderfully effective against armor and kinetic barriers, and his Shredder Ammo can deal extra damage to enemy health. As a bonus biotic option, he can use Throw as well. No one is safe from him.

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