2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Dossier: The Justicar (Commercial Spaceport, Illium):
Shepard: What do they do here that you don't like, Elnora? Elnora: I thought we'd be flying around the galaxy shooting up bad guys and stuff, right? Elnora: But no, they just sell red sand and illegal weapons tech. They even smuggled an Ardat-Yakshi off-world. Shepard: What does "Ardat-Yakshi" mean? Elnora: It's an ancient asari word for something that... I thought was just a superstition until now. Elnora: It means "demon of the night winds." I didn't think they were real, but the boss said that this scary lady was one.
Aria is not surprised to hear there is an Ardat-Yakshi on the planet. There have been reports of bodies and minds drained in ways only the Ardat-Yakshi are capable of. Aria tells you that Morinth’s last victim was a young human woman who lived in the tenements near Afterlife.
2010, “10 Things to do in Mass Effect 2 Before You Die”, in Play[2], number 198, Imagine Publishing Ltd, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 031, column 2:
Another romantic side story you have the option of pursuing is also one that will result in your immediate death. Morinth is the daughter of Justicar Samara and an Ardat-Yakshi meaning that in mating with another being she drains them of life and kills them. Samara’s loyalty mission involves hunting Morinth and killing her, but choose to kill Samara instead and a romantic relationship can be pursued. Trouble is consummating that relationship will kill Shepard.
2015, Summer Glassie, “"Embraced eternity lately?": Mislabeling and subversion of sexuality labels through the Asari in the Mass Effect trilogy”, in Matthew Wysocki, Evan W. Lauteria, editors, Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games[3] (Media Studes / Game Studies), Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 170:
While it is possible for two Asari to mate and produce offspring, there is the risk that their child may be born as something known as an Ardat Yakshi, which is a sterile Asari who will unintentionally kill any being she takes as a lover (Mass Effect). For every victim, the Ardat Yakshi grows stronger, as seen in the second game with the homicidal character of Morinth, which causes the Ardat Yakshi to be considered a danger to her people and to anyone with whom she comes into contact. The union with other species, then, is to limit the possibility of Ardat Yakshi and to “share the most basic elements of [other species’] individual and racial identities” that can be used to strengthen the Asari society as a whole (Mass Effect 1).
2015 November 15, Meghan Blythe Adams, “Renegade Sex: Compulsory Sexuality and Charmed Magic Circles in the Mass Effect series”, in Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association[4], volume 9, number 14, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 May 2018, page 47:
A female Shepard can romance bisexual Yeoman Kelly Chambers, but doing so does not yield a Paramour achievement or an implied sex scene the way that romancing ‘official’ interests does. Similarly, the player can attempt to romance the Asari Samara or her Ardat-Yakshi daughter Morinth, but the former will refuse and sex with the latter will kill Shepard.
2016 July 6, Andrew Brady, “Character Theme Analysis”, in Stand Fast, Stand Strong, Stand Together: An Analysis of Significant Musical Character Themes in BioWare’s Mass Effect Series[5], Berklee College of Music, archived from the original on 20 November 2023, pages 23-24:
Each of Samara’s three children carry the genetic disorder Ardat-Yakshi, which compels the afflicted to mate with others and kills their partner almost instantly as a result of their neurological condition. Asari found to carry the disorder are given an option of lifelong seclusion (in a monastic lifestyle similar to Samara’s) or to be executed. Over the course of the series, Samara must be responsible for the deaths of all three of her daughters: in ME2, she kills her daughter Morinth because she has become a sexual predator responsible for the death of dozens of mates; in ME3, her other two daughters (who have remained in seclusion) have become indoctrinated and cannot be saved, leaving Samara to make the difficult decision to destroy them and the entire compound of corrupted Asari Ardat-Yakshis.
Since joining the Citadel, asari prefer to mate outside their own species, claiming that this fosters development and understanding. It also reduces incidences of Ardat-Yakshi, "pure-blooded" asari who suffer a dangerous genetic disorder. If asari are compatible with life in Andromeda, that will prove several theories about the fundamental building blocks of life.
2017, Jordan Erica Webber, Daniel Griliopoulos, “On utilitarianism: BioWare's baddies”, in Ten Things Video Games can Teach Us[6], Little, Brown Book Group, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 243:
And in Mass Effect 2, you can find a secret dossier on the synthetic Geth sniper called Legion, which was created solely to preserve its species. This dossier shows that this apparently serious Geth spends a lot of processing time playing video games — ranging from playing as a Level 612 Ardat-Yakshi Necromancer in Galaxy of Fantasy, an in-universe MMO with over eleven billion players, to being a max-scoring sniper in Code of Honor: Medal of Duty.
2018, Alexandra M. Lucas, “From Smoldering Justicar to Blue-Skinned Space Babe: Asari Sexuality in Mass Effect”, in Heidi McDonald, editor, Digital Love: Romance and Sexuality in Video Games[7], CRC Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 72:
Morinth is a powerful Ardat-Yakshi, a deadly type of Asari that can only be created from the melding of two Asari. In fact, it is the possibility of creating Ardat-Yakshi offspring that makes reproductive relationships between Asari a taboo practice in their society. Because all Asari present as female and use female pronouns, the deadly sexual nature of Ardat-Yakshi may reflect the continued fear of lesbianism that persists among many in human society.
2018 October 16, TheLethalCarrot♦, “If two Ardat-Yakshi mate together, will they both die or survive?”, in Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange[8], archived from the original on June 05, 2024, Questions[9]:
In the Mass Effect universe, the Ardat-Yakshi are some rare kind of Asari that will cause death in the partner they mate with. The most well-known Ardat-Yakshi is Morinth. I am wondering, however, what would happen if two Ardat-Yakshi mate together. Would they both die, or would they survive since they have the same brain strength?
2018 December, Jordan Youngblood, “When (and What) Queerness Counts: Homonationalism and Militarism in the Mass Effect Series”, in Game Studies: the international journal of computer game research[10], volume 18, number 3, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 January 2019[11]:
The desire, only growing with each union, is not resisted but indulged; her mother’s comment that “if Morinth does not want to be cured, she won’t be” evokes any number of contemporary discourses on homosexuality as a “curable” condition with the proper willpower and attitude. The comparison becomes even more blatant when consulting the codex entry in the game’s menu on Ardat-Yakshi, where “contrary to popular belief, Ardat-Yakshi are neither extremely rare (around one per cent of asari dwell on the AY spectrum), nor are they all murderers. Most cultivate and discard countless exploitative or abusive relationships during their legally marginal lives… by nature Ardat-Yakshi are incapable of long-term cooperation.” [5] As a “legally marginal” population minority incapable of “long-term” relationships, Ardat-Yakshi represent in the Mass Effect series not only the “fatal lure of sterile, narcissistic enjoyments” (Edelman, 2004, p.13), but an entire wealth of assumptions about queer life in general.
2021 June 4, Jhaan Elker, “Every ‘Mass Effect’ squadmate, ranked from a storytelling perspective”, in The Washington Post[12], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 June 2021, Launcher News[13]:
The writers did Samara dirty in this game. First, they retconned her comments on how many Ardat Yakshi there are in the universe (Ardat Yakshi are diseased Asari who are basically vampires who need to be sheltered away from others). Then, they made Samara break her Justicar code — something she’s followed literally for centuries — by attempting to kill herself so that her daughter Falere can live.
2023, Sarah Stang, “Desirable and Undesirable Cyborg Bodies in the Mass Effect Video Game Trilogy”, in Julia A. Empey, Russell J. A. Kilbourn, editors, Feminist Posthumanism in Contemporary Science Fiction Film and Media: From Annihilation to High Life and Beyond[14], Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 107:
Banshees are created from the Ardat-Yakshi, meaning “Demon of the Night Winds”—a rare type of Asari whose unusual genetic makeup makes them infertile and unable to control their own biotic powers when mating, causing them to overwhelm and destroy their partner's nervous system. Most Ardat-Yakshi are given a choice between execution or being exiled to a monastery where they are kept as prisoners to prevent them from mating.[…]The true femmes fatales of the series are the Ardat-Yakshi, and one side quest in ME2 even requires the player to hunt down a serial killer Ardat-Yakshi named Morinth who tries to seduce Shepard and will kill him/her if he/she is unable to resist her.
2024 March 13, Big Dan Gaming, 6:17 from the start, in We Were So WRONG about the Ardat-Yakshi...[15], YouTube, archived from the original on April 03, 2024:
One little thing about the Ardat-Yakshi that's always bothered me is a little lore inconsistency between Mass Effect 2 and 3. While speaking to Samara on the Normandy in Mass Effect 2, she claims that there are only three Ardat-Yakshi still in existence, and all of them are her daughters. And yet, in Mass Effect 3, we discover there are definitely more Ardat-Yakshi than Samara initially claimed. For starters, there is the Ardat-Yakshi monastery we visit at the urging of the asari government. This facility is gigantic. So if there are three known Ardat-Yakshi in the galaxy, then why construct such a massive place to house them?
