Adjutant

This article is about Adjutants in general. For the enemy in Mass Effect 3: Omega, see Adjutant (enemy).

Adjutants are hostile husk-like creatures originating from beyond the Omega 4 Relay.

Mass Effect: Invasion

In 2186, a Cerberus transport ship returning from a trip to one of the organization's research bases beyond the Omega 4 Relay docks with Omega and releases dozens of Adjutants onto the station. The creatures proceed to attack everything in sight, and advance to the doorstep of the Afterlife Club, the seat of Aria T'Loak's rule over Omega.

It is later revealed that Cerberus had kept a colony of Adjutants within its research base at Avernus Station, but somehow they had broken free and were able to take control of the base's transport ships to escape. Although the first wave of attackers was stopped, more lurked on the other side of the Omega 4 Relay, learning to control the better-armed Cerberus ships. Aria and Cerberus general Oleg Petrovsky eventually arrive at Avernus Station and contain the Adjutants, but the damage has been done; the Adjutants' escape was orchestrated by the Illusive Man to distract Aria and allow Cerberus to conquer Omega.

Adjutants have the apparent ability to "infect" other beings with their Reaper-originated technology, as seen when a salarian that was attacked by one of the creatures quickly transforms into a new Adjutant. When an Adjutant first transforms, however, it is significantly weaker and needs more time to rewrite the genetic code of its body. This is the ideal time to eliminate the transformed. The only way to stop the transformation from occurring appears to be to kill those who are "infected" or decapitate an infected corpse. The main goal of the Adjutants is to transform other life forms, and to that end they will try to avoid outright killing others since the dead are useless to them.

Mass Effect 3

Cerberus lost control of the Adjutants shortly after Omega fell. The Adjutants promptly rampaged unchecked across the station, and devastated most of Omega's remaining mercenary forces. They were on the verge of wiping out the station's entire population before Cerberus found a way to contain them. Commander Shepard, Aria T'Loak, and Nyreen Kandros encounter several of these rogue Adjutants in a sealed-off mining facility during Aria's campaign to retake Omega from Cerberus.

During the final assault on the Afterlife Club, Cerberus's command center, it is discovered that Cerberus had been developing the Adjutants from a Reaper-created virus. This virus is believed to have been created several cycles earlier and contain genetic traces of its original hosts, because the baseline form of an Adjutant does not match any known species. Cerberus planned to implant Omega's citizens with control devices, then infect them with the Adjutant virus to create an army of obedient Adjutants. When Aria and Shepard corner Oleg Petrovsky inside Afterlife, he unleashes the perfected Adjutants and a last wave of Cerberus troops in a last ditch attempt to stop them. Aria and Shepard prevail, however, and defeat the Adjutants.

Trivia

• Adjutants were originally designed as an enemy unit for Mass Effect 3. Also referred to as "Pariahs" during development, Adjutants were cut from the final version of the game because their planned ability to teleport around the battlefield "proved too much even for the relatively generous physics of the Mass Effect universe." Nevertheless, the creatures were added as enemies in Mass Effect 3: Omega, albeit without teleportation powers.