EDI

• Character Name: EDI
• Full name: Cerberus Artificial Intelligence
• Gender: Feminine Programming
• Biography: Following Shepard's defection from Cerberus, EDI aided the crew in eluding the Illusive Man by blocking his technicians' attempts to track the ship. When the Normandy SR-2 is placed in the Alliance's possession, EDI pretended to be a simple VI to hide her true nature out of concerns that Alliance engineers would attempt to remove her. She established the fiction that she would only respond to Joker's commands, so they often brought him on board under guard. When Earth was invaded, she hacked the docking clamps and escaped with Joker.

While investigating Prothean technology on Mars, Shepard's team recovers a Cerberus synthetic infiltration unit masquerading as "Dr. Eva Coré". EDI assists in extracting vital data from the unit, and in the process, she seizes control of the body. In EDI's words, "it was not a seamless transition", as the Normandy malfunctions and EDI herself goes offline from the rest of the ship during the takeover.

Regardless, EDI claims to exist primarily within the ship even with the new body. Although she recommends the platform to be within Normandy's broadcast or tightbeam range for optimal control, she suggests the body can provide limited-fire ground support and can reach areas the ship can't.

Shepard can ask EDI about her new body's capabilities and advantages. EDI initially starts comparing the new body to the Normandy, though Shepard reminds her to compare it against organic bodies. Her body is resistant to modern small-arms fire and temperature extremes in addition to having excellent balance and agility. She adapts the body's existing software for hand-held firearms rather than downloading one from a security firm. When Shepard questions this, she says she wishes to experiment with the body to perform improvements on her own.

A short time later, Shepard asks if EDI's still getting used to greeting people in person. She replies in the negative as she only needs one occurrence to adapt. She deems the body's performance "adequate" regardless of whether Shepard already went on a mission with her or not, but Joker tells her it's not the word he'd use. EDI then asks to speak with Shepard privately on matters bothering her. Shepard initially inquires if Joker doesn't like her new platform, but EDI says having her within Joker's visual range is apparently important to his morale. EDI has far more introspective issues: if the Commander believes that crew members should be allowed to disobey orders based on moral grounds. EDI wasn't designed to take moral stances that conflict with orders from her executive officers, but when Joker removed her AI shackles she became capable of self-modifying her core programming. She asked Joker if she should change anything, but got no answer, so she asks Shepard instead. The Commander can prohibit her from doing so or let her decide for herself as an exercise in free will. Either way, she then inquires if Shepard can help in answering the questions Joker avoids: depending on Shepard's dominant morality, the Commander either obliges or tells her they're not the right person to ask levelheaded answers from.

On the Citadel, EDI spends her time gathering data on human behavior on the Presidium Commons. When Shepard meets her there, EDI asks them about human romantic relationships. Shepard can encourage her to return Joker's interest in her or dissuade her entirely from devoting resources to pursue such organic endeavors.

During this conversation, EDI also informs Shepard of the disproportionately high rates of public dating services. Shepard tells her the looming shadow of doomsday over the galaxy has people becoming desperate to enjoy themselves. EDI then wonders if the krogan feel that way all the time. She also informs Shepard about the lack of antagonism of the batarians against humans, attributing it to the absence of the shadow of the Hegemony.

After Grissom Academy has been evacuated, and if Jack was present, she reminisces about some of Jack's amusing attempts to include additions of her own to the reports sent to the Illusive Man.

After the krogan female has been recovered from Sur'Kesh, EDI brings up some logistical problems for a krogan-turian alliance. She says that the krogan have been demilitarized and thus have no warships, which would require transporting them by turian or civilian ships to carry them into battle. She also mentions the difference between krogan and turian DNA, which would not allow krogan to eat turian food, hence the krogan have to carry food with them or rely on the nutrients in their humps. Further, EDI says to an exasperated Shepard that krogan would also require sedatives, as they fight among their own kind in enclosed places such as starships.

If Mordin is present on the Normandy, EDI tells Shepard about a conversation with him about the salarian equivalent of transhumans. Shepard asks her whether their implants make them a transhuman, to which EDI replies "That would be telling", considerably consternating Shepard, before EDI says she is joking.

If Mordin is absent, however, EDI is contacted by Engineer Adams who talks to her about tests for the IFF upgrade. He takes note of the fact she has millions of duplicate encryption keys, and EDI explains that she keeps the copies in case she needs to restart a particular key's evolution: the keys "evolve". The extra keys help her seamlessly swap in simulated intelligence identifiers from divergent synthetic origins. Apparently, EDI tried saying "humans are dust in the stellar wind" in a synthetic Reaper voice to go along with the deception, but that is no longer sufficient.

From time to time EDI comments about things not specific to missions Shepard has just undertaken. In one, EDI tells Shepard that she is impressed with their continued existence because the probability of anyone surviving as long as they have is quite low. In another, she tells Shepard about one of her discussions with Liara regarding the possibility of the mass effect phenomenon in other universes. EDI goes on to theorize a bit before asking Shepard about their opinion, to which Shepard awkwardly answers that they will get back to her on that.

In yet another aftermission lull, EDI informs about the dire situation on Earth where indoctrinated leaders are forbidding hostility against the Reapers. EDI speculates that soon Earth's governments would pass edicts punishing anyone rebelling against the Reapers. Shepard urges EDI to inform Anderson that they are moving as fast as they can to strike back.

During another one of the aftermission downtimes, EDI expresses the need to ask Shepard a question about human behavior. Shepard asks her why she is never curious about asari or turian behavior. She says she tried to get Liara to tell about the asari bonding process, who refused to divulge such private information to EDI, apparently because of EDI's reputation as a "blabbermouth" on the Normandy. EDI thinks that Liara has become a more private person after becoming the Shadow Broker.

Another time, EDI tells Shepard she is monitoring reports of proton storms which can be quite dangerous to ships. With civilian comm buoys being affected by the war, critical warnings may be lost. When Shepard asks about the risks the storms pose, EDI humorously and vaguely replies "If we are warned, not bad. If we are not warned, very bad."

Yet another time, EDI philosophizes on the holographic theory of existence. She surmises that she is merely a two-dimensional image on the cosmological horizon; that is, she can see and record things, but can never feel or experience them. She also speculates that maybe Reapers are also limited in this way. Shepard backs away, deeming it a bad question.

Sometime later, Joker tells EDI about a common joke between krogan and salarians set during the Rachni Wars. EDI however doesn't like it as it relates a lot to racial stereotypes on both sides. She is of the opinion that such stereotypes led to the development of the genophage.