#just replayed tali's loyalty mission but decided to fuck around and bring legion this time. boy.

[edenprime]

In my mind, Tali's parents were in a sort of... lavender marriage*, and their true partners were Shala'Raan and Han'Gerrel.

I mean - Raan was the one who was with Tali's mother when she was born. They synced their suits with each other. It's implied that she was like a second parent to Tali, that she spent more time with her and her mother than Rael during her childhood.

On the other hand, Gerrel speaks of Rael'Zorah as being his partner in crime since they were teenagers. He tells their story with a fondness that speaks of years of partnership. He's the only one who notices that Shepard was deflecting when defending Tali, but let's be real - he doesn't know Shepard. He knew Rael. He's also the only one you're allowed to confide in when it comes to the secret geth experiments.

*Not because I believe the quarians are homophobic, I just think it could be a practice they used to mantain their population. After all, Tali explains in ME1 that sometimes they had to put in laws to make sure the population remained sustainable. Added to the quarian's inherent loyalty to each other... well, this way, they had a child as expected, but could keep their preferred partners.