Illium

Mass Effect 3 Solar System Entry

 * Population (Surface): 84,950,000
 * Population (L4 and L5 stations): 80,500
 * Surface Gravity: 1.2 G

Illium is a classic garden world, an entreport between the Terminus systems and the Asari Republics. To abet this trade, the normally stringent customs laws of Council space on product safety, proscribed materials, and sapient trafficking are relaxed. The world is hot and massive; ground settlement is only possible at the higher polar latitudes. In more equatorial locations, the population is housed in arcology skyscrapers to escape the heat of the surface.

Reaper forces met a surprising amount of resistance at Illium. Its leaders were paranoid about keeping their fortunes, and were influential in both Terminus and Citadel space. They acquired a large defense fleet and a high number of fission weapons, and in the brief space battle, used them on the Reaper fleet's troop transports rather than their near-impervious capital ships. As a result, the inevitable ground invasion has been slowed to a crawl as the Reapers manufacture more troops.


 * The planet can be scanned for the Liquid Assets War Asset.

Mass Effect 2 Solar System Entry

 * Population (Surface): 84,900,000
 * Population (L4 and L5 stations): 80,300
 * Surface Gravity: 1.3 G

Illium is a classic garden world, developed to serve as entreport between the Terminus systems and the Asari Republics. To abet this trade, the normally stringent customs laws of Council space on product safety, proscribed materials, and sapient trafficking are relaxed. Officially Illium is not an asari world; it is colonized and operated by asari corporate interests. This gives it the same legal latitude enjoyed by the human corporate research enclaves of Noveria.

Illium is one of the youngest asari colonies settled during the 7th Expansion Wave. The first child born on the world is only now reaching her middle-age. The world is hot and massive; ground settlement is only possible at the higher polar latitudes. In more equatorial locations, the population is housed in arcology skyscrapers to escape the heat of the surface.

Mass Effect 2 & Mass Effect 3 Codex Entry
A regional hub of asari commerce awash in riches, Illium is infamous for its abusive labor practices and legalization of nearly everything except murder. As such, Illium is the preferred production site for weapons and pharmaceuticals that would be illegal nearly everywhere else, made even more lucrative by legal indentured servitude. Among the biotic-related pharmaceutical producers is the Dantius Corporation, a rising star in galactic commerce.

Despite the dangers of its products, Illium is renowned for glamour, luxury, and safety (provided by near-total surveillance), making it a favored tourist destination. Countless celebrities maintain palatial estates on Illium and in its capital, Nos Astra. The sole obstacle to business on Illium is its extensive bureaucracy, tolerated only for its provision of security.

Regardless of the character of its economy, Illium's self-congratulatory media exalts its own society with the provincial arrogance of "new money," glorifying in "sexiest CEOs" and "ten richest residents" lists.