Mordin is a breath of fresh air in the ME2 cast. I've never quite seen a character like him. His lines are always spot on. He's consistent and likable without ever being entirely easy to relate to.
Mordin, the brilliant Salarian scientist who helped with the Krogan Genophage, starts off as a medical doctor in the slums of the Down Below some planet. In a great moment of defying expectations, Mordin is not a pacifist saint come to grace the slums with his genius. You quickly learn that, when gangsters threatened Mordin, he hit them with nerve gas, executed them one by one, and left their bodies outside his clinic as a warning to the others.
Now that's how you show that a character is hardcore instead of just telling us.
This is a face gangsters learn to fear.
Mordin is constantly at war with his conscience over his involvement with the Genophage. Here's a refresher:
The Krogan multiply rapidly to make up for the crappy survival rate on their home planet. After the Salarians gave them space faring technology and the Krogans expanded to less dangerous environments, the populate exploded. With dwindling resources, the Krogan took to invading other planets. None of the other races could stand up to their numbers or their power, and their numbers just kept growing. So the Salarians developed a bioweapon that infected the Krogan, stemming their ability to reproduce. This, in turn, resulted in a cultural genocide, as the Krogan now a broken people with few prospects in the universe and a constant struggle to even reproduce enough to survive.
As a scientist, Mordin knows that it was the best decision, but as a person, he's deeply regretful. He's seen the effects on the Krogan, and he agrees that it was horrible, but from a statistical perspective, he stands by his actions. Now that's a moral quandary.
And Mordin's polarized view of the Genophage is explored in his loyalty mission, when one of his assistants is found trying to reverse the bioweapon. Mordin has to come face to face with his own works, swallowing the bitter pill that he did something wrong, even if it was for the right reasons.
Now that's how you do a character's side quest. You take what the character's driving conflict is, and you shove it in their face. Miranda's sister has nothing to do with her main conflict - feelings of inadequacy to her own genetics. Mordin's research has everything to do with his.
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