- Matriarch Eumenia: "She would have destroyed us, darling. She would have ruined our lives and felt absolutely no guilt. She had to die, do you understand?"
- Siani T'Nair: "Yes, mama. But there's so much blood..."
- ―Matriarch Eumenia and Siani T'Nair, after the death of Tria Sunori.
The T'Nair-Sunori Tabloid War was the name given to a very public battle between the Matriarch Eumenia and her former lover, Tria Sunori. It was notable as a case study of the corruption within the media and stock market on Illium.
Background[]
In the late 21st century, the asari Matriarch Eumenia began an affair with an ambitious Matron named Tria Sunori, who was the CEO of Sunorico Biotics, a rising manufacturer of biotic implants. Though the Matriarch regarded the relationship as an indiscretion to be kept under wraps, Sunori enjoyed bragging to her associates about her influential lover and using the promise of potential access to the Matriarch to attract investors. Eumenidia tolerated this for a while, but then she became pregnant by Sunori and gave birth to a daughter, Siani. Eumenidia worried that Sunori's constant bragging would attract attention from the merciless Illium press, which would hinder her attempts to give young Siani a healthy upbringing, and thus asked Sunori to stop name-dropping her. Sunori refused to do so.
Cut off[]
Angry at Sunori's refusal to consider the welfare of their daughter, Eumenia sold all of her shares in Sunorico, and made sure that Illium's gossip-hungry media reported the sale. When word got out that Sunori's supposed "influential lover" was apparently washing her hands of Sunorico, all those investors who had hoped that buying shares would get them a word in Eumenia'a ear felt cheated, and thus sold all of their shares, causing Sunorico stock to tank.
Humiliated, but wise enough to know not to attack a Matriarch directly, Sunori set the Illium media machine upon Hera Slater, the wife of a prominent human politician, and one of the Matriarch's former lovers. Sunori then contacted Eumenia and offered to meet to discuss a deal whereby Eumenia would publically make up with Sunori to try and reassure the investors that Sunorico was a good investment, and in exchange Sunori would make "evidence" appear that would allow Slater to deny her affair with the Matriarch.