- "No one's all bad. You have to learn to look for the good in a person. You can always find it, if you look hard enough."
- ―Tai-San
Tai-San is an original member of the Mall Rats.
A spiritual individualist, she lived according to eastern philosophy and would often butt ends with others in the tribe due to her alternative beliefs and strong convictions. She had a turbulent relationship and marriage with Lex.
During the reign of The Chosen, she was appointed as the second Supreme Mother. She was abducted during the invasion of the Technos and was programmed to join the tribe, only to be deleted by Mega following her return to the city.
Tai San was traded by various tribes until she ended in the hands of The Collective, where she would reunite with Lex and the Mall Rats in The Tribe: (R)Evolution.
Personality[]
An individualist, Tai-San is a deep thinker and has a great spirituality about her. She is not a material person but instead taps into the "energy" of those around her and the universe in general through her philosophy of mysticism and elementalism. Tai-San is a "new age" guru and is very influential - she claims in a way that she has powers that can alter the lives of those around her and the city as a whole.
Tai-San often rubs people up the wrong way. She is so firm in her convictions and is quite honest in talking about matters, she doesn't seem to care about other people taking offence. But she does care - Tai-San is a nice person and what she does is for the greater good, she perceives. If needed, Tai-San will sacrifice her own interests for the greater community.
History[]
Series 1[]
Tai-San found Cloe lost in the woods helped her find her way back to the Mall. She soon became a member of the Tribe. She suggested they have a name. Lex suggested Mall Rats. When Zandra needs advice on sex, Tai-San offers advice that surprises Salene and Zandra of her knowledge.
Tai-San secretly likes Lex and whilst he and Zandra are engaged she sneaks into Lex's room and they sleep together (twice). Zandra later finds out and makes Lex dump Tai-San.
She is described by almost everyone as a ‘space-cadet’ due to her spiritual beliefs which no one seems able to wrap their heads around. Indeed, perhaps Tai San herself would be incapable of describing herself. She is her own person, someone in tune with nature, with the aura of people around her, and possesses a willingness to do things in an entirely different way, her own path, whether that rubs people up the wrong way or not.
Tai San played a pivotal role during the first Tribal Gathering on the beach. Because she can dance, she enters the dance competition to try and win Amber and Dal back from Ebony. Although she wins, the competition was rigged and they announce that the Locos won instead. Regardless, Lex causes a distraction and they all escape.
Tai San constantly opposes Jack in scientific means to find answers. Believing her spiritual ways are better, this causes much tension between the two. But when the virus remerges, Tai San has a dream of an eagle that correlates with Jack's discovery of the Eagle Mountain facility, which possibly contains the Antidote. Believe it to not be a coincidence, Tai San and Jack were instrumental in getting the Mall Rats to leave for Eagle Mountain for answers.
Series 2[]
Tai-San is the only one who knows the antidote formula but after the explosion in her lab, she can't remember anyone or anything about the formula. Her best friend Alice helps her to remember. Tai-San believes she should tell someone else about the formula, so she picks Bray.
Tai-San falls in love with Lex but is struck with a problem, her best friend is after him. Lex however loves Tai-San and they form a secret relationship. But Tai-San can't take the sneaking around and calls it off with Lex. Lex tells Alice he is in love with someone else but won't tell her who. Alice takes comfort in Tai-San and she eventually tells her the truth.
Lex asks Tai-San to marry him, he realizes he married Zandra for the wrong reasons and she tells him yes. They have a combined wedding with Ryan and Salene. To Tai-San's delight, Alice turns up. Tai San is captured when the city falls to The Chosen.
Series 3[]
Tai-San is prisoner to the Chosen, along with other Mall Rats. She is distraught when she is told Lex is dead. She later finds out he is alive. Tai San is tested during the time with the Chosen, refusing to kneel to false gods and determined to never give in to their demands – her own faith, her own path, is too strong for this. Though this places the other Mall Rats in a strained position of no rations and harder work detail, Tai San is able to weather through it all – having usually fasted and worked hard at times. Her state of mind immediately attracts the attention of the Guardian who grows infatuated with her, but it is an infatuation of a spiritual nature more than a physical connection.
She realizes The Guardian has feelings for her and uses that to her advantage to try and destroy The Chosen. She is named The True Supreme Mother, after Trudy was named an Imposter. Lex believes she is sleeping with The Guardian but she only loves him. Growing close to the Guardian, Tai San uses this position to try and break through to him. Instead, she manages to push him further into his own madness. Growing further in his insanity, The Guardian sets off a bomb within the Mall. Wishing to be reunited with Zoot in a suicide mission. Tai San was able to figure out the code to disarm the bomb and save all the Mall Rats.
When the Chosen are defeated, Tai San is unable to turn her back on The Guardian and his broken mind. Lex hates the way she looks after him, which pushes Lex away. Eventually they make up and Lex tries to get involved with The Guardian’s care. When the Guardian escapes, he wants to take Tai-San with him to start up the Chosen again, but she refuses and helps to get him captured again.
Series 4[]
When the Technos invade, Tai-San is captured by them, leaving Lex devastated at her loss. She later resurfaces as a Techno, and she was personally reprogrammed by Mega, which seems to be where her feelings towards him are coming from.
Despite this, we see Tai San’s old loyalties for the Mall Rats rise back up to the surface as she sees Brady reunited with Trudy, and tries to confront Mega when she hear rumours of the so-called plans to kill the Mall Rats. It is this event however which tells Mega that his efforts with her weren’t thorough enough. Tai San is sent back for more reprogramming.
When the Technos are defeated, she briefly reunites with Lex and the other Mall Rats. Tai San asks if anything has changed between them, to which Lex insists nothing has changed. Having watched over the exchange with Lex, it is believed that Mega took her away from any further Mall Rat influences.
Series 5[]
Tai San disappears again after Mega deletes her. Lex desperately continues to search for her with no success.
After Mega's defeat, Lex discovers from a former Techno called Fish that the deleted people might have been shipped off overseas by plane and not dead. This gives the possibility Tai San might be alive, but her true status remains unknown for a long time.
The Tribe: A New World[]
In the prologue, a reality space version of Tai San briefly appears at Bray and Amber's wedding. Tai San presides over the ceremony. But Bray soon realizes the reality of his supposed wedding to Amber, which turns out to be in reality space, as many dead people are present at the wedding like his brother Martin/Zoot and Dal. The reality space Tai San demands Bray if he would take Amber as his wife when he was not responding. Bray is soon awaked from it after Judd removes his Reality Space Visor.
The Tribe: A New Dawn[]
Tai San is revealed to be alive on a far away island working as a slave at a farm. She is later taken and sold at an auction to a mysterious man. She is brought to his base and is shown images of Ryan, Patsy, Paul, KC, Alice and Danni. Shocked at how much this person knows of her tribe, she is then asked to be reveal whatever information she knew about Eagle Mountain, before the prologue ends.
The Tribe: (R)Evolution[]
Tai San's buyer is revealed to be a man called The Broker, who trades her to The Collective. She is brought to Eden where she reunites with Alice and Ryan, who were brought here days prior. The Selector shows erotic interest in Tai San, who is deeply uncomfortable with his advances. Ryan, Alice and Tai San would try to escape by running in 3 different directions. However while running, Tai San sprains her ankle and is unwillingly brought back to Eden by The Selector. Ryan and Alice had also failed in their plan to escape.
The remaining Mall Rats would be captured and sent to the same location, where Tai San finally reunites with her long lost husband Lex. Tai San and Amber would later be asked to treat Cami, the reclusive leader of The Collective, when she falls ill. They eventually succeed in saving her life.
Gallery[]
Series 1[]
Series 2[]
Series 3[]
Series 4[]
Quotes[]
"It is a time of loneliness and we all feel the need to belong. That's why we need to be part of a tribe. But all this will pass in time – even a Demon Dog must grow older and wiser."
"As of this day, all those who join hands are bound together as one - brothers and sisters to the end."
Trivia[]
- Early scripts released in the 2011 book Keeping the Dream Alive showed that Tai San was meant to appear in the first episode. But her introduction was pushed to Episode 15 for unknown reasons.
- In The Tribe Game, Tai San is shown to be a Mall Rat from the start just like in the original scripts. As a result, she is present at the birth of Brady unlike the show. It's speculated that this was what Cloud 9 had intended from the beginning but Michelle Ang was likely not available to film at the start, which forced her debut to be pushed 14 episodes later. With the game being a reboot of the show, the original ideas are able to be incorporated.
- Although Tai San is shown to be a capable fighter in Series 1 Episode 25 when she kicked Zandra in the face, she is never shown using these abilities again. It is unknown why she did not use them during the battle with Tribe Circus or The Chosen on the beach.
- Tai San is one of the three characters on the show to suffer from amnesia. The others are Ellie and Jay.
- Tai San did not return for Series 5 (following her brief appearance at the end of Series 4) because Michelle Ang was working on Neighbours, an Australian Soap Opera.
- A popular conspiracy theory in the fandom is that Tai San is actually a Techno spy. This theory goes that Tai San was sent by the Technos to prepare the City for the takeover by weakening the city with The Chosen. But there is too many holes with this theory as it ignores all of Tai San's actions for the first 3 seasons, the storylines of the novels also disapprove this theory further. No motivation is given and it doesn't explain why the Technos forcibly captured her during the invasion only for Mega to banish her into slavery again.
- Tan San would not return to the series until The Tribe: A New Dawn (2014), marking 17 years since the character had last appeared in Series 4. However, she only appeared in the prologue. She would return as a major character in the following sequel The Tribe: (R)Evolution (2019).
- Tai San was voted by fans as 4th Best Heroine in a 2015 poll. [1]
- The character Angie Yonaga from the Danganronpa series bears some resemblance to Tai San. Both are spiritual people and can be manipulative in pushing their ideas on everyone as they believe it is the best way. [2]