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[oneman]

may contain spoilers for mass effect 3

◢Player Information
Name: Arty.
Personal Journal: artse
Time zone: CST
Contact:
crimescenelook@gmail.com
lucklies (aim)


◢Character Information
Fandom: Mass Effect
Name: Commander John Shepard
Canon Point: Priority: Cerberus Headquarters.


History: This describes some of the choices made in creating Commander Shepard and here you can access a synopsis for each game in the trilogy.

The renowned feature of the game is that the player has say in who Shepard is, not absolute say, but some say. The Commander is a malleable character and the hero one person sculpts may not be the same as another, but there are limits. Shepard may be male or female, but there are only three options for pre-service and only another three options for psychological profile. Throughout the games, there are a myriad of choices to be made and most come down to moral standing: Paragon or Renegade. To put it crudely, Paragon choices are good and Renegade choices are bad. A Renegade Shepard isn’t necessarily evil, just a jerk. Kidding! The appropriate term is badass.

Choices are important, but this particular Shepard stays close to the game’s default: male, earthborn, sole survivor, soldier, and paragon. The first link above expands more on what each of these things mean. I have a post dedicated to listing the major choices that this Shepard made through all three games. While each of those choices changes and sculpts the game’s world, none of the choices greatly change who he is beyond moral standing and reputation.

Another choice up to the player is the fate of Shepard’s romance life. There are a number of romance options available in every game, different characters available for male and female Shepards. This particular Shepard is from a path where he romanced Kaidan in Mass Effect 3. I’ve okayed this with the Kaidan player here!



Personality:

Commander Shepard is a hero. He’s a legend. The galaxy will remember him for his actions. When the galaxy depended on him, he didn’t let them down. It takes a certain kind of man not to crumble under that enormous pressure, but to succeed against all odds. Shepard is that man and he’s proved it time and time again. He’s a soldier; that’s all he is – a damn good marine. But under the military blues, he’s a man with morals, a strong sense of justice, and, most importantly, heart. Some people call him naïve. Idealistic. Hell, some people call him stupid. If he’s stupid, it’s a catching plague, because he inspires people, gives them hope in the darkest situations. And he doesn’t save the world alone.

Like I said, Shepard is a soldier. He grew up in one of the metropolis’s slums on Earth, without parents and with very little formal education. It was easy to fall into crime, damn near impossible to keep your nose clean. He wasn’t a saint; he was a dirt poor, misguided youth. Even then, he knew he wanted out. On his eighteenth birthday, he was in the recruiting office, duffel bag with what little he owned at his side. Thirty-two now, he isn’t wet behind the ears. He hasn’t been green for a long time, and it sure hasn’t left any calluses that aren’t on the outside. In his time, he’s seen some horrible things. He knows, better than anyone, that not every ending has a happy one. Akuze is just the first example. Fifty marines went with him on the Akuze mission and that night all fifty died. His entire unit was killed by thresher maws. Shepard managed to survive, but he saw and heard many friends and acquaintances slaughtered that day.

As he himself said, something like that can break a man. He hasn’t let it destroy him. Even after this long in the Alliance, losing a solider is hard for him. Losing civilians is almost harder on him. When missions go wrong, Shepard takes responsibility for it. It’s his job to be prepared. This attitude becomes especially visible in the last game, those very words taken right from his mouth. Everyone that’s died is something that haunts him. His sleep is rife with nightmares, chasing the ghost of a boy that died when the Reapers invaded Earth, with shadows and whispers of the dead. Every night, he relives that boy dying. He asks a friend, “Why is he dead and I’m still here?”

What makes Shepard great is his weakest point: he cares. It makes him a good marine and a good person. That caring isn’t something that’s exclusive to the crew and his squad; it goes for absolute strangers. He’s consistently surprised people with how willing he is to help people of all races, including the less popular aliens. He’s got sympathy that goes for miles and miles. When he’s got the free time and you’ve got the right cause, he’ll run endless circles doing entirely ridiculous tasks. It doesn’t have to be world ending to warrant his attention; it just has to mean something to someone. He doesn’t even have to be asked; if Shepard overhears that someone needs something, he’ll keep an eye out for it. He’ll take such trite tasks as grocery shopping for his crew or asking whether there are fish in that water or finding a lost item for someone. If you have a problem, Commander Shepard will solve it. It’s what he does.

Shepard is most definitely a people-person. The Normandy, the mission, the situation couldn’t have anything less. It goes further than obligation and ties into how much he cares about others. In the Mass Effect series there is ample time to talk to all the squad members and other characters. At any given time, talking to just about any character, there are at least three or four more questions Shepard can ask. Some are need to know, but plenty aren’t. I assume Shepard asked all those questions. He likes people and wants to help them. Asking all those seemingly irrelevant questions keep him prepared for any possible problems, but it isn’t all business. He just likes to get to know about the people he’s with. More than that, he likes to get to know about their culture. He wants to understand. He’s very forward thinking, open minded, and more than a little bit curious. Different cultures and different beliefs are both things he welcomes.

And, well, he’s also something of a busy body. He talks to everyone on the Normandy at any chance he gets and while he doesn’t talk to everyone off the Normandy, he listens. No shore leave is complete without Shepard finding at least ten more things he needs to do for strangers. If there’s some trouble, he puts himself right in the middle of it even if someone else is already handling it. He’s got an incredible sense of justice and he wants to know that things are resolved right. People know his name and he doesn’t hesitate to use that position for good causes like getting a discount or helping a refugee get permission to dock. Both very different things, but the first (getting a discount) made it a little clear he doesn’t mind the recognition. He actually seemed to really enjoy getting a little time to brag about saving the world and definitely the attention.

Despite all the friendly interrogations and talks everyone gets from the Commander, he’s pretty quiet about himself. He scarcely mentions his background to his squad. He’s a hero – when things fall apart, he does his best to keep it together and make it look like everything’s fine. Only when the shit really hits the fan, do you hear him even begin to, aloud, doubt if they’ll make it. Even then, he’ll only briefly mention it, before saying he’s fine. He says he’s fine a lot – when he isn’t. Shepard’s damn tough, though, and he’s confident. Only under the grimmest circumstances does he succumb to doubts, but even then? He’s more courageous than any man has the right to be. That’s not true; he’s been terrified before, but he still got the job done until his last breath he fought for others to live.

There’s a damn good reason Shepard is a natural leader and it is right there. But it could be any number of things. That striking sense of justice, his morals, his concern... He’s a good guy and he’s selfless. Shepard is completely dedicated to the greater good and he does it with such confidence, determination. He doesn’t fumble; he always has an answer – he always gets the job done. With his squad, he is always encouraging, trusting, and ready to listen. It’s a bit of Shepard charm that makes him such a gifted leader. One day he was X.O., the next he was a Spectre with command of the Normandy. He took to the change easy; it fit him like a glove. He had a mission to do.

Being a leader isn’t easy, though. In his time, he’s had to make some incredibly hard decisions. When faced with those choices, he keeps a level head and proceeds calmly, no matter how much pressure there is. Indecisiveness is not something Shepard ever suffers from even in the worst of times. Two particularly torturous instances come to mind. A couple years ago, in Virmire, he had to choose between two of his friends. He only had time to save one and the other would, inevitably, die when the bomb exploded. Even worse than that, he had to make the call to destroy a relay that ended in the death of 300,000 batarians. Not destroying the relay would have meant the Reapers arriving months earlier and the inevitable destruction of many more lives.

These are only brief examples of the tremendous weight of the choices he’s had to make, the kind of choices that affect the entire world. More often, the answer is clear cut – right and wrong; help or sabotage; save or kill. He has the kind of strong sense of justice you only hear about in movies and myths. But Shepard is a smart man. Sometimes the cruel decision would be the wary, cautious and wise choice. You can’t kill someone because of what they might do. Not Shepard. He does what he believes is right. He’s a noble man and in a cut throat galaxy, that can be seen as a weakness. More than once, his hard, but noble decisions have gotten him in trouble. When the day came knocking for him to take responsibility, Shepard was there to meet it head on. He takes full responsibility for what he does, even if it gets him court-martialed.

He’s been through a hell of a lot – he was dead for two years – but he’s still just a guy. It’s easy to forget, because rarely does Shepard lose the military uniform. He has been nothing but dedicated, to the point his personal life has suffered. Through the course of the trilogy, several years, it is only at the end does Shepard finally engage in a relationship. Because Shepard has been too focused on the mission to relax. If he could though… If he got a break, he’d like to have a couple beers and watch the game just like anyone else. Shepard has an astronomical ability to deal with pressure and stress of situations that decide the fate of the galaxy, but he’s only human. Sometimes, he gets little cracks in his hero attitude. At the end of the day, he’s just a man. He’s always buying fish and he forgets to feed them without someone reminding him. It’s difficult to get licenses for animals on starships, but Shepard has his fish and a spacehamster. He’s as much a pet person as he is a people person. If he could have a varren in his cabin, I wouldn’t put it past him. What time he does have to himself, he spends collecting models. And everyone knows the joke that Shepard can’t dance. He’s just a normal guy.



Skills | Powers:
Shepard is a relatively ordinary human soldier. However, since he died he was rebuilt. He has a large amount of cybernetic implants. It’s unclear how much of him is synthetic as well as how the implants affect his performance. Many of his abilities seem similar to that of a normal human, but I would assume he’s tougher. Several of the upgrades for Shepard in Mass Effect 2 are things such as ‘Heavy Skin Weave’ and ‘Heavy Bone Weave’ – things that make him able to take a little less damage in battle. While he may be more durable, he’s far from indestructible.

Beyond that, his abilities don’t exceed what is mostly capable of a human. As a top marine, he is in excellent shape and his armed abilities are topnotch. He is proficient in all guns available to him, from light to heavy. It is worth noting that the weapons of Mass Effect are advanced, as the trilogy is set in the future. Shepard is proficient in using incendiary and disruptor ammo – as the name suggest, it’s simply a form of advanced ammo that either ignites or disrupts shields. He is also capable of light melee, a physical attack that just uses his body, or heavy melee, an ability that utilizes another piece of advanced technology to strike an enemy.

His strength is primarily in his skills. Shepard is an experienced soldier that has been through an endless amount of fights, many against enemies few others in the galaxy have fought. He’s more than good with a gun and he’s an ace shot. He’s lived more than half his life with a gun in hand. The battlefield teaches you real quick win to get to cover and when to shoot.

Beyond the battlefield, he’s most notably a talented leader and even a good peacemaker. He’s no expert, but he’s done his fair share of hacking where necessary.



First Person Sample:

[Video flickers on, a hint of motion, before his hand steadies and the Commander’s face appears in the center of the video. And his features are pinched, eyebrows furrowed in the tell-tale signs of a mixture of confusion and agitation. He can’t afford to waste time. He tries not to let it show though.]

Tartarus, huh?

I can’t say I appreciate the vacation, considering I didn’t ask for one.... and I’ve never been fond of voices in my head.

[Blame it on the prothean beacon. But if you know Shepard, you know his tone is a little short. The backdrop of the video makes it clear he’s a recent arrival – recent as in he’s only been here a few minutes. He’s still moving at a brisk pace; heeding the direction he got from... whoever that was.]

All right.

Commander Shepard here. Would anyone mind answering a few questions? For starters, where the hell is this? If someone’s feeling generous, I’ve got a few more.



Third Person Sample:

He wakes up like he’s waking from a nightmare; he jolts up, wide-eyed and with a gasp like he just surfaced from the waves. But it’s pitch black and the unexpected darkness he wakes in is alarming as it is disorienting. He can’t see, he can only feel the rocking of the boat, hear the noise of waves. It’s not right. He’s in his gear, the weight of the armor and weapons a reminder that he hadn’t even been on the Normandy. They’d just touched ground. Blindly, his hands grope in the darkness, until he latches onto the sides of the vessel, knuckles white. His mind is working, disoriented and groggy, like he’s been drugged. But the questions are all there. Where is he? What happened? How did he get here? What about his squad? He had to find them.

Before he can trudge through all the questions and concerns, he sees the distant light. And it’s a hard thing to miss that this isn’t the Captain’s Cabin. This isn’t the familiar bed, the sight that greets him when he wakes in his starship. There isn’t the blue light of the aquarium, the dull hum of the core and the creak of bulkheads. This isn’t the Normandy at all. Instead, all he sees is dark water and all he hears is the crash of waves. The ferry rocks with the waters, not unlike a starship in rough atmosphere. Then, the light reveals the pilot.

Quick, too quickly, his eyes snap to the cloaked figure and Shepard forces himself out of the molasses of disorientation, expression hardening. The cloak is ominous, preventing any identification. His hands let go of the ferry, ready to grab a gun. “Hey!” Even to his own ears, his voice still sounds off, but he doesn’t pay any heed. The ferry isn’t stopping and he can’t stop. He needs information, now. The Reapers were on the damn brink of victory; they needed the Catalyst. “Want to tell me what the hell happened, pal?”

No answer, no reaction.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” Again, no answer. Shepard frowns, eyes narrowing at the dark figure. He couldn’t make heads or tails of just what was rowing the ferry, but every instinct in him told him it wasn’t good. There was the same chill that pricked the hair at the back of his neck when something was wrong. And something was wrong. This was a long shot from where he was supposed to be -- he didn’t know where this was. Intending to find out, he pushed himself up, standing – and abruptly, the ferry lurched, nearly shaking the Commander into the water. When he looked, the ferry had glided to a quick stop a dark dock.

One bony hand came from the fabric, pointing forward.

This is your stop. Take the tablet, contact others, welcome to Tartarus. May the gods grant you mercy.

That voice was in his head and it sent a shiver down him at the same time it deepened his frown. Shepard warily watched the person – creature – before he looked back at the dock, beyond it. It looked like there was only one way he was going to get his answer. He took one deep breath and stepped up onto the dark dock. As soon as he had his footing he unlatched his rifle, bringing it forward. This place still wasn’t ringing any bells. Tartarus? No place he knew. He brought one hand up, activating the radio and immediately cringed, ear only greeted by the shriek of static. “Guess I’m going it solo.” His hand dropped back to the gun, eyes set forward into the unknown.