Issues of Omniscience

Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect, and am not making money off of these stories.

That said, the world these hypothetical train-wreaks of a story take place in is AU, and anyone expecting sanity or canon should flee far away. The idea for these stories came from playing Mass Effect 3, and my realization that EA didn't lay on the Messianic overtones nearly enough. To correct this, I have decided to make this series of barely connected stories based on a universe where Shepard gains near omniscience from using the Beacons.

Chapter O/1 is the introduction written in the style of a bad preface to an utterly generic history textbook. If that is not your thing, move on to the actual madness.

Text key

"speaking" "thinking" "Reaper speaking" -Scene info-

-Chapter 0; The Only Possible Genuine and Absolutely Trustworthy and Non-Contradictory History of Commander Shepard, and How he Came to be Remembered as he is Today-

-A History with an Over-Long Title-

Written in Liquid Sincerity By Noctis Sol

There are few historical figures that are more inspiring, but less clear than Commander Shepard. Almost any school-child will be able to tell you the generics of his greatest deeds, but most of the details are either unclear, or contradicted. This has gotten to the point where it seems that no one knows his given first name, or if he was actually a he or if Shepard was actually a female. Many Post-Post-Post-Modern Historians dismissed him as nothing more than a fictional character akin to the ancient legends of Hercules, Aladdin, or Donald Trump. This is of course preposterous, as the ample amount of historical records, inscribed monuments, and memes attest. Thus, the Author has undertaken the effort to write the first Post-Post-Post-Post Modern History which will obviously please everyone and stand until the end of time as the definitive history of Commander Shepard.

Before any more progress is made, the question of Shepard's gender must be answered. As astute readers can tell, the Author maintains the view that Shepard was male. There have been an astounding number of occurrences of confused gender in the past, both fictional (The infamous Bishonnen Link debacle of 2023 bears this out1) and Historical (It seems that half of society believes that the president Clinton who was the second American president to be impeached was a Woman. That is absurd. That president Clinton was the third2). However, this instance of gender confusion is caused primarily by a translation mishap, rather than ignorance. Most students learned about the deeds of the commander through reading the Portland University translation of Liara's records, since the alliance lost their information on Shepard during the 7-Zetabyte incident. The reason that Liara's record is significant is that it was written in her native Asari dialect, as well as Portland University's wooden translation policy.

The problem begins with specific dialect in which Liara wrote her record. Most Asari dialects have adapted their pronoun system to be fully bi-gendered; however, the Pureblood Dialect is partially-gendered. What that means is that while male and female pronouns do exist, they are not used for people, only animals. Thus, whenever she referenced someone for whom she held high respect, she would use a pronoun that is considered feminine. While an in-depth study would easily parse out this minor miscommunication, the overworked TAs at Portland University did not have that time. As an Alumnus of PU I must be the first to admit that their translations stink, and that they should really change their name around. The translation issue was only made worse by the Portland Blackout Rebellion, which spanned the course of the writing and cut off the translators from outside sources. While the minor issue would normally have been corrected by Citadel Fact Checkers, it just so happened that the checkers for this work included a belligerent Radical Feminist. The rest is probably best explained by the sharp rise in hospitalizations for omni-blade castrations.

That is not to say that The Author believes a woman to be incapable of the feats that Shepard accomplished, it's just that Shepard's N-7 armor contains a cod-piece and a distinct lack of breasts.

Now that Shepard's gender is solved, his history can be unraveled. Contrary to popular belief, Shepard's first name is actually well know, and said by nearly everyone who speaks of him. He was born Commander Shepard to James and Hannah Shepard, two individuals who nearly deserve books unto themselves. James Tiberius Shepard was the son of Kirk Shepard, the famous general who negotiated the peace for the First Contact War and also the one who invented Fornax. The mother is unknown but rumors at the time assert that the mother was a Krogan War Mistress that he defeated in hand-to-hand. James himself was famed for being the first non-Krogan to train on Tuchanka, as well as killing a Thresher Maw on foot. Hannah Ripley Smith Shepard was famous for being the first human to beat a Turian team at War Games, and the only one to do so single-handedly. She was the one who chose the strange name for her son.

Near the time of Commander's birth, a Volus ship crash-landed on earth, and the suits of three of the crew were ruptured. Since the integration of translators and the extranet were still ongoing at that time, the Volus were left asking desperately for skilled assistance using the job titles Smith and Tailor. Those were common Earth names, and misunderstandings led to the first responders thinking they were looking for people by the name of Smith or Taylor. Due to the confusion, the three Volus died, and the Alliance Politicians made a bill that, had it passed, would have required everyone with a name that was also a profession to legally change their name. Understandably, both James Shepard and Hannah Smith would have been affected. The bill took nearly a decade to be dismissed, but Commander was born during that time, and given his strange name as a small dig against the meddling pencil pushers.

Unfortunately, one of the nurses thought that the strange name was a sign of poor parenting and kidnapped the child, leaving him in an orphanage. Commander would spend the first eight years of his life in that orphanage, learning the shadier side of the world from the older children in the orphanage. On his eighth birthday was the first and only time he got caught stealing. Coincidentally, it just so happened to be by his uncle, who adopted him and brought him out to live in the colonies. For three years Commander lived as the adopted child of his aunt and uncle Beru and Owen. It was on his Eleventh birthday that the Batarians attacked Mindor, killed his aunt and Uncle, as well as the first time that Shepard used a gun. Good came out of the attack though, as his mother found him when she was sent to help the colony. Shepard finally re-united with his parents, and joined the Alliance where the brass accidentally thought that his name was his rank and assigned the new commander to Elysium, where there would at least be back-up. In a strange twist of fate, the "new guy" saved the colony and became a hero, but refused promotion to "Screw with everyone's' heads."

Commander's next assignment was the tragedy at Akuze. The Alliance forces were lured into a thresher nest with a false distress beacon. Almost everyone died. Shepard lived up to his parents' legacies by managing to force the Thresher maws to retreat, but it seemed that he was the only survivor. It was soon after Akuze that Shepard left for N-7 training. Not long after his return, he was assigned to the new experimental ship Normandy SR-1. His first mission aboard the ship was when everything changed, and history was remade in his image…

For those of you who aren't Americans/ are Americans but are ignorant of either history or recent politics; Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in 1998. In 2016 his wife, Hillary Clinton, ran for president amid a scandal where she carelessly handled sensitive if not classified information. Should she elected, I find it likely that she would make another bungle or do something else careless enough to warrant impeachment. Not that Trump would necessarily be better, but at least then the media wouldn't hesitate to call him out.