Disclaimer: It's not mine, it's Bioware's. I don't take credit for their characters, and I refuse to be held responsible for Mass Effect 3.
Author's Note: I realize most people prefer reading about a Jane or John Shepard. Sorry, but my Jane has a whole different background and storyline and I get confused easily. This is Gen Shepard. Or Geneva, if you prefer. Hope that's not a problem for anyone.
To the Human
Garrus Vakarian was on leave, drinking with his comrades in a bar on Oma Ker during the Akuze incident. The weight of the event wasn't immediately clear; it was just a report that was tacked on to the end of a news wave.
One of the combat engineers, Tullius, laughed at human foolishness: "Only a human would go poking around a colony that went silent," he said. "Is it surprising that they lost the rescue team too?"
Humans, Garrus realized, had this bizarre sensibility that leaving a man behind is a failure. They don't honour sacrifices—they mourn them.
Two days later, the report about Lieutenant Shepard was at the front of every news wave—a first in turian journalism. The sting of being forced to pay reparations to humanity for the Relay 314 incident was handled, culturally, by ignoring the race as a whole unless they posed a threat. The only time humans were commented on in the news was when they had made an amusing mistake, like running headfirst into a colony that had gone dark, or when they had angered the Hierarchy in some way.
Lieutenant Geneva Shepard was the only solider of fifty to have survived: a young officer, less than a year out of training. She killed a Thresher Maw on foot, surviving two days out in the sands of Akuze before making it back to the evac zone. It played well to turians—one man, as it were, made it out alive. She was a bloody mess (literally,) but she didn't surrender. She didn't give into a giant carnivorous worm, and she didn't give in to the pain of a face ripped open and several broken bones. She limped off the evac transport, ignoring two medics who followed frantically, carrying an empty stretcher.
"Way to survive, Human." Garrus toasted, raising a glass to the vid projector.