Ren's Note:
I'm pretty much a soppy paragon all the time, so I thought I'd challenge myself to get outside the comfort zone. Dumping a prologue in here to feel it out, will write more as I explore events. Not going to be a long novelization, more like highlights of important things.
Will adjust rating, likely end up an M (for language and adult content) if the bastard gets his way in everything.
Mass Effect property of Bioware.
You always wanted a reason for everything. For me. Nature? Nurture? Did God have a hand in this? Did the Devil? It would be so easy to point at one thing and say "That's to blame for that Shepard boy."
You wanted everything easy. It was my life's goal to make it hard. I believe in everything and nothing at all. God, the Devil, they're all the same to me. The only thing I truly believe in is math.
I always liked math. It had a hand in everything where God came up short and the Devil didn't do enough. There were no secrets with math. It added up or it didn't. You check your work and you try again, because if it isn't working it's your fault, not math's. Math is blameless. It just Is.
That's how I did what I did. No one ever gets that. You always want to know my feelings or thoughts or opinions. As if those have the slightest bearing on anything. Those are mistakes other people make. I just do the math.
Torfan. Simple numbers. The less of your enemy left alive is less you have to kill later.
The Council. A little more complex. The Destiny Ascension was a nice ship, but a nice asari ship, so that variable doesn't quite fit the equation. Hundreds of human lives compared to three ineffectual bureaucrats, however? You don't even need a calculator for that.
The Collector Base. Show your work. You can't prove something exists if you blow it up.
The Alpha Relay. How many lives are worth how many months? Tougher equation, because it's about people versus time. I gave you six months for 300,000 batarians. You tell me if it was worth the cost.
I'm not merciful or heartless, I just did the goddamn math. I'm an engineer, not a saint. Though I do get called a devil. The devil is in the details, after all. And I see the details no one else sees. Or refuses to see because your sentiments fuck it all up.
You don't see the Reapers wasting time with sentiment. I admire them, in a way. Efficient. Thorough. Emotionless. They assess and destroy. Simple.
To beat them we need to be just as ruthless, efficient and thorough.
To beat them, you need me.
Testimony of Cmdr J. Shepard, Systems Alliance Tribunal
2186