Mass Effect: The Sins of our Past
Prologue: The Life of Jason Shepard as we know it
The great Jason Shepard, hero to some and villain to others; he saved the galaxy a number of times from a great number of threats. However not all his actions have been viewed upon in a good light. Born as a spacer and living his entire life on ships, joining the Alliance at eighteen was a natural choice to follow in his parents footsteps. After this fate looked upon him for the first of many times and he became a war hero, holding the line against impossible odds. The tale of this great hero continues as we all know on a routine mission to Eden Prime. What could possibly go wrong? What followed was a great journey of chasing the rouge Spectre Saren and the Reaper Sovereign.
On this great journey many lives were saved and legacies were created. On the snowy world of Noveria, the Rachni Queen was set free to begin anew with lessons learned. On the planet Virmire Captain Kirrahe and his squad was saved to fight another day along with Ashley. However not all survived to see it through, Kaiden Alenko was killed in action on so that everyone else could escape. Plus he even managed to save the Feros colonists, Exo-Geni science team, and an Asari under the thrall of the bizarre and ancient creature known as the Thorian which he proceeded to destroy. On a bright note in his mission, Shepard thwarted a Batarian terrorist attack upon a human world via dropping an asteroid upon said planet. Saving Balek to preserve lives in the process, Balek went off to do who knows what and the colony lived to see another day. Lastly on Shepard's journey to save the galaxy, he sacrificed the Citadel Council in order to preserve the Alliance fleet to assault Sovereign. With Sovereign destroyed and humanity forming the basis for the new Council, Shepard was sent into the Terminus systems to wipe out the remaining Geth.
Unfortunately the Collectors got to Shepard and destroyed the Normandy SR-1, killing Shepard and large number of the crew. His last moments were spent with his love Liara as well as Joker and, the dying Normandy. The Collectors proceeded to kidnap human colonists across the Terminus systems for an unknown goal. Unbeknownst to the galaxy at large, yet suspected by Cerberus was the fact that the Collectors were actually controlled by the Reapers. Cerberus, looking to further a greater human agenda; wished to stop these abductions and resurrected Shepard to combat the Collectors and ultimately stop the Reapers from invading. So two years after his death, Shepard was awoken for the first time to go on his next journey across the galaxy.
The next installment of Shepard brought the renewed Spectre deep into the Terminus systems to fight the Collector menace far from Council space. Gathering an amazing and large team mixed of old friends and new, Shepard gathered them up, settled their differences and gained all of their loyalty in preparation for what was sure to be a suicide mission. With all of their help, the mission turned out to be anything but a suicide mission as the collectors were defeated, the base preserved and no more lives were lost. Once more the Reapers were thwarted and forced to begin the long trek through dark space to get into the Milky Way galaxy.
After the suicide mission, Shepard began a series of missions for both Cerberus and old friends alike. Beginning with a trip to the planet Aite to determine what happened to the Cerberus project Overlord. What he found was more than anyone bargained for as all but two had been killed in the project, the leader and his autistic brother who was in fact the rogue VI that had killed everyone. By the end, Shepard had had enough and decided to free David Archer from his prison and send him to Grissom Academy.
Next on his mission list was to assist his love, Liara T'Soni in taking down the Shadow Broker and to free her friend. In a crazy twist and turn adventure, the pair found themselves at the Shadow Brokers ship and discovered that the Broker is in fact a Yahg, a race that was forced to stay on their planet for being too barbaric after killing the visiting Council races. After a difficult fight, the Broker was killed and Liara took his place in order to better combat the Reapers and help find any way of stopping them.
Several months before the Reapers were to land, Admiral Hackett asked a favor of Commander Shepard to go check on an alliance project that was in a Batarian system and had gone silent. Shepard traveled there to rescue Doctor Kenson from the Batarians, after rescuing Doctor Kenson he then learned that the Reapers arrival was just days away. Going to confirm the artifact and the time until arrival, he was betrayed by an indoctrinated Kenson and the rest of the science team that is also indoctrinated. After being knocked out and waking up with just hours to spare, Shepard kills Kenson and most of the science team while activating "the project" thereby destroying the relay. Shepard escaped just in time, living to fight again, meanwhile over three hundred thousand Batarians died to delay the return of the reapers.
Finally, the day came and the reapers arrived in the known galaxy. They blasted through the Batarians straight out of the gate, then hitting humans shortly after. Before long the entire galaxy was at war with the reapers. Shepard had been ordered to leave Earth behind during the attack to go rally support, and with knowledge from the Prothean archives on Mars Shepard was able to give the galaxy a fighting chance.
This chance was hard won, curing the Krogan Genophage with the assistance of Mordin Solus, Eve, and Wrex so that Palaven could receive the Krogan support it needed to relieve the pressure upon the planet. Retaking Omega for Aria to unite all the pirates under her leadership so as to have more ships and guns blowing up reapers was rather difficult to achieve. Unifying the Quarians and Geth, thereby ending the Quarian exile from their home world, all it cost was the loss of legion and far too many Quarians. Continuing on, those of the past, old and ancient were awoken to assist against the reapers. The Prothean Javik and the apex species, those known as Leviathan and his fellow survivors, all came together in an unlikely alliance with the other races of the galaxy to take on the Reapers at one final fight at Earth.
Once more unto the breach the heroes went, one final stand, one last fight, at Earth. This was to be the battle of battles that managed to bring Shepard and Anderson to the Citadel to end the cycle. Confronting the Illusive Man and the child, Shepard made the decision to change the fate of the galaxy. He chose to destroy the Reapers, and according to the child, all synthetics would be destroyed.
Those lost along the way were Legion, who sacrificed himself to unify the Geth with the Quarians and to provide the ultimate upgrade to the Geth.
Mordin Solus who died to cure the Genophage, a horrible mistake he now fixed so that the Krogan had the opportunity to rise again.
Thane Krios lost his life protecting the Salarian Councilor, a good fight, if albeit against a lesser foe.
Lastly Admiral Anderson died at the hands of Shepard under the control of the Illusive Man.
All of these people and potentially thousands, millions or even billions more died because of the invasion and Shepard's choice to destroy synthetics. But what really happened after Shepard fired the Crucible? What happened to his love Liara and the crew of the Normandy, or the rest of the species? Was the child telling the truth? Or was he trying to influence Shepard into making a different decision? This is the story of what happened to the galaxy after Shepard changed the course of history forever.