Personal Heroes

by chidoriprime

A war hero's son reflects upon the man he never got the chance to meet, and decides to interview and record the stories told by the friends, family, and various allies and 'acquaintances' who meet and fought alongside his father; from the earliest days of his childhood up to the last, fateful days of the Reaper War.

1. Chapter 1

Not everyone knows the full truth about their personal heroes because history has a really annoying habit of distorting details for its own benefit. They don't like to see their shinning supermen revealed to be nothing more than that, just ordinary men who have the same human weaknesses as any other person out there. They want to show heroes as having no weaknesses, no faults, and no blemishes to detract from their status as gods among men.

Commander John Alan Shepard, a man who spent half his life living aboard ships in space, who became a war hero by single-handedly halting a batarian raid on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz, and who earned the distinction of becoming the first human member of the Citadel Council's fable Specters, was one such man.

He stopped Sovereign and the rouge turian Saren, was killed but resurrected by the human supremacist group Cerberus to stop the Collecters, and was the man who rallied the galaxies' inhabitants to fight back against the Reaper invaders. And in the end, Shepard choose to take control of the Reapers, dying in the process of becoming their new master intelligence, an intelligence that came to reflect the Commander's own moral code of peace and cooperation, directing the Reapers to repair all the damage they had caused during the war.

A modern day Jesus Christ figure, as many a Christian would tell you these days, and a bright, untainted legend to all.

But that's the thing. That's not the real man. Nobody really seems to know who the real Commander Shepard is anymore.

Everyone paints this perfect picture of a fearless warrior who stood firm in the face of a galactic catastrophe and nobly sacrificed himself for the greater good of all, but nobody remembers that Shepard was only one man, a guy who was just as scared as the rest of us, who wondered whether he was making a difference in a vicious war that seemed doomed to failure no matter what he did.

He had sleepless nights plagued by nightmares; he mourned the loss of anyone who he lost under his command when they died under his command in spite of his best efforts. He was always uncomfortable about being the center of attention, and he always insisted that he was just a regular soldier, nothing more or less.

In other words, John Shepard just thought of himself as human as any other person out there. And I know that better than anyone alive.

After all, I am his son. And Mom has never once tried to bullshit me with anything but the truth about Dad.

….