author´s note
Hello everyone,
while replaying the Mass Effect Triology I suddenly felt the urge to try writing a story related to it.
My story will start in first person as Shepard writes about his past, but may change to another style in later chapters for "better dynamics".
I will try to be true to timelines etc. but I only played the games and don´t plan on reading the books, so sry if there are things
that don´t add up because of that.
English is not my native language so I hope I didn´t make too many mistakes.
That´s all folks, hope you enjoy how I had some fun with including the other backstories etc.
Mass Effect doesn´t belong to me.
Chapter One - Roots
My name is John Shepard.
Much of my story may be known because of the press, but I like to think that I still have some details up my sleeve.
So let´s start with the beginning, my parents.
My father was Jonathan Shepard and he grew up in Berlin back on earth.
To me he always was a loving father and taught me many things, the hard lessons I needed for life and the fun
lessons to know how to enjoy it. Until I was 12 I have to admit I didn´t know much about his past.
But this one evening when it was just the two of us at home, he decided it was time I knew the truth.
Since I was "becoming a man"...so he grabbed a beer for both of us and we sat down and talked the
whole evening and through the night. I will only give you the short version:
Before he met my mother he was actually a criminal back on earth. As an orphan, raised on the streets of the great
megatropolises covering Earth he only escaped the life of petty crime and underworld gangs because he met my mother.
The orphanage he grew up in was a place of misfits and unwanted children. The stronger ones ruled and the weak had to suffer.
My father told me he learned how to fight and look after himself in those early days more than he would like to give it credit for.
When he was a teenager he ran with a gang. The Tenth Street Reds. It was a small, but brutal gang and my father rose pretty fast in rank...because he only followed his own dogma at the time. He told me that throughout his "criminal career", he held fast to one basic rule: get the job done.
He was called cold, calculating, and brutal. His reputation for ruthless efficiency made his fellow gang members wary of him.
But when failure was not an option, his bosses always went to him first. He once sent 3/4ths of his group of thugs to their death
and murdered surrendering members of another gang during a turf war.
At that time he thought it was the only way of life. He didn´t feel good about it, but he would do whatever it took to survive and succeed.
He was a ruthless renegade.
A few days after that turf war things had settled down and he went out for a drink.
It was a wild night and at the end of it he saw that hot chick with a great ass walking past him. He gave her a spank and tried a
stupid pick up line. The woman just told him "fuck off asshole" and wanted to walk away, but my dad grabbed her arm. Next thing that happened is him
being thrown and crashing to the ground, his arm forcefully hold in a well executed armbar.
He told me it was "love at first pain."
He apologized to the woman and actually respected her for her actions instead of getting mad or violent. So he talked to her and strangely
enough…it turned into a real conversation they both enjoyed. Why my mom took him home that night is still a mystery even to him.
He never went back to the Tenth Street Reds after that night and stayed at my mother´s place.
He had put money on the side and asked my mom to marry him a few weeks later.
"When you find the right woman, time isn´t important" he told me. He just knew she was the one for him.
My mom also chose him as her Mr Right and said yes to both of their suprise at the time. They had a shotgun wedding in 2152.
They made plans to leave earth. My dad didn´t have the best memories on this planet and some of his old contacts wanted to cause him trouble
for leaving the gang so suddenly and my mother was never that attached to earth either.
My mother Hannah was a "spacer" (that´s what my dad called it). Both her parents were in the Alliance military and she spent her childhood
on ships and stations as they transferred from posting to posting, never staying in one location for more than a few years.
My grandparents died while on a mission and my mom wanted to honor them by following in her parents' footsteps, so she enlisted
that year at the age of eighteen. It seems I got the military blood from my mother`s side.
When she was on shore leave she lived in a small apartment in Berlin she had inherited. So one night she wanted to let off some steam, went out, got
groped and found herself a husband.
They decided to buy our farm on Mindoir and move there in 2153.
My dad was among the first 100.000 colonists on Mindoir. Mom had left a few weeks prior for an assignment for the Military, but during a
routine checkup she found out she was pregnant with me.
When she surprised my dad back on Mindoir, 6 month prior to her planned arrival, he was so happy, but still didn´t know why she had returned early.
After she told him about me…my dad actually cried for the first time in his life. She said he swore to rip apart anyone who would try to harm us
and would always be there for us. All renegade again there for a moment.
A few months later I was born on April 11 in 2154 as the very first native Mindoinese.
The media went wild back than my parents told me. Mindoir celebrated my birthday before I had done anything to deserve it. It also started a baby
boom and in just a few years the population had risen quite a lot. By the time of The Raid there were 350.000 people living on Mindoir.
But back to my mother.
When I was 3 years old my mom went on her last assignment. She wanted to quit the Alliance after that and concentrate on being
a mother and help my dad with the farm. Little did she know that on her last assignment she would face alien.
The First Contact War in 2157.
My mother was part of the Second Fleet under Admiral Kastanie Drescher.
The thing she remembers most clearly about that mission was a moment before the drop, some fellow soldiers joked around that the war only started because the mother of that one guy was so damn ugly, the Turians got scared.
After the drop she was part of the ground team that was ordered to retake an old factory, a strategic key location. Close to that factory the Turians
had set up camp and they send elite forces to retake it shortly after my mom´s unit had taken it.
She found herself facing an overwhelming enemy force while holding her position. She risked her own life to save her fellow soldiers and defeat
the enemy despite the impossible odds. Her bravery and heroism earned her medals and recognition from the Alliance fleet.
To her unit she was a War Hero who almost single handedly repelled the counter attack of elite turian forces on Shanxi.
She was ready to sacrifice herself it meant protecting human space and with it her family.
Fortunately it didn´t come to that.
The Citadel Council intervened to negotiate a peace and bring the war to an end. From the Council, we learned of the existence of the Citadel, and
that there were many more sentient species in the galaxy that co-existed peacefully. The rest is galactic history.
My father was just happy when my mother returned to the colony and promised him to never leave again. She quit the Alliance to be with
us and never regretted that decision she said.
Even though I was already born back then, I don´t really remember anything about the time of the First Contact War since I was far too young.
When my mother truly settled on Minoir she was quick to make friends. She was a really empathic woman…wanted to help everyone who was willing to ask for help...like a paragon of the people. Sometimes she would even just help strangers because she heard them
talk about problems...so yeah, I got that from her.
The following years went by quietly. Our family grew when my little sister Jane was born in 2160.
I always took care of her if our parents were not around and was as protective and mean to her as a proper big brother should be. She was the little
sweetheart of our family.
When I was 10 my parents started teaching me Martial Arts and Self Defense. I picked up on that quite fast and loved the training with my parents
and they enjoyed teaching me and later my sister as well. I think both of my parents secretly loved it that they could pass on their hard learned skills.
Maybe that´s why 2 years later my parents even taught me how to use weapons. My dad showed me how to work a blade and a pistol, my mother the
math and gut feeling needed to handle sniperrifle…. People sometimes called them crazy for teaching us at such a young age.
But it did not matter what others thought about us. I loved my family and they loved me right back.
Don´t mess with the Shepards was a golden rule on Mindoir.
Even though there were not many people who tried to mess with us anyway. Our community was pretty tight.
The kids I grew up with…some were born before me and came with their parents from earth or space stations, others were Mindoinese as
well and younger than me. I was lucky enough to have 2 real good friends.
One of them was named Varric. He was short for our age, but had the biggest mouth of them all. We joked around a lot but would be the
first to take a hit for a friend. When we got older he was the first to get a girlfriend and wouldn´t stop teasing us "kids" that he had to
spent time with his Bianca.
The other one was Sten. He was taller than even my dad by the time he was 13. He seemed pretty intimidating and my first encounter with him included
him stealing cookies from another kid. But once you got past his looks and few quirks he was a gentle giant. He had a deep love for paintings, philosophy
and religion….and well…those damn cookies.
Sten brought balance to our group since Varric and I were pretty laid back, but also reckless, while he was looking for the purpose of every action and
was levelheaded. But he always had our backs and we had his. The 3 of us did a lot of stupid things...great times indeed.
I also have to mention one of my school teachers. He was one of the very first 47 scientists and machinists who tested Mindoir for possible settlement.
His dream was to upload his mind into an android since humans were just meatbags and wouldn´t make it in the long run (his words). His name was Hunter Killer.
A strange name but a great man and always open for new opinions. I have to give him credit since his teachings laid the foundation
for my later tech expertize.
We often spent time at his place to learn more and try to help him with his machines.
When he was repairing an engine back in 2168, it suddenly malfunctioned and exploded. He tried to shield us from the explosion and got badly burned.
While we didn´t suffer external injuries we were still exposed to quite a bit of dust form eezo beacause of that accident.
We had to spend a few days in the hospital, just so the doctor could be sure we were all right. The doctor was the grandmotherly kind...her name was Dr. Wynne and she was a very caring old lady. She would often tell us about her granddaughter Talitha, her little 4 year old angel. It was really sweet.
During my stay at the hospital I noticed a girl who visited her mother. They didn´t seem to get along too well so I talked to her.
Like I said earlier, I got that trait from my mom.
While I couldn´t really help them make up I actually grew closer to the girl. She was 2 years older than me and at first she seemed pretty cold. But once
you broke the ice she was a real keeper. Her name was Morrigan and she had bewitched many young men in the colony. We started dating when I was
15 and she would be my first in many regards.
She was my first girlfriend, the first one I kissed, the first one I introduced to my parents and let´s just say her present for our first anniversary
was way better than mine.
I was happy.
It was a simple life but I could have kept living like that and die smiling many years later of old age…but we all know this wasn´t supposed to be.
The first time my life truly changed and went to shit was in 2170.
Two words that would later make any Mindoinese tap his sidearm or his hip (if no sidearm is equipped) at the mention of the Bartarians.
The Raid.