I am just some bloke in my late 20s from the UK who happens to be a bit of a sci-fi nerd. I came here to read Mass Effect fan fics and eventually joined when I wanted to post a review. One day lingering delusions of literary grandeur got to me and I started on my own story!

"Life Could Not Stop, and One Had to Live" is the tale of my version of Commander Shepard and will tell her story from the end of the third game. I have abandoned the parts of the ending after Anderson's death, so there's no need to to analyse what I write in the crazy StarChild world! This of course means that the freaky three way choice (win genocide; be the Reapers; some kind of space magic that screws with everyone through some mystical sounding BS) has not been forced on my Shepard. This was decided not because I wanted to avoid difficult choices, their repercussions and how my Shepard would deal with them - the whole war has been pretty tough on her and I plan on dealing with the impact of a crazy three years in the absence of the woman she loves - but because I thought it was a poor ending to the series.

I had originally intended to tell her back story through flashbacks and conversations with her friends and allies, but I am struggling to shove this device into the rough versions of chapters I am writing without it looking like it has been shoved in. Consequently there has been no progress for months while I ponder the direction of the story. I am now considering abandoning the idea altogether and writing the story in multiple parts, with this first part telling Lena's story after the end of the games and dealing with her recovery from being blasted by a giant laser (in that Harbinger scene) and the Normandy crew's journey home from god knows where (actually the Artemis Tau cluster - just read chapter 3!) in a post-mass relay galaxy. A subsequent part will tell the story of Lena's upbringing on Mindoir and her life in the military, showing the experiences that make her who she is and taking us up to the maiden voyage of the Normandy and possibly beyond. It's obviously difficult to write a good fic taking in the events of the games, remaining faithful to the stories without it being a simple rehash and adding something new without straying so far that your work no longer resembles the universe it is supposed to take place in, and as such I may avoid doing so. I think such a task may be beyond my ability as a writer! If you're desperate for such a tale, read Melaradark's 'Dark Energy' series, which is fantastic from start to whichever stage it is at when you read this, or Sirocco's 'Broken' which is also great, especially when it explores Shepard's past in my opinion.

For a bit of a summary that won't fit on the story page... Commander Lena E. Shepard is a biotic kicker of ass from Mindoir. On Mindoir I will go into colony life and my imagining of how a small community of emigrés from a particular region of Earth (in a similar way to the frequency of finding areas in large cities dominated by one culture or another) develops and bands together. This will also be defined somewhat by my own experiences - part creativity, part laziness! Along the way I'll address some of my pet peeves about Mass Effect (why are well written and interesting female characters presented in such a sexualised manner...?) and this will also affect Shepard's life and character. Lena grows into herself in her colony home until the events that any ME fan will be aware of. From here she grieves, she grows, she moves on and then she winds up on Elysium. I hope through the story to show her reacting to and being formed by these events, ending (and beginning because of the structure of the story) with a rejection of the public-owned, semi-legendary figure she becomes.

Having said that, my writing ability probably won't be up to it! Anyway, do give it a look and please review.

Chapter four, finally beginning to take shape after a long break, has now mutated into chapters four and five (one on the Normandy and one on Earth) so will take a bit more polishing but I hope for them both to be out by the end of the month. Once again, please review when they're out!