Shepard and Miranda were married at her family's chateau in New South Wales less than a month after V-R Day. They continued to serve on the Normandy, rooting out pockets of Cerberus loyalists and turning the organization's old assets to the common good. Miranda's brainchild, the Infinity Group, became a nonprofit institute dedicated to cross-species liaison in science, diplomacy, and the arts. Four years after the mass relays were reactivated, their work at Infinity provided them an unexpected gift: quarian, geth, and salarian scientists working on techniques to help the quarians adapt to Rannoch found a technique based on the genophage cure that would restore Miranda's ability to have children. Miranda's fondest wish was granted a year later, when she gave birth to twins Kaiden and Jenna. Shepard and Miranda retired from military work to raise their family and run Infinity full-time. Miranda enjoys getting involved up to her elbows in diverse activities all over the galaxy, and Shepard likes putting his people skills to use doing something besides saving it. They love raising their children, and their work gives them both plenty of opportunities to travel and see Oriana and their friends from the Normandy.

Garrus and Tali left the Normandy to move to Rannoch. Tali stepped down from her position on the Admiralty to become the mayor of one of the new communities. Garrus became the town marshal. They married and adopted two children, a turian and a quarian, shortly after. After serving two terms, Tali stepped down so that she could return to the technical tinkering that she so dearly loves. Garrus enjoys taking the kids exploring and teaching them to shoot, especially when Uncle Shepard and Aunt Miranda come to visit. The four of them stayed best friends for the rest of their lives.

Ashley was transferred by the Citadel Council to another frigate, the Scimitar, since having two Spectres on the same ship was a waste of their talents in a time when Spectres were sorely needed to help rebuild. She took command of the Normandy after Shepard left and had a distinguished career, rising to the rank of captain and retiring before they could make her an admiral and put her behind a desk. She still works as a consultant helping to train new recruits, who widely consider her the most dangerous, most helpful instructor they ever had. She married and has three children—all boys, the first named after her father. She still reads and occasionally writes poetry.

Jack returned to the Grissom Academy to work with the Ascension Project full-time. (In my headcanon she didn't leave the Normandy until just before the start of ME3, when they heard the Reapers were coming.) She became the school's beloved black sheep, the teacher they were most embarrassed to have and yet most grateful for. Rumors that Jack's favorite students get tattoos after they graduate have never been confirmed. She and Shepard remained close friends, and while Miranda never truly felt close to her, Jack did help Miranda to get a tattoo of her own.

Liara dedicated the next several years to cataloguing the events and personal stories of the Reaper War. Her memoir of the war, We Stood Together, was a bestseller and praised as the seminal work on the era. She left her work as the Shadow Broker to Feron, who remained Liara's friend and confidante. She excelled in a variety of pursuits over the centuries of the rest of her life, usually in academic and diplomatic fields, and periodically consulting for Infinity. She married twice and has three children.

Wrex returned to Tuchanka to lead its reconstruction once the mass relays were repaired. In his absence, one of the clans rose against clan Urdnot in spite of their common cause in victory over the Reapers. Bakara led Urdnot and its allies and crushed the other clan utterly, which the remaining clans took as a symbol of Urdnot's strength. They proved to be a formidable pair and ruled their people wisely, if not nicely.

Grunt became Wrex's right hand. He rebuilt Aralakh company and was involved in several pitched battles with the rachni, which he considered second only to the Reaper War as the most fun in his life. Grunt became a legendary hero among krogan warriors, and was nicknamed by some "the krogan Shepard." He had several mates but never married.

Vega finished the N7 program, becoming a model soldier and doing Shepard proud. He transferred to the Alliance rapid response force, moving from colony to colony as the frontier continued to expand, having one adventure after another. He eventually married and took up a permanent post on a colony in the Terminus systems still too new to have a name.

Cortez stayed on the Normandy and saved both Shepard's and Ashley's bacon many more times. Shepard called him "the angel on my shoulder." He retired from military life and became a civilian pilot on the frontier. He remained best friends with Vega his entire life.

Samara continued to serve as a justicar for the next twenty years, bringing order to an uncertain galaxy in need of protection for the weak. Afterward, the asari asked her to serve as Councilor for the asari people, which she accepted. Her clear wisdom and unswerving dedication to justice led to her being considered by many historians to be one of the greatest Councilors of all time. A hundred years after the end of the Reaper War, genetic research would yield a treatment for the ardat-yakshi mutation. While still unable to have children, Samara's daughter Falere was able to leave the monastery and experience the gift of joining with others. Samara considered the day Falere left the monastery to be the happiest of her life.

Joker and EDI continued to fly the Normandy until the ship was decommissioned in 2227. EDI's platform was upgraded using geth data storage to enable her to leave the Normandy permanently. They now live at the Citadel, where Jeff is the highest-scoring player at the Armax Arsenal Arena and EDI can observe plenty of strange organic behaviors to ask Jeff about.

Jacob and Brynn—with Infinity's support—worked with former Cerberus scientists to help rebuild the Citadel. When the project was completed. They stayed there for several years after, Brynn working in a laboratory studying ancient power sources and Jacob working for C-Sec's search and rescue arm. In later days they settled on, of all places, Eden Prime, hoping to help make it the beacon of hope it was always meant to be.

Kasumi finally let go of Kagei's memory at the end of the war, seeing the lives that everyone was moving on to and the new opportunities opening up in the galaxy. She wanted to share in it as well. Kasumi wiped Kagei's greybox clean and gave it to Liara before leaving the Normandy. She couldn't think of anyone with better memories to share. She married later in life, and is still the least-known, most successful thief in the galaxy.

Zaeed stayed on the Normandy long enough for Shepard to recover, so that he, Shepard, Garrus and Grunt could go drinking one last time. He then took his mercenary pay and vanished. Nobody knows what happened to him, but it is true that, less than a year later, Vido Santiago of the Blue Suns was assassinated, and less than a year after that, Aria T'Loak gained a new consort whose identity was unknown. Rumor has it that he's human and a lethal son of a bitch.

Randall and Inali married soon after the end of the Reaper War. Randall served as a special operations infiltrator for the Alliance, serving under Ashley on the Scimitar and then the Normandy. He was a member of the insertion team that succeeded in capturing the former Cerberus Director whose experiments had included trying to forcibly convert Inali into a cyborg. Most details of the mission, including the Director's eventual fate, remain classified. Rumors that he was turned over to the krogans as punishment for his experiments on their species have never been confirmed. Inali worked as an electronics expert for the Alliance and remained lifelong friends with Jack, whom Inali described as "a wonderful, tattooed godsend" for her help during Inali's difficult recovery. After retiring from their military careers, Randall and Inali spent much of their time traveling and volunteering for aid organizations. Randall and Inali named their first daughter Jacqueline, after Jack, and asked Jack to be her godmother. When Jacqueline turned 18, Randall and Inali allowed her to get her first tattoo, from Jack.

Kelly became a licensed psychotherapist and social worker, helping people get back on their feet after the war while helping them recover from their emotional scars as well. Many civilians and veterans alike say that they owe her their lives—including Shepard, who called her by vidcom when some of his post-traumatic stress became too much in the early years after the war. Shepard was very fond of her and he and Miranda would make it a point to visit.

Samantha remained on the Normandy, moving from communications to intelligence analysis, using her keen tactical mind to ensure the team had the advantage in every situation. Ashley called her "the ace up my sleeve," a moniker that Samantha loved. When she retired from military service she made a fortune as a stockbroker, a profession she was ideally suited for. She later married. She and her wife adopted two children. They live in a house with a white picket fence and a golden retriever.

Javik went to the Cronian nebula to join his men, as he told Shepard he would... then returned. He realized that his purpose as the prothean avatar of vengeance had been fulfilled. He also admired the courage and sacrifice of the primitives in their final battle against the Reapers, and he felt that continuing to live would be the greatest testament to his people that he could give. Javik now wanders the galaxy as an avatar of hope and justice, similar to the asari woman Samara. He feels it is a role he is not worthy to bear, but shall anyway. Later in life he would marry an asari, and their children became the legacy of the protheans.

Adams, Gabby and Donnelly stayed on as the Normandy's engineering team. Adams served under Shepard and Ashley and finished out his career on the Normandy, eventually retiring to a colony not too far from Earth. Gabby and Donnelly married and later left to join civilian life and help with rebuilding, working on civilian ships and in power plants. They have three children. All three are still friends with Tali.

Anderson's body was found in the wreckage of the Citadel by salvage and repair teams. He was brought home to London, posthumously knighted, and buried next to his parents in a ceremony befitting the first human Councilor and the leader of the resistance on Earth. The entire Normandy team attended, as well as the Citadel Councilors and other dignitaries from around the galaxy. Kahlee Sanders spoke a moving eulogy. The replacement for Arcturus Station was named Anderson Station in his honor, and his dog tags are preserved in a shrine at the British Museum.

General History

After the Crucible fired, Quarian search teams on Rannoch found no geth platforms operational and all data cores powered off, but completely undamaged. Unwilling to risk damaging the geth by tinkering with them while trying to help, they guarded the data cores and ensured they remained safe and undamaged until live geth returned to Rannoch a year later. One by one the data cores were brought back to life. To this day, Awakening Day is celebrated as a holiday to remember the reconciliation of the geth and quarians, and their restoration to life by geth and quarians working side by side.

In future years, the rachni and krogan would fight wars over several planets, many never known by the other races, as both began to expand into the same hostile environments they preferred living on. Ironically, this has been a good thing, since both enjoy the challenge of testing themselves, and this serves to keep their populations and aggressive instincts in check. A salarian analyst observed, "The krogan and rachni are the apex predators of our galaxy. It's a good thing their favorite prey is each other."

The Citadel Council governed from Thessia for the full decade that it took to repair the Citadel and learn to maintain it, since the Keepers were killed by the Crucible effect. The Citadel was eventually returned to its place in the Serpent nebula. Its repair and restoration to the nebula was the first of many landmark feats of galactic cooperation to come.

The restoration of the Citadel to its rightful place was also celebrated by the dedication of the Reaper War Memorial at the center of the Presidium: a circle of statues, men, women and children of all the races, standing together holding hands facing outward from a towering fountain. The fountain itself is behind a fence for safety reasons, but people are allowed to duck under the statues' arms and walk inside the circle to symbolically experience how we stood for one another in the war. The crew of the Normandy gathered together again, as well as Admiral, now Councilor, Hackett, veterans from the final battle, and other heroes from across the galaxy. As the memorial fountain was turned on, children who were born after the end of the war ran inside the circle to play. Shepard pulled Miranda close, and said, "That's what we fought for."