Jane Shepard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
normandeering) wrote2013-06-14 03:41 am
normandeering) wrote2013-06-14 03:41 am
(no subject)
OOC:
Name: Caten
Are you over 16?: I seem to be still
Personal DW:viking
Email: catenalwera [at] gmail [dot] com
Timezone: GMT+1
Other contact:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
vikinged
Characters already in the game: Anders (onetrackminds)
How did you find us?: I AM YOUR OVERLORD BOW DOWN BEFORE ME
IC:
Character name: Jane Shepard
Fandom: Mass Effect
Timeline: Seconds before meeting the starchild.
Age: 32
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Shepard is a biotic, which is, well, essentially space magic. It's a form of telekinesis, where you can move yourself, other people, or objects with the help of your mind and some blue glow-y lights. It's also possible to use them to create miniature black holes, or to deplete health and shields from your enemies, though not everyone is necessarily capable of that. Shepard's abilities are as follows:
Barriers/shields: She surrounds herself with her biotics, which protect her.
Pull: Shepard throws blue glow-y lights at an enemy, causing them to be pulled into the air and towards her, where they can more easily be dealt with. She can also do this to objects, such as shields, although nothing too heavy.
Biotic Charge: Shepard focuses on a specific point ahead of her (for the sake of game mechanics it's always an enemy) and charges forward, slamming into them. The enemy is staggered or falls over, and takes a great deal of damage, while Shepard herself is perfectly fine and ready to follow it up by shooting them in the face. It also restores some of her barriers should she need it.
Shockwave: This is a wave of biotic energy sent forwards along the ground, toppling anyone it hits.
Dark Channel: Shepard latches a biotic field onto an enemy, which does persistent damage over time. If the enemy dies, the field moves on to a second target.
Nova: Shepard punches her ground, using the energy from her own biotic barriers to send out a wave of deathly destruction in all directions. Nearby enemies fall over and take damage, although it's a fairly close range attack. It also leaves her more vulnerable until her barriers restore.
How would they use their abilities?: To take down anyone she deems enough of a threat.
Appearance: She's tall and fairly strong; lean more than built, but she makes sure to keep in good shape, and there's a great deal of muscle there. She's got red hair and green eyes, and a very prominent hawk-shaped nose.
Background/Personality: Shepard was born on earth not long after humanity discovers "mass effect physics," allowing for faster space travel and exploration of the solar system, and, with the further discovery of the mass relay system, travel into other systems as well. She grew up an orphan on earth during this time, so even as humanity made contact with other alien species, and a war broke out in space, she was mostly unaffected. She would hear about it on TV, of course, but the prospect of being out there, at the time, seemed almost far-fetched.
At the age of fourteen Shepard was exposed to something called element zero. A dangerous and highly volatile substance, it is often used for fuel as well as countless other things. But it also directly affected Shepard's physiology. Though she was unaware of it at the time, she was developing biotic abilities.
She joined a gang; she committed some petty crimes; and she got into fights. A lot. She was good at it. She earned something of a reputation, in fact. She enjoyed the thrill of what they did, and found she had a knack for getting herself and others out of impossible situations. Every day, though, she would see recruitment posters. "Join the Alliance Military. Travel; see what's out there; protect humanity." And she also did have a bit of romantic streak.
When she was seventeen, her biotic abilities were finally detected, and she was fitted with implants to help her control them. But biotics faced a great deal of prejudice. If they could not control their abilites, they might accidentally hurt or even kill someone; and though research had been done, little was known about biotics still. Other species had offered knowledge, but it was far from common in humans. And while Shepard found the abilities useful whenever she got into a fight, it also meant she had fewer prospects ahead of her. And she was smart enough to know she couldn't keep up her current lifestyle forever. Not without turning to bigger crimes, and getting deeper in with some dangerous people. People she found she really did not like. Up until then what she did had seemed harmless; now, not so much.
She left her gang the day she turned eighteen, without so much as a word, and headed for the nearest recruitment office. And she never looked back after that.
The abilities that helped her so much as a gang member served her well in the military as well. And biotics were more than welcome there. She worked her way up the ranks, working hard to prove herself every day. She had a reputation for being reliable, for always having your back.
She was on a planet called Elysium when a group of aliens called Batarians launched an all-out attack. Humans had previously settled on planets the Batarians considered within their territory, and to say that tensions were high would be an understatements. They had taken to supporting piracy and slavery as long as it was aimed at humanity, and this colony was to be their latest target. Shepard fought them back, almost single-handedly. When the Batarians broke through their defenses, she personally took down every last man to pass through the breach, until they could get them back up again. After that, they called her a war hero, and shipped her off for N7-training.
N7 is a name for a group of the absolute best within the Alliance Military, often sent to do near-impossible missions. She training was difficult, but Shepard soon passed. Her name was starting to hold some serious weight, and not only amongst humans.
It was still a few years before she was assigned to the SSV Normandy, under Captain David Anderson. A Spectre joined them on board. Spectres were known as the right hand of the Council; a group of alien leaders working to further the interests of all species within the galaxy. Humanity had not yet earned a place on the Council, but they were fighting for it, hoping to gain further influence within the galactic community. And, as Shepard was soon informed, she was being considered as the first human Spectre.
It was an honor, and one she fully intended to fight for. For her first mission alongside the Spectre Nihlus, they were sent to the human colony of Eden Prime. But, of course, things did not go quite as planned. The geth, a group of robots who had centuries ago achieved Artificial Intelligence, launched an attack. They were after a Prothean Beacon; a message left behind by a long extinct species. Nihlus was killed, by yet another Spectre workign with the geth. Shepard saved the colony, and found the beacon before the second Spectre, Saren, could destroy it. But the message she got from it was impossible to understand. The beacon destroyed itself moments later.
Shepard went to report this to the Council, and found them skeptical of what she had seen. Visions were not reliable, after all. She did find proof that Saren was a traitor; he lost his Spectre status, and she was given hers. She was also given full command of the Normandy.
Over the next few months Shepard worked to uncover what Saren was after, and doing her damnedest to track him down in the process. She knew from her vision that it had something to do with synthetics called the reapers, and she suspected they had been the ones to wipe out the protheans. She picked up a few people on her way, aliens as well as humans, believing everyone needed to work together on this. If her vision was true, far more was at stake than a few human colonies.
She finally tracked Saren down on a planet called Virmire. She fought her way through the base and into his lab, where she was able to communicate with his ship. Except it wasn't a ship; it was a reaper. She learned that they were destroying organic beings for reasons too difficult for her to understand (or so it said), and confirmed that they had indeed killed the protheans, before cutting her off.
She intends to destroy the base, and has one of her crew, a human biotic named Kaidan Alenko, arm a bomb for her. In the meantime she hurries to to offer aid to a different memeber of her crew, Ashley Williams fighting alongside a group of aliens. They're pinned down by the geth, and as the bomb needs a few minutes to arm, she is not needed at the bomb site. But before she can make it there, Kaidan is attacked as well. He promises to make sure the bomb goes off no matter what. Shepard chooses to continue on to save the salarians and Ashley.
Once there she is finally face to face with Saren. He finally tells her more about why he's helping the reapers. He believes that in order to evolve, synthetics and organics need to work together. He believes the Reapers will bring them glory. He says their option is to work with them, or to be destroyed, and claims the first option is preferable. Shepard accuses him of having lost his mind. However, he gets away, and Kaidan Alenko dies.
Shepard continues to blame herself for his death; and Ashley continues to believe she should have been left behind. But part of being a leader is having to make difficult choices, and Shepard knows that. She stands by her decision.
And she doesn't have time to grieve. She has by now made enough sense of her vision to know that her next step should be the planet Ilos. She travels there to discover an underground facility where the protheans attempted to survive through cryogenic freezing. But the facility had lost power over the millenia, and none survived. She instead spoke to a virtual intelligence, who told her that the facility had remained secret to hide from the reapers, and had been working on ways to stop them. The reapers destroyed all space-faring organics every 50 000 years or so, and started their offense by taking the citadel, a giant space station which is the centre of galactic politics. It is also where the Council is.
The Citadel was actually built by the reapers, and left there to allow species each cycle to occupy it. In this way, they left themselves vulernable to the reapers. But the protheans had managed to infiltrate the station, and stopped it from sending out the signal telling the reapers to attack. That was what Saren was after; he needed to send off the signal again.
Shepard followed him back to the Citadel, and stopped him. Saren's ship, the reaper, attacked, but the joint military forces managed to destroy it, if barely. The Council was safe, and again Shepard was declared a hero. Humanity earned a spot on the Council, taken up by a man named Udina, the former ambassador. And Shepard was free to continue with her other duties.
For a while at least. Not long after, a mysterious ship appeared out of nowhere and destroyed the Normandy. Most of the crew evacuated. Shepard died.
Two years later she woke up again. A group called Cerberus had spent millions of dollars reviving her, rebuilding her body. They said they needed her help, that she was a symbol. She remembered Cerberus as a group of terrorists and scientists known for going much too far, but they claimed only to work for humanity's interests. They claimed that these groups she had dealt with were not a representation of the whole. She remained skeptical, but the issues they presented her with were real. Human colonies were being attacked, the colonists disappearing; something had to be done, and she's never been good at sitting back and letting something happen.
But the fact she was now working for Cerberus got out fast, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. After all, she was using their assets, not supporting their actions. They had revived her, and rebuild the Normandy for her. But even Ashley Williams, who she had saved back on Virmire, was angry with her now. She had to find herself a new crew.
This time, the guilty party seemed to be the Collectors, a species little was known about, who lived past a relay no one else had ever been able to travel through. That was to be her goal; referred to only as her Suicide Mission.
But she survived, alongside her entire crew. And, as it turned out, it was actually the Reapers all along. The Collectors were actually Protheans, genetically modified to become a slave race, mindlessly following the will of the Reapers. They had not been stopped back on the Citadel, only delayed. And humans had been disappearing for a very grotesque reason: Each cycle, the Reapers would harvest intelligent species, and use them to make more Reapers. And now a human Reaper was being built. Of course, Shepard destroyed it.
She also destroyed the entire station, much to the dismay of the leader of Cerberus. But Reaper technology had proven to have brainwashing-capabilities, even long after it was thought to be dead or destroyed. It was not worth the risk to her.
And it was not long before she discovered just how close they were to an all-out invasion. Out on a mission to help a friend, in the middle of Batarian territory, she discovered a group of scientists working with Reaper technology. It was emitting signals at a regularly increasing rate. And the scientists were, of course, brainwashed. She learned that once the signal reached its climax, the reapers would be upon them, and they only had a few days left.
She had to make another difficult choice then. The Mass Relay in that system would be the point of entry for the reapers. So she destroyed it, and everyone who lived in the solar system as well. Several hundred thousand batarians died. Shepard was brought back to earth for her actions, facing military procedures that would prove to take months. And the reapers had still not been stopped.
It was inaevitable; six months later, earth was attacked, and the number of reapers were staggering. They also turned any species they could catch into modified version, much as they had done with the protheans when they turned them into collectors. They had an army that just kept growing. Shepard barely escaped Earth with her life (although death didn't stop her last time).
Their only hope was a prothean device called the Cricible, thought to be a weapon of some sort. They later discovered that it had, in fact, been worked on by countless species throughout the millenia, but never finished. Their best scientists were put to the task, while Shepard travelled the galaxy trying to get the many species to work together.
She mostly succeeded, too. The Batarians were understandably still bitter, and had few numbers since Shepard had blown up their solar system; and the Salarians were not willing to aid earth, not after Shepard helped another species, the Krogan, fix a genetic mutation caused by the salarians (well, invented by them; a different species altogether implemented it), which meant only one in a thousand krogan babies survived. Galactic politics at its best. But the crucible was finished, and the final attack was launched.
The Reapers had, by then, taken the Citadel, and brought it to Earth. They were the strongest there, making it near impossible to get to it. But the Citadel was vital for the weapon to work; it was in a way the trigger mechanism. So they went all out, every species bringing the full might of their military into the solar system. And Shepard made her way into the Citadel itself.
She found the leader of Cerberus there, along with David Anderson, the original Captain of the Normandy (now an Admiral). She killed the former, but Anderson had been injured badly, and died only moments later as well. But the attack on earth had been a success; the Crucible had been connected to the Citadel. And a moment later... nothing happened.
Then suddenly, and elevator started to bring Shepard up into the ceiling. And she found herself on the Thor.
Shepard is a soldier through and thought, and could not imagine herself living any other kind of life. She believes in action, in standing up for what you believe in, and in protecting people. Not to mention she loves the thrill of a good fight.
She had always been a hard-worker, believing it is the only way she can ever achieve anything. She holds herself to incredibly high standards, and expects the best of those she works with as well. If she's not preparing for a fight, she's learning about something new; or she's exercising, or improving her skills with a weapon, or working on her biotic abilities. She makes sure she gets enough rest when she can, knowing she risks lives other than her own if she goes into battle tired.
In this way, her days tend to have a regular schedule when she's not too busy fighting for her life. She goes to bed at the same time when she can, rises early, eats at set times, and forgets to include time to relax and simply have fun. Occasionally she is dragged away for some R&R by a friend, though, and when that happens she tends to go all out. She can drink most people under the table, and is equally determined to prove it. She'll dance, although she's crap at it, and try to forget her responsibilities for a little while. Though it isn't easy.
She's friendly, and honestly cares about people - not just humans, either. She'll chat them up and try to learn about them and their lives. They are what she's fighting for, and it helps ground her, in a way. She's very understanding that people outside of the military might not be equipped to deal with what she does, and is supportive to those who find themselves in difficult situations. She seeks diplomatic solutions, when she can, fighting down the urge to punch her way through opposition. After all, the military isn't about war; it's about protecting people. And fighting always has the opposite effect of that.
She has a limit, though. Annoy her or catch her on a bad day and she might just punch you in the face if you push her too hard. And she knows that sometimes difficult decisions are unavoidable, and she has to live with that. She'll weigh the various risks up against each other, and sometimes the safest route is a bullet through someone's head.
She's also, in a way, a bad loser. She won't complain if you do win, and might congratulate you, but she's highly competitive. She'll do her damnedest to make sure it will never happen again. She never gives up, even after she's lost, because it's only the final victory that actually counts. You could beat her fifty times, but if she has the upper hand on the fifty first, she considers that the end score.
Lately, though, her life really has been all fighting. Against reaper forces and against people who should be her allies. She's watched people she cares about die. She's getting tired. She'll never admit it, but there is a limit to how much even she can take. She'll keep going though, until it kills her. It's all she knows how to do. And as long as there's an enemy around, it's time to pick up a gun, because you can't expect anyone else to deal with it if you won't.
Why do you want to continue their history here: N/A
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: Aside from the obvious gender difference, Jane Shepard has a different way of approaching problems to that of Jim Shepard. He is what would be called a renegade in game - direct, aggressive - while she leans more towards paragon tactics - diplomatic - though with occasional forays into renegade territory. It's all about balance. More than that, though, since the MC in these games is entirely player controlled, their relationships with certain characters might vary, the results of their actions differ, and though the overall story remains the same, the variations can be huge.
Have you read up on how the game works?: Thieving (done that); working (does that); mooching (never even considered it). Oh, and the Flaming Ferret.
1st person sample: [Shepard is slouched against a wall in the New Arrivals area, looking, well, somewhat worse for wear. She's bruised all over, bleeding in several places, and her breathing is ragged. A more apt description might be that it looks as if several pro boxers used her as a punching ball for an hour.
She clearly needs medical attention, but for now it isn't exactly slowing her down much.
She isn't facing the feed, instead typing into something orange and glow-y that surrounds her arm. When she speaks, she faces that instead of the Guide.]
This is Commander Shepard of the Alliance. I am stranded on an unknown vessel, seeking assistance. Unknown alien species present, but no obvious hostiles. I am unable to pinpoint my own location, but I'll have my omnitool emit a short-range signal. I advise to proceed with caution.
I will report back once I know more about the situation. Shepard out.
[she again types into her omnitool, and it disappears. Then she faces the Guide, picks it up to adjust the angle.]
So. Do any locals feel like filling me in on what's going on?
3rd person sample: There once was a soldier named Shepard
They say she was as fierce as a leopard
But to be perfectly frank
That reputation sank
Her past is one that is checkered
Shepard stared at the rhyme, wondering who the hell in their right mind would write something like that. Then again, maybe they weren't. And she was hardly unused to attention, either, receiving regular fanmail and requests for interviews; and rumours and theories about her could be found in magazines all the time. But it seemed to her they'd been truly grasping at straws lately.
The flyer in her hand had been spread amongst all the refugees on the Citadel, though thankfully most of them seemed to be ignoring it. What did it even mean, though? She frowned; her past was checkered, she got that, but what did that have to do with her fierceness.
Maybe she should have allowed them to use her likeness in a few more vids, show them what she could really do. Or maybe not; that might be playing into it.
She crumpled the flyer and tossed it aside, deeming it unworthy of her attention. She had more important things to do. Galaxies to save. She had little time to waste, too, and after finishing up her errands she headed back to the Normandy. Her next stop would be the Volus homeworld.
And when a few days later a leopard costume mysteriously appeared in her quarters, she booted it out the airlock without a second thought. Now that was just wasted prank money.
disclaimer: limerick written by Sheepi
Questions?: CAKE??
Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: I hope so since I made this question.
Name: Caten
Are you over 16?: I seem to be still
Personal DW:
vikingEmail: catenalwera [at] gmail [dot] com
Timezone: GMT+1
Other contact:
Characters already in the game: Anders (
onetrackminds)How did you find us?: I AM YOUR OVERLORD BOW DOWN BEFORE ME
IC:
Character name: Jane Shepard
Fandom: Mass Effect
Timeline: Seconds before meeting the starchild.
Age: 32
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths: Shepard is a biotic, which is, well, essentially space magic. It's a form of telekinesis, where you can move yourself, other people, or objects with the help of your mind and some blue glow-y lights. It's also possible to use them to create miniature black holes, or to deplete health and shields from your enemies, though not everyone is necessarily capable of that. Shepard's abilities are as follows:
Barriers/shields: She surrounds herself with her biotics, which protect her.
Pull: Shepard throws blue glow-y lights at an enemy, causing them to be pulled into the air and towards her, where they can more easily be dealt with. She can also do this to objects, such as shields, although nothing too heavy.
Biotic Charge: Shepard focuses on a specific point ahead of her (for the sake of game mechanics it's always an enemy) and charges forward, slamming into them. The enemy is staggered or falls over, and takes a great deal of damage, while Shepard herself is perfectly fine and ready to follow it up by shooting them in the face. It also restores some of her barriers should she need it.
Shockwave: This is a wave of biotic energy sent forwards along the ground, toppling anyone it hits.
Dark Channel: Shepard latches a biotic field onto an enemy, which does persistent damage over time. If the enemy dies, the field moves on to a second target.
Nova: Shepard punches her ground, using the energy from her own biotic barriers to send out a wave of deathly destruction in all directions. Nearby enemies fall over and take damage, although it's a fairly close range attack. It also leaves her more vulnerable until her barriers restore.
How would they use their abilities?: To take down anyone she deems enough of a threat.
Appearance: She's tall and fairly strong; lean more than built, but she makes sure to keep in good shape, and there's a great deal of muscle there. She's got red hair and green eyes, and a very prominent hawk-shaped nose.
Background/Personality: Shepard was born on earth not long after humanity discovers "mass effect physics," allowing for faster space travel and exploration of the solar system, and, with the further discovery of the mass relay system, travel into other systems as well. She grew up an orphan on earth during this time, so even as humanity made contact with other alien species, and a war broke out in space, she was mostly unaffected. She would hear about it on TV, of course, but the prospect of being out there, at the time, seemed almost far-fetched.
At the age of fourteen Shepard was exposed to something called element zero. A dangerous and highly volatile substance, it is often used for fuel as well as countless other things. But it also directly affected Shepard's physiology. Though she was unaware of it at the time, she was developing biotic abilities.
She joined a gang; she committed some petty crimes; and she got into fights. A lot. She was good at it. She earned something of a reputation, in fact. She enjoyed the thrill of what they did, and found she had a knack for getting herself and others out of impossible situations. Every day, though, she would see recruitment posters. "Join the Alliance Military. Travel; see what's out there; protect humanity." And she also did have a bit of romantic streak.
When she was seventeen, her biotic abilities were finally detected, and she was fitted with implants to help her control them. But biotics faced a great deal of prejudice. If they could not control their abilites, they might accidentally hurt or even kill someone; and though research had been done, little was known about biotics still. Other species had offered knowledge, but it was far from common in humans. And while Shepard found the abilities useful whenever she got into a fight, it also meant she had fewer prospects ahead of her. And she was smart enough to know she couldn't keep up her current lifestyle forever. Not without turning to bigger crimes, and getting deeper in with some dangerous people. People she found she really did not like. Up until then what she did had seemed harmless; now, not so much.
She left her gang the day she turned eighteen, without so much as a word, and headed for the nearest recruitment office. And she never looked back after that.
The abilities that helped her so much as a gang member served her well in the military as well. And biotics were more than welcome there. She worked her way up the ranks, working hard to prove herself every day. She had a reputation for being reliable, for always having your back.
She was on a planet called Elysium when a group of aliens called Batarians launched an all-out attack. Humans had previously settled on planets the Batarians considered within their territory, and to say that tensions were high would be an understatements. They had taken to supporting piracy and slavery as long as it was aimed at humanity, and this colony was to be their latest target. Shepard fought them back, almost single-handedly. When the Batarians broke through their defenses, she personally took down every last man to pass through the breach, until they could get them back up again. After that, they called her a war hero, and shipped her off for N7-training.
N7 is a name for a group of the absolute best within the Alliance Military, often sent to do near-impossible missions. She training was difficult, but Shepard soon passed. Her name was starting to hold some serious weight, and not only amongst humans.
It was still a few years before she was assigned to the SSV Normandy, under Captain David Anderson. A Spectre joined them on board. Spectres were known as the right hand of the Council; a group of alien leaders working to further the interests of all species within the galaxy. Humanity had not yet earned a place on the Council, but they were fighting for it, hoping to gain further influence within the galactic community. And, as Shepard was soon informed, she was being considered as the first human Spectre.
It was an honor, and one she fully intended to fight for. For her first mission alongside the Spectre Nihlus, they were sent to the human colony of Eden Prime. But, of course, things did not go quite as planned. The geth, a group of robots who had centuries ago achieved Artificial Intelligence, launched an attack. They were after a Prothean Beacon; a message left behind by a long extinct species. Nihlus was killed, by yet another Spectre workign with the geth. Shepard saved the colony, and found the beacon before the second Spectre, Saren, could destroy it. But the message she got from it was impossible to understand. The beacon destroyed itself moments later.
Shepard went to report this to the Council, and found them skeptical of what she had seen. Visions were not reliable, after all. She did find proof that Saren was a traitor; he lost his Spectre status, and she was given hers. She was also given full command of the Normandy.
Over the next few months Shepard worked to uncover what Saren was after, and doing her damnedest to track him down in the process. She knew from her vision that it had something to do with synthetics called the reapers, and she suspected they had been the ones to wipe out the protheans. She picked up a few people on her way, aliens as well as humans, believing everyone needed to work together on this. If her vision was true, far more was at stake than a few human colonies.
She finally tracked Saren down on a planet called Virmire. She fought her way through the base and into his lab, where she was able to communicate with his ship. Except it wasn't a ship; it was a reaper. She learned that they were destroying organic beings for reasons too difficult for her to understand (or so it said), and confirmed that they had indeed killed the protheans, before cutting her off.
She intends to destroy the base, and has one of her crew, a human biotic named Kaidan Alenko, arm a bomb for her. In the meantime she hurries to to offer aid to a different memeber of her crew, Ashley Williams fighting alongside a group of aliens. They're pinned down by the geth, and as the bomb needs a few minutes to arm, she is not needed at the bomb site. But before she can make it there, Kaidan is attacked as well. He promises to make sure the bomb goes off no matter what. Shepard chooses to continue on to save the salarians and Ashley.
Once there she is finally face to face with Saren. He finally tells her more about why he's helping the reapers. He believes that in order to evolve, synthetics and organics need to work together. He believes the Reapers will bring them glory. He says their option is to work with them, or to be destroyed, and claims the first option is preferable. Shepard accuses him of having lost his mind. However, he gets away, and Kaidan Alenko dies.
Shepard continues to blame herself for his death; and Ashley continues to believe she should have been left behind. But part of being a leader is having to make difficult choices, and Shepard knows that. She stands by her decision.
And she doesn't have time to grieve. She has by now made enough sense of her vision to know that her next step should be the planet Ilos. She travels there to discover an underground facility where the protheans attempted to survive through cryogenic freezing. But the facility had lost power over the millenia, and none survived. She instead spoke to a virtual intelligence, who told her that the facility had remained secret to hide from the reapers, and had been working on ways to stop them. The reapers destroyed all space-faring organics every 50 000 years or so, and started their offense by taking the citadel, a giant space station which is the centre of galactic politics. It is also where the Council is.
The Citadel was actually built by the reapers, and left there to allow species each cycle to occupy it. In this way, they left themselves vulernable to the reapers. But the protheans had managed to infiltrate the station, and stopped it from sending out the signal telling the reapers to attack. That was what Saren was after; he needed to send off the signal again.
Shepard followed him back to the Citadel, and stopped him. Saren's ship, the reaper, attacked, but the joint military forces managed to destroy it, if barely. The Council was safe, and again Shepard was declared a hero. Humanity earned a spot on the Council, taken up by a man named Udina, the former ambassador. And Shepard was free to continue with her other duties.
For a while at least. Not long after, a mysterious ship appeared out of nowhere and destroyed the Normandy. Most of the crew evacuated. Shepard died.
Two years later she woke up again. A group called Cerberus had spent millions of dollars reviving her, rebuilding her body. They said they needed her help, that she was a symbol. She remembered Cerberus as a group of terrorists and scientists known for going much too far, but they claimed only to work for humanity's interests. They claimed that these groups she had dealt with were not a representation of the whole. She remained skeptical, but the issues they presented her with were real. Human colonies were being attacked, the colonists disappearing; something had to be done, and she's never been good at sitting back and letting something happen.
But the fact she was now working for Cerberus got out fast, no matter how hard she tried to deny it. After all, she was using their assets, not supporting their actions. They had revived her, and rebuild the Normandy for her. But even Ashley Williams, who she had saved back on Virmire, was angry with her now. She had to find herself a new crew.
This time, the guilty party seemed to be the Collectors, a species little was known about, who lived past a relay no one else had ever been able to travel through. That was to be her goal; referred to only as her Suicide Mission.
But she survived, alongside her entire crew. And, as it turned out, it was actually the Reapers all along. The Collectors were actually Protheans, genetically modified to become a slave race, mindlessly following the will of the Reapers. They had not been stopped back on the Citadel, only delayed. And humans had been disappearing for a very grotesque reason: Each cycle, the Reapers would harvest intelligent species, and use them to make more Reapers. And now a human Reaper was being built. Of course, Shepard destroyed it.
She also destroyed the entire station, much to the dismay of the leader of Cerberus. But Reaper technology had proven to have brainwashing-capabilities, even long after it was thought to be dead or destroyed. It was not worth the risk to her.
And it was not long before she discovered just how close they were to an all-out invasion. Out on a mission to help a friend, in the middle of Batarian territory, she discovered a group of scientists working with Reaper technology. It was emitting signals at a regularly increasing rate. And the scientists were, of course, brainwashed. She learned that once the signal reached its climax, the reapers would be upon them, and they only had a few days left.
She had to make another difficult choice then. The Mass Relay in that system would be the point of entry for the reapers. So she destroyed it, and everyone who lived in the solar system as well. Several hundred thousand batarians died. Shepard was brought back to earth for her actions, facing military procedures that would prove to take months. And the reapers had still not been stopped.
It was inaevitable; six months later, earth was attacked, and the number of reapers were staggering. They also turned any species they could catch into modified version, much as they had done with the protheans when they turned them into collectors. They had an army that just kept growing. Shepard barely escaped Earth with her life (although death didn't stop her last time).
Their only hope was a prothean device called the Cricible, thought to be a weapon of some sort. They later discovered that it had, in fact, been worked on by countless species throughout the millenia, but never finished. Their best scientists were put to the task, while Shepard travelled the galaxy trying to get the many species to work together.
She mostly succeeded, too. The Batarians were understandably still bitter, and had few numbers since Shepard had blown up their solar system; and the Salarians were not willing to aid earth, not after Shepard helped another species, the Krogan, fix a genetic mutation caused by the salarians (well, invented by them; a different species altogether implemented it), which meant only one in a thousand krogan babies survived. Galactic politics at its best. But the crucible was finished, and the final attack was launched.
The Reapers had, by then, taken the Citadel, and brought it to Earth. They were the strongest there, making it near impossible to get to it. But the Citadel was vital for the weapon to work; it was in a way the trigger mechanism. So they went all out, every species bringing the full might of their military into the solar system. And Shepard made her way into the Citadel itself.
She found the leader of Cerberus there, along with David Anderson, the original Captain of the Normandy (now an Admiral). She killed the former, but Anderson had been injured badly, and died only moments later as well. But the attack on earth had been a success; the Crucible had been connected to the Citadel. And a moment later... nothing happened.
Then suddenly, and elevator started to bring Shepard up into the ceiling. And she found herself on the Thor.
Shepard is a soldier through and thought, and could not imagine herself living any other kind of life. She believes in action, in standing up for what you believe in, and in protecting people. Not to mention she loves the thrill of a good fight.
She had always been a hard-worker, believing it is the only way she can ever achieve anything. She holds herself to incredibly high standards, and expects the best of those she works with as well. If she's not preparing for a fight, she's learning about something new; or she's exercising, or improving her skills with a weapon, or working on her biotic abilities. She makes sure she gets enough rest when she can, knowing she risks lives other than her own if she goes into battle tired.
In this way, her days tend to have a regular schedule when she's not too busy fighting for her life. She goes to bed at the same time when she can, rises early, eats at set times, and forgets to include time to relax and simply have fun. Occasionally she is dragged away for some R&R by a friend, though, and when that happens she tends to go all out. She can drink most people under the table, and is equally determined to prove it. She'll dance, although she's crap at it, and try to forget her responsibilities for a little while. Though it isn't easy.
She's friendly, and honestly cares about people - not just humans, either. She'll chat them up and try to learn about them and their lives. They are what she's fighting for, and it helps ground her, in a way. She's very understanding that people outside of the military might not be equipped to deal with what she does, and is supportive to those who find themselves in difficult situations. She seeks diplomatic solutions, when she can, fighting down the urge to punch her way through opposition. After all, the military isn't about war; it's about protecting people. And fighting always has the opposite effect of that.
She has a limit, though. Annoy her or catch her on a bad day and she might just punch you in the face if you push her too hard. And she knows that sometimes difficult decisions are unavoidable, and she has to live with that. She'll weigh the various risks up against each other, and sometimes the safest route is a bullet through someone's head.
She's also, in a way, a bad loser. She won't complain if you do win, and might congratulate you, but she's highly competitive. She'll do her damnedest to make sure it will never happen again. She never gives up, even after she's lost, because it's only the final victory that actually counts. You could beat her fifty times, but if she has the upper hand on the fifty first, she considers that the end score.
Lately, though, her life really has been all fighting. Against reaper forces and against people who should be her allies. She's watched people she cares about die. She's getting tired. She'll never admit it, but there is a limit to how much even she can take. She'll keep going though, until it kills her. It's all she knows how to do. And as long as there's an enemy around, it's time to pick up a gun, because you can't expect anyone else to deal with it if you won't.
Why do you want to continue their history here: N/A
For applicants considering an alternate version of a character already in game, please use this as your chance to explain the key differences between your character and the one already in play: Aside from the obvious gender difference, Jane Shepard has a different way of approaching problems to that of Jim Shepard. He is what would be called a renegade in game - direct, aggressive - while she leans more towards paragon tactics - diplomatic - though with occasional forays into renegade territory. It's all about balance. More than that, though, since the MC in these games is entirely player controlled, their relationships with certain characters might vary, the results of their actions differ, and though the overall story remains the same, the variations can be huge.
Have you read up on how the game works?: Thieving (done that); working (does that); mooching (never even considered it). Oh, and the Flaming Ferret.
1st person sample: [Shepard is slouched against a wall in the New Arrivals area, looking, well, somewhat worse for wear. She's bruised all over, bleeding in several places, and her breathing is ragged. A more apt description might be that it looks as if several pro boxers used her as a punching ball for an hour.
She clearly needs medical attention, but for now it isn't exactly slowing her down much.
She isn't facing the feed, instead typing into something orange and glow-y that surrounds her arm. When she speaks, she faces that instead of the Guide.]
This is Commander Shepard of the Alliance. I am stranded on an unknown vessel, seeking assistance. Unknown alien species present, but no obvious hostiles. I am unable to pinpoint my own location, but I'll have my omnitool emit a short-range signal. I advise to proceed with caution.
I will report back once I know more about the situation. Shepard out.
[she again types into her omnitool, and it disappears. Then she faces the Guide, picks it up to adjust the angle.]
So. Do any locals feel like filling me in on what's going on?
3rd person sample: There once was a soldier named Shepard
They say she was as fierce as a leopard
But to be perfectly frank
That reputation sank
Her past is one that is checkered
Shepard stared at the rhyme, wondering who the hell in their right mind would write something like that. Then again, maybe they weren't. And she was hardly unused to attention, either, receiving regular fanmail and requests for interviews; and rumours and theories about her could be found in magazines all the time. But it seemed to her they'd been truly grasping at straws lately.
The flyer in her hand had been spread amongst all the refugees on the Citadel, though thankfully most of them seemed to be ignoring it. What did it even mean, though? She frowned; her past was checkered, she got that, but what did that have to do with her fierceness.
Maybe she should have allowed them to use her likeness in a few more vids, show them what she could really do. Or maybe not; that might be playing into it.
She crumpled the flyer and tossed it aside, deeming it unworthy of her attention. She had more important things to do. Galaxies to save. She had little time to waste, too, and after finishing up her errands she headed back to the Normandy. Her next stop would be the Volus homeworld.
And when a few days later a leopard costume mysteriously appeared in her quarters, she booted it out the airlock without a second thought. Now that was just wasted prank money.
disclaimer: limerick written by Sheepi
Questions?: CAKE??
Did you put your characters name and fandom in the subject: I hope so since I made this question.