Staff Commander Shepard is the finest special warfare operator whom the Alliance can throw at a situation — smart, as intensively-trained as any soldier can be, tactically brilliant, and an extraordinary gunfighter. Her reflexes are razor-sharp, and her ability to perceive everything around her and correctly assess the course of a battle is uncanny. Like with many soldiers, the adrenaline rush from a fight gives Shepard a sensation of time slowing down - but hers is very pronounced. As her comrade-in-arms Gunnery Chief Williams described it, by the time most soldiers can take a shot, Commander Shepard has gone to the kitchen, found the peanut butter jar and brought back sandwiches.

In DC Heroes terms, her in-video-game abilities as a Soldier are well-represented by an extra helping of Hero Points to boost AV, EV, RV, etc. at critical junctures and withstand damage.

Shepard is familiar with military intelligence ; she’s also a trained Naval officer capable of commanding a spaceship in battle. Her perceptiveness and superior discernment also find applications in numerous domains related to military command - for instance they make her a top-notch military instructor and recruiter. Commander Shepard has trained her tactical team in Immediate Action Drills in a fraction of the normal time, and excels at spotting promising soldiers and operatives.

The Commander is also genetically enhanced, though this is almost negligible by comic book standards — see our main Mass Effect article. She plays bass guitar and sings a bit, but knows that she’s at best mediocre at those since she almost never has the time to practice. And she’s a truly terrible dancer.

Shepard has recently joined the most elite body of agents in Citadel Space - the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Branch, aka the Spectres. These are essentially the 00 agents of the Council, though the Commander approaches problems as a charismatic leader and a commando rather than as a spy.

As she tackles Spectre-level situations which then steadily worsen, one fact becomes evident - Shepard is unstoppable. No matter what’s thrown at her, she’ll survive, improvise, adapt… and overcome.

The odds are irrelevant. Always bet on Commander Shepard.

She got Bette Davis eyes

Beside her military skills, Shepard’s most notable aspect is her unique charisma. Numerous aspects contribute to it - her striking voice and gaze, negotiation training, military demeanour, command experience, etc. - but in the end it boils down to sheer presence.

When she needs to take charge the Commander seems to inexplicably grow and fill all available space. When this occurs, people reflexively obey her instructions and the crushing weight of her presence smothers fear and other emotions, leaving only calm and discipline to thrive. Troopers who fought under Shepard’s command, even years ago, would follow her right into Hell - pausing only long enough to grab extra medi-gel. Outside of combat she comes across as an honest person you can trust, and who is sincerely trying to find the most mutually beneficial solution.

Commander Shepard has the unnerving ability to spontaneously come up with rebuttals and ethical arguments that sound like they took several minutes of reflexion to write down, and excels at intuiting what those she’s talking with would like to hear. Shepard cannot quite convince anyone of anything, but she will have a major impact on most persons. She has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to turn very tense situations around in minutes.

Several Asari telepaths have noted that Commander Shepard has an extraordinary psychic resilience.

Equipment

Our main Mass Effect article explains how omni-tools, guns, body armour, the M35 Mako scout/tank destroyer, etc. work and what they do.

The Commander has access to special prototype weapons reserved to Spectres, using cutting edge technology and as much Element Zero as possible. Each of these ominous black guns is worth enough to buy basic small arms for an entire infantry company, but they are far more powerful, reliable and accurate than anything that can be bought by normal people. Spectre-issue weapons are kept in the “special stock” of the Citadel police arsenal, but there’s now a full weapons rack on the Normandy bristling with those - pistols, shotguns, assaults rifles, precision rifles, etc. These are maintained by Gunnery Chief Williams.

With one exception, Shepard’s tactical teams are equipped with Colossus-class body armour - very rare, very expensive, top quality armour from Kassa Fabrication. One of the men on the Normandy is extensively connected with grey market weapons dealers, and Commander Shepard confiscated hundreds of pieces of military equipment so her “midnight requisitions” man could snatch any Colossus armour offered for sale, anywhere, by exchanging it for an arsenal. The rarest model ever produced by Kassa, a Colossus armour adjustable for wear by a female Quarian, was procured after heroic efforts.

All the armours used by Shepard’s commandos are painted black and dark red in matching patterns - the Staff Commander was adamant that her shore parties should look like a proper, uniformed military unit rather than the “multi-hued punk menagerie” (her words) it was when people brought in their own body armour, clothing and weapons. These are not Alliance colours - both for political reasons, and because there’s no Alliance gear designed for aliens. Among the major races only Asari can wear Human uniforms and armour, and a blue person wearing a blue uniform would look stupid.

Shepard bartered her Spectre influence with an influential Asari diplomat to be on the white list of the Serrice Council, an Asari research consortium making its in-house electronics available to a select few. Their omni-tools and biotic amplification circuits are highly sought after, but Serrice will simply not sell without recommendation from a trusted party.

Unity drug

Another prototype technology only available to Spectres, Unity is a very powerful combat drug released by an implant. Commander Shepard had her troops equipped with those, and can trigger their Unity implant by touching them and mentally sending an activation pulse through a palm-implanted emitter.

Unity can all but raise the dead - it allows even a fatally wounded person to operate for hours without hindrance, and various drugs among the Unity cocktail will be working all the while to stabilise the operator and facilitate emergency surgery once out of the field.

Unity is meant to work in conjunction with medical systems aboard a battle armour, the more sophisticated the better. Normal procedure after using Unity is for Shepard to inject a large dose of medi-gel into her squaddies’ armour medical system to further eliminate pain, bleeding, tissue damage, etc. until a proper battlefield medicine intervention (or full-on critical care) is feasible.

History

Practically all the material therein is filling the large blanks in Shepard’s biography, and are thus unique to *this* Commander Shepard. Even the few elements clearly mentioned in Mass Effect - Shepard’s mother and Elysium - are largely unspecified in the game and only exist for versions of Shepard with the War Hero background.

Shepard is a military kid - the daughter of Lieutenant-Commander (later Captain) Traoré of the Alliance Navy, and Service Chief Shepard of the Alliance Marine Corps. Her great-grand-parents and grand-parents also served in various Earth militaries, and her parents both transferred to the Systems Alliance military within weeks of its creation.

Born in 2149, Mandala is precisely one week older than the Systems Alliance. As a girl she moved from posting to posting along with her parents. There were lengthy periods during which one or both parents were away on patrol detail. In particular she never saw her father much, since the Alliance was perennially short on anti-orbital batteries maintenance and upgrade specialists such as Chief Shepard. Mr. Shepard spent a large chunk of Mandala’s childhood 11 parsecs away from his daughter, installing defensive batteries on Arcturus Station - which back then didn’t have accomodations for children.

Though very quiet and reserved, Mandala always had a strong interest in all things military and many of her friends were adults - often instructors and veteran NCOs who were friends of her mother. Though she was a bit of a military mascot, children her age found her creepy, and she was nicknamed Spooky Mandy (occasionally Mandy the Mech, after a then-popular cartoon character) with distressing regularity. Mandala joined the Alliance Marines on her 18th birthday as she always intended.

The even-tempered Mandala Shepard planned to qualify as a technical specialist like her father, but kept scoring extremely high on all aptitude tests - as well as during recruit training, infantry training and the Marine Combat Course. It was later asserted that Shepard established records in several fight simulation exercises and obstacle courses, but she dismissed most of these claims as hogwash made up by Drill Instructors to motivate trainees - as Commander Shepard pointed out, one of the simulations she was supposed to have cleared in an unbelievably short time didn’t even exist when she took the Marine Combat Course.

Shepard was approached to apply to Marines Special Operations screening, and all but ordered to join when the results came in. During the year-long Critical Skills Operator training, her focus on studying and her personal discipline continued to earn more nicknames to join the lengthy, lifelong list — including The Wonder Witch, Buddha Babe, Uncanny Mandy, Mandroid, Superman-D, Roboshep, Fembot, Supashep, Goozy the Girl Geth (after a short-lived, weird cartoon series for very small children) and Laure Lies (the stage name of a then-popular pornographic actress vaguely resembling Shepard).

Shepard kept scoring extremely high on her MARSOC CSO qualification courses, and was inevitably among the top performers of all elimination tests. She thus sailed all the way to the best possible qualification for a Special Operations commando - the prestigious N7 rating. The N7 insignia on her armour is roughly the equivalent of a DEVGRU insignia in the modern US military (the former SEAL Team Six). It also opened the “Level 7 Express” - a very fast promotion and commission track for the most highly-qualified troopers.

I’m tellin’ y’all, it’s a sabotage

In 2172, Shepard was assigned to the Fifth Fleet’s Anti-Piracy Task Force as a consultant. After several months with Naval Intelligence, Shepard designed Operation: Blackbeard, had it authorised by APTF-5, and led it in the field. Blackbeard was a series of commando strikes on key factories in nearby Terminus Systems. Though the local Terminus powers were originally puzzled, it became evident after a few weeks that Blackbeard had crippled the production chain for key circuitry used in kinetic shield maintenance, making it expensive to fly large combat-capable vessels and forcing a significant slowdown of piracy.

The effects of Operation: Blackbeard would be felt for several years, though it was also argued that it made it more necessary for the disparate Terminus Systems governments in the area to cooperate with each other.

Shepard received her officer’s commission as a result of Blackbeard. As she conceived and led further special operations strategic strikes to defang various hostile forces, she continued to rise in the ranks at Level 7 speeds, eventually making Staff Lieutenant. She became reputed as the kindest and most supportive Marine officer in the Systems Alliance, as well as the one most likely to kill her staff through overwork.

Lieutenant Shepard was one of the five tactical operators detailed to Operation: Quirky Rabbit, a very unusual Naval Intelligence sanctioning operation that took place in plain clothes and on Earth. Who was killed, whether it was even vaguely legal, and why Naval Intelligence hurriedly sent the best shooters it could get to Italy may never be elucidated. Everything was deemed top secret and most of the documents were reportedly illegally destroyed.

Semper fidelis

Second Lieutenant Shepard stumbled upon her first media exposure in 2174, during a hostage rescue operation in the Eagle Nebula. A group of very young wildcat miners had been captured by renegade Blood Pack mercenaries, and happened to include the estranged daughter of a hugely popular Indian anchorwoman. As the media profile of the case skyrocketed, a rescue mission was ordered - Operation : Purple Shrike. Two days later, Lieutenant Shepard and her squad landed on Wrill after locating the hostages in a dingy pressurised prefab on the outskirt of a gang compound.

Lieutenant Shepard and two marines infiltrated the compound during an atmospheric methane burn - the local equivalent of a rainstorm. They connected remote-controlled sleep gas dispensers to the life support, and drilled through the upper walls to have fiber optic capped with lenses film the inside, using omni-gel to keep the minuscule holes sealed. The slow release of gas was far too weak to affect Krogan and Vorcha captors, but made the Human hostages drowsy and forced them to lie down. This cleared the field of fire for the marine snipers, who shot the captors through the walls, aiming their shots using the fiber optic video and the 3D model of the prefab that had been assembled for ballistic calculations. One sniper missed and a Krogan was left alive, shooting two hostages as the entry team exited the inner airlock. Shepard shot her dead, and the team’s medic stabilised the two hostages.

The rest of the compound opened fire on the sniper teams, who returned fire with their rifles and pre-positioned machineguns manned by the spotters. However, as the entry team finished assembling their medical evacuation sleds and shoving the hostages inside those, another gang attacked the hostage-taking gang — having heard the gunfire and wanting to seize the moment of weakness of their rivals. Shepard had the snipers abandon and blow up their soon-to-be-untenable positions and rally the entry team as a confused firefight raged between factions.

The Purple Shrike entry team carried demolition charges for an unused contingency plan. Shepard had those hurriedly modified to become unshaped explosives, which were then stuck upon a half-dozen battered exploration scooters. The small vehicles were sent on autopilot ahead of the marines, exploding one after the other to clear a path. The marines charged out on foot, capitalising on the explosions and the general confusion. With the snipers running ahead one after another to provide suppressive fire until the team passed them by, the marines jogged out of the area with the medical sleds, meeting with two M29 Grizzly carriers who raced toward them for heavy weapons support and evacuation.

The firefight was still raging as the Purple Shrike teams left Wrill. One of the wounded hostages had died of cardiac arrest during transport due to his wounds and a pre-existing condition, and the other had her legs shattered - though she made a full recovery. The media dubbed Operation: Purple Shrike “the Battle of Wrill”, and the Systems Alliance Naval Command reluctantly authorised two interviews of Lieutenant Shepard for the major Indian networks, where the party in power capitalised on the operation to be re-elected despite previously disastrous opinion surveys.

Prepare for boarding action

Shepard again became a media presence six months later, during the Queen Maude boarding action. The Maude, a half-derelict ship, was being flown by colonists headed for Mindoir (in the Attican Traverse) when it was attacked by a small party of Batarian slavers. The Batarian ship accidentally collided with the Queen Maude, and both vessels started losing hull integrity ; the Batarians took control of a large part of the Maude but couldn’t reach the helm. Both ships would likely be sucking vacuum within hours. The only asset in vicinity turned out to be the Aconit, a corvette flown by Staff Lieutenant Shepard and staffed by sensor technicians and intelligence analysts, as it was recovering and maintaining intelligence buoys in the Traverse.

Using hastily spliced sound files from war movies in the corvette’s entertainment database, Lieutenant Shepard and an analyst simulated a squad-level boarding action. The pair pinned down Batarian slavers using gunfire, improvised explosives and radio chatter from movies to project the impression of being a larger force. Meanwhile the technical crew used the distraction to decouple the haft of the Queen Maude and pressure-seal it using the jury-rigged starboard kinetic field projectors of the Aconit, as rehearsed during the flight.

Lieutenant Shepard convinced four Batarian slavers to surrender in exchange for evac, and ended up fighting along with those against their own colleagues who refused the deal. Two Batarians were captured, and one of Shepard’s unlikely allies killed. After a tense Mexican stand-off between Shepard and the five surviving slavers, they agreed to honour the deal and surrender - Lieutenant Shepard having convinced them that she could kill at least four of them before they could shoot her dead. The Aconit’s fields maintained pressure within the Queen Maude detached haft long enough for rescue vessels to reach the scene.

Operation: Jovial Silence

Having somehow emerged unscathed from the firefights aboard the Maude, Shepard was immediatly tapped for Operation: Jovial Silence. She and five other N7-rated experts were hand-picked by Admiral Hackett, commanding the Fifth Systems Alliance Fleet. The Jovial Silence fireteam was to board the SSV Shrewsbury, an Alliance frigate that had gone silent whilst transporting a Top Secret payload, and was now headed straight for Earth. Operation: Jovial Silence was the only time Shepard served along her mother, who as Hackett’s most trusted officer flew the SSV Rossbach, a Special Operations frigate sent after the Shrewsbury.

The boarding action went wrong and the point operators, Lieutenant Shepard and Chief Saint-Denis, were separated from the rest in an ambush. The crew of the Shrewsbury had been turned into some sort of machine-like, gaunt zombies and made it impossible for the bulk of the team to get past the airlock corridor. Helping the wounded Saint-Denis progress after her in the maintenance tunnels, Shepard developed a successful bullet placement routine to dispose of the zombies - double-tapping knees with her heavy pistol while Saint-Denis placed a Sledgehammer™ slug in the neck with his shotgun.

As Lieutenant Shepard was looking for survivors, Lieutenant Huang broke the stalemate at the airlock, using liquid explosives poured into plastic tubing hurriedly salvaged from the plumbing of the toilets of the SSV Rossbach and assembled into poles. Huang and his three operators relieved Shepard and Saint-Denis, then evacuated Saint-Denis. As they did Shepard attempted, with Huang’s help, to capture one of the hostile creatures to determine if the transformed crew could still be saved. However it self-combusted, inflicting various burns to both Shepard and Huang despite their hardsuits. Shepard nearly lost an eye, and the heat flash left a small but tenacious scar under her left eye.

Both Lieutenants nevertheless assisted the rest of the N7 unit in securing the SSV Shrewsbury, then escorted mission specialists to secure the Top Secret container. Upon hearing Lieutenant Shepard’s oral report, Captain Traoré-Shepard forbade the containers to be moved aboard the SSV Rossbach — as both she and her daughter suspected that it was the source of the infection. The containers were moved to the Rossbach’s Kodiak drop shuttle, which was then remote-piloted to follow the Rossbach to the nearest Systems Alliance military base.

Lieutenant Shepard and Lieutenant Huang remained paired up for a six-week low intensity mission, as their burns took an unusually long time to heal. During this assignment they trained the security forces of a politically important joint Human/Asari corporate R&D project. Mandala Shepard and Huang Jia-hao shared a relationship during this time.

Jovial Silence was Shepard’s first encounter with Reapers forces, though she wouldn’t realise that until 2183.

The Skyllian Blitz

In 2176, the accumulated tension around piracy and anti-piracy violence (including the Blackbeard operation) resulted in an invasion of the Human colonies on the planet Elysium, in the Skyllian Verge. The Skyllian Blitz was mostly a produce of politics, as new pirate leader Elanos Haliat was attempting to consolidate his influence and unify disparate fighting forces against the Alliance. The initial blitz went well, and the rag-tag pirate forces stormed key objectives at a point where Elysium had barely any military presence on the ground.

However, there was grit in the gears. A dozen Alliance Marines Special Forces operators wre eon leave on Elysium to accompany one of their own, an amateur chef attending a cooking competition.

Lieutenant Shepard had the marines immediately disperse and procure civilian vehicles, to reach the crisis centres and take command of any civilians there. Though armament was ad hoc, the marines quickly formed small militia units and as per Shepard’s plan kept them on the move - harassing attackers with hit-and-run tactics, pillaging weapons, causing considerable confusion and avoiding staying in one place where they would be overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Shepard single-handedly fought a disruptive action in Elysium’s small starport to deny the pirates the use of the monitoring and navigation facilities therein. The cat-and-mouse games and short skirmishes lasted for fifteen hours, as the pirates couldn’t squash the stealthy, fast-moving and sharp-shooting Shepard — and any person attempting to operate the control tower of the starport was exposed to her sniper fire.

The pirates had further underestimated the speed and strength of Alliance assets, and the SSV Agincourt reached Elysium much faster than anticipated. As Shepard was denying them control of the starport’s deep-space monitoring equipment, the pirates were taken cold and the Alliance frigate slaughtered the enemy ships in orbit, a situation that worsened as other Human military responders came in.

Though there were serious casualties among Elysium’s population and partisans, the Skyllian Blitz was a bloody failure and left what would have been a very dangerous, united pirate fleet ravaged and dispersed. It was an important battle for the future of Human colonies, and a major step in the growing realisation among Council races that Humanity was slated to play an important role in the galaxy. Lieutenant Shepard’s actions were often compared to the guerilla campaign waged by the famous Asari commandos of the Serrice Guard in 2174.

Star of Terra

The heroic one-woman resource-denial action fought at the Elysium starport was huge news. After her release from the hospital, Shepard was promoted to Staff Commander - the last step before taking command of her own ship - and awarded the Star of Terra - the Alliance equivalent of a Medal of Honor.

Staff Commander Shepard became the military equivalent of a 1970s rock star. Her face, career and deeds became well-known among the population, particularly the troops and civilians interested in military matters. It wasn’t uncommon for complete strangers to request autographs, take photos, or want to shake the hand of the heroine of the Skyllian Blitz - and Alliance PR teams continued to make use of that, producing several video documentaries about the Elysium starport battle, the Queen Maude operation and the Battle of Wrill.

Shepard was snatched by another special operations legend - Captain David Anderson, who made her his XO. Anderson was the top man of MARSOC’s previous generation of operatives ; though no longer able to operate in the field, Captain Anderson continued to do important work as a ship commander detailed to sensitive situations. Unbeknownst to all but a few, Anderson had a complicated history with the Citadel Council, and knew that the Council had taken an interest in Shepard for some years.

Given his reputation and track record, Anderson could pick pretty much whoever he wanted among Alliance personnel, and his staff was top-notch, with a mix of grizzled veterans like himself and wonder kids in their late 20s and early 30s.

Anderson was clearly taking Shepard in as his protégée, but even knowing this his staff was surprised by how much time the Captain spent mentoring the Staff Commander. Something was clearly up, and an inaccurate rumour that Anderson was dying of cancer popped up. Being Anderson’s XO, Commander Shepard ran his ship when he wasn’t around, and handled many of the day-to-day details of running operations so Anderson could concentrate on command. As the most qualified Marine aboard, she also led shore parties during combat or reconnaissance forays.

Salute anything you can’t eat or kill

In 2183, Captain Anderson was assigned to command the SSV Normandy - the first of the Normandy-class stealth frigates, and a politically important project since it was built in cooperation with Turian engineers. The Normandy was unpopular among the Fleet, who thought that all the money sunk into one experimental frigate would have been far better spent on a heavy cruiser. One of the bitterest opponents of the project, Rear Admiral Mikhailovich, was the commander of the 63rd Scout Flotilla, to which the Normandy was assigned.

Anderson’s assignation to the Normandy, and his work with Shepard, were interpreted as imminent field tests of the Normandy as a special operations infiltration, insertion and observation ship. This rumour grew when Captain Anderson had two marines transferred to the Normandy to accompany Commander Shepard on missions - a powerful biotic Staff Lieutenant, Kaidan Alenko, and a promising young Corporal, Richard Jenkins.

The rumours weren’t wrong, and things took an even more marked turn for the suspicious with the ship’s shakedown cruise.

Said cruise was suddenly rescheduled to take place ASAP, and Captain Anderson staffed the Normandy with his all-stars crew, including Shepard and her two new wingmen. Anderson also personally attended the cruise instead of leaving this non-event to his helmsman and head engineer. As if it weren’t enough, an alien would accompany the “shakedown flight”.

Not only was a Turian present on board (a rarity on Alliance vessels), but this man - Nihlus Kryik - was one of the top agents for the Citadel Council, a Special Tactics and Reconnaissance operator. The STR (almost always pronounced “Spectre”) is the red right hand of the Council, a small cadre of super-elite spies and commandos who generally work alone and are a sure hint that some major problem is afoot. Worse, Kryik was considered a top Spectre, and thus completely out of place on a routine test flight.

Though Commander Shepard was unaware of all this as she came in running after hurriedly cutting short a personal leave, she soon shared the crew’s suspicion that digestive byproducts were about to collide with the air mixing device, and that she would be at the heart of it.

 

Description

Staff Commander Shepard has regular, attractive features ; she’s a wee bit short but highly athletic. She sports silky black hair, golden brown skin and striking pale grey-blue eyes. Many Humans in the Mass Effect future are of mixed ethnicities, but Shepard had several generations’ worth of a head start - she’s a mix of Cambodian, Malian, Northern German, French-Canadian, Filipina and mulata Brazilian features, in about that order of genetic influence.

Commander Shepard speaks English with the standard Systems Alliance accent, Khmer with a thick Northern accent, and Council Trade with a Terran accent, though she’s increasingly sounding Asari as she spends time with Dr. T’Soni. She has a rich, modulated voice with a precise and controlled diction, like a trained actress or oratrix. Due to her military background her tone tends to be forceful, assertive or even curt, but her soft features and aura of calm mean that most people don’t really notice the authoritative tone.

Shepard is famously voice-acted by actress Jennifer Hale.

Despite being the heroine of an adventure story, the Commander doesn’t have a markedly idealised body. She’s in her mid-30s, though her age is difficult to estimate. Soldiers tend to assume that she’s several years older due to her rank.

Personality

Mandala Shepard is preternaturally calm and collected, and has occasionally been described as “infernally even-tempered”. Though she’s quiet, she always has a kind word for everyone and is always caring, almost always diplomatic, and is a very supportive officer. Shepard is reflexively polite and considerate.

During her entire life, Mandy has been rumoured - not always in jest - to be some sort of android rather than a human being, due to her unnerving composure, her apparently effortless acumen and her improbably smooth demeanour. The litany of (often resentful) nicknames that accompanied her entire youth usually allude to her being a super-robot or, more rarely, a biotic mutant.

Though Commander Shepard enjoys humour and is a pleasant, upbeat person she almost never makes jokes herself - she doesn’t feel very good at it. In recent weeks this has increasingly been referred to as her “Asari sense of humour” - the stereotypical Asari being very eager and serious, and having a concept of sarcasm but difficulties getting the point of jokes. It’s not an unfair comparison. Furthermore, Shepard seldom smiles or laughs ; she just does her “serene and nice” thing.

Staff Commander Shepard strongly believes in open communication with her staff, and helping them solve their problems even if some military resources have to be briefly hijacked for personal aims. This has led more traditional officers to deride her as a social worker disguised as a marine, but combined with her charisma it works wonders. When commenting on his extraordinary loyalty toward Shepard, brutal Krogan mercenary Urdnot Wrex dourly explained that Shepard “did more for [him] than [his] own damn family ever did”.

Values and quirks

Staff Commander Shepard is a regular girl scout, and strongly believes in behaving ethically and making a stand whenever necessary. She is an idealist - if a little pragmatism, realpolitik and cutting corners would avoid a lot of trouble, Shepard will usually go for the trouble. Commander Shepard relentlessly champions the greater good, saving lives and holding the moral high road against all comers. She doesn’t have the Charter of the Systems Alliance memorised, but sincerely believes in the Alliance’s official creed of tolerance, freedom and open-mindedness.

Shepard much prefers using words, presence and empathy to solve situations, though as a marine most problems she encounters require straight-up military force. If violence is the only option she’s left with Commander Shepard will sigh, blow everything up, shake her head sadly and move on.

Unlike many Humans, Shepard is entirely comfortable with aliens - her closest allies and combat buddies aren’t Human. This causes tension aboard the Normandy and with Alliance Command, but Commander Shepard insists that others follow her lead and learn to integrate with alien species.

Whereas most Humans have a “Humanity looks out for number one” outlook, Shepard has a “Humanity plays well with others” ideology, and wants her species to integrate the Council as a respectful partner among equals. Politically she prefers to demonstrate good faith rather than play hardball, precisely to counteract the image of Humans as ambitious, impatient bullies who’d run you over to increase their influence. Her goal is fair, long-term, mutually-beneficial cooperation - and since she’s a famous Human occupying a key position as a Spectre, it is important for her to keep demonstrating that.

Commander Shepard has the odd habit of referring to any group as “you girls”, even if all persons therein are older males. Apparently it’s some local variation on “y’all” that she picked up during her youth - probably one of the innumerable pieces of military slang addressing soldiers as if they were women, which in most languages survived decades of genders integration in the armed forces.

While she is no martinet, Shepard runs a tight ship and has fairly earned her reputation for being a freak when it comes to the quality of training, intelligence and gear she aims for before launching an action. While she has no problem going in and improvising if that’s the best solution or the only choice, she makes her own luck and seeks to make her missions as one-sided as possible, no matter how much prep work that requires.

Worn

Since being made a Spectre Shepard developed a knee-jerk, aggressive reaction to having her Council authority challenged - an uncharacteristic breach in her otherwise impeccably diplomatic behaviour. That somebody might want to play coy with a Spectre or try to obstruct her more urgent work makes her angry, and she tends to interpret any attempt to restrict her Spectre work as pissant red tape. This is startling for people who know her - she’s simply never acted like that before - and raises questions as to whether being above the law isn’t changing her.

Now several weeks into the Saren Plot, Commander Shepard has been maintaining an insane schedule and is running on a lot of tension and very little sleep. Combat recon ops are now routine, it is clear that assassination attempts by geth squads can occur at any point, and any lull in the action (as various intelligence services hunt for information to continue tracking down Saren) is immediately filled by missions for either the Alliance (to make it clear that the Alliance can still count on Shepard and the Normandy) or third parties (to demonstrate that the first Human Spectre is thoroughly dedicated to public service and protecting Council species).

The requests keep on coming, and it is important to execute on those flawlessly since messing up in the early stages of establishing credibility would be hard to recover from. Missions include very high-pressure ones, such as handling hostage situations with little intelligence and no felt margin for error.

Shepard is taking stims (under supervision of her ship’s doctor) to keep up with the pace - even with her colossal endurance and tolerance for stress, running with this level of tension and exhaustion for so long is physically impossible. She is starting to experience very mild episodes of hallucinations, shaking hands and mood swings, though so far these have not had any consequences and her performance remains improbably flawless. The worst for now has been the accidental shooting of some sort of space monkey - she fell half-asleep without realising it and the curious animal startled her.

As Commander Shepard continues working and fighting at a demented pace to keep juggling all the balls she’s been entrusted with, her physician Dr. Chakwas is growing concerned about long-term effects, including clear risks of stimulants addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her elite squad is also starting to be ran ragged, and the various wounds suffered by just about everyone on it worry Dr. Chakwas, particularly when it comes to heavy painkillers, sleeping aids and go-pills use.

The situation will remain manageable for two or three more weeks but after that something will have to give. Dr. Chakwas made it clear that once the readiness status de-escalates, all survivors will have to enter a full detox and psychological evaluation program at a high-end military hospital.

Flying in a blue dream

An important factor in allowing Shepard to withstand the stress is a burgeoning romantic relationship with Dr. Liara T’Soni - arguably the person on the Normandy who’s the furthest removed from her chain of command (and Commander Shepard insists on calling her an “academic consultant” rather than a “crew member”). Though Mandala Shepard doesn’t generally have a romantic interest in women, she feels a deep kinship and attraction toward Asari cultures and practices and may be going native as she increasingly associates with Asari.

Though there was an immediate chemistry, the adorkable and virginal Dr. T’Soni was intimidated by Commander Shepard and the very intimate nature of Asari sexuality, which involves deep psychic fusion. She was thus hesitant to commit, but the campaign against the Saren Plot meant that she had to establish mind contact with Staff Commander Shepard on several occasions. The goal was to ’read’ data implanted in Mandala’s mind - but though Shepard didn’t know that back then, this is an act with strong intimate connotations for an Asari, even when all efforts are made to stay detached.

After these partial telepathic meldings, the relationship moved to an in-between state of regular snuggling - physical and psychic - as Liara musters her courage to take her decision. By mutual assent these are carried under the lamentably transparent cover of being “Asari relaxation training” - though the cuddling and telepathic rapport have an undeniable soothing effect on Commander Shepard and keep her morale high.

As salacious lower-deck rumours about the CO having psychic alien lesbian sex grow (though technically this is neither lesbianism nor sex), Shepard is adding new nicknames to her lifelong collection - but now these are Asari-themed. However, for once they are germane - the more the Commander learns about Asari cultures, the more she feels like one. Furthermore, the fierce loyalty of the Normandy crew toward their commander means that, for the first time in Mandala’s life, the nicknames are scabrous but not really mean-spirited.

Crew members usually make stuff up based on blue gemstones, such as Thunder Topaz or The Aqua-Marine, but the most common one is to refer to Shepard as “Opal” - a clever joke by Engineer Adams alluding to the fact that in mineralogy, the brightest black opals (including those with the most intense blue, like some Asaris’ skin) are rated N7 on the lightness scale. Markedly less poetic puns in Japanese (where “asari” is a type of clam) have also had the success one would expect on a military ship — though a few seconds of reflexion would lead to realise this can’t describe an Asari.

Commander Shepard’s politics - emphasising common ground between all sentient species, and building bridges to create long-term mutual benefits and peace - also share a lot with common Asari approaches, though it predates her exposure to Asari philosophy. Some people with a pro-Humanity stance have accused Shepard of being under the influence of Asari siari religion and philosophy and, as the expression goes, forgetting what colour her blood is (since Humans are one of the few Council species with dark red blood).

DC Universe History

If you wish to hybridise Commander Shepard and the DCU, she’d be the result of a deliberate program of human breeding ran over thousands of generation by Vandal Savage (now calling himself the Illusive Man) to produce the ultimate human soldier and leader and handle whatever crisis would otherwise cause humanity’s end.

Since a “high paragon” female Shepard is basically Space Wonder Woman minus the powers, Shepard could also be distantly Amazonian - perhaps the grand-daughter of General Philippus.

 

Writeup completed on the 9th of March, 2012.