And Shepard makes three (Girl Squad!)

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stoob/works

Commander Shepard.

Just the name stirs the soul for a fan like myself.  Though to define who or what Commander Shepard is as a character whose gender and psyche are chosen by the player, it is different for all.  From Shepard's birthplace and upbringing, to his or her achievements and hardships in life, and ultimately the fine minutia of the interactions in-game, we all have different highlights and memories of the Hero of the Citadel.  But this piece about my Shepard, Commander Verity Shepard.

Verity Shepard was raised by her parents on the off-world human colony of Mindoir.  However, the galaxy is not at peace and the colony is attacked by slavers, killing all who oppose them, including young Verity's parents.  She is briefly enslaved but rescued by the Earth Systems Alliance Navy, no doubt sparking her desire to sign up and put right that which is wrong.  Later in her career in the fleet, she loses her whole squad to a wild Thresher Maw on the planet of Akuze, a massive and dangerous creature never encountered by humans before; it turns out later in the game that this was a set-up by the dark ops group Cerberus to study the creature's fierceness and the squad's ability to combat it; Cerberus' sick experiments are quite a feature of the game.  Surviving adversity as the sole survivor of Akuze, Shepard is put forward for N7 training and quickly becomes the poster-girl of the Alliance.  That's pretty much where we come in, and the start of the first instalment of Mass Effect and what can be considered 'canon' for that origin.

One of the unique features of a BioWare title is their morality systems.  In Star Wars The Old Republic, it is much easier to define the scale: the light side to the dark, thank you, George, job's a good'un,  In Mass Effect, they chose Paragon to Renegade and as arbitrary labels go they did suffice quite nicely.  Are you aiming to inspire and to do good through your endeavours?  Or are you willing to do anything it takes to get the job done and be damned the consequence?

As you can probably already imagine due to her purposefully, pious name, Verity leaned towards Paragon, In the context of the game, Verity Shepard is what is termed a 'Mary Sue'; a character so without flaw they are beyond suspension of disbelief, in that I chose every Paragon action without choosing any Renegade where possible.  Role play is role play, and it made more sense for me that the good Doctor T'Soni would be more inclined to fall for a character like this than a bad-ass.  And as I've mentioned Liara, we must come back to Ashley.  Girl Squad!  Ha!

The Girl Squad thing was funny/peculiar.  It originally comes from Dexter's Laboratory, when DeeDee and her two friends start an investigation team because of suspicious activity in the neighbourhood, calling themselves, yes, Girl Squad with a Charlie's Angels type title screen.  When I was playing ME1 a lot, and had Liara and Ashley in tow, the Girl Squad always used to pop into my head.  That it went into the fic was a spur of the moment thing.  I'd written the first time they sound off their names, nearly didn't post it because to be honest, it is quite silly even if not beyond the realms of possibility.  It went in.  Some commented they enjoyed it, and the Girl Squad they remained.  The Girl Squad been a fun feature to use in their interactions, as they jibe and taunt one another.  If I'm honest, when I used it in the last chapter of 'Blue', I did have a little gulp myself.  Despite its silliness, it is the trios bond.

While the in-game Verity Shepard and her adventures are the basis for my fan fic Shepard, I did have to concede some darkness for her.  As I said above, in the context of the game, full Paragon is fine but in reality, it doesn't make for interesting writing.  The first piece I ever posted explored this very thing, where Shepard had killed Shiala on Feros and Liara confronts her over it, knowing that Shiala may not have been totally lost to indoctrination.  From that piece I began to build my fic Shepard's character; a dark side that sometimes lashes out even if well intentioned, and the occasional loss of control due to it.

I could bang on for ages, hence ending up writing fan fic, so I'll leave it there, except to say that while my trilogy sequel 'The Damned' is slow in progress right now, their story isn't over just yet.