As a result alot of background facts about Revan are being nailed down in one direction or another. For example, Revan will now officially be male and saved the Republic. Mind you, the people at Bioware have made it clear that this is not intended to invalidate the choices players made in their own games playing the Knights of the Old Republic. This is to lay a common framework - a separate path - that everyone can refer to as part of the process of building up the story of the Old Republic MMO.
The reason I specify this is because we can expect that eventually, as the Mass Effect franchise evolves beyond Shepard's story, there will be a need to develop the same common framework for future games. In short you can expect Bioware at some point will need to canonize Shepard.
For the moment one might assume Bioware would just use what they've already put together. Meaning that the classic Sheploo model for Male Shepard would be rehashed for their canon Shepard. However I think they should go with a very different approach this time.
My suggestion is that the future canon Shepard should be Female, and to take it a step further, she also had a romance with Liara.
There are a wide number of reasons why this would work so well. For starters some of the biggest fans of the Mass Effect series are also fans of FemShep. While it is true most of the people who played Mass Effect tended to play a male Shepard, this was primarily due to the fact that male Shepard was simply the default character. For the people who really tended to get deep into the game, the hardcore fans, most of them played FemShep at least once.
To put it another way, most of the people who played male Shepard probably won't be too bothered if Shepard turns out to be female in some distant future project. By contrast people who played female Shepard tend to be much more devoted to their character's story and the franchise, and therefore would get a much deeper appreciation if canon Shepard turned out to be female as well.
Keep in mind I'm talking about generalizations here, I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions out there. My point is Bioware will get more bang for their fan service buck by making Shepard female.
To prove my point look at how passionate fans have been about FemShep recently. The best Mass Effect cosplay features Holly Conrad as female Shepard, and have you heard Morgan Webb talking about Shepard on G4? She insists that Shepard must be female every time. The fact that the fans themselves had a say in what female Shepard should look like is huge. Even if not all the fans agree, even if the end result isn't exactly what everyone wanted, the important thing to keep in mind is that the default FemShep was decided based on direct fan input, for better or worse this is what the fans wanted. The fact that FemShep is getting so much attention at all for ME3 is a result of the huge outpouring of support from fans of FemShep. This all speaks volumes on the dedication of female Shepard fans out there. And likewise it would be a huge gesture on the part of Bioware if the future canon Shepard was ultimately the one decided by the fans.
For me, however, the best reason to make future canon Shepard female is because the overall story just has more impact. The story of Shepard just becomes more interesting and more compelling once you add the detail that she was a woman. I have nothing against male Shepard - and in fact I really enjoy playing my male paragon vanguard - but story from the male Shepard perspective has this tendency to get boiled down to just a basic story of some jarhead shooting the crap out of everything till the galaxy was saved. Cool enough certainly but not nearly as compelling to me.
This is the same reason why I feel that a romance history with Liara would be the best choice. I admit, I'm a big Liara fan, she is my favorite romance option followed very closely by Tali. But a big part of that is because I feel the story of Liara in relation to Shepard is a much more significant one. More so then any other character we've seen Liara grow and develop into a really cool character. Likewise the story of Liara and Shepard's romance is that much more compelling to me then any of the other romances. ( Though again, Tali runs a very close second.
) After all look at all the sacrifices Liara went through to retrieve Shepard's body, and the risks she took just on the chance she could be brought to life. In addition a romance with Liara adds additional dramatic elements just from the mere fact that she is an alien. Themes of racial tensions, cultures clashing, and having to work with that while still maintaining a relationship all makes for a much more interesting romance and a much more interesting story overall.This does bring up a question about Bioware's previous marketing. After all if the franchise was originally built on a male Shepard model how can they work moving to a female one? That's actually very simple as it turns out. Firstly it is important to understand that such a future product will be very different, they won't need to use Shepard at all for the marketing since it will be a very different story set in the same universe. ( Much like how you won't see Revan on the cover of the SWTOR game box. ) Beyond that they already laid the groundwork to explain this change in the game itself. Recall how Jacob mentions that the Alliance replaced Shepard with another model for their advertisements, because apparently she didn't "test well". So it's not a stretch to say that the Alliance had a male model on their advertisements since they felt that would "test better" despite the fact that Shepard was female. It would certainly add an interesting twist to the future of the Mass Effect story.
Yes this is all just my opinion of what I think will make the best story in the end. Feel free to share yours.
tl;dr - If you're too lazy to actually read more then two sentences then I don't care about your opinion anyway.
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