Since I see people posting their stories I'll put this up. It's a bit longer though but it explains how I approached the game in a role-playing perspective. Honestly, writing out a Shepard's story that did everything perfect through meta-gaming would be very boring.
Name: Nocturnal Shepard
Gender: Female
Class: Vanguard
Background: Colonist/Ruthless
Personality: “Reasonable” renegade: She’s potty-mouthed but not a racist and won’t gun down civilians. She won’t take idealistic risks and focuses on getting the job done for the greater good. My big rule was to never once choose a paragon (blue) persuasion.
Love interest: Liara T’Soni
Mass Effect 1:
The massacre on Mindoir largely shaped her into becoming a very hard woman. It drove her ruthless pursuit of the batarian slavers in the campaign that finally ended on Torfan. Nocturnal’s vanguard close-quarters specialization allowed her to excel in the underground slaver base. Shepard’s squadmates weren’t so lucky. Her actions were harsh but justifiable yet losing so many soldiers only hardened her more. She almost never lets her guard down and puts a wall up that keeps anyone from getting close until she meets Liara T’Soni . Nocturnal acts almost like a different person around her for reasons she cannot explain. They share an instant connection and Liara sees a side to Shepard that most never do.
The first major decision came regarding saving the Feros colonists. Shepard was reluctant to endanger the mission by immobilizing them with gas grenades rather than shooting them outright. After pressure from Tali and Liara she reluctantly agreed but told them to not take any chances. It turned out to be easier to throw grenades from cover than shoot them until she ran out of grenades. Shepard ended up killing 4 colonists. The colony was saved and Exogeni was intimidated into funding Feros in the future.
The second major choice involved the rachni queen. Shepard had been “nicer” to Benezia than she normally would with someone working with Saren because Liara was right beside her. Yet she couldn’t compromise the mission by taking idealistic risks now. Nocturnal read her history. The rachni ravaged the galaxy without negotiation and the bugs on Noveria weren’t any different. The only evidence the queen had that she wasn’t like every other rachni encountered in the galaxy was her claim that she wasn’t. But with acid tanks over her head she’d say anything to be freed; even encouraging the death of her children. There was no option to just leave the queen there but that fate would be worse than death because the council would only experiment on her. With encouragement from Wrex Shepard did the smart thing even if it felt a bit wrong by euthanizing the queen.
Later Nocturnal had to decide whether to let Balak go on Terra Nova. This wasn’t too difficult for Nocturnal Shepard as she knew too well what batarian terrorists were capable of. Balak could easily kill 3 humans (the amount of hostages) on his way to his ship. He also could detonate the charges once he escaped anyway and Shepard would not negotiate with this monster. So the hostages died and Balak was executed.
A very difficult choice came on Virmire involving Urdnot Wrex. Shepard understood his feelings about destroying the base but it had to be done. She patiently explained that the cure was actually a weapon and none would be around to benefit from it. Wrex responded by raising his weapon on his commander. The ruthless side of Nocturnal Shepard instantly came to the surface as she lifted her own shotgun and pulled rank on him by telling to fall in line. That only made him angrier. There was no way she was going to lower her weapon on an angry krogan in a stand-off so she reluctantly did the smart thing. She shot Wrex. Kaidan briefly saw her vulnerable side as he asked if she was alright and she stated she wasn’t. Then her guard came up and Nocturnal stated Wrex proved just why this base had to be destroyed. Shepard had just killed someone who had been a war-buddy and friend, or so she thought. The fact that Wrex would raise a weapon unprovoked eliminated the little sympathy she had for the krogan people. This would play into events in the future.
Shepard chose to save Kirahee during her Team Shadow infiltration. The choice became a bit difficult when deciding whether to activate alarms on the other side of the base or compromise the mission by just disabling the alarms. Confident they could handle a few more geth though Nocturnal just disabled the alarms.
Afterwards she had to choose between saving Kaidan or Ashley. Since she had already been heading towards rescuing Ash and Kaidan had made the choice to activate the bomb Shepard kept pursuing Ashley. The decision had been hard but numbed a bit by the fact that she already had to personally kill another squadmate a short time ago. After Virmire a third of the squad was now dead.
The final ME1 decision involved whether to sacrifice vital reinforcements to save the council or focus on Sovereign. Even though the council was filled with idiots that didn’t mean they should die. Nevertheless, the stakes were too high to spare assets to save the Ascension even with civilians aboard. If those assets resulted in Sovereign succeeding the galaxy was doomed. Nocturnal decided to focus on Sovereign even if it meant sacrificing the Ascension; doing what had to be done.
After the battle Shepard was weary of a human council but she was no politician so she stayed neutral as Udina ranted. However, she hated Udina and did not want him leading so she recommended Anderson; someone she could trust.
Mass Effect 2:
On the new Normandy Shepard let everyone know who was in charge quickly. She runs a tight ship and told Kelly Chambers to keep her distance with her emotional crap. After that their relationship was strictly platonic which is what Nocturnal wanted.
The cover-up involving the reapers made the attack appear to the Citadel public eye like the Alliance just let the council die so they could seize power. Even though the original council being aliens had nothing to do with Shepard’s decision to not rescue them the new council and the Citadel’s people didn’t see it that way. They wouldn’t even speak to Shepard. No one in the general public knew Sovereign’s intentions. Now humans were prejudiced and people looked at Shepard with heavy scrutiny just like they did after Torfan even though she did what had to be done.
Zaeed’s loyalty mission put Shepard into a situation similar to the one on Terra Nova; save the slaves from fire or pursue Vito the Blue Suns leader. This was Zaeed’s mission and getting everyone’s loyalty was vital to the safety of the galaxy. Also, stopping Vito Santiago in the long run would save more lives and cripple the Blue Suns in the process. So she reluctantly pursued Vito and completed the mission.
If the mission didn’t require it Shepard probably would not have made contact with Liara on Illium. Nocturnal feared a reunion worse than Ashley’s on Horizon. She was not aware of Liara’s involvement in Lazarus and didn’t think it would be fair to come back into Liara’s life after being dead for 2 years only to likely die again on a suicide mission. However, they rekindled their love on Hagalaz; giving Shepard something to live for besides her mission.
On Tuchanka there was a bit of tension. Urdnot Wreav was not a pleasant fellow although he admired Shepard’s strength as a warrior. Seeing krogans ’hostility towards aliens, love for violence, and past history with Wrex made Shepard lean towards destroying Maelon’s research during Mordin’s loyalty mission after allowing Mordin to execute him for his monstrous experiments. The data could be stolen and what use was it unless they wanted the genophage cured? How could a violent 1000-year life span species that can lay 1000 eggs a year be part of the galactic community? Given krogan history and the fact that every krogan Shepard ever encountered was violent made the genophage seem like the right thing. The data was destroyed. It was tragic that a whole species had to suffer to ensure the safety of the rest but Shepard thought the alternative was worse.
I was fully aware that it was wise to complete the loyalty missions before getting the reaper IFF if you want everything to be “perfect”, but I was pretending not to have a crystal ball so I acquired it with 3 loyalty missions remaining. Afterwards I did Project Overlord (saving David Archer because it wasn’t a forced ends justify the means circumstance and Shepard was gaining sympathy for geth through Legion) and FireWalker and then the crew was abducted. So should Nocturnal Shepard pursue the lost crew or wait until they were fully prepared? The mission could not be compromised. Samara had to kill her daughter, Legion had to kill geth heretics, and Jack had to blow up a building.
Legion requested my decision on whether to destroy or rewrite the heretics. It wasn’t too difficult. The heretics were hardly innocent for siding with the reapers and brainwashing them was certainly not ethical, and not without risks. Could the geth be trusted in the future? Would the heretics revert to their old beliefs? Would rewriting them sway the beliefs of the other geth? Even the geth were largely in favor of destruction and they understood the situation better. They also had more reason to want them spared. She’d killed hundreds of heretics already and Legion was fine with either choice so she destroyed them.
Samara’s loyalty was a no-brainer. Renegade or not, choosing Morinth made no sense except for the humor of it so Morinth died.
My Shepard wasn’t going to lose squadmates by skipping loyalty missions or give bad calls so all 12 survived. The crew wasn’t so lucky. At the collector base only Chakwas was left by the time they arrived. Even though Nocturnal cared about Chakwas there was no way she would compromise the mission by sending an escort for 1 person. The stakes were too high. The only person who might make her flinch from her duty was Liara but luckily Liara wasn’t there. The mission came first and Chakwas tried to make it back alone after giving Shepard a farewell handshake; both knowing they’d likely not see each other again. They were correct.
Shepard had to decide whether to stick to the original mission objective and destroy the base or leave it to Cerberus. She knew the war wouldn’t be won with spears and they had to use any resource possible. Idealism could cost them everything. Cerberus had earned some trust for all TIM did for Shepard to reach this point. She still would never give this much power to one man if there wasn’t a reaper threat but there was a reaper threat. If they survived it Nocturnal would have to accept the galaxy would be a very different place; including having to potentially deal with a newly empowered Cerberus. So after some convincing Shepard reluctantly radiated the base. The mission was a success.
Mass Effect 3:
There was a lot of tension between Nocturnal and Ashley on Mars. Ash would have been collector goo if not for Shepard’s Horizon intervention and the collectors would still be out there if not for Cerberus. Shepard had been in detention for 6 months and was now killing Cerberus troopers but Ash was still suspicious. She never visited Shepard on earth and ignored the trust others put in Shepard over the past year; more than enough time to get to know Shepard again. She let Ash have it and didn’t hold back; old squadmate or not. The conflict would come into play later.
Shepard was hesitant to cure the genophage for the krogan but had no choice. On the way to Surkesh Wreav stated that he knew (somehow) that Shepard destroyed Maelon’s data. Technically Mordin did but Shepard stated the krogan weren’t ready for a cure which created more tension.
Wreav sends Shepard to deal with a possible rachni threat. Considering how dangerous the rachni were there was no way Shepard was sacrificing Arlakh company to save that rachni queen abomination. The thing creeped her out too. It was an easy call.
Wreav’s violent behavior only reinforced Shepard’s low view of the krogan until getting to know Eve. Seeing Eve and knowing that destroying Maelon’s data had possibly condemned her to death made Shepard dismayed. She was possibly responsible but not guilty since she didn’t even know Eve existed. And even though Eve appeared to be civil it didn’t necessarily mean the genophage should be cured but there was no choice …until the final Tuchanka mission.
The dalatrass offers a way out of what appears to be inevitable war with the tyrant Wreav in control of a grateful and newly fertile krogan. She suggests sabotaging the cure to get both salarian and krogan support and ensuring the korgan won’t threaten the galaxy in the near future. It was treacherous. It would shatter the hope of the krogan. But could Shepard stick with honor considering the stakes? She couldn’t see herself willingly allowing Wreav to come into power. Besides, the krogan had over 1450 years to cure the genophage themselves but they’d rather fight as Wrex had once put it. If the krogan truly deserved a cure then they should put their guns down, get into a lab, and work on it. All she had seen from krogan was their love for violence; including Grunt the “perfect” krogan who loved killing way too much. Even Wrex who had been something of a friend turned on her on Virmire. Wrex had loved fighting too. If there wasn’t a war to fight the krogan would likely make one.
Shepard made the difficult but right choice as she saw it for the galaxy’s sake by not telling the krogan about the sabotage. She felt guilty but with Eve dead it was easier. Mordin detected the sabotage so Nocturnal tried to delay him. He was committed to curing the genophage but she convinced him that Wreav was too dangerous to trust. He might use threats to get what he wanted for a time as he stockpiled weapons and grew an army but once threats weren’t enough he would wage war. Mordin reluctantly walked away and went to work on the crucible and the cure failed.
During the Citadel coup Shepard was forced into a confrontation with Ashley Williams. Like the stand-off with Wrex, there was no way Nocturnal was lowering her weapon unless her squadmates raised theirs. She tried to convince Ash that Udina was behind the attack but it wasn’t enough; even with Garrus and James beside Shepard. Ash chose the snake Udina over Shepard the hero so Shepard was forced to kill her once she told Udina to open the door. Shepard was sad but more angry at Ashley for having so little faith and putting her in this position; never giving her the benefit of the doubt. Ash was now with Kaidan.
At the Ardat-Yakshi monastery Shepard hesitated as Samara proceeded to shoot herself to save Falere. She chose her path. Following the code was more important to her than stopping the reapers. Falere was spared.
Just how far Nocturnal was willing to go to ensure the success of the mission came into play while retaking Omega with Aria. Aria and Nyreen were under fire and Aria ordered Shepard to overload the reactor to break them out despite killing thousands. Shepard couldn’t sacrifice thousands even if it meant jeopardizing Aria’s life. Aria only had to hold out an extra minute roughly so she rerouted the power and everyone survived.
Nocturnal had sympathy for the geth and did believe they were alive. She managed to achieve peace by warning the quarian fleet; getting 2 armies for the war renegade-style by yelling.
After Thessia Joker made an inappropriate joke about asari and an insensitive comment about Shepard putting her squad “through a meat grinder” on Torfan. She yelled at him for this causing tension in their relationship that was never resolved.
Miranda Lawson dying on Horizon felt very fitting. She had been reckless and stupid. She refused to give Shepard details on what she was up to so Shepard refused to give her Alliance intel without further information. Miranda then stormed Sanctuary alone without informing anyone about any of it. It was a sad end but she managed to provide TIM’s base location.
I felt a void in the Citadel DLC without Wrex. He was clearly the star of the DLC and it felt off without him and a few less party members but whatever.
Shepard addressed her soldiers before the final push in London. On the way to the beam Liara was injured and had to be evacuated. She briefly saw Shepard’s vulnerable side as Nocturnal assured her that Liara meant everything to her and always would. Then Shepard saw Harbinger and Shepard-the-soldier resurfaced and ordered Liara to leave; just as she did the first time Shepard died on the SR1.
Shepard barely hesitated as she decided to destroy the reapers. It was her mission since the beginning and she didn’t trust the creator of these monsters enough to jump into a laser even if she wanted to control the reapers or achieve synthesis. Controlling the reapers was playing with fire and synthesis was too invasive. There was some guilt over losing the geth but they were a safer sacrifice than an organic race. Nocturnal Shepard always got the job done.
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He does like messing with people though.
) One of the consequences that I didn't put all that much thought into(kind of dense in retrospect) is that this Shep will more than likely have an antagonistic relationship with Cerberus in ME2(too bad, I was hoping to have an excuse to save the base this time).
