Matthew Shepard

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Lieutnant Commander Johnathan Matthew Shepard is a Human Systems Alliance Marine known for countless accolades in his relatively short career, ranging from becoming the first human Spectre Agent to bringing an end to the Collectors, Reapers and Cerberus. He is known for his honorable though sometimes controversial attitude towards his career, which has drawn both harsh criticism and praise towards him and his actions.

Early Life
Matthew Shepard was born on 11 April, 2154 to Hannah and James Shepard, both of which served lifelong careers in the Alliance Military. A spacer child, Shepard spent his childhood floating from ship to ship, which caused him to become dedicated to one day joining the ranks of his father, with whom he shared an inseperable bond, in the Alliance Marine Corps. One of the first of many tramautizing events in Shepard's life was the death of his father as a teenager. Though his mother delayed telling him the news, James was killed only a week before Shepard's 16th birthday.

Matthew joined the Alliance Marine Corps immediately after he came of age, much to the objection of Hannah, in order to restore his father's memory.

Military Career
Shepard enlisted into the Alliance Marine Corps in April of 2172, and was stationed on Elysium, where he received basic ICT (Interplanetary Combatives Training). There, he established a reputation as a lethal sniper with unmatched talent from the rest of the trainees. Captain David Anderson, one of the Alliance's most respected and decorated soldiers, became acquainted with Shepard as he approached the end of his ICT and persuaded him to receive N7 training. Shepard accepted the offer and graduated with flying colours from the program years later.

5 years later, Shepard was stationed on Akuze, a small, barren human colony on the fringes of the Traverse. The planet was the site of a massacre staged by the Thresher Maws inhabiting the underground. Though the Thresher Maws caught the Marines heavily off guard during the midst of the night, Shepard was alerted ahead of time by the tremors heard as part of the Maws' movement. He radioed in support and attempted to alert his comrades of the danger, but failed to do so in time. Shepard abandoned the site, knowing there was nothing that could be done to suppress the inevitable slaughter.

Watching his platoon be mercilessly flayed alive severely damaged Shepard's psychological state, moreso due to the fact that he did nothing to stop the carnage.

The Geth
Shepard remained out of the spotlight for years, until he became involved in the investigation of Saren Arterius 2185. Though the Citadel Council remained unconvinced that one of their most trusted Spectre Agents could have gone rogue, Shepard fought to find as much dirt on Saren as possible in order to link him to the Geth attacks and the return of the Reapers. He eventually succeeded in doing so and, with the support of David Anderson, the Council, and the newly obtained SSV Normandy, Shepard began his manhunt for the rogue Spectre. Along the way, he created a close bond with Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, with whom he eventually entered a behind closed doors relationship with. After tailing Saren throughout the Galaxy, Shepard eventually made contact with him on Virmire. He attempted to convince Saren that he was Indoctrinated by the Reapers, though the Turian refused to accept the truth. Not only did Shepard fail to kill Saren, but he also lost Kaidan Alenko, a close personal friend, in the process. Shepard finally acomplished his goal by taking down both Saren and Sovereign at the same time during the Battle of the Citadel.

The Collectors
Months later, Shepard and the Normandy crew were attacked by an unknown race of creatures that eventually became identified as the Collectors. The Normandy SR1 was destroyed in the process, and a small portion of the crew, including Ashley Williams and Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau, managed to escape the ship alive via drop pod. Shepard himself was killed in the process after suffocating due to a breach in his armor. In time, his body was recoverd by Dr. Liara T'Soni, an Asari scientist who had accompanied Shepard during the fight against Saren. The body was then taken by Cerberus after The Illusive Man recognized that he was the only chance for Humanity's survival. A nearly two year process known as the Lazarus Project, headed by Miranda Lawson, took place in order to revive Shepard and put him back to work. After Shepard finally awoke, he had strict moral objections to working with Cerberus, though he eventually came to terms with the fact that he had no other options.

With a new enemy, the Collectors, Shepard began to build an elite team of the Galaxy's best scientists, soldiers, biotics and assassins with assistance from the Illusive Man. Secretly, however, his most important goal was to locate Ashley Williams and rekindle the love that they once had. After finally meeting her on Horizon after preventing a Collector harvesting, Shepard was horrified to watch as she turned her back on him and ended their relationship. Following that day, he slipped into a seemingly never ending depression, and even once contemplated suicide. With strong support from Garrus Vakarian, Shepard's closest friend, he eventually got back on his feet and resumed the job that he had been selected to complete. While doing so, he became intimate with Miranda Lawson and, as a means of getting over Ashley, pursued a strictly-sexual relationship with her. Meanwhile, Shepard continued to gather operatives for his mission and eventually struck the Collectors at the heart.

Shepard quickly realized that he was ill-prepared for such a remarkable mission (the term "suicide mission" was appropriate at this point) as he watched his fellow men and women fall one by one. His entire crew was decimated; by the time he had reached the core of the Collector Base, home of an incomplete Human-Reaper Larva, sole survivors were Miranda Lawson and Shepard himself. With assistance from Jeff Moreau, Shepard and Miranda escaped the base after destroying it against the wishes of the Illusive Man, unofficially signing his resignation papers with Cerberus.

Post-Collectors
With only Miranda, Jeff and Shepard remaining on the ship, little was left to be done. The Collectors had been defeated and Cerberus was behind them. The Ex-Cerberus couple resumed their relationship and EDI disabled the countless listening devices and cameras that Cerberus had installed on the ship. Regardless of the outcome, Shepard remained emotionally scarred after losing his crew, of which he thought of as a second family. He suffered heavily from post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional outbursts which he struggled to contain. Shepard also developed a severe case of alcoholism as a way of forgetting about his past.

Shepard's relationship with Miranda Lawson became much more serious; with everyone else he knew gone, Shepard began to rely on Miranda for nearly constant emotional support, and the two become much closer because of it. Meanwhile, Merrell, an acquaintence of Shepard, joined the crew and filled a small portion of the empty space on the Normandy. Following him, Doctor Gordon Freeman forcibly joined the Normandy crew after experiencing a dimensional rift in time, sending him nearly 166 years into the future. Amidst the mass confusion with Doctor Freeman, Delta-One temporarily joined the crew as well.

The Reapers
Months after defeating the Collectors, Admiral Steven Hackett volunteered Shepard into a strictly confidential operation to rescue Doctor Amanda Kenson, a human scientist, from Batarian captivity. The seemingly simple operation became much more complex after Doctor Kenson revealed that herself and her research team had become indoctrinated by studying a piece of Reaper technology dubbed "Object Rho." Before turning on Shepard, Kenson reveals that she has determined the time at which the Reapers will return to the Galaxy from Dark Space, which is only hours away. Shepard fought his way through the facility, desperately attempting to destroy the Alpha Relay, the point of entry for the Reapers. In doing so, however, he realizes that he will destroy an entire system and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Batarians. After weighing the options, Shepard decides to the destroy the Relay anyway, effectively delaying the arrival of the Reapers but becoming a public enemy at the same time. Admiral Hackett, while impressed by the Commander's actions, tells him that he must eventually surrender himself and the Normandy into Alliance captivity. He reluctantly agreed and gave himself up only a week later.

After negotiating with the Alliance, Shepard managed to keep himself and Miranda in loose captivity, while losing the Normandy SR2 in the process. He remained on Earth for nearly a week, awaiting a scheduled trial regarding his actions with Cerberus and the Alpha Relay. Only moments before the trial began, the Reapers arrived on Earth at full force, destroying everything in their path and harvesting every man, woman and child unable to defend themselves. Shepard, Miranda, Gordon and Merrell returned the newly outfitted Normandy SR2 to plead their case to the Galaxy's other races in order to build as much support as possible to retake Earth. In the process, Ashley Williams, fresh from a promotion to Lieutenant Commander, joined Shepard's crew against his will, along with Lietuenant James Vega. They also joined forces with Dr. Liara T'Soni, who, after working on the Prothean Ruins on Mars by orders from Admiral Hackett, discovered the blueprints to an ancient Prothean superweapon known as the Crucible, presumably capable of destroying the Reaper threat, which the forces of the Galaxy begin to build immediately after the plan is displayed to the Citadel Council.

Shepard secures alliances between the Turians, Krogan and Salarians. Shepard eventually makes a deal with the devil by deceiving the Krogan into believing he had cured the Genophage in order to receive maximum support from all three sides. Urdnot Wrex quickly discovered Shepard's betrayal and attacked him on the Citadel, forcing Shepard to kill him before calling off all Krogan support for Earth. Meanwhile, Cerberus enters the fray, forcing Shepard to shift his attention towards them after a massive Coup led by Kai Leng takes place in order to eliminate the alien races from the Citadel Council. Leng fails to do so after Shepard arrives just in time. Ashley Williams, recently inducted into the Spectres, protects the council during the Coup and, after seeing Shepard, believes that he is still with Cerberus. When he is unable to convince her of the truth, Shepard killed Ashley with a Carnifex round to the chest.

More support for Earth contined to flow in as Shepard scoured the Galaxy seeking assets for the war. The Reapers continued to dominate, however, as more and more systems proceeded to fall to their tyranny. After attempting to gain support from the Quarians and, potentially, the Geth as well, Shepard found himself locked into a stale war between the two sides. He managed to end the conflict peacefully nonetheless, and secured a future for both sides by reclaiming Rannoch, the Quarian homeworld. The only remaining race was the Asari, who faced their own problems on Thessia. With intel from the Asari Councilor, Shepard learned that the key to finding the Catalyst, the key to activating the Crucible, could be found hidden in an ancient Asari temple on Thessia. Shepard entered the Temple, finding a Prothean VI inside, but losing it to the hands of Cerberus after Kai Leng arrived.

Angered by Cerberus always having the upper hand, Shepard decided to turn the tables and track down their headquarters. With the help of Oriana Lawson, Miranda's long-lost sister, Shepard eventually traces the location of Cronos Station, where he fails to find the Illusive Man but once again obtains the Prothean VI and learns from it that the Catalyst is actually the Citadel. After killing Kai Leng and joining forces with Admiral Hackett, Shepard and the crew prepare for the final battle on Earth.

With the massive forces of the Galaxy combined into a single, giant armada, Commander Shepard and the Normandy led the battle to retake Earth. After landing on the surface and destroying a Hades Cannon preventing HAMMER from landing, Shepard regroups with Admiral David Anderson and conducts a plan to open the arms of the Citadel in order to place the Crucible. The coming hours are spent taking down a Reaper Destroyer that stands in the path of a Conduit leading to the Citadel and rallying the surviving HAMMER forces together for the final charge.

Miranda, Gordon, Liara, Vega and Shepard regroup with Anderson and Major Coats for the final push: a downhill path to reach the Conduit. They realize that the only way to accomplish their goal is a straight shot at the beam. Shepard delivers a rousing speech to his crew and begins the charge, taking heavy losses in the process. After Miranda and Vega and critically injured by Harbinger, Shepard orders a daring extraction from the Normandy in order to get his crew out alive, though they strongly object. He proceeds to the Conduit before being temporarily incapacitated by Harbinger. After waking up, Shepard realizes that he is the only one to survive and, after Harbinger leaves the scene, proceeds into the Citadel.

Shepard realizes that Anderson also made it to the Conduit and meets him farther inside. The two are halted by the Illusive Man who, using his newfound powers, controls them. Shepard is forced to shoot at Anderson, mortally wounding him, but temporarily breaks free long enough to fire a round at the Illusive Man's head. Before Anderson passes, he shares a final conversation with Shepard as the Citadel's arms open and Earth comes into view.

Admiral Hacket and SHIELD attach the Crucible to the now-open Citadel, only to find that it won't fire. He proceeds to contact Shepard, ordering him to find a way to activate it from his end. Nearing death, Shepard desperate attempted to activate the Crucible to no avail before being lifted upwards against his will. After reaching an area of the Citadel never seen before by man, the Catalyst, revealed to be an Artificial Intelligence residing within the Citadel, speaks to Shepard directly. It reveals the true purpose of the Reapers and the Citadel, as well as the function of the Crucible. It gives Shepard a choice: Destroy or Control the Reapers, representing the aspirations of Admiral Anderson and the Illusive Man, respectively. Shepard, without thinking twice, opts to Destroy them.

Post-Reapers
With the activation of the Crucible, the Reapers (along with the majority of the Galaxy's technology) were destroyed and the war finally came to a pyrrhic end. Shepard was incapacitated by the detonation and, by means currently unknown, sent back to Earth's surface. Against direct orders from Admiral Hackett, Lieutenant Jeff Moreau and the crew of the Normandy returned to the surface to recover Shepard's body. The Normandy narrowly escaped the blast radius after rescuing Shepard.

Shepard remained unconscious for days before waking up to a galaxy without Reapers. He was declared a hero to all races of the Galaxy and was showered with medals and honors from all species. As he had already planned, Commander Shepard announced his official retirement from the Systems Alliance Navy and stepped down as commanding officer of the Normandy SR2, handing over the reigns to Lieutenant Commander Gregory Adams.

Following his detonation of the Crucible, Shepard suffered traumatic injuries throughout his entire body. Many of his implants created from the Lazarus Project were shut down and the majority of his body became paralyzed, along with countless broken bones and other chronic effects. Shepard began physical therapy immediately after being declared capable, and remains in constant training to this day. Regardless of his training regimine, Shepard remains restricted to a wheelchair.

Shepard currently resides in Havana, Cuba with Miranda in a manor that he purportedly spent his life savings on. He is currently engaged to Miranda; a wedding date has yet to be set.

Personality
''Coming (not so) soon. Until then, just know that Matthew is Paragade-ish and loves anal sex.''

Relationships
''Coming (not so) soon. Shepard loves his space hamster, among other things.''

Complete Crew Roster
KEY: [Name] - [Date Served] (Status)

Final Count: 4 Alive, 12 Dead, 4 Unkown
 *  Dr. Liara T'Soni  - 2183 - Present (Alive)
 * Dr. Gordon Freeman - 2185 - Present (Alive)
 * Miranda Lawson - 2185 - Present (Alive)
 * Lieutenant James Vega - 2186 - Present (Alive)
 * Javik - 2186 (Presumed Deceased - Suicide)
 * Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams - 2183 and 2186 (Deceased - Killed by Shepard)
 * Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko - 2183 (Deceased - Killed on Virmire)
 * Garrus Vakarian - 2183 and 2185 (Deceased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * Urdnot Wrex  - 2183 and 2186 (Deceased - Killed by Shepard)
 * Tali'Zorah vas Normandy - 2183 and 2185 (Deceased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * Jacob Taylor - 2185 (Decased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * Thane Krios - 2185 (Deceased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * Mordin Solus - 2185 (Deceased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * Samara - 2185 (Deceased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * Jack - 2815 - (Deceased - Killed at Collector Base)
 * EDI - 2185 - 2186 (Deceased - Killed by Crucible Detonation)
 * Sergeant Marcus Fenix - 2185 (Status Unknown)
 * Corporal Damon Baird - 2185 (Status Unkown)
 * Corporal Dominic Santiago - 2185 (Deceased)
 * Private Augustus Cole - 2185 (Status Unkown)

Trivia

 * Shepard never released Grunt from cryo. He remains in the cargo hold to this day. He also sold Legion to Cerberus.
 * He believes that he may be indoctrinated, due to his exposure to large amounts of Reaper technology over the years, most significantly Object Rho.
 * His favorite song is Hurt by Johnny Cash. Shepard prefers music from the 20th-early 21st century because “music officially turned to shit after 2012.”
 * He has an N7 Shield tatooed on his left bicep.
 * Regardless of the fact that they hate humanity as a whole, Shepard greatly respects Batarians.
 * The only squad members ever to work with Shepard that remain alive are Liara T’Soni, James Vega, Gordon Freeman and Miranda Lawson.
 * Shepard practices Sagetism, a religion that firmly believes Bob Saget is God.
 * Shepard has never punched a reporter.
 * Shepard has an appalling fear of Banshees.
 * Shepard’s favorite beverage is Vodka. He has numerous mini-refrigerators throughout the Normandy filled with it.
 * Thrashball is Shepard’s favorite sport.
 * His favorite book is 69 Sex Positions That Will Drive Your Lover Wild.
 * Shepard once attempted to recruit The Amazing Atheist onto his squad, but failed to do so.
 * Shepard singlehandedly killed every Vorcha on Omega.
 * His favorite movies are Good Will Hunting, Schindler's List and No Country For Old Men.
 * Shepard once proposed “Naked Sundays” on the Normandy, though the crew strongly objected.
 * His favorite weapon mod is Incendiary Ammunition.
 * Several people have invaded the Normandy over the years, most of which have gained permanent passage. Gordon Freeman, the Absent Minded Professor, Delta Squad and Ghost are a few examples.
 * His favorite dish is Chicken Teriyaki.