I told him bro. I told him about the VA.

I also feel sorry for us, because MShep's ass was not crafted with nearly as much tender loving care as FemShep's ass was.

And pretend I posted that "Sick Nasty" Garrus image.
 

I must have been the only one who didn't mind MaleShep's VA. *shrug*
FemShep is Jennifer Hale, correct? In some parts in ME2 she sounded like she was bored. In my lousy opinion, of course. *shrug again*

To be fair to them, Shephard has a shitton of lines.
 

Yeah. The main issue is less she did a perfect job and more Meer sounded kinda off for the entire of 1. In 2 it's much closer and more a matter of preference.

This is basically spot on.

The problem is I don't like default ME 2 Shepard, but playing through ME 1 as MShep is a test of endurance for my delicate ears.

...I really wanted to get some Talimance on, too.

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“Alright, assholes, listen up.”

The commander stands in front of our assembled chairs, uniform starched and rigid. We are onboard the SSV Kolkata, and our cruiser is leaving its patrol route for the first time in nearly two months. We are eager for the change.

“This frozen ball of spit is Akuze.” He points to the hologram behind him, a white ball floating in slow rotation, covered in landing vectors and grid overlays. “It’s a red flag world, one of the dozens we snatched up along the traverse to keep the Batarians out of our goddamn business. There’s a pioneer colony of a few thousand sitting on its surface, mostly researchers and mining survey teams. PS-784-00BR9 on the Alliance database, Rolina Seven Three to the locals. Six hours ago, the entire colony went dark. No distress calls, no unusual transmissions, no signs of raider activity in the area. Likely we’re looking at a downed power grid, but command doesn’t want to take any chances in the ass end of nowhere.”

The hologram behind him flickers, an invisible camera zooming down to the planet’s surface. The image changes, warping from a monochrome hologram to a projected satellite image of Rolina Seven Three. Toombs nudges me, whispering as he leans closer.

“This has ‘training mission’ all over it.”

“It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.” I whisper back.

“The SSV Antietam deployed a recon group shortly before our jump to the sector, but the hemisphere wide snowstorms are flaring up again. Makes contact and retrieval a bit tricky, especially for a frigate that size.” The commander turns to his map, fingers pressing against a clearing in the snow and causing a targeting reticule to appear.

“I wonder if they got real guys to play the dead recon squad or if it’s just going to be a bunch of CPR dummies again.” I whisper to Toombs.

Commander Kyle repeats the motion for two more sites, all around the perimeter of Rolina Seven Three. He draws arrows, lines and circles as he speaks.

“Three fire teams are going to be deployed by drop shuttle... Whiskey here, Tango here and Oscar here. They’re going to follow these designated routes as they move on the colony and perform a clean sweep for any members of the recon squad. If they’re really in trouble, you should be able to see their flares through the storm. Once you meet up with them, signal the other fire teams and move on the colony. And for God’s sake, hold your fire. I don’t want someone getting jumpy and mowing down a crowd of researchers because in the snowstorm they looked a hell of a lot like Batarian raiders.”

“Think they’re going to make this live fire or give us the replicas again?” Toombs asks.

“It’s in the middle of snowstorm, of course it’s the replicas.” A nearby private responds.

“Once you’ve secured the facility, you are to contact the Kolkata with your sitrep and wait for further instructions.” Kyle ignores any sign he doesn’t have our full attention. “Any questions? And Toombs if you ask how you can get out of this chicken shit outfit one more time I’m locking your ass in the brig.”

There are no other questions.

The shuttle to the surface of Akuze is claustrophobic. Armored bodies are pressed inside like sardines in a tin. It is one of three shuttles that will be landing on the planet. Fifteen soldiers in a space meant for twelve. Our helmets are on and sealed, suits prepped for level one hazard conditions. The shotgun in my hand is real. The surface of Akuze is an arctic nightmare, nothing but frozen crags and icy winds as far as the satellite maps can see. Rolina Seven Three is situated at the base of a planet spanning mountain range, by the shore of one of its many frozen seas. As our shuttle drops to within a thousand feet of the colony, I can see it burning through the storm. Tango and Oscar’s shuttles break formation and head towards their own landing zones while we continue downward towards the pouring mass of black. I can hear the fires of the colony roaring from inside our shuttle. Not from Rolina, I realize. I wonder, briefly, if all slaughters sound the same.

The Kodiak shuttle swerves upwards to a sudden halt before settling on the ice in front of the colony. The doors open, and the men explode outward, disappearing instantly inside the snowstorm. We no longer believe this is a training mission. The shuttle lifts as I step off of it. We push forward through the snow, matching urgency with steady caution. I can barely see the marine in front of me. We are kept together only by Lieutenant Simms’ constant radio chatter. Our formation is loose, and we leapfrog from cover to cover through the storm. Seven men focused ahead, three covering each side and two guarding rear. I’m kept looking forward, near the formation’s interior. My rank is Gunnery Chief, but my vocational designation is N6. The N marks me as special operations, an asset given to Commander Kyle as a reward for his service at Elysium. The six represents my scored proficiency, ranked in ascending order from lowest to highest.

There are seven proficiency levels.

The flames of Rolina are visible as scattered flickers through the fog of white. There has been no sign of the recon team. I can hear the fires now, distant, muffled. No screams. The colony is built out of prefabricated buildings, faded white boxes stacked across the wide cement landing zone. Most of them are burning, or scattered in pieces across the snow. The sheer cliff that rises above Rolina Seven Three provides some shelter from the storm. Tiny black forms from across the colony radio that they have found no sign of the recon team. We move into the heart of the colony. There is no sign of survivors or lingering attackers. Johnson stops to check the frozen body of a researcher. He is not wearing any environmental protection.

“Must have been in one of the buildings when it exploded. Either ran out in a panic or was thrown by the force.”

Barrel mounted flashlights comb the devestation. Bodies and rubble glow underneath the pillars of flame.

“Whoever this was hit the place like a mass driver, there couldn’t have been many survivors to capture. Why would they do this? Were they trying to send a message?” Toombs voice sounds over the oddly quiet radio.

“Batarians don’t need a reason.” I respond, light trained on a severed torso. “They’re going to pay for this one.”

“There’s a whole cargo tank of E-Zero here.” Someone from Tango squad radios in. “Colony must be sitting on a vein, the Batarians didn’t even touch it.”

“Jesus Christ...” The voice is Lieutenant Simms. His rifle is lowered, and he is standing on the edge of a thirty foot wide hole torn through the concrete. I approach beside him, leaning over the lip. It appears to go down forever, jagged bits of stone and metal sticking out from the dirt walls.

“What the fuck is this?” I say, the radio suddenly filling with chatter.

“Look at his goddamn thing.”

“That a hole? There’s another one over here.”

“Got another beneath the garage.”

“They’re all over the damn place. What the fuck’s going on?”

Simms is stepping back from the edge, raising is rifle again.

“This is Lieutenant Simms, I’m ordering an immediate withdrawal from Rolina, rendevous at the shuttle extraction point coordinates six one seven nine-”

As he speaks, his voice is cut off by a low, steady rumble. It grows in volume, the ground around us begining to shake. It builds to a crescendo, an explosion of ice and steel as the monster roars up from the core of the world. A creature the size of a starship towers over the colony, head surrounded by clacking mandibles and whipping tendrils. The snow tears around its form in flurries, and an eternity of time is stretched out into a few silent moments before it roars.

The remnants of the colony erupt in weapons fire, forty five marines scattered into three squads pour magnetically accelerated slugs into the hide of the nightmare. It disappears in an instant, slamming into the ground as debris and men are sent flying. The ground begins to shake again beneath me, and I turn in time to watch the creature erupt from it behind us. It whips down again, head skimming along the surface of the colony. Snow and rock give way beneath it as the nightmare rushes towards me. I do not move fast enough. One of its mandibles pierces through my chest, and I am a fish on a hook. I don’t know how far I travel, speared through the monster’s teeth, but I can feel it rip free of my body.

I fall, crashing and rolling across the ground. Gunfire and screams grow muffled. There are two more heads moving across the sky, green fire pouring from their mouths onto the marines below. I am on my back. My combat suit is warning me of multiple lacerations, fractures and blood loss. I can taste copper. Every vein in my body is filled with glass. Purple dust is mixing with the snow around me. My helmet visor is cracked in three places, splattered with blood that is mostly mine. The radio is quietly screaming for evac. I cannot move my arms. The edges of the world begin to fill with white.

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When the Antietam dropped its mass effect fields and lowered its bulk onto the planet surface in a desperate last bid to regain contact with the colony or the strike team, I had been unconscious for four hours. My skeleton was fractured in seventeen places, shattered in nine. Most of my insides were out and frozen, and what was left of my suit did nothing to stop the onset of rapid hypothermia. The purple dust I'd fallen into was the cracked open remnants of the Eezo container the colony had collected, meaning I'd been lying like a Gorang steel slug in lethal levels of the stuff for three times the recommended exposure limit. When the Antietam rescue teams pulled me out of that massacre they had to check their scanners twice over. Said I looked worse than most of the corpses.

I was the only survivor they pulled out of that godforsaken pit.

It took three months before I could move under my own power, half the time most of the doctors expected. They told me the eezo exposure was having some side effects, that I was showing spikes of biotic potential. They said I must have been exposed to the dust in utero back on Mindoir. I met Commander Kyle again while I was in the hospital, said he felt horrible about what happened, and that he wanted to give me an honorable discharge. I declined. He told me they could fix the scars from the attack and the reconstructive surgeries. I declined those, too. Like a soldier ever mends a bullet hole in his coat, right?

When the biotic spikes turned out to be more than a fluke, I volunteered for the Alliance's Ascension program, a military academy meant to train and discipline human biotics. I was the oldest student two times over, somehow still got invited to parties. I spent five years training my biotic potential, something that puts Hell Month from the special forces training to shame. You have to consciously control your entire nervous system, produce a mass effect field with nothing but your mind. Well, your mind and the amplifier they surgically implant inside your head. Still got the scar from that, too, beneath the hair.

By the end of it, I've completed the Ascension graduation courses for biotics and officer training and earned the rank of first lieutenant. I run a handful of black ops missions against human and Batarian slavers stationed along the Traverse, although I miss Major Kyle's assault on Torfin. Wish I could have been there for that. I also undergo re-evaluation for my vocational designation.

I make N7

When I do, I'm contacted by a Captain Anderson and asked to join a pet project the Alliance has been developing alongside the Turian military. The Normandy, a military frigate effectively invisible to everything but the naked eye. Revolutionary engineering, unlimited wetwork potential, very hush hush. He offers me a promotion to Lieutenant Commander, and a spot as the ship's XO.

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I accept.

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Our mission is easy. Simple. Test the stealth systems. A dry run in Alliance territory over a major garden world.

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The Arturus Prime relay is in range. Initiating transmission sequence...

The personnel behind planetary sensors have been filled in on the basics of the mission. They're going to be scanning the stars for us, and we're going to slip in, land on the planet, and slip out with them being none the wiser.

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We are connected. Calculating transit mass and destination.

They'll hail us if we're detected, and if we are, well, mission failure.

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Simple.


Easy.

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Suspicious.

Relay is hot, all stations brace for transit.

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We leave the Sol system without a hitch.

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"Thrusters... check. Navigation... check. Internal emissions sync engaged. All systems online. Drift... just under fifteen hundred K."

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"Fifteen hundred is good. Your Captain will be pleased."

The Turian beside me is Nihlus, the council's representative on our joint military venture. Calm. Collected. Disciplined.

And a Spectre.

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"I hate that guy." The pilot whispers.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment... so you hate him." The navigator is Lieutenant Alenko, one of our senior officers. Another biotic, like me. I'd like to talk to him about it when I get the chance. Fifteen year old students and civilian sector Asari are surprisingly poor conversationalists when it comes to this shit.

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"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on your way out of the bathroom? That's good. I just flung us halfway across the galaxy and hit the target the size of a pinhead, so that's incredible. Besides, he's a a Spectre. I don't like having them onboard. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid." Alenko responds. "The Turians helped fund this project, they have a right to send someone to see it through."

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"They didn't send someone." I say. "They sent a Spectre. You don't do that for shakedown runs."

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"See? Even the XO agrees with me. There's something else going on here."

The ship's intercom flashes above the holographic display, the Captain's voice rising over the chatter.

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"Joker. Status report."

"Just cleared the mass relay, Captain. Stealth systems engaged. Everything looks solid."

"Good. Find a comm buoy and link us into the network. I want mission updates relayed to the Alliance brass before we reach Eden Prime. Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm room for a debriefing."

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"You get that, Commander?"

"I'm on my way."

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The CIC is mostly quiet, murmurs between the crew about the mission, suspicions that something is definitely wrong. The staff doctor is talking to one of the corporals. Chakwas, I think was her name. The corporal is Jenkins, someone I'm surprised survived basic, let alone a marine endurance course.

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"Commander! We're not going to stay on Eden Prime too long, are we? I'm itching for some real action."

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"I sincerely hope you're kidding, corporal." The doctor's voice is a strange mixture of saccharine gravel and upper British. Probably wasn't born on the colonies. "Your 'action' usually ends with you spending two weeks in my office."

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"The doctor's right, Jenkins. Only an idiot goes looking for a fight."

"Sorry, Commander. This waiting's killing me. I've never been on an assignment like this before, not with a Spectre onboard."

"Just treat it like any other mission and you'll be fine."

"Don't worry, sir. I won't screw this up."

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The comm room is located near the back of the upper decks, away from the bridge and the CIC. The guard on station salutes me as I pass.

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I thought the captain was supposed to be here.

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"Shepard." The Turian says. "I'm glad you're here. It will give us a chance to talk."

"What about?"

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"This world we're going to, Eden Prime, I understand it's quite beautiful."

"I've never been." My voice is low, feigning disinterest. What's he getting at?

"But you know of it. It's become something of a symbol for your people, hasn't it? Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies, but also protect them. But I wonder... how safe is it, really?"

"If you've got something to say, just say it."

The door to the comm room slides open, and Captain Anderson approaches us from behind.

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"Nihlus, I think it's time we tell the Commander what's really going on."

"Very well." The Turian turns to me. "This is far more than a simple shake down run, Shepard."

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"Thanks. I hadn't noticed."

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"We're making a covert pick up on Eden Prime, that's why we needed the Normandy's stealth systems. This is big, Shepard. The colony on Eden Prime unearthed something during a mining operation. An artifact. It was Prothean."

"Prothean? Are we expecting trouble?"

"I'm always expecting trouble." The Turian says.

"There's more, Shepard. Nihlus isn't just here for the beacon. He's also here to evaluate you."

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"What's going on here, Captain?"

"The Alliance has been pushing for this for a long time. Humanity wants a larger role in shaping interstellar policy. We want more say with the Citadel council. The Spectres represent the council's power and authority. If they accept a human into their ranks, it will show how far the Alliance has come."

Nihlus moves forward, flanking me, beady eyes focused like a bird of prey.

"Not many could have survived what you went through on Akuze. You showed a remarkable will to live. A particularly useful talent. That's why I put your name forward as a candidate for the Spectres."

"Why would a Turian want a human in the Spectres?"

"Not all Turians resent humanity. Some of us see the potential of your species. We see what you have to offer to the rest of the galaxy, and to the Spectres. We are an elite group, and it's rare to find an individual with the skills we seek. I don't care that you're human, Shepard. I only care that you can get the job done."

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"I need to see your skills for myself, Commander. Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together." He continues.

"You'll be in charge of the ground team, Shepard." Anderson says. "Secure the artifact and get it onto the Normandy ASAP. Nihlus will follow you to observe the mission and your performance."

"Just give the word, Captain."

"We should be getting close to-"

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The intercom cuts him off, Joker's worried voice echoing across the comm room.

"We've got a problem, Captain. Transmission from Eden Prime. You'd better see this."

"Bring it up on screen."

The far wall is filled with an orange glow, the center quickly turning to static, then displaying a helmet mounted video feed.

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GET DOWN!

The video is bloody and chaotic, Marines cut down by weapons fire and heavy artillery launched from unseen enemies.

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The helmet feed snaps upwards, the sound of Marine gunfire grows quiet, as if in awe. A single hand reaches down across the blood red sky.

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"Everything cuts out after that." Joker says over the loudspeaker. "No comm traffic at all. Just goes dead."

"Reverse and hold ant thirty eight point five."

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"Seventeen minutes out, Captain. No other Alliance ships in the area."

"Take us in, Joker. Fast and quiet. This mission just got a lot more complicated."

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"A small strike team can move quickly without drawing attention. It's our best chance at securing the beacon."

"Nihlus, grab your gear and meet us in the cargo hold." As the Turian leaves, the Captain grabs my arm.

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"Tell Alenko and Jenkins to suit up, Commander."

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"You're going in."

woooooooooooooo

That's actually a decent looking custom MShep. Rare sight!

Nice Akuze exposition as well. It'd have been nice to have the background explored a little more in the game, but oh well.