Alessandra Shepard

"If I could walk away, I would. But knowing what I know, I can’t. Walking away now means leaving the galaxy to fend for itself against these enemies, and we both know that’s not my style."



Alessandra Shepard was born in 2154 to Daniel Shepard and Rebecca Sharabi. She was the first child born on the colony world of Mindoir, and one of the earliest to be born outside of the Sol System. The second-oldest of four children, Shepard had a fairly uneventful childhood in a farming community, until her homeworld was attacked by Batarian slavers in 2170. This resulted in the deaths of her parents and youngest brother, Noah Shepard. After the destruction of her home, Shepard moved to New York City on Earth and lived the next two years of her life with her grandmother, Aviva Sharabi.

On her eighteenth birthday, Shepard enlisted to join the Systems Alliance military. Her natural talents quickly became apparent, causing her to rise through the ranks at an unprecedented rate, and she began training to join the Alliance special forces. In 2177, Shepard was the sole survivor of a Thresher Maw attack on Akuze, an event which left fifty marines dead. This event propelled Shepard into the spotlight, and earned her a degree of infamy among Alliance personnel. It also left her deeply traumatized and haunted her years later.

In 2183, Shepard was promoted to Lieutenant Commander and appointed second-in-command of the SSV Normandy under Captain David Anderson. She was sought out as candidate for the first human member of the Citadel Council's Special Tactics and Reconnaissance division. After a prolonged game of cat-and-mouse with disgraced Spectre Saren Arterius, Shepard and her crew successfully defeated the rogue Spectre and repelled an invasion spearheaded by the Reaper Sovereign.

One month later, Shepard was killed in a surprise Collector attack over the planet Alchera. Her body was recovered by Cerberus, and the Lazarus Project worked diligently to bring her back to life. It also activated the dormant element zero nodules in her nervous system, granting her incredible biotic potential. She woke up in 2185 to find that not only was she under the Illusive Man's thumb, her brother Hadron had willingly joined them after becoming disillusioned with the Alliance. Despite her hatred of Cerberus, however, Shepard ultimately grew to believe that they were the only faction with both the will and the means to assist her mission.

The following year, Shepard was on Earth for her tribunal when the Reapers invaded. Admiral Anderson reinstated her rank on the field, and she resumed her position as the Normandy's commanding officer. During this time, Shepard put her diplomatic skills to the test, maneuvering complicated political and moral dilemmas that her training never could have prepared her for. Despite that, she successfully united the galaxy against the Reaper threat, and personally lead the ground assault on Earth. Though she was severely injured and rendered comatose, Shepard ultimately survived the destruction of the Reapers and the Crucible. She spent a year recovering physically and psychologically from the ordeal. She did suffer some major losses, however, most notably Tatiana Shepard, who was killed in action during the final battle.

Shepard returned to the Alliance in 2187 and received a promotion to Captain. That same year, she married fellow Alliance Marine and Spectre Kaidan Alenko. Their first child was born the following year.

In the years to come, Shepard worked diligently to help repair the galaxy. Though no longer quite fit for active field duty, she thrived in a leadership position. She used her Spectre resources to assist in solving the many logistical issues that came with rebuilding an entire galaxy from the ground up, and was viewed as an agent of peace by many.

In 2195, Shepard was promoted to Rear Admiral and received a seat on the newly-created Alliance Security Council, responsible for ensuring the stability and security of the Alliance's provisional government as it was rebuilt from the ground up following its destruction in the Reaper War. Her endorsement was critical to the victory of Prime Minister Eduard Delauney and his coalition government formed to fight the rising popularity of Terra Firma in a new era of post-war political and ideological extremism.

In 2200, now-Admiral Shepard suffered a major political blow when her endorsement of incumbent Prime Minister Delauney proved ineffective in preventing the rise of Terra Firma candidate Seline Marro, who narrowly won the election for Prime Minister that same year. Despite her private resentment, Shepard publicly acknowledged Marro’s victory and vowed to do her part in assisting Marro’s governance. However, this was not enough to prevent the instability that followed. A faction rebelled against Marro’s extremist policies and what they perceived as overt power plays, and decried her administration as illegitimate. Others turned their attention to the Alliance Security Council itself, calling for its dissolution and comparing it to martial law. The political fractures began to manifest as acts of partisan violence on both sides, and resulted in effective anarchy for humanity as a whole.

Once she realized that the violence was escalating to an all-out civil war, Shepard revoked her support of Marro, but refrained from siding with Marro’s opponents. Instead, she called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

The election of 2205 was not held, with Marro instead claiming emergency wartime power and seizing control of many of the Alliance’s military assets. Two years of civil war and instability later, the conflict spread. A series of surprise terrorist attacks on turian, asari, salarian, and krogan colonies and worlds led to those factions unilaterally cutting most economic ties with the Alliance until it brought the political dissidents under control. The turian hierarchy additionally began to target Terra Firma bases, an action which angered even nonaligned humans and served as justification for the escalation of the conflict. With multiple factions drawn into the fray, the conflict was dubbed the Great Galactic War.

Early life
Alessandra Shepard was born on April 11th, 2154 to Daniel Shepard and Rebecca Sharabi.

In 2159, a young Shepard and Rebecca were outside on a walk when a transport exploded over their city. The Element Zero in the ship's drive core released in dust form, spreading throughout the colony and affecting both Shepard and Rebecca, the latter of whom was pregnant with Tatiana Shepard. Though initially alarmed, the Shepards were pleased to learn that Alessandra and Rebecca suffered no effects - positive or negative - and that any element zero nodules in Shepard's nervous system were too minute to be of any concern. This exposure event did cause Tatiana to be born as a biotic, however.

Apart from this, Shepard’s childhood was relatively uneventful. Her elder brother, Hadron Shepard, enlisted in the Alliance when Shepard was 14 and shipped out to Arcturus Station. Two years later, batarian slavers raided the colony on Mindoir.

Shepard’s family home was hit by an artillery strike, killing Daniel, Rebecca, and Noah instantly. Shepard and Tatiana survived the blast, but were injured and buried under the debris. Shepard and her eleven-year-old sister crawled out hours later, the former wielding a pistol. They were spotted by a lone batarian. Before he could react or alert others, Shepard panicked and shot him. Horrified at both the dire situation and her own willingness to kill, Shepard took Tatiana and fled out into the nearby fields. Knowing the horrors of what the batarians did to captured slaves, she vowed that she’d sooner kill both herself and her sister before letting them get captured. The tall grass provided them with the cover they needed to avoid being sighted, but a random explosion nearly killed them. The following day, Alliance personnel found Shepard in the field, cradling her sister.

Shepard and Tatiana moved to live with their grandmother, Aviva Sharabi, in New York City. There, Shepard finished her secondary education and developed a desire to join the military.

Early Military Career
In 2172, Shepard enlisted in the Systems Alliance navy on her eighteenth birthday. She joined under the Alliance’s dual-education program. On Arcturus Station, she received combat training and earned an associate’s degree in Information Management. While there, she developed a romantic relationship with her roommate, Laurence Hashaad. Her exemplary technical scores quickly caught the eyes of her superiors, granting her an invitation to train as part of the Alliance’s special forces. She broke off the relationship with Hashaad, ultimately choosing to prioritize her career and education instead.

After reaching the designation of N1, Shepard earned her officer’s commission in 2175 and joined as a Second Lieutenant. During the following two years, she completed her N2 and N3 regimens and received a promotion to First Lieutenant. In 2177, her squad was assigned to guard a small colony on the jungle world of Akuze. Though it initially appeared to be a mundane assignment, the results quickly proved disastrous.

Akuze suffered a freak Thresher Maw attack, which killed fifty marines and left Shepard as the apparent sole survivor. Unbeknownst to Shepard, this attack was orchestrated by the human terrorist organization known as Cerberus. The ordeal left Shepard traumatized and haunted by the loss of her squadron; she blamed herself for not saving anyone, despite her best efforts. It also made her famous, drawing public attention to her.

In the following years, Shepard continued to climb the ranks at an unprecedented rate. She earned her N7 rank in 2180. During this early period in her career, she received nine special commendations for her exceptional service and leadership.

Geth Incursion
In 2183, Shepard received a promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. She was sought out by Captain David Anderson to serve as executive officer of the SSV Normandy, a prototype Alliance stealth frigate.

Collector Crisis
One month later, the SSV Normandy was ambushed in a surprise attack orchestrated by the enigmatic group known as the Collectors.

Aftermath
Shepard spent three months in a medically induced coma. Once her condition was deemed stable enough, she was brought out of the coma to recover. Shepard awoke to the knowledge that the Reapers had indeed been defeated, that all artificial intelligence was gone, the Normandy was missing in action, and Tatiana Shepard was dead.