Commander Shepard

Lieutenant Commander Shepard, a human, is the main character of Mass Effect whose gender, appearance, and skills are all customizable and will have an impact on your experience. He or she is assigned to the crew of the SSV Normandy as Executive Officer (second in command) at the start of the game. Shepard was born in 2154, and is approximately twenty-nine years old at the time of Mass Effect.

Commander Shepard is the first human given the opportunity to join the Spectres, an elite security force for the Citadel Council.

The morality of Commander Shepard is determined through the dialog choices made in game play.

Profile Reconstruction
Profile Reconstruction is the character creation system of Mass Effect. The process is begun by selecting a preset character or creating a custom one.

When creating a custom character, you can choose to play a male or a female. The default names are John Shepard for male characters, and Jane Shepard for females, but only the first names may be customized.

See also Codex/Personal History Summary.

Pre-Service History
Selecting Shepard's pre-service history by choosing either Spacer, Colonist, or Earth born is the next step. This choice impacts how others speak about the main character, and also modifies the rate at which you gain Paragon and Renegade points. Some assignments in the game will only appear depending on your pre-service history.
 * Spacer: Both of your parents were in the Alliance military. Your childhood was spent on ships and stations as they transferred from posting to posting, never staying in one location for more than a few years. Following in your parent's footsteps, you enlisted at the age of eighteen.
 * Spacer characters gain a large bonus to Paragon points received, allowing them to max out their Paragon bar faster.
 * Spacer characters can have a short conversation with Hannah Shepard, the PC's mother, through an assignment that only appears with this background. (In both of the other backgrounds, Shepard's parents are deceased or otherwise absent.)
 * Earthborn: As an Earthborn, you had a rough childhood in the slums of Earth, and have a gritty edge to your personality. You enlisted at the age of eighteen, in order to avoid falling into the trap of gang culture and poverty.
 * Earthborn characters gain a large bonus to Renegade points received, allowing them to max out their Renegade bar faster.
 * Earthborn characters also have a unique quest. A member of a gang Shepard belonged to in youth will approach Shepard outside Chora's Den in the Citadel Wards. Shepard is asked to help free a member of the gang from a turian in the bar.
 * Colonist: You were born and raised on Mindoir, a small border colony in the Attican Traverse. When you were sixteen, slavers raided Mindoir, slaughtering your family and friends. You were saved by a passing Alliance patrol, and you enlisted with the military a few years later.
 * Colonist characters gain a small bonus to both Paragon and Renegade points received.
 * Colonist characters have a unique quest as well. When exiting the docking bay elevator, you will receive a request to help a fellow survivor of Mindoir, having been taken by slavers during the raid on Mindoir when you were sixteen.

Psychological Profile
Psychological profile also has three choices: Sole Survivor, War Hero, or Ruthless - each of these relates to a specific event in Alliance history, placing Shepard in a prominent role.
 * Sole Survivor: During your service, a mission you were on went horribly wrong. Trapped in an extreme survival situation, you had to overcome physical torments and psychological stresses that would have broken most people. You survived while all those around you fell, and now you alone are left to tell the tale. The Sole Survivor's unit was slaughtered in a thresher maw attack on Akuze.
 * Sole Survivor grants neither Paragon nor Renegade points and slightly affects the story of the UNC: Dead Scientists mission.
 * War Hero: Early in your military career you found yourself facing an overwhelming enemy force. You risked your own life to save your fellow soldiers and defeat the enemy despite the impossible odds. Your bravery and heroism have earned you medals and recognition from the Alliance fleet. The War Hero almost single-handedly repelled an attack by batarian slavers on Elysium.
 * War Hero characters gain bonus Paragon points; this background affects the story of the UNC: Espionage Probe mission.
 * Ruthless: Throughout your military career, your have held fast to one basic rule: get the job done. You've been called cold, calculating, and brutal. Your reputation for ruthless efficiency makes your fellow soldiers wary of you. But when failure is not an option, the military always goes to you first. The Ruthless character sent 3/4ths of their unit to its death and murdered surrendering batarians on Torfan.
 * A Ruthless background adds bonus Renegade points and affects the story of UNC: Major Kyle.

Class
Selecting the character's military specialization follows, which determines a set of talents. The six classes to choose from are Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Your class choice will also affect your weapon proficiency - if you are not proficient in a weapon, you can still fire it, but cannot zoom in with it, and many weapon bonuses are void. This applies to all weapons except the pistol.

Appearance
You may then continue with the default appearance or customize the character's looks. Facial structure, head, eyes, jaw, mouth, nose, hair, scarring, make-up (female only) and beard (male only) each have their own options and may be altered for the custom character.

Finalize
Before the game begins a profile summary is shown for review, and a chance to go back and make changes is available.

Trivia
The default face for male Sheppard is in fact that of male top model Mark Vanderloo.


 * Shepard is now part of the Spectres and now no longer technically part of the Alliance military and therefore should not even be referred to as a commander since he is no longer subject to anyone in the Alliance military, only the Council as stated many times.


 * John Shepard, the default male persona, has nearly the same name as the Stargate Atlantis character John Sheppard, though this is likely coincidental. They also share similar roles, with Sheppard being the Military Contingent Commander of Atlantis.


 * The female Shepard is played by prolific voice actress Jennifer Hale, who voiced the Jedi Knight Bastila Shan in BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Obsidian Entertainment's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords and the female Jaden Korr in Raven's Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. She also played the characters of Naomi Hunter and Emma Emmerich in Konami's "Gear Solid" and "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty''", respectively.  Jennifer Hale also contributed to the Metroid Prime series by voicing Samus Aran, though because Samus has no dialog Hale was only responsible for adding injury and impact grunts.


 * Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. was the second person and the first American in space (May 5, 1961). He later commanded the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 and became the fifth person to walk on the Moon.