General Williams

General Williams was a Systems Alliance Military officer who served in the First Contact War.

Williams was the commander of the garrison on Shanxi when the war began. After traveling through the recently unlocked Shanxi Theta mass relay, an Alliance expeditionary fleet was attacked and almost completely destroyed by a turian patrol fleet. After several small skirmishes, the turians broke through to Shanxi, the closest human colony to the Shanxi Theta relay, and began a brutal siege campaign utilizing orbital bombardment.

Cut off from reinforcements, Williams commanded a desperate guerilla campaign from Shanxi's surface. However, the turians' brutal and efficient tactics made it impossible for the human forces to make any headway. Entire city blocks were destroyed by the turians just to exterminate small Marine fire teams. Finally, Williams realized that the only way to save what was left of Shanxi's population was to surrender to the turians.

Shortly thereafter, Shanxi was liberated by the Alliance Second Fleet, but before a full-scale war could break out, the Citadel Counci intervened and brokered a truce between humanity and the turians. General Williams went down in history as the only human commander to surrender to an alien force, and he fell into disgrace. While no official charges were brought up against him, Williams was drummed out of the military, and he eventually ended up working construction out in the colonies.

Unfortunately, General Williams' disgrace also stained the name of his family. His son also enlisted in the Alliance Navy, but because of his father's reputation, he never rose above the rank of Serviceman, Third Class. Williams' granddaughter, Ashley, was kept from obtaining a posting in the Alliance Fleet and instead she was relegated to ground force garrisons on human colonies and industrial outposts. There have been attempts by some Alliance historians to exonerate General Williams, but these efforts have proven fruitless thus far.