General Williams served as a Systems Alliance commander of the garrison on Shanxi when the First Contact War broke out. After humans were caught activating the mass relay known as Relay 314, 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.
Mass Effect: Evolution[]
The war was going badly for the humans, yet the General saw fit to arm and train a group of mercenaries to engage the turians. However, as the turians compromised the supply lines he gave the order to pull out of Shanxi and retreat to Arcturus Station. He was convinced the turians were looking for something on the planet aside from humans, but Command felt the world was a lost cause, and he realized few of his men had the heart to fight the invaders anymore. One of the mercenaries, Jack Harper, convinced him to give his team more time to find out what the turians wanted. Williams gave them a Mako for transport and the turian prisoner Jack captured before going to him. The stress of the job meant Williams would drink on the job.
Weeks after the eventual cessation of hostilities, General Williams presided over a prisoner exchange at Arcturus Station. Jack and his teammate Eva Coré were captured during their Shanxi mission, and Williams now knew Jack's turian prisoner was a fellow General, Desolas Arterius, who was able to gain the upper hand on the mercenaries. Insults were traded by both sides, though Williams wondered what's up with the hooded bodyguards Desolas brought to the exchange. When Desolas realized Jack could understand the language he shared with the bodyguards, he tried to take the human back, though General Williams would have none of it and ordered them off Arcturus.
Later in the med bay, Williams was impressed at Jack's vitals, though he offered his condolences to Jack for his teammate Ben Hislop died back on Shanxi. Following the Shanxi retreat the resulting Alliance counterattack drove off the turians from the planet, but the Alliance was now espousing peaceful coexistence with their new alien neighbors. The General disagreed with this course of action, and planned on resigning his command shortly, though he encouraged Jack to continue his investigation. Williams was awarded a personal shuttle for a battle sometime in his career, and he gave it over to Jack and Eva to help their mission.
Mass Effect[]
The General's story comes up during downtime conversations between his granddaughter Ashley Williams and Commander Shepard. During the First Contact War, cut off from reinforcements, Williams commanded a desperate guerrilla 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 Council 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. He was brought back to Earth in handcuffs. While no official charges were brought up against him, Williams was demoted, assigned to desk jobs, and eventually he retired one year after Shanxi's liberation. He ended up working construction out in the colonies for the rest of his days.
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. Ashley herself was kept from obtaining a posting in the Alliance Fleet. Instead, she was relegated to ground force garrisons on human colonies. There have been attempts by some Alliance historians to exonerate General Williams, but these efforts have proven fruitless thus far.