Darth Wiki / Uncharted Worlds

Uncharted Worlds is an as-of-yet unpublished collection of fanfiction based on the Mass Effect franchise. Unlike canon, this story involves three different Shepards (albeit with one, Alessandra Shepard, clearly being the Shepard).

The main series loosely follows the events of the trilogy, but diverges following the end of 3. There are a handful of standalone stories as well.

• To Still Believe acts as a prequel describing the Shepard siblings' childhoods, with a particular focus on how they each coped following the Mindoir attack that killed their parents and youngest sibling.
• Andromeda covers the events of... well, Mass Effect: Andromeda.
• Finis acts as a follow-up to the main series, exploring the lives of the next generation as a new war threatens to rip apart the healing galaxy.

Main Characters:

Alessandra Shepard

Commander Alessandra "Sandra" Shepard

Three-time savior of the galaxy.

"Regret is a cruel teacher, but a damn good one."

A Commander in the Systems Alliance, and the first human Spectre.

---

• The Ace: Shepard is widely regarded as the most skilled and lethal soldier in the galaxy, and for good reason. Combine that with her charisma and leadership skills, and she definitely qualifies as this trope.
• Action Girl: She's a female spec-ops soldier.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Thanks to the cybernetic implants she received from the Lazarus Project, Shepard is highly resistant to toxins and drugs. While she's not entirely immune, her tolerance is enough that she can shrug off a dose of poison that would kill a normal human. Even normal substances like sedatives and alcohol have a much lower impact.
• Action Mom: At the end of 4, once her kids are born. Her fight scenes in the next storyline prove she can still kick ass.
• Action Survivor: Her backstory makes her one of these. She survived the batarian slave raid on Mindoir when she was sixteen, an event that killed both of her parents and her younger brother.
• Affectionate Nickname: Pretty much every character privileged enough to be on a First-Name Basis with Shepard calls her by the nickname Sandra.
• Ambadassador: Though not her official job, Shepard spends much of 3 acting as a diplomat and ambassador, negotiating alliances on behalf of humanity. This is also where she's at her most badass.
• Appearance Angst: In 2. While Shepard normally isn't one who cares much about her appearance (and in fact, she's aware that others find her very attractive), she becomes extremely self-conscious about the scars she acquired as a result of Project Lazarus since they mark her as obviously Transhuman and dresses modestly to hide them until they fade. This is particularly notable since she otherwise shows no concern about her regular scars affecting her appearance.
• Anti-Hero: Not at first, but Shepard starts slipping into this territory in 2, what with her increasing cynicism and pragmatism. She later reverts back into a Classical Anti-Hero in 3, being less pragmatic, but more prone to self-doubt.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: How she became a Spectre.
• Back from the Dead: She's killed at the start of 2, but later revived thanks to Cerberus.
• Badass Family: Shepard and her siblings are all highly trained combatants.
• Badass Normal: Has no powers to speak of. At first.
• Bald Head of Toughness: After her ordeal at the end of 3, Shepard's hair is burned to the scalp, leaving her bald. She does eventually grow it back out, however, but in the meantime it serves to emphasize her resilience.
• Being Good Sucks: Especially in 2 and 3. No matter how much good she does, Shepard is constantly screwed over by higher-ups and treated as if she's crazy. When people do finally start taking her seriously, she's expected to spearhead a war effort against an unstoppable force. It really takes its toll on her physically and emotionally.
• Beneath the Mask: Throughout the series, as the commanding officer, Shepard is forced to constantly show an air of calm, confidence, and no fears or worries. As 3 goes along, this mask begins to crack more and more, as she is slowly broken down by the pressure of stress of having an entire galaxy on her shoulders, and begins to show a great deal of worry, fear, exhaustion, loneliness, and begins to question whether she can actually pull it off.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Pretty much her entire character in a nutshell. While Shepard is generally a Paragon, that won't stop her from using force in the name of protecting others.
• Blemished Beauty: She has several scars, but they don't seem to detract from her appearance at all.
• Broken Ace: By the end of the trilogy, she’s been physically and psychologically beaten to the bone.
• Broken Bird: Tying into the above. Shepard makes a great effort to brush off her pain, particularly in the 2, where she feels like she can’t afford to confide in anyone. 3 sees her mask gradually chip away. This becomes far more prominent in 4, where she becomes severely closed off and numb thanks to a hefty dose of clinical depression and PTSD.
• Broken Pedestal: Her resurrection at the hands of Cerberus leads several other characters to view her this way, most notably Tatiana, Kaidan, and Toombs. While the former two later forgive her, the latter never does.
• Came Back Strong: Project Lazarus grants her previously-inaccessible biotic abilities. In addition to that, Shepard also possesses a reinforced skeletal structure, cybernetic implants, and immunity to poisons and toxins that would kill a regular human.
• The Captain: Though Shepard holds the rank of Commander, it's noted in-universe that she acts more as a de facto Captain, having taken over the position of Normandy's Commanding Officer from Captain Anderson. The quarians explicitly regard her as a Captain under their legal system because of this. Shepard gets an actual promotion to the rank of Captain in 4, becoming this trope in full.
• The Chains of Commanding: Shepard's job is not a fun one, to say the least.
• Children Forced to Kill: She first killed someone during the Raid of Mindoir at sixteen, while defending her sister from a batarian.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Full of self-doubt, struggling with severe trauma, and terrified of failure, but still a hero and a badass.
• Commanding Coolness: "Commander" might as well be her first name.
• Conflicting Loyalty: A major theme throughout 2. Shepard wants nothing more than to return to the Alliance, but feels obligated to fight the Collectors the only way she sees how: with Cerberus, a terrorist organization in direct opposition to the Alliance and Council. She later rejoins the Alliance in 3.
• Consummate Professional: Subverted. Shepard tries to be this. She presents herself to others as a model soldier and officer, follows the rules where she can and encourages others to do the same, and generally maintains a composed, stoic demeanor in professional contexts. However, anyone who has served with or under Shepard will testify to the fact that she's actually quite Mildly Military.
• Covered in Scars: Thanks to Project Lazarus, Shepard starts 2 with her entire body covered in glowing red-orange scars, though these gradually fade over the course of the story. While she had numerous regular scars in 1 that disappeared after Lazarus, she acquires plenty of new ones throughout the series.
• Dark and Troubled Past: While Shepard had a relatively normal childhood, that all changed when she was a teenager and watched her parents and youngest sibling get murdered in a batarian slave raid. Her most notable mission prior to the series saw her as the Sole Survivor of an attack that killed over fifty of her comrades, including several friends.
• Deadpan Snarker: She can be very witty and sarcastic, and can give as good as she gets in Snark-to-Snark Combat.
• Death Seeker: Begins to have subtle vibes of this during 3, having recurring nightmares of the boy in the vent and fallen friends. While Shepard still continues to fight as she has always done and claims to be fine, the mask of cool and collected is beginning to crack and various characters start to notice how emotionally burnt out she is. On the whole, she gives the impression that while she's not actively looking for death, she would consider it a relief.
  • Though 4 muddies the waters a bit, since she outright claims that "[she] was supposed to die" on the Citadel and seems to regret her survival at times.
• Despair Event Horizon: She crosses it at the end of 3, and spends the early part of 4 borderline catatonic from severe PTSD, clinical depression, and mental exhaustion. She gets better eventually, but it takes a while.
• Determinator: This woman just doesn't know when to quit. Dead allies, severe injury, and blood loss won't stop her from saving the galaxy.
• Determined Defeatist: As the third game rolls on, Shepard becomes progressively less optimistic about the galaxy's chances. It still doesn't stop her from fighting tooth and nail to win.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: She's made an entire career out of this, having killed three Reapers and orchestrated the deaths of several more.
• Disney Death: At the end of 3, Shepard is revealed to have survived the Crucible's firing.
• Doomed Hometown: Mindoir.
• The Dreaded: Picks up this reputation thanks to her many acts of badassery. It gets to the point where even the Reapers consider Shepard a Worthy Opponent capable of singlehandedly upsetting their war effort. The Leviathans note that Shepard is the only person the Reapers have ever feared.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Thanks to Project Lazarus. She even unlocks her latent biotic potential.
• Experienced Protagonist: At the start of the story, Shepard has already been in the military for eleven years, and her heroics are already well-known among the Alliance.
• Four-Star Badass: By 5, she's been promoted to Admiral.
• Genius Bruiser: Though perhaps not to the extent of her brother, Shepard is still an incredibly shrewd fighter and a skilled tactician and officer.
• Good Is Not Soft: Shepard is unquestionably selfless and compassionate, but if pushed, will not hesitate to gun down anyone stupid enough to get in her way.
• Guile Hero: Shepard is forced to play politics in order to rally the galaxy against the Reaper threat. Though she herself claims that she's "a soldier, not a politician", she's remarkably good at both.
• Guilt Complex: In 3, Shepard is dealing with the triple-whammy of enabling Cerberus, destroying the Bahak system, and watching the galaxy get overrun. It's little wonder that she's dealing with one of these.
• Head-Turning Beauty: She's noted to be incredibly attractive, and attracts a lot of interest from other characters.
• The Heart: As Joker puts it, she's the glue that holds the team together. Though Shepard lacks the outward gentleness typical to this trope, she still manages to fulfill it by being the designated peacekeeper and Magnetic Hero.
• Heartbroken Badass: In 2, though she gets better by the middle of 3.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Thanks to her stint with Cerberus in 2. It's heavily implied that Cerberus invoked this with strategic leaks to get Shepard under their thumb.
• Heroes Love Dogs: She gets a therapy dog in 4 named Pepper, who she absolutely adores.
• Heroic Fatigue: By the end of 3, it's quite apparent how exhausted she is and that there is barely any fight left in her.
• I Can't Dance: Shepard can kill, negotiate, bribe, or charm her way out any situation, and has long since been proven the ultimate problem-solving machine in the galaxy. Despite her long list of impressive skills and athletic ability, in no situation seen thus far can she avoid looking like a complete jackass when attempting to "dance."
• Inappropriately Close Comrades: With her Love Interest and fellow Alliance officer and Spectre, Kaidan Alenko.
• It Never Gets Any Easier: Subverted. Upon Miriam asking if the killing that comes with military duty ever gets any easier, Shepard tells her that no, it doesn't, in an effort to dissuade her. However, Shepard notes in her own narration that this was actually a lie - it does get easier. What doesn't get easier is having that knowledge.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Paragon to the core, but with a jaded and resigned exterior.
• The Lad-ette: She doesn't seem all that feminine: career marine, rarely wears dresses, sits like a man, speaks with a deep voice, and downs shots just as readily as any of the men around her(even ryncol).
• Lightning Bruiser: Upon receiving her L5 implants in 2, Shepard gains the ability to biotically propel herself forward in combat. Combined with the boost it adds to her Barriers, and she's one of the most agile and durable characters in the entire cast.
• Little Black Dress: Dons one of these during the Citadel arc, though a different one than in canon, and she wears a separate outfit to the casino. It's noted to be very flattering.
• Made of Iron:
  • Due to Cerberus upgrades during the resurrection process, Shepard's skeletal structure has been reinforced to the point where she can literally headbutt a krogan without flinching. Lair of the Shadow Broker shows that Shepard is strong enough to hold their own in a fist-fight with a yahg.
  • Upped in 3, where aside from several instances of falls and being thrown across the room by explosions with no ill-effect, Shepard survives being blasted by Harbinger's main gun. The kind that cuts capital ships in half. Though not unscathed by a long shot.
  • And at the end of 3, Shepard survives the Citadel/Crucible exploding around her. Iron doesn't really describe it at that point.
• Magnetic Hero: And how. So great is Shepard's ability to inspire this kind of absolute loyalty from so many diverse people that the Big Bad of the Citadel arc derisively labels her team, "The Cult of Shepard".
  Miranda: I don't have what you do. The kind of fire that makes people willing to follow you into hell itself.
• Mama Bear: In 5. Do not threaten her children if you know what's good for you.
• Never Gets Drunk: Downplayed, but present. Post-Lazarus, Shepard's cybernetics render her highly resistant to toxins, including alcohol. She can get drunk, but the amount of alcohol it takes to get her there would kill a regular human. Her resistance to alcohol is said to be similar to that of a krogan, and she's the only known human who can handle a krogan drink like ryncol.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Her actions in 2 enable Cerberus to become a powerhouse in 3 capable of posing a threat to the galaxy at large. While Shepard does make an effort to keep the Collector Base out of the Illusive Man's grasp, it's too little too late.
• One-Woman Army: She can take a squad of three against three hundred and come out on top, as well as bring her entire squad through a guaranteed suicide mission alive. Even without any squad members to back her up, Shepard is a force to be reckoned with. Just ask all of the members and assault troopers of Project Rho. Oh wait you can't, they're all dead.
• The Paragon:
• Plagued by Nightmares: From 2 onward. At first it's simply flashbacks of her death, but later these nightmares grow to include Hearing Voices of dead friends and reliving the trauma she suffers throughout the Reaper War specifically. Shepard also mentions that she used to have recurring nightmares after Mindoir and Akuze, but she's mostly recovered from that trauma by the start of the series.
• The Pollyanna: Invoked in 1. Shepard isn't naturally this trope, but acts squeaky clean because she's keenly aware that the entire galaxy's eyes are on her, and that her image represents humanity as a whole.
• Power Incontinence: Thanks to her lack of biotic training, Shepard experiences biotic flare-ups in 2 whenever feeling particularly distressed or emotional. While mostly under control by the time 3 rolls around, she still has at least one episode.
• Pragmatic Anti Hero: Slides into this category in 2, as the stress and isolation of her predicament wear down on her, and she becomes increasingly more jaded and willing to Shoot the Dog.
• Professional Maiden Name: Throughout the entire series, Shepard almost always goes by her surname. She doesn't even consider changing it upon getting married since it's so well-known by that point.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Shepard becomes transhuman in 2, having been resurrected with cybernetic implants and undergoing extreme genetic modification, up to and including giving her biotic powers. Shepard expresses discomfort at the idea of being a transhuman, however, and strongly prefers to think of herself as fully human.
• Recurring Dreams: As part of her PTSD in 3, Shepard experiences a recurring dream of herself failing to save the little boy on Earth, over and over again. These dreams later include her hearing the voices of fallen allies calling out to her.
• Secular Hero: While discussing the topic of religion with Ashley, Shepard states that she was raised Jewish, but that she herself isn't religious.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: During her Black-Tie Infiltration missions in 2 and 3, other characters comment on how well Shepard fills out a dress.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: In 3, it becomes pretty clear how emotionally burned out Shepard really is. Particularly since it's highlighted that Shepard never really dealt with the trauma of dying in the previous entry and has been simply putting on a brave face for everyone's benefit. Joker once mentions his concern that Shepard's vitals recorded by her armor registered her as being presently under more stress than she was at Akuze, just in her normal resting state. She has a recurring nightmare of being in a forest full of shadowy figures and ghosts, and hears the whispers of all the teammates and crew members who have died over the course of the trilogy.
• Shipper on Deck: Toward Garrus and Tali. Though it takes her a while to accept the idea, she eventually becomes this for Hadron and Miranda as well.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Why Shepard ultimately falls for Kaidan. While the rest of the crew is a Dysfunction Junction, Kaidan remains a constant source of support and kindness.
• Sole Survivor: Her backstory. Deployed to a planet called Akuze, and her entire unit is slaughtered by a Thresher Maw. There is one other survivor, but he's unhinged from spending years as a lab experiment for Cerberus.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Shepard is said to be the splitting image of her late mother Aviva. Shepard's youngest child Miriam also takes very heavily after her in appearance.
  Tatiana: Every year it gets harder to remember Mom's face. But having you around helps with that.
• Super-Soldier: From 2 onwards. Thanks to Project Lazarus, Shepard Came Back Strong.
• Taking You with Me: Subverted. Shepard thinks that she's doing this at the end of 3, when she destroys the Reapers and nearly kills herself in the process. However, she ends up narrowly surviving.
• Too Broken to Break: After crossing the Despair Event Horizon thanks to the ending of 3, Shepard reaches this point in 4. She barely reacts to the news that her little sister was killed. Hadron and Miranda point out how troublingly out of character this is for her.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Shepard's portrayal in 2 is far more short-tempered and angry compared to other works. Justified since a major plot point in 2 is her emotional isolation and unresolved trauma over being brought Back from the Dead, as well as her anger about working for Cerberus.
• Trauma Button: Waking up to the view of space from her bedroom ceiling proves to be one, as it triggers a traumatic flashback of how she died. After that, Shepard keeps it permanently closed.
• Trauma Conga Line: Pretty much her entire life is one. Both her backstory and her actual story are just traumatic event after traumatic event.
• Unable to Cry: It's repeatedly mentioned throughout the early part of 4 that Shepard is too emotionally numb to process her trauma and grief, as she suppresses her emotions instead of dealing with them in a healthy way. This means that she does not shed a single tear upon learning of the Normandy's disappearance or Tatiana's death, the latter of which greatly concerns Hadron and Miranda. Shepard does cry Tears of Joy when the Normandy returns, and finally has a good Cathartic Cry when visiting Tatiana's grave.
• Unskilled, but Strong: In regards to her biotics. Shepard's raw power is immense by human standards, though still weaker than Jack's. But the fact that she received them so late in life and had to learn on the fly meant that she couldn't go through a training regimen to hone her skills. So she gets by on raw power while seriously lacking finesse. While Shepard does spend a lot of time practicing her biotics in between 2 and 3, they remain noticeably unstable.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Cerberus in 2. The Collector threat was real, but an examination of the mission summaries shows that they were using Shepard for other projects. When Shepard comes to realize the extent of their manipulation of her when attacking the Cerberus HQ, both she and her squad members are not pleased, to say the least.
• We Can Rebuild Her: And they did. The goal of Project Lazarus was to bring Shepard back as close to normal as possible, but they threw in a few upgrades.
• When She Smiles: It isn't often that Shepard gets to smile. So when she does, it tends to fall under this trope.
• Worth Living For: Near the end of 3, Shepard admits to Javik that her friendships with the Normandy's crew is the only thing keeping her going, with Javik noting Shepard's Love Interest Kaidan in particular. Given that she has become something of a Death Seeker, Shepard's thoughts of her loved ones are strongly implied to be what makes her hold on and survive the ending.

Tatiana Shepard

Staff Lieutenant Tatiana Shepard

"They weren't exaggerating about what I can do."

"You want to know the best thing about fighting a hopeless war? I've got nothing left to lose, and everything worth fighting for."

The younger sister of Commander Shepard, Tatiana was born with a strong affinity for biotics.

---

• Action Girl:
• Action Survivor: As with Shepard, Tatiana survived the batarian slave raid on Mindoir, though her parents and younger sibling died. She was only eleven at the time.
• The Atoner: This was her primary motivation for joining the Alliance, as Tatiana spent her teenage years perpetuating gang violence and lashing out at a world that had taken everything from her.
• Badass Adorable: During her time with the Reds, Tatiana was already throwing around perps twice her size. She was barely an adolescent at the time.
• Badass in Distress: In 3 when Cerberus captures her on Thessia. She manages to break herself out of captivity, though she notes that she would never have actually escaped Chronos Station were it not for Shepard.
• Barrier Warrior: One of her abilities is to create biotic barriers, though Tatiana notes that she's not great at passively maintaining them in sustained combat, preferring instead to cast them as needed. At the end of 3, Tatiana is able to shield herself and her siblings from a Reaper beam with her biotics, and manages to absorb most (but not all) of the damage.
• Broken Bird: A young woman with a Dark and Troubled Past and the cynicism to match? Tatiana is definitely this trope.
• Broken Pedestal: Towards Hadron and (to a far lesser extent) Shepard during their stint with Cerberus. Later becomes a Rebuilt Pedestal when she forgives them.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Along with Alessandra, she lived through the batarian slave raid on Mindoir and watched the rest of their family (save Hadron, who wasn't present) get slaughtered. She was only eleven at the time, which is likely why it soured her worldview so much. She then ran away from home and became a gang member, only joining the Alliance when she saw that there would be no future in such a life. She also experienced a great deal of Fantastic Racism in her youth thanks to the rampant prejudice against human biotics.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: She dies in Hadron's arms at the end of 3.
• Elemental Hair Colors: Invoked. While Tatiana is naturally a brunette like her siblings, she dyes her hair purple to match with her powers.
• Ensign Newbie: In 1 she's stated to barely be out of the academy, but already holds the rank of Second Lieutenant.
• Everyone's Baby Sister: Although not the youngest crewmember, it's noted that thanks to Shepard's influence, pretty much everyone perceives Tatiana this way.
• Fantastic Racism: Toward batarians, who she dismisses as Always Chaotic Evil.
• Glass Cannon: She's not particularly durable, but her biotics pack a hell of a punch.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Rather than getting out of the way of a crashing transport, Tatiana uses her final moments to biotically push Shepard and Hadron to safety.
• Hot-Blooded: She can be angry and impulsive, to the point where even James comments on it.
• Informed Attractiveness: While Shepard remarks in her narration that Tatiana had always been the more beautiful of the two sisters, Shepard herself actually seems to attract more romantic attention than Tatiana. This might just be a case of Shepard conflating traditional femininity with attractiveness, however.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Tatiana has a very abrasive and cynical demeanor, and sometimes slides into morally questionable territory, but she's a good person at heart.
• Like Brother and Sister: Has this dynamic with Kaidan during 2 and 3. Due to their shared grief at Shepard's "death" and defection, as well as their biotics and Undying Loyalty to the Alliance, they become both professionally and personally close to the point of bordering on Big Brother Mentor. While consoling Liara about Tatiana's death in Eyes Forward, Kaidan describes her as the little sister he never had.
• Lipstick Lesbian: She's into women, and is surprisingly feminine for a military gal.
• Mayfly–December Romance: With Liara, an asari with a lifespan nearly ten times her own. Made even worse by the fact that Tatiana doesn't survive the Reaper War, while Liara does.
• Military Maverick: Despite her intense loyalty to the Alliance, Tatiana has a rather bad tendency to go against protocol or even direct orders when it suits her. While sometimes she does have good reason for this (such as when she rescued her sister from the batarians) most of the time it's not strictly necessary. She tends to get away with bending the rules through a combination of being insanely useful to the Alliance, and her connections.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: While some fellow Alliance members (such as Hadron or Joker) defected following Shepard's death in 2, Tatiana only doubled down on her loyalty.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: On the receiving end of this twice. Both Shepard and Liara regret that they didn't have a meaningful parting before Tatiana's death.
• Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Though naturally a brunette, Tatiana dyes her hair strange colors as a reference to her rebellious nature.
• Number Two: In 3, Tatiana becomes second-in-command of the Biotics Special Operations Division.
• Purple Is Powerful: She maintains a purple aesthetic, her powers are described as "purplish-blue", and she is indeed very powerful as a biotic Adept.
• Someone to Remember Him By: Gender-flipped. 4 reveals that Liara was pregnant with Tatiana's child at the end of 3.
• Squishy Wizard: Tatiana is a very powerful biotic by human standards, perhaps only behind Jack. Take that away, and she's far less imposing.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: In the prequel novella To Still Believe, an eleven year old Tatiana doesn't understand why Sandra panics after killing a batarian in self-defense, and never doubts that they (the batarians) deserve to die for their actions. She also has few qualms about entering the world of city crime and gang violence not long after.
• Unscrupulous Hero: She's got a rather jaded attitude, in large part thanks to her Dark and Troubled Past, and a penchant for morally questionable beliefs and actions. But she's still firmly on Team Milky Way, and has a degree of self-awareness about her own shortcomings.
• The Worf Effect: Despite being one of the Normandy's heavy-hitters, Tatiana finds herself on the receiving end of this trope during 3 when Cerberus captures her. Mitigated somewhat in that by the time Shepard and co. find her, she's already begun to break herself out of captivity.

Hadron Shepard

Major Hadron Shepard

some caption text

"Nothing worth doing is ever easy."

The eldest of the three Shepard siblings, and a trained Engineer.

---

• Action Dad: Of the adoptive variety. He and Miranda adopt the latter's clone after discovering her in a Cerberus lab.
• Aloof Big Brother: In their youth, he was this to his younger siblings. In the present, his relationship with Tatiana is rather strained, meaning that he sometimes still comes across as this.
• Badass Bookworm: Nerdy and knowledgable about science, and even more badass for it.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Develops this dynamic with Miranda throughout 2.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional: Hadron tries to maintain this attitude, keeping almost the entire crew at arm's length to ensure professional distance. Key word being tries.
• Big Brother Instinct: Toward both of his sisters, but especially Sandra.
• Blue Is Calm: Hadron is very much The Stoic, and tends to be associated with the color blue.
• Brutal Honesty: Prone to this. Hadron doesn't like to mince words.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Hilariously, a good chunk of the female crew in 2 develops crushes on Hadron. He remains oblivious until they spell it out for him.
• Defector from Decadence: Unlike his sister, who was pretty much arm-twisted into joining Cerberus, Hadron joined of his own free will after becoming disillusioned with the Alliance. He later regrets it, but maintains that there are a lot of improvements to be made.
• I Did What I Had to Do: In contrast to Shepard, Hadron takes this attitude regarding his time with Cerberus.
• Insufferable Genius: Hadron is highly intelligent, and he won't let you forget it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he might not be the most pleasant person to be around, Hadron ultimately fights what he believes to be right. He also cares deeply for both of his sisters.
• Knight Templar Big Brother: Despite fully acknowledging that she'd likely hate him for it, Hadron agrees to work with Cerberus - a terrorist organization - in order to bring his sister Back from the Dead. While he had legitimate reasons to leave the Alliance, Alessandra herself firmly believes that he went too far.
• Meaningful Name: Shares a name with the Hadron Supercollider, and is a Science Hero.
• Not So Stoic: In addition to several moments of stress throughout the series, Hadron has a borderline breakdown in Eyes Forward as he's left to grapple with the aftermath of the Reaper War on his own.
• Oblivious to Love: He tends to shrug off signs of affection from women, including his Love Interest Miranda. It takes quite a while for him to cotton on.
• Science Hero: He's an Engineer, so it comes with the territory.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Hadron only ever expresses romantic or sexual interest in Miranda. Interestingly enough, he barely notices Miranda's physical attributes at first, despite her being his Love Interest, and only really takes notice once his feelings for Miranda have already started to develop.
• The Stoic: He almost never loses his composure, and maintains a constant air of professionalism.

Next generation characters:

Jasmine

Jasmine Ashley Shepard-Alenko

some caption text

"I'm my own person. And don't you ever forget that."

Jasmine was born in 2188 during the aftermath of the devastating Reaper War.

---

• Action Girl: In addition to receiving plenty of self-defense training in her youth, Jasmine joins the Alliance on her eighteenth birthday and quickly proves herself to be a talented combatant.
• Barrier Warrior: Jasmine excels at this, focusing nearly all of her biotic technique on shoring up her personal defenses. With that, she becomes nearly untouchable in a firefight.
• Big Sister Instinct: Demonstrably so toward Nathaniel and Miriam. She also exhibits a protectiveness over her cousin Eirian, though the "big sister" part of this trope is somewhat debatable in Eirian's case since she's technically two years older than Jasmine, but still the equivalent of a young child thanks to slow asari aging.
• Blue Is Heroic: In a notable contrast to her father's Color Motif evoking Blue Is Calm, Jasmine's own color scheme instead harkens to this trope.
• Boyish Short Hair: She keeps her hair cut above her chin, and has a very tomboyish personality.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: She's a physically oriented fighter and enjoys a good battle, but she still has a good heart and tries to do what's right.
• Children Forced to Kill: After getting caught in a Populist attack, Jasmine ends up killing one of the attackers in self-defense.
• Dead Girl Junior: Her middle name is derived from the late Ashley Williams. Notably, Kaidan wanted her first name to be Ashley, but Shepard vetoed the idea since she didn't want to overly burden their daughter with any baggage surrounding Ashley's death.
• Deadpan Snarker: She seems quite fond of engaging others in Snark-to-Snark Combat.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: In Finis, Miriam expresses resentment toward Jasmine for being so resilient and put-together even when faced with the horrors of war, insinuating that she might even lack empathy. Jasmine responds thusly:
  Jasmine: Everything I've seen - every civilian body, every broken home, every death that could have been avoided - it eats away at me. But sure, keep going on about how I obviously don't care.
• Embarrassing Nickname: As a child, Miriam insists on calling Jasmine by the nickname "Jazz". Jasmine is not amused, to say the least.
• Glacier Waif: Jasmine's not physically imposing, but she augments her defenses with biotics to make herself a stalwart Stone Wall.
• Hot-Blooded: Jasmine acts more with her heart than with her head.
• I Am Not My Mother: A good way to annoy Jasmine is to compare her to Shepard. Though this has less to do with not wanting to repeat Shepard's mistakes, and more about Jasmine wanting to be viewed on her own merits independently of her parentage.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Jasmine tends to oscillate between this trope and...
• I Just Want to Be Special: Some days, Jasmine resents her Heroic Lineage and the fact that she grew up in the public eye thanks to her parents' (especially her mother's) heroics. Other days, she seems desperate to live up to their example, and even notes her disappointment at the perceived mundanity of her army training when she first enlists.
• The Lad-ette: Between her career choice and generally unladylike demeanor, Jasmine definitely counts.
• Little Miss Badass: She's only thirteen at the start of 5, but still manages to defend herself and her younger siblings from an attacker.
• Mage Marksman: She's a biotic, but still prefers using a rifle for offensive maneuvers.
• Military Brat: Both of her parents are in the Systems Alliance. Technically she's a third-generation Military Brat through her late paternal grandfather, though this is rarely focused on.

Nathaniel

Doctor Nathaniel "Nathan" Shepard-Alenko

some caption text

"This world was still ash when I was born. It was honest work that rebuilt it."

The second child of Alessandra Shepard.

---

• Armor-Piercing Question: He seems fond of doling these out.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Generally speaking, Nathan is a pretty kindhearted guy. But if you piss him off, he can be downright scathing. And he's still a trained biotic.
• Dead Guy Junior: Named after his grandfather, Nathaniel Alenko, who died in the Reaper War.
• Deadpan Snarker: Though generally a Nice Guy, Nathan certainly isn't above the occasional zinger at someone else's expense.
• Like Parent, Unlike Child: Despite being a Military Brat from a family of soldiers, Nathan opted to become a neurosurgeon specializing in biotic patients.
• Motor Mouth: When overexcited, or just hopped up on caffeine.
• The Smart Guy: Nathan is both intellectually and socially intelligent, and he's also something of a science geek.
• Technobabble: While Nathan seems pretty adept at explaining complicated concepts to laymen, he still slips into this from time to time.

Miriam

Miriam Shepard-Alenko

some caption text

"This can't be for nothing. I won't let it be for nothing!"

The youngest of the Shepard-Alenko children.

---

• Badass Teacher: Miriam eventually becomes a teacher at New Grissom Academy under the Ascension Program.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Miriam has a shy and sweet demeanor at first, but she's trained military and fully capable of kicking ass when the situation calls for it.
• Harmful to Minors: She's targeted during the Populist attack in 5, and watches as her sister is forced to kill their attacker in self-defense. She was only eight at the time.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Upon reaching adulthood, Miriam's looks start getting a lot of attention. She notes it's something of an inconvenience in the military, however, since people are less likely to take a pretty girl seriously.
• Heartbroken Badass: She's utterly devastated by the loss of her Love Interest Gabin Moore.
• Inappropriately Close Comrades: With Gabin Moore, proving that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It ends badly.
• Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: She's an excellent dancer, though her mother's bad dancing was the stuff of legends.
• The Pollyanna: At first, Miriam appears to be this trope in full, remaining idealistic even in the face of impossible odds and rampant death and destruction. She becomes more jaded later on, however.
• Strong Family Resemblance: She's often described as the splitting image of Alessandra Shepard, though their respective personalities are quite different.
• Veteran Instructor: She becomes one a few years after her stint as an officer, instructing young biotics under the Alliance's Ascension Program.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Despite seeing the brutality of military life firsthand, Miriam willingly sacrifices her own happiness and innocence for a chance at helping others.
• Wrong Line of Work: Shepard expresses this sentiment toward Miriam joining the military, fearing that her daughter's Wide Eyed Idealism would bring her nothing but pain, since War Is Hell.

Andromeda:

Sara Ryder

Pathfinder Sara Ryder

We made it.

"I'll fuck your shit up."

The daughter of N7 soldier and Pathfinder Alec Ryder.

---

• Action Girl: Of course.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Sara was one, before leaving the Milky Way, being security attaché to a group of Prothean investigators. She also explores the dead civilizations of Andromeda as well as the living ones.
• Angsty Surviving Twin: Downplayed. Sara angsts a great deal about her twin brother's uncertain health when his cryo-pod fails, but he ends up surviving the ordeal.
• Badass Family: Sara comes from one of these, since both her father and brother are highly skilled combatants.
• Big Sister Instinct: While only the "big sister" by a few minutes, Sara definitely qualifies. She outright states that saving Scott shares her priority with stopping the Archon during the climactic mission.
• Boldly Coming: Her Love Interest Jaal is an angara.
  Scott: I see you took "first contact" a bit too literally.
• Born Unlucky: On several occasions, Sara laments her awful luck, and even wonders out loud if it's genetic. Considering what the rest of her family goes through, she might not be that far off.
• Buffy Speak: She can be prone to this, especially when flustered.
• Closest Thing We Got: Sara was not supposed to be the human Pathfinder, and certainly wasn't supposed to be the only Pathfinder. In particular, Addison and Tann only see her as a pretender to the title until she has established a few outposts and driven back the kett in key places. That being said, they throw their full potential behind her because she's the only hope they've got.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: To Alessandra Shepard. While Shepard is an experienced and decorated officer at the start of the series, Sara is still green and inexperienced. This also shows in their respective attitudes; Shepard presents herself as a confident Consummate Professional (regardless of her actual feelings), while Sara acts far more vulnerable and lacks that military demeanor.
• Cute Bruiser: She's one of the smallest members of the Pathfinder team, but that doesn't stop her from being a badass Action Girl.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has a coy and sarcastic demeanor.
• Dork Knight: Sara's awkward flirting could give Samantha Traynor a run for her money. She gets it from her dad, apparently.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Pretty much no one accepts Sara's authority at first, something that she expresses annoyance over despite understanding their misgivings. Others in the Initiative outright refuse to use Sara's title of Pathfinder until well into the story.
• Friendly Sniper: She's an Infiltrator with an affinity for sniper rifles, and quite affable.
• Genre Savvy: When Peebee proposes splitting up, Sara's response is an incredulous, "Have you seen any horror vids?!"
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Sara claims that it isn't a party until she's passed out at the end. At one point, she gets so plastered that she dances on the table and ends up in Sloane's chair!
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: While some of it is due to the Nepotism issue, Sara is shown to have severe self-esteem issues, and sometimes lacks the confidence to advocate for herself.
• Hot-Blooded: She can be quite impulsive in some respects, and sometimes lets her temper get the better of her.
• It Runs in the Family: Her father, Alec, was one of the first humans to travel through a mass relay with Jon Grissom's exploration team, and later became an N7 soldier. Clearly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree when it comes to his children being pioneers and badasses. On a decidedly less badass note, Sara has apparently inherited her dad's terrible flirting skills.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Provides most of the f-bombs throughout Andromeda.
• Must Have Caffeine: Can't explore space without it, apparently.
• Nepotism: How she gets the position of Pathfinder. Pretty much no one is happy with this, however, least of all Sara herself.
• Nice Girl: Though she can be impulsive at times, Sara is still very much a kindhearted and friendly person by nature.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Sara's quite short, but she's still one of the most skilled fighters on the team.
• Science Hero: It comes with the job of being a Pathfinder to explore, study, and learn about new discoveries. Even prior to becoming Pathfinder, Sara's experience is acting as an armed escort for Prothean archaeologists in the Milky Way, and a lot of that expertise rubbed off.
• The Snark Knight: Lexi notes in Sara's psychological profile that she tends to mask pain and stress with humor, including a hefty amount of Heroic Self-Deprecation.
• You Are in Command Now: Sara wasn't in line to succeed her father as the human Pathfinder, but Alec transfers the title to her anyway upon his death.
• Younger and Hipper: Compared to Shepard at least. Sara's almost a decade her junior, and is relatively green at the start of the story.

Scott Ryder

Scott Ryder

Let's do this.

"We didn't voyage for six hundred years across dark space to be made into minions for Spikey Mcshootface."

The son of N7 soldier and Pathfinder Alec Ryder, and the twin brother of Sara Ryder.

---

• Badass in Distress: He gets kidnapped during the final act of Andromeda, though he's able to sabotage the Archon enough to give Sara and her team a fighting chance.
• Big Little Brother: Technically Scott is the youngest of the Ryder twins (if only by a few minutes), but he's still quite a bit taller than Sara.
• Deadpan Snarker: Though not as prominently as his sister, Scott is still plenty capable of firing verbal zingers when the time calls for it.
• Defiant Captive: To the Archon. He does everything in his power to resist and plays a critical role in ensuring his defeat.
• Heroic BSoD: Suffers one upon learning the truth of what happened on Habitat 7 and how Alec Ryder died.
• Momma's Boy: He was very close to his mother prior to her apparent death, and is ecstatic to learn that she might be Not Quite Dead after all.
• Nice Guy: Scott is a generally amiable person with a friendly demeanor.
• Real Men Hate Affection: Subverted. Sara accuses Scott of this when he initially doesn't hug her after she rescues him, but he immediately proves her wrong by doing exactly that.
• Surfer Dude: Scott has a love of surfing, and he mentions that he has even visited the coast of Australia to catch the waves.

Uncharted Worlds provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Many. Pretty much any non-civilian female character will fall under this trope.
• Adaptation Expansion: Generally, the goal of the series is to incorporate a greater number of characters into the canon narrative and expand on the gaps within that narrative. Perhaps the best example is Hadron's storyline, which fills in many of the knowledge gaps that exist in canon regarding Cerberus and Project Lazarus.
• Adaptation Deviation: Unlike in canon, the Systems Alliance instead uses a more standardized, NATO-esque rank system. Shepard is also confirmed to be a full Commander instead of a Lieutenant Commander. It's not a 1:1 match, however, since some fictional ranks are still present.
• Adaptational Context Change: Joker's recruitment to Cerberus. While in the original game he happily joins of his own accord, apparently having forgotten that Cerberus is a terrorist organization, in this series he's reluctantly blackmailed into it, but no less happy to be back with Shepard.
• Adaptational Modesty: Samara's outfit lacks the extreme cleavage of her canon counterpart, as befits a Celibate Hero warrior monk.
• Always Save the Girl:
  • While Shepard defends her decision to let Ashley perform a Heroic Sacrifice as purely tactical, it's quite clear to everyone that she was more interested in saving Kaidan than securing the bomb he was guarding.
  • Tatiana disobeys direct orders to rescue Shepard once the latter goes dark for two days during the Arrival arc in 2, jeopardizing the already-tenuous diplomatic situation in the process.
• Arc Words: "Do Not Go Gentle into that good night." Ashley, being a Warrior Poet, first draws attention to the original poem in 1, but Shepard and Liara both quote from it in 3. Also doubles as a Shout-Out to Interstellar, which uses the poem in a similar fashion.
  Ashley: Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: This is pretty much the entire purpose of the Spectres, and every Spectre seen so far has lived up to that reputation. Especially Shepard.
• Badass Bookworm: Hadron and Liara, a Mr Fix It and an Adventurer Archaeologist respectively.
• Badass Family:
  • The Shepard siblings qualify, being three siblings with unmatched levels of badassery. Their children all become badasses in their own rights as well.
  • The Ryders as well. Alec Ryder was an N7 operative, Sara trained as a bodyguard, and Scott was once in the Alliance military. All three are verifiable badasses in their own rights.
• Back from the Dead: Shepard in 2. After dying from vacuum exposure, Project Lazarus works to bring her back to life two years later.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Jasmine and Miriam, along with their "cousin" Evangeline, form this dynamic. Miriam is the Beauty, with a gentle, feminine demeanor and a pretty face to match. Eva is the Brains, sharing an enhanced intellect with her donor/mother/sister Miranda, as well as an affinity for tech. And Jasmine is the Brawn, being the most physically capable of the girls and beating every obstacle she comes across into submission.
• Best Friends-in-Law: Thanks to Hadron and Miranda's marriage during the time skip, Shepard and Miranda are this in 5.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Bottom line, if someone is being nice, it's because they can afford to be nice. Shepard herself is the most prominent example, but pretty much every Nice Guy or Nice Girl in the series will qualify.
• Big Brother Instinct: Hadron is very protective of his sisters, despite knowing that they can handle themselves. It stems from his guilt over not being there for his parents and youngest brother when they died. Notably, this is something of a Commonality Connection between him and Miranda, who is also fiercely protective of her sister Oriana and her clone Evangeline.
• Big Good: Anderson and Hackett, the resident Reasonable Authority Figures. Shepard herself eventually graduates to this level by the end of 3.
• Birds of a Feather: While Shepard and Miranda initially can't stand each other, they end up bonding over their shared struggles with maintaining a facade of constant perfection in the face of serious self-doubt, as well as lacking a true sense of belonging. By 3, they find that sense of belonging in each other.
• Book Ends:
  • Both 1 and 3 end with Shepard making use of the Conduit and facing off against an indoctrinated opponent who thought they weren't.
  • Upon first arriving in Andromeda, Sara's initial reaction is a breathy, relieved exclamation of "We made it." Guess what her final line in the story is?
• Civil War: Starting in 5 and continuing through Finis, the Alliance Civil War develops as an internal conflict among humanity regarding its place in the new galaxy status quo.
• Command Roster: While the Normandy's command roster shuffles around quite a bit throughout the story, here's how it looks by 3:
  • The Captain: Alessandra Shepard.
  • Number Two: Kaidan Alenko.
  • Ace Pilot: Jeff "Joker" Moreau and Steve Cortez.
  • Wrench Wench: Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.
  • Mr Fix It: Hadron Shepard.
  • Communications Officer: Samantha Traynor.
  • Security Officer: Garrus Vakarian.
  • The Marine: James Vega and Javik.
  • Army Scout: Tatiana Shepard.
  • The Medic: Karin Chakwas.
  • Mission Control: EDI, Miranda Lawson.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Steven Hackett and David Anderson.
• Dawn of an Era: The end of 3 ushers in a new age for the Milky Way, which was utterly changed by the Reaper War. This is further explored in subsequent arcs.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Pretty much the entire plot of the Leviathan storyline in 3 revolves around this premise, culminating in Shepard chatting face-to-face with an Eldritch Abomination.
• Do Not Go Gentle: Shepard's intention, as well as that of the entire galaxy. Liara and Shepard both quote directly from the Trope Namer poem at several points.
• Doomed Hometown: Mindoir, for Shepard, Hadron, and Tatiana.
• Doomed Moral Victor: Discussed, but ultimately Averted. Upon waking up from her resurrection in 2, Shepard attempts to leave Cerberus and rejoin the Alliance despite their reluctance to meaningfully fight the Collectors, since the last thing she wants to do is work for terrorists. Anderson talks her out of it, citing this trope.
• Doting Grandparent: Elena Alenko absolutely adores and spoils her three grandchildren in 5. Considering that she's their only surviving grandparent, it's hardly surprising that she feels the need to overcompensate.
• Downtime Downgrade: In 2, Shepard and Kaidan are no longer actively a couple. They're still clearly in love, but not on the greatest of terms. Justified since Shepard was dead for two years, and is now working for a terrorist organization, giving them good reason for a falling out.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Deconstructed. Because the Citadel is permanently in orbit around Earth, and no one knows how to move it, it's pretty much the new hub for the galaxy. Combine that with the sheer number of aliens stranded on Earth after the Reaper War for more than a year and many are less than thrilled at the sudden new paradigm.
• Eating the Eye Candy:
  • After the failed Cerberus coup in 3, Shepard takes a moment to stare at Kaidan's ass, and even gives a smirk for good measure. Doubles as an example of Female Gaze.
  • Sara gets her chance in Andromeda after walking in on Jaal and Liam shirtless.
• Enemy Mine: Several, but perhaps mostly notably between Shepard and the Leviathans in 3. Which later comes back to bite the Milky Way in the ass during 4, even if their threat is a fraction of what the Reapers posed.
• First-Name Basis:
  • Being a military setting, most characters tend to go by their surnames, and Shepard in particular is known almost exclusively by her surname. This is used as a sign of the growing bond between Shepard and Kaidan, as they start using the other's first name, with Shepard even commenting on the familiarity behind the change.
  • Anderson also refers to Shepard by her first name, Alessandra, during his death scene. It's pretty much the only time he ever does it, but serves to emphasize the Like a Daughter to Me sentiment he's expressing.
  • Less prevalent in Andromeda since most of the cast lacks a formal military background, but Sara is still often referred to as Ryder in professional contexts, with her first name used by friends and family.
• Godzilla Threshold: The Crucible in 3. No one knows precisely how it will react upon activation, and the possibility of it ending the galaxy is discussed more than once. But it's very clear that there is literally no other alternative if the Alliance wants to defeat the Reapers.
• Good Lawyers, Good Clients: Zig-Zagged. Nathan is an Alliance prosecutor, and every case he's in seems to involve a genuine scumbag. But this is noticeably not true of the Alliance overall; as Shepard points out, she was once on the receiving end of the Alliance's "justice".
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Shepard threatens Miranda with this trope in 2 about Hadron when she realizes that they had a Relationship Upgrade. Amusingly enough, by 3 she's a full on Shipper on Deck for the couple.
• Improbably Quick Coma Recovery: Partially justified in the case of Shepard. Miranda states that part of her treatment included preventing muscle atrophy as they reconstructed Shepard's body, and she floods Shepard's system full of stimulants to force her awake when Lazarus Station is attacked. However, considering that Shepard was not only in a medically-induced coma for two years but clinically dead, it's still a stretch.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • Liara and Tatiana form one, being an asari and a human respectively.
  • Garrus and Tali in 3.
  • Sara and Jaal in Andromeda. Particularly notable since they're the first human-angara couple ever!
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique:
  • Tatiana tries this on two captured Cerberus agents in 2, threatening to biotically crush their bodies until they speak, using their answers against each other to see if they're telling the truth, and then killing them both. Unlike many examples of this trope, the illegality is Lampshaded in-universe since Tatiana is an Alliance operative and thus beholden to their rules, but no one else witnesses the interrogation.
  • Shepard scolds Garrus for shooting and threatening Harkin as part of his interrogation, though she privately admits to understanding the temptation.
• Lady of War: Samara is the most obvious example, being very poised, graceful, and elegant while still kicking all kinds of ass. Miranda and Liara also qualify to a lesser extent, given their strict composure and preference for biotics (especially in comparison to Ladettes like Shepard and Ashley).
• Law of Inverse Fertility:
  • Miranda desperately wants to have a child, but can't conceive naturally. While the technology exists to give her a child artificially, Miranda's own trauma surrounding this concept ensures that she refuses to even consider it. She ends up happily adopting an infant clone of herself that her father had previously created.
  • Subverted with Shepard. She assumes that she won't be able to conceive thanks to the whole dying-and-coming-back thing, but decides to try anyway... and gets pregnant with surprising ease.
• Like a Daughter to Me: Anderson expresses this sentiment toward Shepard as he dies, calling her "child."
• Locked Out of the Loop: Tatiana and Kaidan in 2, in regards to Shepard's resurrection and Hadron's defection from the Alliance. Apparently Liara didn't think it would be a good idea to tell anyone the truth of what actually happened, which is especially bizarre in Tatiana's case because of their blossoming relationship. This ends up having some serious consequences as Cerberus manipulates them to turn against one another. Tatiana gives Liara a What the Hell, Hero? speech over hiding this information from them.
• Longing Look: A variant of this trope occurs in 2, when Shepard longingly stares at a photo of Kaidan on her desk before departing on her Suicide Mission. Kaidan returns the favor in an early scene of 3, where Shepard describes being keenly aware of his eyes remaining fixed on her. Apparently he does this a lot.
• Love Hurts: Does it ever.
  • Shepard and Kaidan's relationship is shattered when the former seemingly dies in a Collector attack, leaving Kaidan alone and grieving for two years. Just as he's started to recover, Shepard comes back to life and offers no explanation for what happened. Between that and the false information Cerberus leaked to alienate Shepard from her past allies, Kaidan is left to conclude that Shepard is either a Cerberus drone or a willing traitor. It takes another six months before they have the opportunity to patch things up and rebuild their relationship. Yet even that is put in jeopardy by Shepard's Disney Death and Kaidan becoming stranded along with the rest of the Normandy crew, leaving each of them uncertain about the other's fate for nearly a year. They get their happy ending eventually, but the universe really seems to have it out for them in the meantime.
  • It's not any better from Shepard's perspective, either. She doesn't experience the two year timeskip, leaving their relationship and the accompanying feelings fresh in her mind. Shepard learns that Cerberus somehow learned of their past relationship and used Kaidan as bait to lure the Collectors to a colony, putting both him and everyone else in danger. She's also deeply heartbroken over his rejection on Horizon, despite understanding it intellectually, and it contributes to her sense of emotional isolation. She's shown to miss him deeply despite their estrangement, and blames herself when he almost dies early on in 3.
  • While Liara and Tatiana's relationship is comparatively smoother, it still encounters serious turbulence. Tatiana temporarily cuts off Liara upon learning that the latter had deliberately concealed the circumstances behind Shepard's resurrection from her. While she later forgives Liara for her handling of the situation, things take a sharp turn for the worst when Tatiana is killed at the end of 3, leaving Liara pregnant and unaware of her lover's death until 4.
• Mama Bear:
  • Shepard demonstrates herself to be this in 5. This trope is actually Discussed in-universe.
  Motherhood was not the soft, gentle thing Shepard had assumed it would be, from the outside looking in. What she felt was a raging inferno, fierce and terrifying and visceral. And God help whoever stood in its way.
• Mandatory Motherhood: Subverted. Gil notes that Sara will be expected to fulfill her "civic duty as a woman" and have children to further the human race's presence in Andromeda, but Sara herself shrugs this off and says that she can't see herself as a mother.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Kaidan has this dynamic with Shepard in the romantic sense, and Ashley in the platonic sense. While he is a soft-spoken Nice Guy, both Shepard and Ashley are hardass Ladettes.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Alessandra means "defender of mankind", which is a fitting name for the woman responsible for ending an existential threat to both humanity and the galaxy at large.
  • Hadron shares a name with the Hadron Collider, a famous Real Life particle accelerator.
• Military Brat:
  • This is a huge part of Ashley's character, as she's a fourth-generation military woman with a deep desire to redeem her family name. Her family legacy actually predates the Systems Alliance, since her great-grandmother served in the United North American States armed forces.
  • Jasmine, Nathan, and Miriam all qualify twice over, not to mention the fact that they're third-generation military brats through their paternal grandfather.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: Shepard undergoes one in 4.
• The Mourning After:
  • After Shepard's death at the start of 2, Kaidan spends the next two years in mourning, with no real interest in a new relationship because he loved her too much. He gets better once Shepard is brought back to life and they rekindle their relationship in 3, but Kaidan notes that losing Shepard a second time might break him for good. Luckily, he doesn't.
  • In 4, poor Liara goes through this upon learning of Tatiana's death. Fifteen years later, she still hasn't moved on to a new romantic partner.
• Mundane Utility: Similarly to canon, biotics can be used for all sorts of purposes. Once she can actually control her powers, Shepard often amuses herself by incorporating them into her everyday life just for the heck of it.
• Muscles Are Meaningless:
  • While Shepard is mentioned as having some visible musculature, she's never indicated to be overly bulky. This doesn't stop her from punching krogan to death, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a Yahg, slinging around men twice her size, or handling weapons with enough recoil to shatter a normal human bone. While justified in the sequels since she Came Back Strong, it's more egregious in 1 since she lacks any enhancements at that point.
  • Also in play with Ashley, another female marine. Despite being, in her own words, "more or less of a straight-up puncher", she doesn't have much bulk to show for it. It doesn't stop her from keeping up with Wrex in a fight.
• Nightmare Sequence: Shepard has a lot of these in the sequels, often (though not always) crossing over into Past Experience Nightmare. It's a sign of her worsening PTSD; first from dying, then from the losses she suffers and the pressure she puts on herself to save the galaxy, and finally from her failures during the Reaper War.
• One True Love: Shepard expresses this sentiment toward her relationship with Kaidan. Even during the low point of their romance in 2, Shepard finds herself utterly disinterested in the prospect of pursuing a new relationship, something Kaidan also couldn't do even when he thought Shepard was dead. It's quite telling that when they reconcile, Shepard is utterly unsurprised that their relationship resumes not long after. And by 4, they share a mutual desire to spend the rest of their lives together.
  Shepard: Even death couldn't do us part.
• Pair the Smart Ones: Hadron and Miranda are both characterized by their high intelligence, and end up in a relationship.
• Parental Abandonment: The Shepard siblings lost both of their parents (along with their youngest brother) during the attack on Mindoir in 2170.
• Precious Photo:
  • Hadron has one in 2, of himself, Shepard, and Tatiana after the latter's graduation. The photo initially serves to remind him of Shepard's death, but later comes to symbolize the tragedy behind his falling out with Tatiana.
  • Played With in regards to Shepard's photo of Kaidan, also in 2. Shepard herself didn't own that photo, nor did she place it in her room; Cerberus did, as a veiled assertion that the Illusive Man knows all of Shepard's secrets, and is willing to use her loved ones against her. Shepard is initially horrified when she sees the photo, and angrily confronts Miranda about it. However, by the end of 2 she does treat the photo much more sentimentally, since it's one of the only connections to Kaidan she has left by that point.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Shepard is the Red to Hadron's Blue, being much more outwardly emotional and passionate than her brother, who is The Stoic by comparison. Their respective Color Motifs even align with this.
  • Extending to the next generation, Jasmine acts as the Red to Miriam's Blue. The differences in their temperaments even led them to butt heads as children.
• Settle for Sibling: Liara had a brief infatuation with Shepard in 1 that goes unreciprocated. In 2, she develops a much deeper relationship with Shepard's sister Tatiana.
• Sibling Team:
  • Shepard, Hadron, and Tatiana form one. However, the latter only really gets to work directly with Shepard and Hadron in 3, and with her death, the Sibling Team goes back to the two of them.
  • Sara and Scott were assigned to the same unit prior to Sara's promotion, and for good reason. They work well together on the field.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Between Hadron and Tatiana. Hadron is a genius stoic and a Science Hero focused on engineering, while Tatiana is a passionate and Hot-Blooded biotic Adept. It's implied that this personality difference played a part in their falling out.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Some of Ashley's comments imply that she's on board with Shepard/Kaidan.
  Ashley: Scuttlebutt says that the Lieutenant's already sweet on you, ma'am.
  • Shepard thinks that Liara and Tatiana are adorable together, and tells them that. Shepard also suggests that Hadron and Tali would be a cute couple, but realizes that the former has no interest in the latter.
• Shower of Angst: Early in 2, Shepard has one of these, breaking down upon noticing the glowing scars across her body from her resurrection.
• Strong Girl, Smart Guy: Shepard and Hadron form this dynamic. While Shepard is very clever in her own right, and Hadron can certainly hold his own on the battlefield, she still acts as the brawn to his brains.
• Superpowerful Genetics: The possibility of this among humans is Discussed several times; while biotics can be inherited among other species like the asari, the fact that the first human biotics are only in their thirties means that there's a limited understanding of whether these powers can be passed to offspring. The Shepard-Alenko children, who are among the first second-generation biotics, demonstrate that it is genetic. Though it remains unknown how a single biotic parent would affect its heredity.
• Talk About the Weather: Liara does this when she gets flustered by Tatiana in 2. Tatiana sees right through it.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Shepard was already a bona fide Badass Normal in her own right, but Project Lazarus amplified that considerably. Between her enhanced physiology and new biotic powers she's more unstoppable than ever before.
  • This seems to be a side effect of hanging out with Shepard, as pretty much every surviving companion undergoes serious levels in badassery.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: During 2 and especially early 3, Shepard and Kaidan have this in spades.
• Unskilled, but Strong: In addition to Shepard exemplifying this trope with her biotics, this is actually Discussed in-universe.
  Miranda: (to Shepard) You're strong enough to clear out a room with a single biotic Flare, but you can't even maneuver a pencil from one end of the table to the other.
• War Is Hell: The series is pretty much built around this trope, exploring how both soldiers and civilians alike are impacted by the bloodshed. Of course, it doesn't help that the war in question is genocidal in nature. All things considered, it's little wonder that Shepard is nearly catatonic from depression and trauma at the start of 4.
• We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: Shepard claims to Liara that it isn't unheard of for humans to live to 150. In fact, the aging process is said to be slower compared to the twenty-first century, and it's mentioned that it's common for middle-aged humans to look twenty years younger than their natural age. Miranda takes this to the logical extreme with her genetic engineering, having a possible natural lifespan of 200 years. That being said, this trope is Played With somewhat in regard to infectious diseases, which are diminished but still present, and Joker still suffers from a genetic disorder (though he claims that he would have died as an infant if he'd been born in the 21st century).
  • This even extends to veterinary care; thanks to genetic engineering, dogs now age at roughly half their natural rate, and have twice as long of a lifespan. Certain designer dogs can live much longer than even that, but that's both uncommon and highly expensive.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Tatiana gives Hadron a rather nasty one over his defection to Cerberus. Shepard also makes a similar accusation toward him, but her argument is more a case of Hypocrite Has a Point since she herself is also with Cerberus.
  • Tatiana absolutely lets Liara have it for leaving her Locked Out of the Loop in regards to Shepard's resurrection and Hadron's defection. It's an especially painful situation because this was a case of Tatiana being lied to about her sister and brother, by her own lover. Kaidan also calls Liara out on this, though his gripe is more that Liara gave Shepard's body to Cerberus in the first place.