Letters from Shepard

Dear Faith: Landed on Alchera and I already feel like I'm stepping on your grave. Here's what's left of the old girl.


Not sure why the Alliance didn't come here to look through the wreckage but I've already found some dog tags of your crew. I also found your helmet. It's hard to believe that it could hit the ground even a little bit intact. There was also an interesting data pad with some journal entries from XO Pressly. Showed his evolution from distrusting aliens to be willing to die for some of them, all as a result of the encounters he had while working with you.

Since I was nearby, I decided to look into a Cerberus "lost operative". Like it or not, I still had a part to play as an agent of Cerberus. He had been captured by Eclipse mercs. I never liked mercs either way so shooting them down didn't cause me to shed any tears. They were tough to take down, but have I told you how Vanguard capabilities have evolved? I can temporarily augment my strength and speed to charge at my enemies, knocking them across the room. It's really damn cool. Wish you'd gotten the chance to do it yourself. Anyway, found the agent, or at least his corpse. Then I recovered the intel of encrypted Cerberus files. EDI informed me that the information contained within it could damage Cerberus. My goal was never in doubt. I sent it to the Alliance.

Had two messages waiting for me. One was from Hackett, thanking me for retrieving the dog tags and placing the monument. (Your helmet is on my desk.) The other was from Anderson, telling me that though it would take years to decode the intel it was a huge win for the Alliance.

Can I tell you how uncomfortable it was bringing a Cerberus ship to the Citadel? I felt like the biggest traitor ever. Besides needing to talk with the Council, though, I also needed to pick up one of my recruits, a master thief named Kasumi Goto. Not sure why I needed her but I suppose if we were facing advanced Collector technology we could use all the hacking skills that could be brought to bear. I recruited her, and agreed to a deal of helping her steal something valuable - and important to her - from some murdering scumbag. How could I say no? There were also some irregularities about me in the system but for whatever reason the head of C-Sec (a human these days) bypassed it and sent me on my way. Orders from above, I assume.

First thing I did was stop into a gift shop. Bought myself a pet space hamster so it wasn't quite so lonely in my cabin. (Don't get any pervy ideas, Faith!) Also, my first fish for that giant aquarium. And a few model ships. You know I've always loved putting them together. The ones I bought were the Normandy SR1 and the Destiny Ascension. Both quite important in the Battle of the Citadel.

Then I went to see the Council. Confirmed that they dismissed the idea of Reapers as a thing, instead choosing to believe that Sovereign was a geth creation. If they could churn that thing out wouldn't it seem logical they were building another as we spoke? Also, I see what you mean about Sparatus. He was perfectly fine when I became a Spectre but now he's as much a dick to me as he was to you. All they cared about was my reports on Cerberus. I told them what I knew, that I wasn't able to get a face-to-face with TIM and that I thought that TIM had put less anti-alien fanatics in front of me. I also wondered how it was that I had no less than 5 ex-Alliance crew with me. Did they place them there or was TIM simply trying to put me off my guard. They were evasive, saying I should be wary about trusting anyone, but that perhaps I wasn't alone on that ship. I interpreted that to mean that I probably did have help but it might not have been all of those people, and they didn't want me to expose anyone by discussing the mission openly. I could understand that and it would help me sleep a little better at night. Then they sent me on my way, back to my mission, but said I would have access to some resources as needed. I couldn't enter the Spectre Office, because that would be too obvious, but there might be extra credits in my account to afford what I needed. Acceptable. What I didn't like was that Anderson wouldn't tell me about the "classified" mission Kaidan was on while I was on my Cerberus op. Bullshit.

Stopped by a club called the Dark Star. Had a few...green drinks. The turian bartender said it would knock me on my ass. I had three and still wanted more. He gave me uncut "genuine batarian ale" and said he'd never seen anyone stay standing afterward. I did. One more. Krogan ryncol, which he said would make me set off radiological alarms. I think I was past the point of saying no. I came to on the floor of the men's restroom. Haven't done anything like that since your funeral.

Ran into that piece of shit reporter you had to deal with in the past. My Emily Wong was still uncovering real stories while this gossip monger was harassing us. She tried to do a smear job on your decisions. No clue how you were fully aware of the cost. I cited how many turians died on their cruisers and how many would have died on the Destiny Ascension. Then I named off all the Alliance ships that were destroyed. I told her how the memories of the dead deserved so much more than her trash talk. Did she not realize that had you let the Council die it almost certainly would have made humanity appear as self-serving jerks only looking out for themselves? Apparently not. I wouldn't be surprised to learn she was part of the Terra Firma Party.

Your image is now going to be on coins minted on Mindoir. Also, based on reactions of those around, I'm pretty sure people don't necessarily know we're not the same person, like maybe I (you) came back from the dead. Still, it was getting me some nice discounts, which in combination with the Council money got me some decent tech.

I was compelled to help out a quarian accused of stealing a credit chit from a volus. The volus and the C-Sec officer were both extremely biased against quarians but my dealings with Tali made it clear they were not wandering thieves. I set them straight.

While you were investigating Saren, you helped a man retrieve the body of his wife after she died on Eden Prime. He sent thanks in your memory and send he opened a restaurant on Earth where Alliance marines ate for free. Always doing the right thing, even when others didn't notice.

Got some nice ingredients for the cook. He made gumbo from an asari recipe and it really went over well with the crew who had previously been complaining. Also got Chakwas some Serrice Ice Brandy, something she said she'd lost when the SR1 went down (and I didn't find in the wreckage). We cracked it open and drank. Talked a lot about you and other Alliance soldiers. She acknowledged that the way our marines behaved was part of what made the Alliance great whereas Cerberus was not as enthusiastic, what with being concerned more with competition and pro-humanity than just doing our jobs and making the most of our downtime. No surprise that I could out-drink the good doctor. Also, I suspected she might be my ally. She did throw something in about having to take care of Joker so it might be the both of them.



Also, my first fish and my space hamster. Plus, your helmet, Kaidan's picture, and my first models for good measure.



Finally went to Omega. Needed that salarian professor to deal with the seeker swarms. Talk more about that later.

Love, Owen.

Dear Faith: I helped a dying batarian. Can you believe it? He had the plague, and was sure I was just there to loot from his corpse, but I surprised him and he helped give me directions to Mordin Solus. I said I'd send back help as soon as I could. He was afraid of Solus because he killed the Blue Suns merc that attacked his clinic. Aria had told me he was former STG so I guess I shouldn't be surprised he could handle himself. Along the way, helped some humans get moving to the clinic and a couple of others from not looting from the dead. People already believed humans engineered this plague. We didn't need them thinking we did it just to steal from them.

Met with Mordin. He also had a prerequisite for working with him, but it involved helping cure the plague. He believed the Collectors likely created the plague and used the vorcha to disseminate it. I was more than happy to do this. Ending the plague was enough incentive for me but interfering with the Collectors made it even better. Plus, it got me the guy who was going to stop me from being immobilized by the seeker swarms. Along the way, I rescued Mordin's assistant from batarians. They thought he was spreading the plague with the vials in his bag, which were actually the cure. They backed down when I pointed out we were in vorcha territory. Given that they were immune to the plague there would be no reason for him to be there to spread the plague. A vorcha near the environmental controls where we'd be inserting the cure confirmed the Collectors were behind the plague.


I know I had some Archangel character to recruit on Omega but I really wanted to get the hell out of there. I decided I'd help out Kasumi with her mission. Despite being a master thief, I kind of liked her. She was weird but friendly and seemed interested in the mission. [Glitch in Adam's Casual Appearance Mod has put Shepard in armor rather than fancy dress clothes. No pics until he switches into armor.] Once we bypassed the security, we got to his art collection, which also contained the graybox Kasumi was seeking.


This weird ogre also looked strangely familiar, though I didn't know from where.


Faith, I'll let you know how things turn out. Love you, Owen.

I cannot express how much I hate my keyboard and mouse. Had all this stuff typed out as I'm playing but it moves the cursor to the back button on my browser, erasing everything. Therefore, I'm calling it quits and sleeping.