Thank you for a wonderful book! I really enjoyed your take on the ME1 background story and intro. I only wish you had finished the trilogy - I want to see where these characters go and how differently this Shepard runs things!

I'm definitely reading your two ME short stories next, but I'm sad that there's no more to explore here. I know it's been a decade since you wrote this, but with the ME trilogy remaster just announced, maybe your interest will be rekindled next year? Any chance you'll consider revisiting this story?

Either way, thank you for your work on this - I cracked up so many times reading this!

For Tuchankaaaaa! *BITE*

This is a freaking awesome masterpiece of a fight scene! Everything that could possibly go wrong is all happening in an unexpected way, but recognizable when you know how indoctrination works. Bravo so far - looking forward to how Shepard resolves this.

I love the Jade Empire references! Lord Lao's furnace, the shotgun Mirabelle - awesome Easter eggs for another classic Bioware RPG.

You're taking an exciting slant on the canon narrative. We never really think about Nihlus' and the Council's initial motivations to recruit Shepard as a Spectre, but it makes so much sense that it would be to fight the Batarians; regardless of Shepard's background, he fought Batarians in the Skyllian Blitz, they're interfering with human colonies, and Shepard is motivated to fight them again, so of course they would recruit him to do more of that as a Spectre.

But then the trip to Eden Prime changes everything. Nihlus' death and the emergence of the new geth threat really re-directed Shepard's trajectory as a Spectre candidate and it's fascinating that you've chosen to explore this. The council was really cornered into promoting Shepard to Spectre in order to bring down another Spectre, Saren, and not to follow through on pursuing regime change in the Hegemony.

In the game, the Batarians ended up largely indoctrinated by the Reaper artifact "Object Rho" (cf. Arrival DLC) and the infighting destabilized them greatly leading up to the Reaper War, so the Council didn't need to pursue much action there after all.

Another cliffhanger ending to this chapter! As I near the end of your story, I'm worried that you didn't get the chance to finish exploring this amazing story through the end of ME1...

I have laughed out loud so many times while reading this! Some of your dialogue is so hilarious - and moreover, so authentic to each character's nature, which makes it even funnier. OF COURSE Wrex would be totally fine with executing a team member you don't trust on a hunch, even without any evidence. I really want to see him actually bite someone's head off!

You do a great job adding to the lore with the Turian greetings/farewells involving death threats. They're such a military-centered people, but we don't often see the harder edge of that culture in the games. Military effort is about achieving success in battle, period. That means getting skilled at killing, so I can totally see Turians baking this vigilance into their language - always be ready to fight, ready to die.

However, it pains me to see Shepard lashing into poor, sweet Liara so ruthlessly. I understand his suspicions, but dang he's rough on her. I hope he doesn't actually kick her off the ship in your AU story.

As I read this, I'm hearing all of this dialogue in each character's voice. You've nailed the tone - thank you for working on this so I can enjoy it!

You are a very good writer and you can concisely and evocatively carry on with the plot, but now I see why you skipped the majority of the fights in previous chapters, because the fight scenes in this chapter are not very good.

You need to describe more of what's going on, as the action is to better bones and confusing as is.

This is a fun, fun story.

David Lynch? seriously? that movie was just awful. even Lynch himself has done his best to distance himself from that trainwreck. also, no trashing Dune. the first three books, anyway. say whatever you want about the rest of the series.

Why is your story listed under F/shep tag when it is about M/Shep? Kind of annoying.

This was a very good story, I enjoyed reading it. I felt that it jumped around a lot though, I sometimes found it hard to keep track. Either way it was a good story. I would love to read a sequel to it one day.

Really enjoyed this. The writing style made me wish then game covered all these moments like you did :)

Your Shepard feels and speaks like a teenage punk. I'll never understand why people think that's cool.

This looks like it will be rather awesome.

This story is amazing. Thank you for writing it. I love this Shepard. He is renegade, but still a good guy. Are you planning on writing a sequel?

That line about the Asari picking out colors just made my day. Thanks.