Ryan Blake Shepard has continued to dream for many years now for there is nothing else he could do while in a Cryo Pod. He dreams of his last life dying and then living once again through the reaper war. He remembers everything in fine details due to having Hyperthymesia the ability to remember every single thing from sound and taste to every visual detail of his everyday life.
He remembers every shot he has fired and every wound he has received. His perfect memory has helped him all of his life but it has also become a great burden remembering every horrid scene he has experienced. The horrors the reapers have done and even what the races have done to one another.
[Ryan hides behind cover as reaper forces fire at him and his squad. He quickly grabs a thermal clip from a dead soldier and loads it into his gun. All he see’s around him are dead bodies and rubble before rising out of cover and firing at husks charging his position.]
Many would have gone insane from what he has lived through and has to live through every time he has a memory flash. The only reason he has been able to live through it is due to his loved ones that have always been there.
Slowly his dreams recede and be begins to fill warmth on his skin. Ryan slowly opens his eyes at the sound of hissing from the opening cryo pod. Slowly he began to sit up happy this is the last time he will ever have to be in one.
Looking around Ryan spotted his eldest Asari daughter walking forward her Omni tool ready to take a medical scan. She gave him a bright smile while a tear slid down her cheek. Ryan smiled back pulling her into a hug.
“it’s so good to see you father.”
“it’s good to see you to Sarah.”
Ryan wipes away her tear and noticed her blushing before looking at himself in embarrassment. He only had a paper gown around his waist and down his legs. As Sarah began to scan him he slowly looked around before hearing screams of terror and panic.
Jumping up he ran with Sarah over to the next pod where Liara and Sarah’s younger twin sister stood over April Renee Shepard. She lay there in the pod thrashing and screaming Liara trying to calm her. Ryan quickly pulled April into his arms embracing her while she began to hit him.
He continued to hold her as she slowly stopped hitting and began to sob into his shoulder tears running down her cheeks and landing on him. Soon Liara also rapped her arms around us. We sat there a while in each others warmth before getting up.
“I’m glad this is the last time you two had to be in those dreadful Cryo pods,” Liara said while looking at us a smile across her face covered in her own tears.
April nodded, “I wish I never agreed to go in it.”
“well at least its over.”
Ryan looked booth of them over. April was covered in scars her skin starting to wrinkle and sag. Her green eyes that one could just look into forever. Her plump cherry lips a contrast to her pail white skin that once use to be deeply tanned. Her hair having long turned silver gray with only a stripe of crimson red as a reminder of her old hair color.
Looking over at Liara she has changed much over the years she continued to fill out over the years looking much like her mother and father but still the Liara that he has always known. She wore a long one piece white dress fitting perfectly with her blue skin.
Ryan himself had graying hair but his body has lost much of its muscles over the course of the years and being stuck in cryo for much longer. At least he didn’t look a day over fifty just like his wife though they were nearly a hundred an fifty years old if you didn’t count the years they were in cryo.
They quickly finished their medical tests with nothing wrong so Ryan and April quickly got dressed. April wearing a black casual once piece dress while Ryan wore a turtle neck sweater and something similar to blue jeans. Liara quickly filled them in on what’s happened over the last fifty years though it has been nearly 900 years since the activation of the crucible.
Technology has greatly improved along with a number of other things. Humans could now live over two hundred years due to modern medicine along with a number of other species. There have also been great improvements elsewhere such as a small fleet traveling to the nearest galaxy and back over the last century. We can now even terraforming planets faster and with more variety then we could before. The list could go on and on.
The citadel council still governs most of the galaxy though a few century’s back it was split due to the reunification war years after the reapers where defeated. Though the council now has Asari, Salarians, Turians, Humans, Quarians, Krogen, Volis, on it with the elcor and hannar petitioning for a seat. They still have their Specters, information networks, and c-sec security.
In the years following the Reaper war the council has created a unified fleet where they only answer to the council. But they have also allowed territorial armys and fleets for each world but with their numbers regulated during peace time. They set these up along with a number of other programs and organization to keep the council races worlds secure from any invading force.
Each race has had their hardships and changes since the reaper war. The Quarians and the Geth now live peacefully on their worlds. And through their partnership have grown especially since the Quarians no longer need to wear their suits. The Geth have also helped the council races with many technological improvement along with other things that to an extent that the council has loosened their control on Artificial intelligence but the creation of AI is still considered forbidden and taboo.
The krogen are once again growing in number but thanks to Wrex and Eve the krogen have kept their numbers in check through multiple meatheads so they would never have to suffer something such as the genofage again. Since the reaper war they have entered a golden age their worlds now rebuilt for the first time since the krogen rebellions.
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For the original three council races not much has changed besides losing much of their power to other races but they still have great influence over the council. Their worlds were some of the first to recover but they are at odds with many of the colonies that were abandon to the reapers during the war.
For Ryan and April Shepard the human alliance had them put in cryo and brought out again when needed or after a set amount of years usually every fifty. Much of the Normandy’s crew went through the same thing for the first century after the crucible activation but slowly they began to live their lives once again.
Ryan, April and Liara began to build their family and home on a colony they continued to support since the chase for Saren and the conduit. They had children and raised them for years until a pocket of reapers were found and the second reaper war began though it only lasted a few years. At the end of the second reaper war Ryan and April were once again put into Cryo forced to separate from their family just in case there were any more reapers out there.
Now it has been over 900 years and much has changed. Ryan and Aprils children have long since passed away but they have visited them and their grandchildren and many more generations every 50 years over the course of time. Their home has continued to grow covering around 40 acres of land with a large manor house build on top of a survival bunker that’s been improved upon since the reaper wars.
Ryan, April, and Liara the day after being taken out of cryo gather for one of there big family reunions. They walk into the manors great hall were all their family has gathered where nearly 100 people stood waiting. Most where human decedents of Ryan and April but around two dozen of them were Asari either Ryan, April and liara’s children or their grand children though there is one great grandchild.
Though this was Ryan and April’s family they hardly knew them having to go through introductions with the new generations from the last fifty years bringing many tears to everyone’s eyes.
The first day was only their family reunion but on the second day many decedents of the Normandy’s crew Arrived. Tali'Zorah and Garrus's decedents, Urdnot Wrex and Eve's Family, Grunt and his family, Anderson and Sanders decedents, Ashley williams and James Vegas decedents, almost every crew members family and what remained of the crew showed up for the get together.
We held the gathering of over three hundred people outside on the grass lawn. The head table where what’s left of the crew sat under a massive white tree one Ryan recognized from after mass effect threes credits bringing tears to his eyes.
[This really is the end…] he though to himself.
Everyone sat down at their tables eating the food from the massive potluck banquet. They all talked about events, personal stories, and what was on any of their minds to one another. As many finished eating they sat in wait to hear Shepard’s and the Normandy’s story that they told once every fifty years together as a group.
Ryan brought out his omni tool and looked at a long list of people’s names all but ten no make that nine since one just died being crossed out like the rest of the 12,000 or so. Each person with their name on the list was reincarnated into this world the top being Ryan Blake Shepard though no one else from the Normandy’s crew had their name on the list. Looking at the list Ryan decided it was finally time he told his full story instead of starting with a few facts about his life before Eden Prim. He planned to tell the rest of the family and crew the he was actually reincarnated from a life long before earth was capable of space flight though April and Liara along with Samara who passed away are the only ones that know the truth.
The crowed grew quiet as Ryan looked out over them then out over his property, then the fields beyond that, then even the massive city beyond that with skyscrapers skyways, space ports, air cars, and almost anything someone would think a future city would look like. This was his colony the one he protected and helped grow since shortly after Eden Prim.
Ryan looked back down before looking at those left of his crew. April his loving wife, Liara their bond mate, Edi who continued to look at a picture of Jeff every few minutes, Grunt bouncing his little grandson on his knee, Miranda Lawson who looks almost 200 years old with breathing tubes to assist her, Javik sitting next to another prothean both looking old and frail, the rest of the seats where filled with holographic images of the rest of the crew who have long since passed away over the years bringing tears to his eyes.
Ryan took a breath before pressing a few buttons on his omni tool to gain access to the speakers at the tables.
“where should I begin…”
A child cried out, “Mama said you always start with Eden Prime!” he was quickly quieted by his mother.
Ryan laughed, “Yes that is true but for this one last time I will tell you all where it actually started for me, though many of you won’t believe it or think it delusions of a senile old man but it is the truth that only a hand few of people now know…” he paused looking around at everyone before continuing on with his story, “this was not my first life but that of a life that was given to me and many others as a second chance…”
As Ryan continued to talk about his past his mind played his life as if it was just a movie every sound, image filled with clarity.