Li Shepard
Born: 04.11.2155 (28 at the start of ME1) Background: Earthborn / Sole Survivor Class: Infiltrator / Sniper Romance: Kaidan Alenko / Garrus Vakarian Personality: officially Done With Your Bullshit ™ Alignment: Paragade
Introducing Lt. Cmdr. Li-Ning (栗宁) Shepard, known as Li among her friends. Earthborn and half-Chinese, Li grew up an orphan on the streets of 22nd-century Shanghai. From a very young age, she fell into a life of crime and got involved with a gang that dealt in drug trafficking and extortion.
It was a hard and dangerous life, one that meant she never felt safe and never knew who to trust. Her breaking point came when she was 17 years old, after a job went sideways. One of her friends was killed and another tried to have her framed.
Li knew she had to escape the life she was living, before it was too late. She found that escape when she enlisted in the Alliance Navy, lying about her age so she would be accepted a year early.
After basic training, she was shipped off to her first assignment on an interstellar space station. It was her first time leaving planet Earth. Growing up, Li was constantly reminded that the stars weren't for her. They were for people richer than her, smarter than her, people who knew where they were going in life and had the money and the means to escape the polluted, overcrowded dustball that was Earth.
She'll never forget that first journey into space, the moment of weightlessness and wonder when the ship broke atmo and the artificial gravity kicked in. Standing among the stars that she had been told were not for her.
It felt like coming home.
