Commander Shepard is the player character in BioWare's Mass Effect game series : Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3. A veteran soldier of the Systems Alliance Navy military and N7-graduate of the Interplanetary Combatives Training (ICT) program, and the first human Citadel Council Spectre, Shepard works to stop the Reapers, a sentient synthetic- machine race dedicated to wiping out all advanced organic life. Shepard's gender, class, first name and facial appearance are chosen and customised by the player. Mark Meer provides the voice for default male Shepards, while Jennifer Hale voices female Shepards. Since the player can choose the gender of Shepard, much of the dialogue revolving around the character is gender-neutral with only a few exceptions, however in some other Mass Effect Media, Shepard is called "he" regardless of player choice for the gender.
Alan Shepard was the source of the character 's name, although Shepard is also analogous for Jesus, and "The Shepherd " is both of their title by future generations. Shepard's armor developed over the series, and was originally intended to be red -and- white. Most promotional material for the series focused on the male Shepard, due to the studio 's desire for a single identifiable hero, though both genders were given equal priority during development. Various merchandise has been made, including several figurines. Shepard has made cameo appearances in other Electronic Arts games and is referenced in Mass Effect: Andromeda, though BioWare has no plans to feature the character in any future Mass Effect titles, considering Shepard's story to be complete.
