#about.anadima

[oedonretired]

I’m really trying to clean up my Shepards’ story and it’s.... it’s getting Weird(TM)

I’ve got three Shepards. Adrian (my favourite, admittedly), the Renegade who chooses to Destroy the Reapers; London, the Paragon who chooses to Control the Reapers; and Ana-Dimitri, the Paragade who chooses Synthesis. Pretty straightforward.

So I started thinking... what if Ana-Dima’s outcome is the ‘final’ one? What if the three timelines converge at the Crucible, and when Adrian and London get there in their respective timelines, they link up with Ana-Dima and the synthesis not only involves organic and inorganic matter, but also the twin Shepards London and Adrian (they are twins, biologically) -- London the sacrificial Reaper and Adrian the all-too-human warrior? What if the synthesis creates a One out of the Three (a cosmic trinity, say), a Shepherd of Shepards, something intrinsically human and alien and machine that isn’t a Reaper but a... well, a Catalyst?

Maybe the Shepherd Catalyst quickens life and development when it looks like it’s flagging, instead of culling it when it looks like it’s getting too smart. I don’t know. I like it, though. It’s my kind of weird. I’m keeping it.

[lucienfairfax]

The act of merging with SAM enabled Alec Ryder to see the wider tapestry of space and time, to see how his protégé Ana-Dimitri Shepard fit into the future of the galaxy and the ending of the Reap Cycle, to understand how to guide his children through their own destinies through the breadcrumbs he leaves behind.

The act of fitting Ana-Dima with his other prototype technologies enabled Ana-Dima to interface with the Reapers and the Catalyst, and to understand that the synthesis that Alec achieved was the goal, the grail, the true catalyst.

In another galaxy, in another time, SAM weaves dreams for Jericho Ryder-- dreams about the Shepard Triumviri, who watch over the Milky Way; dreams of sentience and sentiment and the red string of quantum entanglement; dreams about the dark places in galaxies where shepherds and riders boldly go, and how those dark places must inevitably shrink before their cosmic light.

[oedonretired]

TIL Ana-Dimitri Shepard has a pattern with these older dudes

ey helped Alec Ryder with SAM, Alec Ryder helped em with becoming a cyborg, and I guess it’s pretty easy to fall into infatuation in the process

(I say it’s a pattern because ey later end up in David Anderson’s bed)

[oedonretired]

pros and cons of dating: the shepard triumviri

ADRIAN

pros: will straight-up punch anyone who so much as casually insults you; archetypal bad boy in leather; creative in the sack

cons: also married to his job; impossible to comfortably sleep next to because nightmares; has in-depth serious conversations with his hamster

LONDON

pros: will spoil the life out of you; dances better than everyone you know; is a lightweight and a cuddly drunk

cons: is a media darling so the paparazzi is always hovering; decisive as hell in the field but indecisive as hell in the restaurant; overprotective military father

ANA-DIMITRI

pros: not a commander so less stressed out overall; uncannily remembers every detail about you; cyborg

cons: always off doing dangerous shit for the fun of it; bad case of the “chaotic biotics” when excited (be careful in bed); overprotective military boyfriend

[oedonretired]

I want to talk about Ana-Dimitri’s background in reading Heinlein and how that informs eir interactions with Legion and the Geth and, later, eir interactions with the Catalyst and the other two Shepards, but for one, I get too fucking excited and forget how to words, and for another, it careens off into Super Fucking Weird territory really quickly because I start thinking “what if AnaDima straight up meets Lazarus Long on the fucking Citadel tho”