video, backdated to pre-plots

[thebioticwoman]

[Shepard has settled into her quarters, and the background to her transmission is a thrilling expanse of undecorated wall with a little bit of couch cushion visible near the bottom of the frame. She herself is a red-haired, pale-skinned human woman with green eyes and a calm, no-nonsense demeanor, wearing what looks like it could be a military or merchant marine uniform, though it has no obvious insignia or rank.]

My name's Shepard. I just got here, obviously, and I have a question. The staff was polite about it, but considering one of them nearly dropped his datapad when I floated the idea, there's obviously something they're not telling me...why is "Spectre" a bad codename?

[She could just freakin' Space Google it, but this is a good icebreaker. Besides, she doesn't have her omni-tool and she finds the omnicomm interface unreasonably clunky and inflexible.]

Comments

[spacesharks]

See, if you ended up anywhere else, that'd probably be a great code name. But some people just have to go and ruin it for everyone. It'd kinda be like going by Joker at this point. It sounds innocent, but doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

[...okay, maybe that was a "worst case" scenario, but you know.]

oh, well played

[thebioticwoman]

[Shepard blinks, then laughs in disbelief, shaking her head.]

Okay, I'll bite, what's wrong with Joker?

[Besides brittle bone disease and a pathological inability to take anything seriously.]

haha! all my gl examples were too obviously evil, had to go for something more "subtle."

[spacesharks]

More like what isn't wrong with it. Where I'm from, it belongs to one of the most notorious homicidal maniacs the world has ever known. I guess a thousand years into the future, not much has changed.

I always just kinda feel a little bad for all the innocent clowns out there that haven't murdered anyone yet.

[Yet...]

[thebioticwoman]

...It's my pilot's nickname.

[Shepard ducks her head a little to rub her temple. She likes giving Joker a hard time as much as the next Normandy crewer, but "haha you share a name with a murderous criminal" is a bit much.]