


Player choices will affect Garrus' personality throughout all three games, but he still unilaterally becomes more proactive in doing what he thinks is right, especially in between games when he's not actively a member of Normandy's crew. Shepard's death in Mass Effect 2's prologue, which takes place shortly after ME1's conclusion, seems to only motivate Garrus further. Once Garrus leaves C-Sec to join Shepard in the search for Saren, he never truly returns. Related: Mass Effect: What Garrus' Life Was Before Shepard His experiences stopping Sovereign and Saren alongside Shepard and their Spectre leeway apparently reinforced his views on the triviality of C-Sec's bureaucracy. Even before Garrus met Shepard, it seems he was frequently hoping for more agency in his work. He's given the assignment of investigating Saren's alleged treason, but the red tape surrounding the confidential nature of the Spectres gets him nowhere. When Garrus is first met in the original Mass Effect, he's a frustrated Citadel Security investigator. Garrus does not spend the entirety of those four years with Shepard, though, and goes about personal tasks between each Mass Effect game. On a galactic scale, four years is the blink of an eye, yet those are arguably the most important four years of trillions of people's lives, especially those who served under Commander Shepard on the Normandy, like favorite squadmate Garrus Vakarian. The original Mass Effecttrilogy takes place over the course of roughly four years.
