Colonist Shepard is a Third Culture Kid

Spacer Shepards are more or less futuristic Military Brats, and Earthborn Shepards are easy enough for most of us to relate to given their upbringing on Earth (as different as future Earth is, it's still Earth).

Colonist Shepard is a bit different, though. We see a bit of colony life in the trilogy, but not enough to really see what Shepard's childhood and upbringing would be like and how that would shape them. The biggest part of the Colonist background is, obviously, the slaver raid that ends their time on the colony.

Given that human colonists are essentially pioneers on a new frontier, it's interesting to think about the types of people who would be drawn to this lifestyle, and you could easily draw parallels to the American west -- the sense of community, the dangers, the outlaws etc.

But given that Shepard is living a colonial life while being raised by Earthborn parents, another side of this occurred to me -- Shepard is, essentially, a third culture kid. Someone who is being raised in a different culture than their parents grew up in.

Third culture kids have a lot of interesting traits, many of which definitely fit with what we see from Shepard:

• TCKs have an understanding that there is more than one way to look at situations that they are exposed to or experience.
• Increased exposure to a variety of perceptions and lifestyles allows TCKs to monitor their emotions, and register societal norms and cues more adeptly so as to produce higher sensitivity to other cultures and ways of life.
• Cross-cultural competence or cultural intelligence: the capacity to function effectively across national, ethnic, and organizational cultures.
• TCK have been found to have higher levels of general adjustment as opposed to mono-cultural children
  • Contributing to Shepard's high resilience (especially given the events on Mindoir)
• The mixture of influences from the various cultures can create challenges in developing an identity and a sense of belonging. TCKs may experience feelings of rootlessness and restlessness
  • This can add an interesting dynamic to ME3 -- where Shepard already seems to have moments of doubt
• One study showed that female TCKs may hesitate to develop relationships and have less emotional affect as compared to non-TCKs. Furthermore, female TCKs' identity development was delayed because of their focus on adjusting rather than creating a sense of belonging.

  • This is a great layer for FemShep, if you are like me and like to play her as being a bit standoffish in ME1 before opening up in ME2 and ME3. This is easy enough to justify with the attack on Mindoir, but the TCK angle adds a new layer that really adds a lot to her characterization.

What do you guys think? Anyone here a third culture kid? Can you think of any other effects this would have on Shep's psychology as it relates to the events of the trilogy? Or am I think only one who thinks this deeply about this video game character