Steven Hackett

Admiral Steven Hackett was a top-ranking officer of the Systems Alliance Navy and the commanding officer of its Fifth Fleet, based at Arcturus Station. A figure of enormous standing within the Alliance military, he was among those who put Commander Shepard forward to become the first human Spectre, and when the Reapers invaded the galaxy he marshaled and led the combined fleets in the decisive battle for Earth.

From enlisted man to admiral#

Steven Hackett was born in Buenos Aires on Earth in 2134. When his mother died in 2146, he was placed in the Advanced Training Academy for Juveniles, where his affinity for science and leadership soon became evident. He enlisted in 2152 and volunteered for high-risk missions to colonize space beyond the Sol relay, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 2156, and fought in the First Contact War the following year. His rare ascent from enlisted man to admiral became an Alliance legend, and he came to command the Fifth Fleet from Arcturus Station.

The hunt for Saren and the Battle of the Citadel#

Holding political standing roughly equal to that of the human ambassador and Captain Anderson, Hackett was one of the three officers who recommended Commander Shepard as the first human Spectre. During the pursuit of the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius, Hackett frequently contacted Shepard with assignments vital to Alliance security and was generally more accepting of the Commander's decisions than the Alliance's politicians.

When the Citadel came under assault by Sovereign, Hackett commanded the Alliance vessels that reinforced the battered Citadel fleet. Trusting Shepard's judgment on the ground, he led the fleet to either defend or abandon the Council flagship Destiny Ascension, according to the Commander's call. Following the victory over Sovereign, Hackett was promoted to head of the Alliance military.

Arrival and the road to war#

Hackett resumed contact with Shepard in the years that followed and entrusted the Commander with a personal favor: the rescue of his friend Dr. Amanda Kenson from batarians in batarian space. The mission ended with the destruction of a mass relay and the deaths of a great many batarian colonists. Debriefing Shepard afterward, Hackett acknowledged the gravity of what the Commander had done and warned Shepard to be ready to return to Earth and answer for it when the time came.

The Reaper War and the Crucible#

By 2186 Hackett had attained the rank of Fleet Admiral. Alerted to the incoming Reaper fleet as deep-space outposts went dark, he began mobilizing the Alliance Navy, but the Reapers proved overwhelming, and he was forced to sacrifice the Second Fleet so that others could escape, presiding over what he called the worst military defeat in human history. He directed the reinstated Shepard to Mars, where the schematics of a Prothean superweapon were found, and thereafter regularly debriefed the Commander through quantum communicators as the war went on.

Hackett oversaw the construction of that weapon, dubbed Project Crucible, describing it as one of the most ambitious undertakings in human history, and kept the bulk of the surviving fleets guarding it at an undisclosed location. He made plain his distaste for the Illusive Man's ambition to control the Reapers, comparing it to trying to tame a shark, and ordered the Commander to kill him. When the time came to commit the galaxy's combined forces to deploying the Crucible in the Sol system, Hackett boarded Shepard's ship to signal the fleets and deliver his address before the final battle.

The battle for Earth#

In the assault on Earth, Hackett directed the plan that sent the main fleet against the Reapers while strike teams aided the resistance in reaching the conduit to the Citadel. He hung back with the reserve to protect the Crucible and escort it into position. When the Crucible docked with the Citadel but did not at once fire, he lost contact with Shepard and ordered the fleets to a rendezvous point to await the weapon's activation. The aftermath depended on the strength Shepard had assembled: in the fullest accounts the Reapers were broken and Hackett, confident that the galaxy could rebuild, mourned that so many would never see the future Shepard had made possible; where Shepard's forces were too few, the victory was a costly one, leaving Hackett marooned aboard a crippled dreadnought to reckon with what it had cost.