Arthur Williams

Arthur Williams
Biological information
Born:	March 15, 2093 CE G.M.C Hospital, Carlsbad, State of New Mexico, United States of America, Earth
Died:	August 28, 2174 CE St. Petersburg Memorial Hospital, New Nuremberg, Sirona
Physical information
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Height:	6.6ft
Hair:	Black
Eyes:	Blue
Political and military information
Affiliation:	United North American States Systems Alliance
Weapon(s):	Stinger pistol
Equipment:	Omni-Tool
Command(s):	Sixth North American Army First Systems Alliance Army
Rank(s):	Lieutenant General Secretary of Defense of the UNAS (briefly)
Era:	Asari Cycle Pax Galactica Era
Battle(s):	First Contact War Shanxi campaign First Battle of Shanxi Occupation of Shanxi

"My men fought hard, my men pressed on, my men refused to surrender...and my men died. And for what? The situation was hopeless. A general's main concern is the wellbeing of the troops under his or her command, and I know I did right by my boys when I agreed to unconditional surrender. I know how they'll remember me, and nobody will ever thank me for it. But don't let politicians dictate to you who the heroes are. To them, the only heroes are the ones that spill blood in defiance of the state's enemy of the month. To the men I saved, to the generations that were born because they didn't die pointlessly over a misunderstanding, I'm a hero. I can sleep at night knowing that."

— Arthur Williams' speech at his court martial, shortly before being found guilty and discharged.

Lieutenant General Arthur Williams was a general in the Systems Alliance Army, the former commander of the First Systems Alliance Army and Shanxi Colonial Guard, and the grandfather of Ashley M. Williams. Born on Earth before the discovery of the Mars Archives, Arthur Williams was part of the "first generation" of the Systems Alliance, the first generation being those that knew what life was like before first contact and interstellar travel. Before the Systems Alliance Charter was drafted, Arthur Williams was a Lieutenant General in the United North American Army, with a long career of outstanding leadership in the military, as well as a brief stint as the Secretary of Defense for the United North American States. Upon the formation of the Systems Alliance Army, Arthur Williams was approached to command the 1st Alliance Army, with a full Alliance commission, including his former UNAA rank. He accepted, and established his headquarters on Shanxi, where he believed the then-frontier of human space would be the best place to command a defense of Alliance space: at this point in time, humanity still didn't know if aliens even existed, so the Systems Alliance spent very little of its resources on building up a military, with Earth's three most powerful military superpowers at the time (the UNAS, RUSFED and MEC) being forced to take up the slack. General Williams warned Alliance brass that neglecting their military would be a costly decision if they should be taken by surprise, but he was largely ignored.

As such, General Williams was less surprised than most when word of a violent first contact at Relay 314 reached the colonies. The public was kept uninformed in order to prevent a panic, and Williams, without awaiting approval from Alliance Command, discreetly activated the 1st Alliance Army and mobilized it, reorganizing them in the fashion of the UNAA in order to best command them. By the time turian forces finally arrived and lay siege to Shanxi, Williams' men were prepared to fight guerilla warfare with their adversary, learning too late that the turians could simply bomb them from orbit, and that their tactics were woefully outdated. While Williams did his best to keep their strategies constantly changing, and fought on for a while after the Occupation of Shanxi had begun, he knew it was a losing fight and was eventually forced to surrender.

This humiliating defeat, the surrender of human military forces to alien aggressors, left the Alliance brass fuming, and when the war was over, he was taken back to Earth practically in chains, quietly court-martialed and dishonorably discharged. Arthur Williams continued to defend what he did in his latter years, but his family was blacklisted for decades to come, with his son, and later his granddaughter, suffering middling military careers as a result of it. His legacy was redeemed by his granddaughter, Ashley Williams, who sacrificed her life during the Battle of Virmire three decades later, negating the stain on their family, and eventually causing the Alliance to lift the blacklist. Arthur Williams never got to see it however, dying of natural causes in 2174 CE just a couple years before the Skyllian Blitz, the veteran of a forgotten war.

Still, his legacy wasn't entirely in tatters. Despite ignoring his warnings of neglecting their military before the war, the First Contact War forced the Alliance to invest heavily in building up its military, doubling the amount of naval and ground assets by magnitudes. This also ceased the need for Earth-based nations to get involved in the Alliance directly, as was the original intention of the charter ("the Alliance shall be a supranational representative of humanity on an interstellar front: the personal, interpersonal and domineering agendas of individual nationalities and peoples shall not interfere, and the Alliance shall not modify its behavior in preference to the interests of one nation over another").