[Crunchy in milk]

Originally Posted by djalekks

...it was [shepard] attaining [spectre status] that gave him most of the fame... the first human to do so.

Kind of my point... Shepard becomes even more famous after ME1, for saving the citadel... reportedly saving it from the geth and their powerful squid-ship...

The Saronis Applications tech shop employee in the lower wards (a complete nobody) claims "even a blind hanar would recognise the spectre who saved the citadel"

As for Earth not knowing about the Reaper threat..well that can be explained in a number of ways. The only Reaper the current galactic civilizations ever encountered was Sovereign.

My point wasn't that trailer-soldier should definitely recognise it as a reaper, only that they might recognise they've seen their like before when one attacked the citadel and was infamously stopped by commander Shepard.

Secondly, don't forget the Illusive man and the power he wields. If he has so much influence on a galactic scale, than I am sure he is able to keep the Reaper threat secret...at least from Earth.

Kind of a weird interpretation of the Illusive man. His whole point in ME2 is exposing the threat of the reapers and taking them on when no on else will. As powerful as Cerberus is, they're a comparatively small operation who use secrecy to remain effective, but their goal is anything but hiding the existence of the reapers.