It's been too long and honestly the only one to blame has been myself. I didn't stop writing, but various issues or events or just in general concerns about a few miscellanous things got in the way. It wasn't intended, I didn't like it, but I just couldn't write what I wanted. A lot of that got sorted, thankfully, in due course, but for the most part I was just in general infuriated or distracted by too much to get things off the ground the way I wanted them to be. But I've finally made some real headway and I think I'm prepared to real buckle down on things going forward. On Remnants, The Lucen Side-Story, (Which will also be updated soon) and some original projects I've been meaning to get on paper.
But, let's focus on this chapter for now.
Depending on how I've pulled it off, you probably now see the reason the colonists were so aloof and why the UNSC would have issues with them. I didn't want to make any one side completely in the right, but you can see I did place a bit more sympathy on the colonists' side. I wanted to give both sides equal time all the same, because I believe they both raise important points.
The UNSC is fighting a war, one that risks the annihilation of humanity if they fail. You cannot win any war without some degree of sacrifice. You cannot hope to survive something of this magnitude if you are unwilling to make hard choices. The hardest choice of any war is picking who you can save, and who you have to spend to save others. It is not an easy job, it is not enviable in any respect. I could not do it. I could not chose who's life is more valuable in a live or die scenario. You do this in Mass Effect 3 a lot, you chose who is worth saving more than anything. Not everyone can get what they want, or get out alive.
In fighting the Covenant, the UNSC no doubt had to make more than just decisions on who to send into battle. Allocation of resources would be key. If you cannot fight an enemy, you need to pull out and save what you can for when you CAN be certain of victory. During the first few years of fighting, the UNSC were on the backfoot for a lot of it. Victories on single planets like Harvest took years. It cost a lot of lives and probably wasn't entirely worth it in the end. So, when the Covenant began mass glassings of colonies, the UNSC obviously had to make choices concerning what was worth saving. And obviously, that would primarily include high population centers, specifically inner colonies or sectors of UNSC controlled space that were deemed strategically viable.
It's cruel, but it makes sense. You can't waste resources on every hotspot when the enemy has no desire to negotiate, no other goal but your utter extinction and outnumbers you by a vast margin. You are fighting an uphill battle. The Covenant have every advantage and can afford losses, you can't. So saving a faming community as opposed to a city that produces tank units or battlecruisers? That's a shit choice, but allocating resources to the former risks losing a lot of the latter that you cannot replenish as a result. So, I understand the UNSC's difficult position, from the bigger picture, it's the only choice they have. To save everyone, some have to die.
However, we need to remember that in this scenario, the people who are being sacrificed are not the military. They didn't choose this position, they didn't get a vote, they didn't volunteer. They might be part of the struggle, but they are treated as an expendable part. Or at least more expendable than the people who are actually fighting. The stakes are the same in this war, but not everyone is on the same level. Not everyone is given the same training or equipment, not everyone is really in the thick of it. They have other responsibilities and they have not elected to make the same sacrifice. Yes, being a soldier is noble, I'm not arguing it isn't, but civilians are not any less noble just because they do not elect to fight. The part of being a volunteer army, which the UNSC is mostly made up of, is that the people there chose to be there. So, when command decides it is going to sacrifice the lives of civilians who elected not to go, it's essentially them making the choice for those people. And the choice is, you didn't join the cause so you don't matter as much.
The point I'm trying to make is, a civilian's decision to not potentially sacrifice themselves is given a degree of ill respect. You aren't fighting the war, so what good are you? And when the military, which I remind you currently controls the Earth Government under emergency powers, decides to leave you to die, it can seem rather cold and heartless to civilians who didn't have a say in the matter.
In respect to the New Teteocan's residents, they got the shaft here. They were told they were on their own, that no one was coming for them and that they had to just accept that. Left to their own devices, the UNSC not only makes their survival harder by taking all their shuttles, they leave behind a freighter that can get them all out of there, but it's not there for them.
You're probably wondering if Maisey's story is true. Spoilers, there might be some mitigating facts I left out, but for the most part she is telling the truth. The Captain did basically tell her to lay down and die, that her people weren't important enough to save. Why? I can't really say right now. But I can say, I get the impression from expanded material that the Outer Colonies did not get the respect they felt was earned. And the UNSC's military command did not do much to curtail this problem until, well, until the insurrectionists made it an issue. And I'm not going to pretend that justifies their cause, but it probably helped convince a lot of people to join them, why they became such an issue that it required supersoldiers to resolve the problem. Things like a colonial insurgency do not just spring forth from nothing.
Obviously, Maisey and her people aren't fans of the Insurrectionists either, but only because they took advantage of them as expressed before. They stole from them, attacked them on a number of occassions, all because they were lightly defended and deemed unimportant by the UNSC. So they were caught in the crossfire of a bunch of people that couldn't care less about them. That obviously colored their perception. And when someone more or less confirms that perception in the worst scenario possible... yeah, you see where I'm going with this.
The Colonists had a lot of their options robbed from them and it's only natural how they responded. I suppose I took some inspiration from that scene in "Where Worlds Collide" when the people who had helped build the ship to escape Earth were told they weren't going to come. Yeah, they did with like fucking straws and shit, to be fair and everything, but... really, the guys working that project probably could've saved way more people had they got more folks to build WAY more rockets. They did not. So, I can't really blame those guys, who had spent their last year on Earth, building something for other people to use to escape, for going into revenge mode.
Think of what happens here as a similar situation, but with the mob winning out. Maisey may not have taken part in the killing of the Marines, but she did benefit from it and then stole their equipment. She stole resources from the UNSC in a time of war, and while it was minute in the grand scheme of things, she still did it. I don't know how reasonable that is going to read to everyone. As she pointed out, people have been giving the excuse to her about how they had to make hard decisions. How the war and survival called for those hard decisions. That she shouldn't blame the UNSC for what they were forced to do. Well, if that's true, how can they blame her for what she decided to do following her husband's actions?
It's a complicated situation. Should Maisey and her people face consequences for what they did? Were they justified or is Haverson right to call them out? At the same time, it has created a rift between both factions. For Maisey and her colonists, she's now fearful of what the UNSC will do to reclaim their stolen property and punish her people. Haverson is now fearful for what ONI will do when they learn of this and what the Colonists might do to protect themselves from reprisal. So he's stuck in a position of concern both of and for the colony, while Maisey no longer trusts anyone she doesn't consider family. This is never a good place for any alliance to be right now.
Complicating matters is of course Zek, who set this in motion. Although you can't completely blame him, this time he's actually being a good member of the fleet. He's exposing a potential danger and a deception. So, even if Haverson suspects he and Retz are the cause of this, what's he gonna do? Get pissed off at them for helping for once? As for Zek's own agenda, I just found a lot of the scene funny. How he puts this whole monkey wrench into the proceedings... for sugar and that's just the weirdest thing anyone could ever imagine. Obviously, he can't really keep the fact he's giving guns to the Colonists a secret, but at the same time, he's allowed to make his own business deals so long as they don't interfere with the rest of the fleet. And arming the colonists when there is a potential threat on the way makes sense, especially if its his own weapons he's giving them. So even when Haverson finds out, he can't exactly reprimand him for that either. He just has to keep the sugar part under wraps and is relying on the Colonists not to spill. Because why would they tell Haverson anything given how much animosity that's just been created?
Don't expect things to go swimmingly for Zek though. By now you know nothing goes according to plan for long when Zek and Retz are involved. Smart as they are, something always comes around to ruin things for them, as the last part of this chapter suggests.
I wanted to give the Spartan team more time to bond, because I do love their dynamic and I enjoy showing how synced up their are to one another. I also wanted to show Shepard's effect on Chief, in how the Commander's own leadership style has rubbed off on him. He's gotten more attuned to their own problems, concerns, hangups. He was before, but now he's more aware of the importance of their mental well-being. That, and after losing so many members of his extended family, he's become more attached. He doesn't want to lose any of them, but he knows he might so he's going to take time to talk to them as much as he can and spend as much time with them as possible.
The Chupas were my attempt to make a neat little alien monster for the Spartans to fight. Snake-Wolves that suck blood, I mean... maybe it's just me, maybe I was in the spirit of Mexican folklore because of New Teteocan's cultural origins and inspiration. Point is, I just really wanted to create a cool monster and for the Spartans to fight it so I could showcase their awesome fighting style together once more. It's been way too long since we saw them fight together like this and we got more of that in the coming chapters, don't worry.
And of course, Lurz is here, with a whole cadre of fellow kig-yar all looking for a fight. That's gonna be hell come the next few chapters because, well, if you remember Lurz, he's basically the worst kind of Jackal. A beast of a lizard-bird who has all the resilence, stamina and determination of a prize fighter... but losing none of the agility and cunning that comes with his species. Think Bane from Batman crossed with the Terminator and the Predator. He's a deadly enemy and I'm gonna love watching you all see him in action again.
But we've gone on long enough. Time to move on. Expect more chapters in due time, specifically for Liara's band of misfits to close out that whole Andromeda Arc we've had running for a while longer than I wanted. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'm sorry for taking so long to get it to you. With any luck, you're all still with me on this journey. Thank you again for your readership.
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