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fandomhigh2012-07-09 01:55 pm
cataclysmicluck.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2012-07-09 01:55 pm
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So You're In the Middle of a War, Monday, Period 4
"So, I'm just going to get this one out of the way early," Zayne said. "For an individual thrown into war, it basically ends up becoming a series of moral choices that you have to work through, consciously or not. Most of these are things you wouldn't usually face in your everyday lives outside of a war. At least, I'm hoping you don't have to make a choice about whether to kill someone or just try to capture them when you're going to the store...."
"Your own personal morals really impact the kind of soldier you are. When you're in a battle, are you shooting to kill? Or are you trying to wound, or stun? Are you going to take a wounded enemy prisoner, let him go back to his camp to heal, or are you going to - as some people I've come across would think of it - finish the job?"
"I think I made it clear where I stood last week and, frankly, I was a terrible soldier. Because of everything I've gone through, seeing how people around me have used death as a means to an end, I refuse to even let people take lives if I'm in a battle with them. I feel so strongly about this that I've stood in the line of fire and helped the enemy escape when they were going to be killed completely needlessly. Again, terrible soldier. The fact that the draft board picked me up and rushed me into service probably says unflattering things about them."
"But all of that eventually led to my promotion and new role as a strategist and, if you will, moral compass for the soldiers aboard Reciprocity. Now I stress violence only when necessary and look for non-lethal solutions, and my soldiers have bought into this. They're making moral choices to stand by my alleged insanity. (And yes, unsurprisingly, some of the higher ups have made that allegation.)"
"Bringing this to a bigger topic, down to an Earth scale, World War II seems to be the most overly analyzed war available, so I'm going to reference it a lot the next few weeks," Zayne said. "In World War II, Germany was pulled out of a terrible financial and social situation largely thanks to a group that history pretty much agrees was evil called the Nazis. They blamed a lot of their issues on minority groups and decided to solve those issues by committing mass murder and genocide against them, rounding people up, holding them in camps, and eventually murdering them."
"The nations of Earth didn't really buy the excuse that individual soldiers were just following orders. It was determined that they had a moral imperative not to participate in genocide. Their choices to follow orders in this case were determined to be wrong."
"But, then you get to some of the brilliant scientific minds of the Nazis who were determined to be useful to various countries. These were people responsible for making a great many deaths possible, but they were spared for their ability to contribute to space exploration, as well as defense against other Earthbound enemies. Was their ability to contribute to something greater reason to overlook or outright ignore the horrors they were responsible for?"
"And that brings me back to, well, me. On two occasions, I personally witnessed the master strategist of the Mandalorian forces use orbital missile bombardment to effectively wipe out life on two planets. The first planet was filled with Republic soldiers and a peaceful local race called the Sterebs. The second planet was filled with Mandalorians, who suffered from... the easiest way to explain it here is to say it was kind of a zombie plague. I contacted this strategist, Cassus Fett, hoping he would contain the situation and try to cure his men. Instead, he killed them all. And for that, he told me he owed me a favor."
"Months later, I cashed in on it. I was going after two particular war criminals who had enslaved, experimented on, and murdered people. One had captured one of my best friends. The other intended to kill her. And they were on a planet that I didn't know how to find. Long story short, I contacted Fett - a mass murderer in his own right who had committed at least two acts of genocide that I was aware of - and asked him to be a decoy. I placed the Mandalorian fleet in one position to attract the Republic. The Mandos then escaped before a shot was fired, and I was able to use the Republic to capture another war criminal who could get me where I needed to be."
"For the greater good. Also, for a selfish good. I don't regret doing so at all, but does that go against everything I've told you about myself? Does the fact that I bargained and conspired with a crazy mass murderer take away any moral high ground I claim to have with my refusal to take a life?"
"I don't think so. If I did, I probably wouldn't have done it. I probably couldn't have dealt with it if I thought it did," Zayne said. "And that's basically the moral question. If you have orders, if you have opportunities, what can you live with doing? Can you take a life to win a battle? Can you take many lives if the people who picked your country up tells you it's the right thing to do? Can you make a bargain with one monster to get to two monsters and rescue a friend?"
"War throws questions like that in your lap all the time. One way or another, you have to answer them."
"Your own personal morals really impact the kind of soldier you are. When you're in a battle, are you shooting to kill? Or are you trying to wound, or stun? Are you going to take a wounded enemy prisoner, let him go back to his camp to heal, or are you going to - as some people I've come across would think of it - finish the job?"
"I think I made it clear where I stood last week and, frankly, I was a terrible soldier. Because of everything I've gone through, seeing how people around me have used death as a means to an end, I refuse to even let people take lives if I'm in a battle with them. I feel so strongly about this that I've stood in the line of fire and helped the enemy escape when they were going to be killed completely needlessly. Again, terrible soldier. The fact that the draft board picked me up and rushed me into service probably says unflattering things about them."
"But all of that eventually led to my promotion and new role as a strategist and, if you will, moral compass for the soldiers aboard Reciprocity. Now I stress violence only when necessary and look for non-lethal solutions, and my soldiers have bought into this. They're making moral choices to stand by my alleged insanity. (And yes, unsurprisingly, some of the higher ups have made that allegation.)"
"Bringing this to a bigger topic, down to an Earth scale, World War II seems to be the most overly analyzed war available, so I'm going to reference it a lot the next few weeks," Zayne said. "In World War II, Germany was pulled out of a terrible financial and social situation largely thanks to a group that history pretty much agrees was evil called the Nazis. They blamed a lot of their issues on minority groups and decided to solve those issues by committing mass murder and genocide against them, rounding people up, holding them in camps, and eventually murdering them."
"The nations of Earth didn't really buy the excuse that individual soldiers were just following orders. It was determined that they had a moral imperative not to participate in genocide. Their choices to follow orders in this case were determined to be wrong."
"But, then you get to some of the brilliant scientific minds of the Nazis who were determined to be useful to various countries. These were people responsible for making a great many deaths possible, but they were spared for their ability to contribute to space exploration, as well as defense against other Earthbound enemies. Was their ability to contribute to something greater reason to overlook or outright ignore the horrors they were responsible for?"
"And that brings me back to, well, me. On two occasions, I personally witnessed the master strategist of the Mandalorian forces use orbital missile bombardment to effectively wipe out life on two planets. The first planet was filled with Republic soldiers and a peaceful local race called the Sterebs. The second planet was filled with Mandalorians, who suffered from... the easiest way to explain it here is to say it was kind of a zombie plague. I contacted this strategist, Cassus Fett, hoping he would contain the situation and try to cure his men. Instead, he killed them all. And for that, he told me he owed me a favor."
"Months later, I cashed in on it. I was going after two particular war criminals who had enslaved, experimented on, and murdered people. One had captured one of my best friends. The other intended to kill her. And they were on a planet that I didn't know how to find. Long story short, I contacted Fett - a mass murderer in his own right who had committed at least two acts of genocide that I was aware of - and asked him to be a decoy. I placed the Mandalorian fleet in one position to attract the Republic. The Mandos then escaped before a shot was fired, and I was able to use the Republic to capture another war criminal who could get me where I needed to be."
"For the greater good. Also, for a selfish good. I don't regret doing so at all, but does that go against everything I've told you about myself? Does the fact that I bargained and conspired with a crazy mass murderer take away any moral high ground I claim to have with my refusal to take a life?"
"I don't think so. If I did, I probably wouldn't have done it. I probably couldn't have dealt with it if I thought it did," Zayne said. "And that's basically the moral question. If you have orders, if you have opportunities, what can you live with doing? Can you take a life to win a battle? Can you take many lives if the people who picked your country up tells you it's the right thing to do? Can you make a bargain with one monster to get to two monsters and rescue a friend?"
"War throws questions like that in your lap all the time. One way or another, you have to answer them."
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Also, jetpack.
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He didn't have patience with Jacen's approach.
Or with much, admittedly.
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Whether he'd actually lost people at Serroco? Well, his answer to that depended on the time of day. But he was damn well going to look unimpressed by Zayne's spiel here.
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