Interlude:
Excerpt from The Agincourt is Engaged: Forgotten Battles in the Alliance's Anti-Piracy Campaigns, 2160-2178, by: Donald Bercuson.
© Westerlund News, 2183 C.E.
In 2181, not long after Commander Jane Shepard was named humanity's first Spectre, Donald Bercuson published a popular history account of the Alliance's anti-piracy raids. Many battles that Shepard was personally involved in were included.
In light of recent information about Commander Shepard, we at Westerlund news think it prudent to republish an excerpt from Bercuson's book. It, more than any sanctioned press-releases from Shepard's friends, might help better frame the ongoing discussion. If nothing else, we at Westerlund believe you, the public, have a right to know all the facts—no matter how unsavoury they might be.
Chapter 34: Torfan.
As we saw in the previous chapter, in 2176 a fleet of pirates, slavers, Terminus Systems warlords, and more than a handful of batarian Special Intervention Unit commandos attacked the human colony Elysium, kicking off what would eventually be known as the Skyllian Blitz. Despite being outnumbered and caught completely off guard, the Alliance pushed the attackers back into the Terminus System—and a particular someone ended up with the Star of Terra for her actions, alongside half a dozen other awards and an N7 designation to boot.
A year later and the Alliance wanted revenge. A few months after that and the pieces were in place to get their revenge. With Citadel backing, the Alliance launched one of the largest anti-piracy raids in modern galactic history. It would eventually come out that more Alliance ships were engaged in combat during these raids than the First Contact War.
Torfan was different, though.
It was a moon that was nearly big enough to be a dwarf planet, and it had enough of an atmosphere to support life. The ecosystem that sprouted up wasn't particularly lush or diverse, but if you were a scared and hungry colonist, escaped slave, or a batarian trying to flee the Hegemony's iron fist, whatever was growing on the moon was good enough for you to call home. Especially if you were an escaped slave or a fleeing batarian.
A good-sized colony had developed on that moon. Half the population had once been enslaved by Terminus System gangs, being fully aware that the Batarian Hegemony covertly funded most of those gangs, while the other half were escapees from batarian space, who were all fully aware that a lot of former slaves didn't trust batarians as far as they could throw them.
Then 2178 rolled around and a whole box of lit matches were dropped on that particular powder keg.
The Alliance had tracked a contingent of pirates back to Torfan and found that they'd set up shop in the forest—the one forest on the moon—just outside the colony. The only reason they hadn't moved in and tried to take over the town was because the Hegemony was waiting on the other side, apparently there to collect the "escaped convicts" that'd fled from justice. The Alliance wasn't technically at war with the Hegemony, so an offer was tendered by the batarians for a joint anti-piracy operation, so long as the Hegemony had free reign to reclaim its "criminals." But everyone—everyone—knew that the Hegemony elites were funding the pirates and had terrible, truly awful plans for the so-called "criminals"; more than a few Alliance officers, marines, and the newly-formed Terra Firma party wanted the Hegemony troops bombed into a fine space-powder. The colonists? They just wanted to go back to the normalcy of worrying about whether your neighbor was going to shoot you without a moment's hesitation.
Some within the Alliance petitioned the Council to intervene. But as Jasmine Gerwig, then-Executive Director of the Lester B. Pearson Centre for Human Diplomacy, would write in her book, Event Horizon: Conflict Resolution in the Council Era:
"The Citadel Council, despite backing the Alliance's initial anti-piracy raids, informed the galactic media (and the Alliance itself, though only indirectly) that it would have to remain neutral and uninvolved, lest it compromise its position as a peacekeeper in future conflicts."
And, so, neutral and uninvolved the Council remained. Membership in the Terra Firma party has increased annually ever since.
Most of us now the rest of the story by now. How the Alliance—led by that same, highly decorated soldier from the Skyllian Blitz—attempted to broker a peaceful solution. How that strained relations between the Navy and the Ministry for Intergalactic Affairs and Development for decades. How, for many people, the fact that relations were strained made the military seem all the more legitimate, for at least trying to avoid bloodshed. How Torfan fell and now has more mass graves on it than living people.
Despite the very public disagreement between the Alliance and the Council, and despite the death count, few today ultimately regard Torfan as a failure. The casualty reports were truly staggering, yes, but the Alliance ultimately trounced the pirate fleets in other engagements. They'd won the overall war, regardless of how messy one particular battle ended up being. This meant the psychological scars of the Alliance's brief deployment on Torfan were easy to ignore. In a committee hearing that occurred just before his disappearance, Major Francis Kyle (ret.) would say that:
"…we knew the whole situation—this mess—we knew that there wasn't any way to get out of there without a significant…without a significant number of bodies. What we didn't know at the time was just how many bodies there would be."
Kyle was very clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and yet the immediate response from politicians and flag officers was to use his testimony as proof that these casualties simply couldn't be avoided. Things could have been handled differently, sure, but it was over now—no need to pay attention to the human cost of the operation.
A different voice seems to have suffered during the immediate aftermath of Torfan as well. Many soldiers had their reputations altered or permanently etched into the public psyche—even if some, like Kyle, have only been recognized recently—but within the military itself, none compare with the reputation earned by the "Butcher of Torfan," then-2nd Lieutenant Kai Leng. Kyle's testimony may have been used to justify the high human cost of the campaign on Torfan, but when it came to the casualties suffered by Leng's unit, the Alliance apparently decided that he had presided over a particularly ruthless and barbaric military engagement.
Forgotten in the passage of time, however, is that Leng defended himself in multiple parliamentary inquiries, and offered up an alternative explanation for Torfan's high casualty rates. In 2179, just before he supposedly was welcomed into the Alliance's Interplanetary Combatives Academy, Leng stated that:
"…everyone on the ground was prepared for a bloodbath. Then Shepard showed up and everyone started hoping. Hoping the diplomacy would work. Hoping she'd talk everyone down.
That, right there, is responsible for more deaths than anything I did. Absolutely anything."
Is Leng right? Did then 1st Lieutenant Jane Shepard truly cause more deaths with her attempt at diplomacy and brokerage than any other factor?
Unfortunately, we simply do not have the data to prove this. But it would prove to be an interesting case study in the history of conflict resolution and soft power, if nothing else.
I'm still alive!
Man, it's been a while since I updated this - apologies! Life's just been an entirely crazy series of crazy events lately, so this ended up getting put on the back-burner a bit.
Well that and it's not even a real, full update but hold up, lemme explain:
Because Kai Leng's a thing in this universe still, and because I hate Kai Leng with an absolute passion and want to do something new with him, and also because I'm already changing a whole host of things in this AU anyways, I wanted to do a different take on Torfan. Which ended up meaning an absolutely boat-load of exposition, which is gross.
So here's the exposition, in the form of a fake book chapter, to split up Act One and Act Two. Oh and to also make sure everyone knows I'm not dead.
I'm hoping that an actual proper chapter, with a lot less exposition, is one the way soon. Until then though, I hope you enjoyed this little romp through "nothing works in this fictional universe either, so don't worry, it's not just the dark timeline we're currently living in."
Yaaaaaaaay, I guess.