Addendum 3 - Letter to John Shepard
What can I say to you now after everything you've accomplished? When we began this journey I was still your superior officer and your mentor but you have surpassed me in every possible way. Regardless of how this war ends there are already no words that can express the gratitude owed to you by me and the entire galaxy.
Nevertheless there are still two final things I will say to you. Firstly is that I hope you get a chance to settle down after the war. Many stories feature noble heroes who die to save everyone else but you deserve more than that. I wish you every happiness. And secondly in recognition of something ridiculously long overdue I, Admiral Anderson acting with the authority granted to me by the Alliance Parliament hereby promote you to the rank of Captain upon receipt of this letter. And no better candidate have I ever known for the job.
My everlasting respect
Admiral Anderson
Ok now we have reached the end - I hope you all enjoyed it.
Just wanted to take this opportunity to address a few points before I stop.
- For those that are wondering this book adopts a fairly standard paragon Sheppard, one that largely maximizes war assets except for in a few cases where he refuses to do so for sentimental reasons (actually curing the genophage, bringing Ashley & Dr. Chakwas onto the Normandy and so on)
- Some may be wondering why the book doesn't go into any great detail about what happened on the Citadel or any other part of the final climatic battle. There were two reasons for this, the first being that as this was being written as if it were an actual journal it is hard to explain why Anderson would stop midbattle to jot down a few notes. The second is that I felt that surviving long enough for Sheppard's reinforcements to arrive was the point of Anderson's story in ME3. He didn't die the moment they arrived but it was when it stopped being solely his story.
- In one of the later chapters I had Harbinger openly mock the alliance between the Quarians and the Geth, which is just one issue but it does reflect my personal feelings about the infamous ending to ME3. I don't hate the concept, the ingredients were all there if only they had taken more time and care to write the scene properly and fully explore and explain the concepts they were dealing with. I like the idea that viewed from the perspective of an entity millions of years old, a month old alliance isn't very significant. Even the overall motivation of the Reapers themselves isn't too damning for me although I wish they had broadened the scope of their ideas. Instead of focusing on the dangers of synthetics it should have dealt with the idea that all progress eventually leads to the creation of weapons that can devastate everything. In real life we face threats from nuclear war and climate change which might make you wonder if it would be better for the planet had "Reapers" swept in and removed the humans before we learned to split the atom.
- Question has been raised about why Reapers would even bother to watch out for submarines or ships trying to travel around. This was largely done to depict the Reapers trying to restrict movement as a means of controlling the population. America seemed useful for this as it is quite difficult to navigate round by sea leaving a few easily guarded choke points.
- Question has been raised about why Harbinger sometimes seemed to expect Anderson to simply surrender. The idea here was that Harbinger was placing him in increasingly hopeless situations to accelerate the process of his indoctrination (which was based on achieving total despair)
P.S.
There may be a sidequel (a sequel that runs concurrent to the first one) based on Miranda Lawson's own war experience but it is currently in the very early stages.
P.P.S
Please review!