To: everyone (a few days after all arrivals)

[northerndragon]

[Jon writes in a very fine hand, but to many, it will seem archaic.]

I would like to speak on duty, if you will.

What does duty mean to you, if it means anything at all?
How do you know what your duty is?
How do you know when you have done it, or failed to do it?

If it doesn't matter to you, why doesn't it matter?
If it does, why then?

I seek to learn from my fellows.

— Jon Snow, of Thorne

Comments

[earthborn]

You're asking a lot of philosophical questions for somebody not providing any answers of your own.

[Shepard's own reply is square and flat, more consistent than any calligrapher could manage. She's not used to writing by hand, and even in this mental space it still comes out in the blocky standard-use font installed in every Alliance Datapad.]

I'm a soldier; back home, I'd say I am a marine. An officer: I'm Commander Shepard.

At the end of the day, my duty, my responsibility, is to do my best to follow orders, and to protect my people where I can, and to spend their lives well where I can't, rather than wasting them in either case. I like to think I've done a pretty good job, overall. But only time will tell if it was enough. Sometimes you just don't get to know.

Why do you ask, Mister Snow? It's not like we're not all due for a crisis of faith, but...

[northerndragon]

I have no trouble providing answers of my own, but I have learned that my own way, the way my father taught me, is not the only way or the only good.

I think it is my duty to do what is right. It isn't always easy to tell what that is. What is good to one man may be cruelty to another.

It's good to hear that you do your best not to waste the lives of the people who look to you. Does following orders always preserve them?

[earthborn]

In my case, no. But this job isn't about saving our own skins, its about taking the risks and paying the price so that other people won't have to. What matters is that the goals those orders serve are worthwhile for the purpose, and that they do actually get accomplished.

Soldiers die in a time of war. That's unavoidable.

What do you do? I mean, professionally, not here.

[northerndragon]

I am a soldier. I have been a battle commander. My people have made me their king. It doesn't matter here — no man is a king worth mentioning without his people — but that is the way of it. It is a great honor.

When I was still a green boy, sometimes keeping one oath meant breaking another, or following one order meant failing another.

What sort of soldier is a marine? I fight with a sword, or with a bow or a spear, if I must.

[earthborn]

A marine is a soldier who's assigned to a ship, or who has a ship assigned to them, in my case. It's not a ship that sails on water, it's a spacecraft— a star ship. We go between star systems and visit other worlds on our mission.

I usually fight with one of several guns, which is a technology you might have seen around, if you were to visit Cadens or any other part of the Free Cities. But I'm also a biotic, which I'm told seems a lot like magic to most people here.

Then again, anyone calling themselves a "king" would sound like a joke to most anyone from my homeworld, so I'm not sure I'm one to judge.

[northerndragon]

Where I come from, most lords get their lands, their castles, their armies, from their fathers. Sometimes their mothers. But I am bastard-born. My brother was meant to be the Lord of Winterfell, not me. If we had nothing to fight, they would have little need of a war leader. It's good to think of them living untroubled lives, but we must look after each other when the time comes.

I have seen your guns. [Well, not exactly "yours," but he's seen them about, and understands them to be a little like crossbows.] Don't know what a biotic is, though.

[earthborn]

Even in peacetime, we've always had some kind of standing military. But then [She stops and considers. Whatever Winterfell is for size, it's almost definitely a lot smaller than the Systems Alliance. A small ground territory wouldn't have the kind of constant fire-fighting that came with a governance that spanned multiple star-clusters. Was it condescending to mention it? Shepard had not often been accused of having tact.] That's probably just an economy of scale.

People still inherit where I'm from, but when it comes to positions of leadership you have to either be elected by the people, or earn it; take me, I'm an orphan, grew up on the streets. Now I'm the commander of the most prestigious vessel in the Alliance fleet. Or, I was, anyways. But we're all doing different work, nowadays.

[northerndragon]

These ships that sail in the sky — there are others here who are used to such things?

I think it is better that we choose our leaders on skill, on wisdom, on who has a care for their people, not on whose son they are. You must have worked hard and led your people well. But this different work, it was before they brought you here? What happened?

[earthborn]

No, no. Back home it was... complicated. But what I meant was, I'm working for Free Cities, these days. The army.

There are a couple of spacers around, but not many of us. You might notice Garrus Vakarian around in places; he's pretty obvious in a crowd, once you see him. He isn't human. What about you, anybody else from your end of the universe pulled in here?

[northerndragon]

Not until just now. Two queens — Rhaenyra Targaryen, and her stepmother, Alicent Hightower. They were brought here from a time long gone, compared to mine. I know only of what was written of them in the history books, and of that, I think it would be unfair to say. When I was brought here, I was on my way to meet a different Targaryen queen.

What do you make of the army in the Free Cities? You need not tell me if you believe it would be aiding an enemy.

[earthborn]

If I told you something useful and you took it as face value, I'd say you were an idiot. That said, they're a hard-working bunch, and there's a lot of them. You'd have to be pretty self-destructive to deliberately provoke a war with 'em.

[The attack on Libertas looms over everything, recently.]

But since when has that ever stopped anyone from picking a stupid fight? Even in the face of bigger problems, people are still people.