Log Nhaima, 14418-2237

[Nhaima]

Personal Log: Intendent Alia Nhaima, Chief Navigational Officer, ISN Relentless
Stardate: 14418-2237

Either Yooey managed to unjam our fourth tube or someone actually read a damn maintenance report. One would think marking it ‘priority’ would be sufficient, but the Invictus‘s retrofit and everything else that’s been marked ‘critical’….. No, still more likely that Yooey got desperate enough to put on a vac suit and handle it himself.

Matthew-…. Subkommandant Vaj was promoted. Good for him, I’m glad he’s getting recognition well earned. Good for me, too. I get to collect on another bet for the SO promotion pool. Amusing enough for the both of us, he gets to dress me down for acting with more leeway than I might otherwise be nominally entitled to. More of the division went to some war college conference. I instead took leave for cultural enrichment… and I still feel like I got the better of it.

As far as the shift went, there’s really not much to say now is there? Stopped some pirates, escorted some brass high enough up in the nosebleeds to have snagged themself a pair of Griffs. Lucky bastard. ‘Course, they actually do need escorting. For as powerful as they are, blunt instruments those Griffs. If they can’t cut you down, or you can out turn them, well…. nose bleed brass and his entire staff are gonna have a bad day. Crap… hold on. Glass is empty.

sound of glass clinking and a liquid pouring faintly

Ah, that’s much better. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. Those new fighters are great. Not nearly as tough as the old assault shuttles…. not really as maneuverable either….. Actually… all they do is go fast in a straight line and make slightly bigger holes. Not that either of those are a bad thing, mind you. Just really hard to kill an Arvonian fighter when its shields regenerate about as quickly as it takes me the time to bring the fighter back around for another shot. Bloody annoying. I can kill capital ships and even lure bloody idiots to their doom, but I can’t kill one single measly little…. I wonder if I can redirect some parts from R&D and maintenance to soup up Theseus. It’s all in the name of combat readiness after all.

Computer, access private file system. Personal encryption scheme Alpha-November-three-one-four:

Nhaima sighs. Glass clinks against her desk

Enough pretext. I…. I don’t really understand what we are doing anymore. At least twice today, and more recently, we’ve taken actions I feel weren’t…. that weren’t wise. We’re helping the ‘Zolmari’ and the ‘Terran Stellar Navy’… why? They aren’t our universe, they aren’t the people we’ve sworn to protect. And moreover, any overt action we take which requires covering up draws more doubt and scrutiny which further imperils not only us, or the innocents we could intervene to save from massacre by the likes of those as Group Leader Petrov of the late 3HG, but increases the risk of our own universe conceivably as well.

I mean, what happens if we’re discovered. And not only discovered as helping the ISN’s enemies, but truly discovered for what we are – beings from a different universe. And the only impression they might have of us is that we came from another universe and began trying to institute regime change, undermining them and their powerbases. Especially with how militant the ISN seems to be. Is it not conceivable that the next ship which crosses the boundary from our side to their’s would also be met with hostility? Or that they might try and cross the divide in the other direction to enact some kind of retribution out of alleged “self-defense” since we struck the first blow?

I swore an oath to serve and defend the USFP, but we are operating far beyond any mandate I’m aware of. Taking sides in this conflict and passing along strictly military intelligence about ISN weapon systems? That doesn’t protect the USFP, not at all. And could introduce risk that greater discretion would not. If this escalates to a war across realities… I’m not sure I can wholly conceive of the levels of destruction that could bring. What we’re doing, were we in our universe, would be viewed as at minimum illegal. Quite possibly an act of sedition or terrorism, if not war. And we’re doing it on the premise that “we’re helping people”? Then we expose ourselves to violence on the pretext that others are ‘helping’ people too. Don’t the Arvonian’s technically just want to “help people”? Albeit to live within the confines and constructs of what they consider to be benevolent and just? By seeking to impose our moral authority on others, we abandon our own right to personal determination and sovereignty when someone tries to make the same imposition of us.

We have no orders to do what we seem to be doing, and we don’t seem to be serving the USFP. We should get home, to limit the harm we cause here. Preventing atrocities is one thing, but to remove yourself from an immoral situation does not “enable an injustice”. Doing so does not then violate my oath. And I’m not really afraid, either. I’ve waged one ship wars before, so I feel very comfortable with the prospect of doing so again, but that exceeds the limits of our mandate as far as I know them. And, frankly, even with Petrov…. I’d ordered Invictus into an interdiction posture before Scolcha station was destroyed. And I was pulled back, then. From intervening in an immediate, tangible good that would have prevented an immediate, obvious loss of life. So if we are going to fail to defend civilians when its inconvenient, but help people we’ve barely met…. then I really don’t know what we’re doing here.

Off.

[Adam Parra]

I’m glad you are bringing out the moral dilemma. Much like the Disco crew.

[Author]

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