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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 2
Chapter 1 - Essential Liberty[]
Speed of Rumors[]
<<"It begins with an…
<<…age old question. What is the relationship between Freedom, and Safety?">> on the screen, the lecturer paced, "But that question is the wrong question, because it presumes that powers are held equally, or at least, equitably. That there can be a choice to make.">>
"What're you watching?" Esmerelda Gomez was the third shift on the Illusive, here on the Command deck to monitor the HPG system and answer messages between the Privateers and Kappa Provisional Cluster on the surface. Unlike many of the others, Esme had a degree from the sole remaining university in the Outworlds Alliance, and a fall-back to a teaching position whenever she wanted it at any voc-tech school remaining in the nation.
She joined because she didn't want to settle into the grind of teaching school just yet, and Foster scooped her up as soon as the ink was moderately dry.
John paused the holoplayer, "Some of the files marked 'education material'." he looked up, "Seeing what the Star League was teaching our people back in the golden age."
"Huh…is this to impress someone?" she cocked an eyebrow, "Like a certain one-eyed girl from your next-door in civilian life?"
"Maybe." John acknowledged, "but it's making me think of questions I can't ask the dead-dude in the recording."
"Captain Foster didn't recommend this, did he?"
"Nah. not really. He makes a point of telling me to learn more, but he didn't pick this course out…"
"I can see why. This isn't education, it's propaganda, masquerading as education. I've seen this lecture." Esme told him, "Featured heavily in my junior year, Fidesko's class on the Star League Era. The lecture series boils down to telling would-be students why submitting to the authorities from Terra is a moral and good thing to do. While that resistance is both futile, and destructive."
"Really?"
"Watch and see for yourself." Esme told him, "but…when you keep an open mind,that doesn't mean suspending logic or skepticism, and you can recognize propaganda without dismissing the few valid points being made, without falling for it."
"So you've seen the lecture, and they have valid points, but it's just propaganda?" Johnny asked.
She nodded. "Yah. it is. The preachers used to say 'the best lies are ninety nine percent the truth', but that statement ignores the better lies."
"Better lies?"
"Sure. Lies where 100% of what's said is factually correct, but leaves out what isn't being said, that changes the 'truth' of the whole thing." Esme explained. "For example, Professor Alquandi here, three and a half centuries ago, almost four? He leaves out facts that change the tone, tenor, and meanings of the facts he includes. There is always a choice, between submission and resistance, between right and wrong, and between freedom and slavery. It's like…" she paused…
"It's why war isn't the answer." Captain Foster's voice almost echoed in the CIC as the tiny man came through the hatch. "Because war is not 'the' answer, it is not even an answer, what it is, is a Question. Sometimes, the answer is 'yes' and sometimes you lose anyway, but that does not make the question invalid as the late professor in that holoseries would have you believe."
He anchored himself acrobatically and settled into the command seat, "Johnson, I told you to keep learning, I did not say 'fill your head with garbage'. That lecture series failed to prevent uprisings, it is garbage because even a very dim lower caste child will reject the lecture's conclusions the moment they realize they can fight back. The lectures were mainly intended to keep people in a defeated mindset, which is useful after a conquest, but not for growth or development in the long term…" he adjusted his straps, "Do you know why?"
"Not really…I thought passive populations would be…"
"Static." he said, "Passive populations are static, they do not build well, or innovate, they do not improve their lot, they do not improve the lot of their conquerors. Nicholas Kerensky recognized this, which is why he retained Freebirths in the system after the Breeding Program took off, and, why the strongest Clans prior to the Reavings, were those with some path for dynamic advancement for the lower caste-upward mobility keeps more peace than a patrol on every corner."
"That…does not sound right." Johnny said, "I mean, I believe it, but it sounds wrong coming from a Clan-born officer."
"That is because it violates the public lies we tell ourselves and each other." Foster explained. "The same way that our opponents in the Sons of Plunder tell themselves lies, the lies quell the pangs of conscience when you're being really effective."
"Are you drunk, sir?"
"Sober." Foster told him. "Very, very, very, Sober. Here is a lesson for you. Our enemies, our opponents? Honestly and truly believe themselves to be acting as the Star League, they even have a Cameron, and part of why they believe it?" he gestured at the paused holoimage, "Is courses like that one, where a respected lecturer is excusing the inexcusable in persuasive language geared to bypass critical thinking. I spent a few hours after the party chatting with Larry Nichols about AFFC doctrine and why they had such a fetish for ramming attacks back in the last century…and he pointed it out to me that even in left-over SLDF manuals, they had whole chapters devoted to Ramming attacks…at least, the ones inherited by the Great Houses did-despite such attacks being pure stupidity."
"Because nobody looked at them critically?" Johnny hazarded.
"Correct." Foster told him, "Nobody looked at the ideas and thought them through, including why such ideas would be propagated to vassal houses prone to rebellion."
"but …some of those did work!" Johnny pointed out.
"Sure they did, remember what Gomez mentioned about the best lies?" Foster asked.
"That they're made of…picked facts, while leaving other facts out?"
The Aeropilot phenotype nodded, "AFF, exactly that." he stated, "Unquestioned doctrine propagates its flaws, Most of the ships I have served on, used shirt-sleeves combat environments and harjel, because of atmosphere loss from damage, this was considered 'adequate', but an innovator in the Clan figured out that if you dump the atmo before you go into combat, you do not have all the OTHER things that happen when a weapon breaks the hull envelope-like fires, and shockwave propagation that destroys equipment. It was not in the unquestioned, unexamined, doctrines, doctrines absorbed as inherited knowledge-as a result, we lost ships we did not need to lose,and personnel we could scarcely afford when we fled the Homeworlds." The small man inclined his large head, "Thus, why I keep telling you to learn more. If you spend your career questioning and learning, you will be a finer officer than I was at your age. You will not be mediocre as I became."
He swiveled his large eyes at Gomez, "You too." he said, "It goes for every single one of you junior officers, whether Trueborn or Recruit. I got this position by failing to be more than mediocre. You kids? You are my legacies."
"Does that include Aman-er, Captain Roberts too?" Johnny asked.
"Aff." Foster nodded affirmatively, "Her too. She has other mentors just as you do & will, but her performance and development also reflects on ME and what I can teach her. From my failures, failings, and mistakes."
"I admit some…
…curiosity about why you chose That officer to serve as Fleet-Captain for the Privateers." Star Colonel Albus Lankeneau mused it aloud.
Loremaster Howe shrugged. "He was available, and a good hand with the locals, why?"
"Dave Foster's record is barely adequate for Trueborn, there were much more accomplished warriors that close to…the end of their careers." Lankeneau noted, "Yet, you chose the one with the lesser accomplishment."
"You want to dispute the assignment, quiaff?" Howe asked cannily.
This set the other Star Colonel back a bit. "I am questioning the assignment, I want to understand the logic." he said.
"Foster is an iconoclast." Howe stated simply. "The man questions Everything, will argue both sides of an issue with equal passion in the same sitting, He is able to place himself in the eyes of his enemies, his career's flaws came more from early habits of angering his superiors in ways that could not be addressed honorably with trials or demotions." the Loremaster explained, "In short, he is ideal for handling a collection of…mistfits. The local recruits are misfits-martially inclined from a culture of pacifists, warriors who barely passed their Trial of Position, and troubled Protomech pilots."
"You make it sound like a dumping ground."
"Because that is what we want everyone else to think it is." the Loremaster emphasized, "The Republic Treaties, and the things we need as a Clan, require that the 'Privateer' fleet be at least nominally answerable to the Outworlds Alliance President, a half-caste formation, one that will be overlooked as it serves the Alliance…and by extension the Clan. You do not put publicly acknowledged Ristars into that sort of outfit, or you might as well announce to all and sundry that you are building an elite force-which will draw exactly the people we can not yet afford to have that kind of attention from."
Lankeneau frowned. "You are not seriously calling that batch of misfits an elite force in the making, quineg?"
Howe chuckled. "Neg. of course not…but consider this; we have bound ourselves to restrictions that are insensitive to the conditions where we live, and did so, to avoid absorption or worse during the aftermath of the local reaving conflicts. We arrived in this part of space as maimed beggars, Star Colonel Lankenau. Trading off a collection of damaged warships, some library files, and some shipyard equipment we managed to make off with before the Homeworlders realized we had taken it. The drawdown was necessary because we still lack the infrastructure to have the full fleet in continuous operation, or the manpower to staff it if it were! To get back what we have lost, we must…find alternatives. The Privateer Fleet is one such alternative, it allows the Clan to rebuild its health, while presenting a visual status of being both healthy, and, acceptably small."
"It is still chalcas as hell." Lankeneau spat.
"AFF it is, because we are doing something new-we are going to do what works, and leave the posturing for the public stage. Because of how we structured it, and who we chose for leaders, the Privateer force is a school and development room for rebuilding the Touman's FLEET-with competency that will otherwise be lost, and new skills, it builds our intelligence resources, fortifies security for our manufacturing base, provides a measure of morale to the Civilian caste, and taps off otherwise disruptive or distrustful people into something useful to the Clan...and it reinforces our position and posture with the local civilians, making it easier to adapt them into the Clan system and culture."
"But Dave Foster??"
"He understands our most infamous…or famous…spheroid equivalent." Howe said with a sigh, "He knows how to frame things with Roberts, and she has been incredibly useful for making this operation work. He knows how to get the best out of her, and her locals, and he knows how to talk to them without talking down to them."
"SO your answer is 'public relations' quiaff?"
"In part, Roberts has impressed President Avellar, which makes OUR jobs, easier." Acton Howe stated, "He commissioned her himself, and in the process, allowed the Clan to influence the formation of the unit, its leadership, composition…effectively allowing the creation of a unit we do not have to re build from the ground up to make it adequate to the needs of the Touman, Clan, or Watch-because we get to form it whole in place without bumping into arms limits or treaty force sizes! The Sharks-I mean, 'Sea Foxes' use their Solaris stables for the same purpose, only ours? Ours are not mock-athletes, they serve an actual purpose that mock athletes cannot. Do you understand now,. Star Colonel?"
"Aff. I dislike it." Lankeneau said, "but I understand it."
"Keep disliking it as you will, unless you are going to be Khan? It stays, and the assignments to the Privateer force remain as they are until a change is actually necessary."