tushanshu | 006; video;

[Shepard looks a little less military-formal and a little more plain old contemplative today. This post is less about making an announcement or speech, perhaps, and more about making connections.]

I don't suppose many others here find the turtle diving sort of... comforting. Being underwater reminds me of space. There's no day-night cycle when you're in the black. It's really disconcerting at first, but after a while, you learn to sleep when your body needs to, rather than when the clock tells you it's night.

I was only just starting to get used to being on Earth again, when I was brought here. I hadn't been back in years.

[She sort of squints vaguely into the distance for a moment, like she's lost in a memory, her brow furrowed. Then she snaps back to herself and addresses the screen with a bit more of her usual professionalism.]

To the newcomers, I'm Commander Jane Shepard - Alliance Navy. [A brief hesitation, as she almost says formerly, but she's not willing to deal with that just yet.]

If anyone needs something to do, and you have medical or defense experience, let me know. I've got some teams working on emergency preparedness plans, and we could always use more help.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[A hum] I've dealt with things like that, but we had the league to help me out... or simply a couple metas put together. Humans having to face it on their own sounds terrifying.

[Nope he doesn't realize how condescending he sounds, sorry.]

[Her face just kind of falls into an "EXCUSE U" expression at that.]

Okay, first of all, humanity isn't alone, and even if we were, we've proven ourselves pretty damn capable of handling things. We've done in thirty years what it's taken other species centuries to accomplish. We gave pause to the strongest military in the galaxy when we nearly beat them - and that was before we even knew anything about them.

[She purses her lips slightly, and shakes her head.] Sorry. I just don't appreciate species superiority rhetoric. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and we're always better off working together.

[Raising both hands in a surrendering stance.] Uhm, sorry? I didn't mean it that way. I know humans can handle it, it's just-

When metahumans began rising on the streets people were afraid of them. Afraid of us. It was a hard pill to digest. So suddenly dealing with a war, an invasion like that if they had no prior knowledge must have been even harder.

Trust me, I've been on both ends of it, many times. [As though to demonstrate, she balls her hand in a fist, taking a moment to gather dark energy around it, as though preparing to send a shockwave. The blue glow builds, then dissipates as she slowly releases it.

Then she shrugs.] Half the aliens I meet are either racist themselves or assume all humans are racist. Half the humans I meet are mistrustful of aliens, or terrified of biotics, or both. We're all afraid of what we don't understand. And sometimes there are things bigger, older, and meaner than anything any of us can imagine.

[A grin as he nods, agreeing with her wholeheartedly. He'd tell her about being raised by humans so he knew first-hand not all of the humans were that afraid but he knows better than to risk his secret identity.] Truth.

So alien species got together to fight this menace in your world?

[She'll never get the secret identity schtick, despite having numerous classified and off-the-books missions under her belt, but she gives a shrug all the same, a sigh in her voice.]

It's complicated. Kind of tough to undo centuries-old prejudices. It's all politics. I'm afraid by the time most people realize what's really at stake - it'll be too late to stop a lot of the death and destruction.

I feel like that's kind of a universal thing, though. At least, the politicians here don't seem to be much better.

Politicians seem to have a bad name everywhere, but the last president of the United States back at home openly tried to kill me and almost killed my best friend so I have to admit I might be a bit biased.

How do politics and that... ancient forces you're fighting get tangled up though, if you don't mind me asking?

Well, you could start with the fact that the people in charge don't even want to admit that the ancient forces threatening all life in the galaxy exist.

I mean, I understand why they want to stick their heads in the sand. The Reapers are... truly the stuff of nightmares. It took the better part of two fleets to bring a single one down, and that was as much luck as skill. We're like ants to them.

[He tries to imagine a thread like that, back at home. They have faced some big threats back at home- Darkseid comes to mind, and Mxyzptlk's powers, and Doomsday. An army of them is kind of unthinkable, he imagines something like the Green Lanterns and all the space corps would be needed to face them.]

Sounds like they wanted to keep things from reaching mass panic when it'd help nothing.

That was definitely part of it, I'm sure, and I don't fault them for that.

What I fault them for is their lack of preparation. They didn't listen to my warnings, they never took me seriously, and now everyone is in danger because of it.

006; video;

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

video; Jor-El's suite

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