‘The Vanguard will have a real problem on its hands if that happens,’ said Wendy, ‘because it won’t just be us. There will be dissenters to deal with as well. We’ve sent word to all of the Vanguardian leaders, explaining our circumstances, and we’ve received word back from Field Marshal Sanko stating that, if the situation continues to escalate, she will come to Sair personally and order General Lawrence to stand down.’
Shenado perked up a little. ‘Sanko, huh? That’s excellent news, but I don’t think Lawrence will listen to her. She may outrank him, but his boss is Lamont. Is she the only one you’ve heard from?’
Octavia nodded. “The others have all been irritatingly quiet. We’re not even sure if our message reached Sermung.”
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Shenado. ‘His whereabouts are often kept secret. Even if he did receive your message, he probably won’t answer you.’
“So we’ve been told.”
‘Truthfully, I wouldn’t have expected any of them to answer,’ said Shenado. ‘Sanko is really willing to go against her own comrades for our sake? That is a very bold decision on her part, especially considering she doesn’t have any ties to the Elroys that I know of.’
‘Believe it or not, some people in positions of power still give half-a-damn about the rules,’ said Wendy.
Octavia breathed a curt laugh. “When I was younger, I was quite keen to meet all of the strongest women in the world--or at least, all of the ones who wouldn’t kill me for looking at them the wrong way. So naturally, Wendy and I have met her before. A few times, in truth. Not very friendly, that woman. I don’t think she likes us much. But I’ve never gotten the impression that she cares about anything more than she cares about justice and the rule of law.”
‘I’ve heard others say as much about her as well,’ said Shenado. ‘But you’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit more skeptical than usual.’
‘Of course. We’re in no rush to trust anyone from the Vanguard, either.’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
The Vanguard is supposed to be the good guys riiight?.God I hate hypocritical people if your bad be bad don't be all justice for the betterment of mankind crap or we are good guys so we are in charge even though we are ruining our life etc we are the good guys. Reason why I hate the WG in OP bunch of hypocrites. At least the bad guys are honestly evil don't kill and torture people and say it's for your own good. They kill coz the feel like it
ReplyDeleteonly really really insane people like the Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz and others like him truly believe they are evil. Most despots and criminals believe they are good, for values of good. Amoral familists like biker gangs, organized crime rings and terrorists cells believe that moral behavior only applies to their own, and strangers are the enemy. Doing bad things to people they don't know can't be bad because they don't know them. Meddlesome folk that want to control your life, truly think they are doing a good thing. when in reality they are engaging in a despotic evil. Hitler thought he was doing a good thing. as did Stalin, Pol pot and Chairman Mao. to that I'll add our last two presidents.
ReplyDeleteYeah but they don't pretend that it's for the good of the people they kill and lives they ruin. it is either the good of the majority or the good of the self. Hitler never said it was for the Good of the Jews that he killed them. The Vanguard are doing what they were created to prevent and fight against. They are saying we can kill capture you etc because we are the good guys but Abolish are the bad guys because the choose to do the same.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind more complicated than that. We were given an insight into it when that general said she was leaving. She described how Vanguard, in its recent growth (which may not be so recent by our standards - decades, even upwards of fifty years), also became too hard to control, and riddled with an unknown number of corrupted members. Vanguard is big - too big to say 'Vanguard says this but does that'. And now, it's even too big for the original top brass to know all that's going on or what to do about it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, there's another angle people tend to miss in their eagerness to debate good and evil as the factions represent them. That's the angle of simple organized resistance. If all the good guys scatter to the winds and act as they become aware of things happening in their neighborhood the way that general decided to, Abolish will crush them and destroy the world. Vanguard is still a far better alternative than Abolish (we are dealing with a splinter faction under the command of a high ranking corrupt reaper, as we were shown earlier - even the reapers servant, Lawrence himself, doesn't want to do this), and it possesses the STRUCTURE to resist Abolish. That structure is essential. A new organization could never hope to establish itself in the vacuum of Vanguard, Abolish would destroy such efforts long before they could resist the assault. Basically if Vanguard goes, it's back guard efforts to stave off the end of the world from here on out.
The only hope, as I see it, is either for a massive purging of Vanguard (there's enough genuine articles at the top for this to happen still, especially if Sermung acts), or for the best of Vanguard to severe itself AS ONE. Then they would have a chance of resuming the fight properly. But there would still be the risk of ending up with a three way war, and the two way one was bad enough.
Sorry, mousefu-k9. I decided to delete your last comment here, because it probably would have been a little bit spoilery for Z.n Singer.
ReplyDelete