It brought her up short, the question. To what end? To what fucking end?
"Honestly, if you ever fully understand what's going on in the heads of people who deliberately do what those people tried to pull, that's a real problem," Shepard said, not looking away from the bird, though looking was all she was doing, "But believe it or not, this isn't my first time dealing with a fungus cult. Or a bunch of people preaching doomsday while worshiping something they don't understand."
But then, wasn't Abraxas just cults all the way down? There had been more than one reason for her to join the Free Cities army, after all. Say whatever you wanted, at least they were practical. You push people too far, either you won, or it blew up in your face. And whatever the odds, the consequences...
Some things you don't touch. Some sleeping dogs are best left lie.
"If you ask me, they probably had no real idea why they were doing it. Someone else wanted power, or information, or some way to replicate the transformation they were trying to put us through— Hell, maybe they even believed half that shit about being chosen. But in any case, they were just somebody's grunts."
Which didn't make them innocent. In a way, it made them worse; anyone can do evil in a moment of weakness. But to choose that kind of brutality, to go in knowing what you were doing, day after day, weeks on end, watching the consequences in as much detail as anyone could imagine... Even if they were sorry about it now, it was as much as to say that they'd known all along that what they were doing was wrong, and had done it anyways. And for what? Some higher ideal, some necessary purpose, something that might somehow make the suffering worthwhile and lend it value?
Or was it just because someone else had told them to do it, and nothing more.
"Even odds what they'll do with Creed, though," Shepard remembers herself then, and gives Rooibos another few scratches before trying to fob him off onto a nearby shelf, with limited success, "My money's on an execution. You might get away with murder if you're quiet, but nobody gets away with publicly embarrassing the people in charge."
no subject
"Honestly, if you ever fully understand what's going on in the heads of people who deliberately do what those people tried to pull, that's a real problem," Shepard said, not looking away from the bird, though looking was all she was doing, "But believe it or not, this isn't my first time dealing with a fungus cult. Or a bunch of people preaching doomsday while worshiping something they don't understand."
But then, wasn't Abraxas just cults all the way down? There had been more than one reason for her to join the Free Cities army, after all. Say whatever you wanted, at least they were practical. You push people too far, either you won, or it blew up in your face. And whatever the odds, the consequences...
Some things you don't touch. Some sleeping dogs are best left lie.
"If you ask me, they probably had no real idea why they were doing it. Someone else wanted power, or information, or some way to replicate the transformation they were trying to put us through— Hell, maybe they even believed half that shit about being chosen. But in any case, they were just somebody's grunts."
Which didn't make them innocent. In a way, it made them worse; anyone can do evil in a moment of weakness. But to choose that kind of brutality, to go in knowing what you were doing, day after day, weeks on end, watching the consequences in as much detail as anyone could imagine... Even if they were sorry about it now, it was as much as to say that they'd known all along that what they were doing was wrong, and had done it anyways. And for what? Some higher ideal, some necessary purpose, something that might somehow make the suffering worthwhile and lend it value?
Or was it just because someone else had told them to do it, and nothing more.
"Even odds what they'll do with Creed, though," Shepard remembers herself then, and gives Rooibos another few scratches before trying to fob him off onto a nearby shelf, with limited success, "My money's on an execution. You might get away with murder if you're quiet, but nobody gets away with publicly embarrassing the people in charge."
The voice of experience.