Name:Christopher V. Dalgaard Rank:Executive Commander Subject:You were right.
Miss Alyssa,
It's not as if I'm a machine. There's always a twinge of guilt and remorse in me everytime I squeeze that trigger. But everytime I remind myself of why I'm squeezing it, I do it because of the people I'm sworn to protect from the Republic and its assortment of thugs and goons alike. I do it because if I don't then nobody will. And God forgive me, but I will not just turn away when faced with a tough call.
You were also right about the fact that I don't know you. But neither did you know me, and more important than what I did is why I did it and why I would do it again if I had to. I'm not Locklear, I don't treat my duty to the Commonwealth like a game that I pause the moment women are involved. But for what it's worth, I wish that incident could have been resolved without violence. But with so much at stake and so little reason to have just blindly trusted that man, well, I had no alternative.
I'll live with it. I just thought I should elaborate on why I did what I did.
To:Christopher V. Dalgaard, [COMMONWEALTH NEURAL NET RELAY] Identification:Alyssa Siravane, Harvest Moon (Corvo-class Explorer) Transmission Source:America Freeport, Kansas
Commander Dalgaard.
I understand that you didn't intend it as a kill in cold blood, and I understand that you didn't act with malice. You do have to protect the people in your care, after all, and you must do so by any means necessary.
I just disagree that it was necessary.
I don't doubt that you're a good man, and I certainly don't doubt that you're the sort of person who would compromise his morals and ethics over...well, something frivolous. However, you made it sound like a single fightercraft was a threat that could end lives aboard the station.
If I were in your position, as a commander, then I would have thought that the suppressing fire of a gunboat and two additional strike craft was sufficient to lock down a hostile fighter. But, I know that you disagree. I also don't know the level of protection that America Freeport has against weapons fire, and the degree to which a fighter's weapons would damage it.
More than anything, I just want to know why you thought there were no alternatives, and why you thought that a single craft was dangerous enough to sentence a man to death. All that I see is that you say that you had no other choice. I'm sure that drawing attention to this doesn't bring you any more peace of mind--but, they're important questions that I myself faced as a field commander in the past.
Name:Christopher V. Dalgaard Rank:Executive Commander Subject:You were right.
Since you asked why,
All it really takes to scorch a wall of timber is a single match, Miss Alyssa. Don't forget just how consequential even individuals can be in the grand scheme of things. One moment he's just standing there idly, the next he's in conference with the Lane Hackers. All it takes is for word of mouth to dispatch information about key installations like America. From there the Hackers could either choose to inform the Rogues to try and pay it a visit occasionally with their Maltese friends, or they could be even more insidious and hand out this information to any third party that happens to want us dead. The Liberty Navy a prime suspect on this list.
Let's assume he wasn't a spy though, let's just say he stole that ship and wasn't aware of who manufactures them. The only logical ending to a story like that is that the Lane Hackers would repossess their technology by any means necessary, and when they do, they'll have access to his black-box, containing imagery of America that's just ripe for their analysis.
Let's also not forget that modern craft come with fail-safes, who's to say the Lane Hackers didn't have remote access the whole time? There's multiple scenarios that could have come to fruition and put that station in danger. It's not the one fool who decided to stroll up to it in a Vindicator that's the problem, it's what he could have unknowingly set in motion. A tableau of events that I cut out at the source, with one sweeping blow.
That is why I did not believe myself to have any other alternatives.
To:Christopher V. Dalgaard, [COMMONWEALTH NEURAL NET RELAY] Identification:Alyssa Siravane, Harvest Moon (Corvo-class Explorer) Transmission Source:America Freeport, Kansas
Right, yes, of course. Though you seem to be relying on a good number of hypotheticals, under the circumstances. If his ship was bugged, then destroying it wouldn't change anything. If it wasn't, then there's no reason to destroy it.
There is literally not one single scenario you've presented where a non-lethal course of action wouldn't have been possible.
So, my question for you now: was that decision protocol, or was it your judgment in the field?
Perhaps it's not my place to ask. But you really should think about these things, and why you do them, lest you come to more resemble the terrorists you're trying to protect against. Food for thought.