To: The Order.

[Arno Schultzky]

Incoming Transmission

---

My father was a man of peace.

Why?

~Arno Schultzky.

Transmission Ended

[Cælumaresh]

Opening header... Name: Sara Shepard[img float=left]http://i.imgur.com/BaRQLhK.jpg?1[/img] Subject: RE Location: REDACTED, REDACTED, Omicron Sector Signal Strength: Strong Packet loss: 0% Date: 02/10/824AS Opening message... Good day mister Schultzky, Ill be honest with you, I never expected hearing from the descendant of the admiral of the Rheinland fleet of 800AS 24 years after his death, but you deserve an honest answer. Whilst I am sure your father was indeed an honorable man, and a man of peace in life, his body and mind were unfortunately altered by an hostile alien parasite.. an incubus, of the alien species called the Nomads. I am sure you have heard of them before, seeing how they are launching their attacks all over the houses these days. He was turned from a human being into an agent of Das Wilde, as we know them today. This was against his will, and unfortunately, despite our best efforts and that of medical experts all over sirius, there is no cure yet. Contrary to what the governments state in the news, we arent the terrorists they say. We are never out to hurt innocent people. If your father at that point didnt pose a massive security threat to the safety of mankind, we wouldnt have terminated him. Again, the actions he was about to undertake werent of his own conceptions, but of the parasite residing in his body. I am sorry for your loss, but you should know that through his sacrifice, he safed hundreds, possibly even thousands or billions of lifes by postponing the infestation of the entire Libertonian government. I hope this answer covers your query. Signing off, Executive Colonel Sara Shepard Attachments hyperlinked: Attachments None

---

This Galaxy is vast; its wonders and beauty are almost unfathomable. But the galaxy also hides dark secrets, some of which have lain dormant since the beginning of time itself. There is a danger in secrets, both in seeking and in knowing. Some things are meant to be hidden from view. Some mysteries defy understanding, and sometimes even the things we think we know are untrue. Some secrets should remain untouched.

Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[Arno Schultzky]

Incoming Transmission

---

I was a child. I lied about my childhood to enter the services. The service knew this, of course, they had all my records, but who would question the seventeen year old son of a flag admiral? Who would deny me when everyone had.... seen, the torpedoes... rip through my father's vessel, on live news.

I'd made the stupidest mistake an underage seventeen year old could make; I'd enlisted, and now, I was in hell.

I was barely a Leutnant zur See within the gunnery section of a reserve cruiser when the battle of Honshu came. I was young and stupid. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to fill his boots - keep the peace he never lived to see. My handlers had placed me in the reserves till I could... work it out of my system. Play the officer until I'd tired of the uniform. But invasion doesn't wait for that, does it?

The war came. The war my father had struggled to prevent. It would be ironic if it wasn't sick.

I will never know if what the green suits told us is true. The justifications. Over and over again until they stopped talking and started torturing. Some were infected. But most of us were not. We were military men, following orders into hell, carting warheads into bombardment positions on the last days of the apocalypse. We never knew that the state apparatus built to keep us alive had turned on us. Was it surprising the survivors would turn on us? The infection was the great excuse. A man standing in your way? Denounce them. Riots, burning, lynching. An entire government executed. We're few in number, those of us who survived the retreat from Sigma thirteen. Too young to come home to die. Some killed themselves. The hysteria was... insane. When the... 'truth', the truth for some, came out, after the war, my Sister, Annelie, my... Mother...


How many neighbours had to die to weed out the few who'd turned our house against itself?


What if you, those who trained you, were wrong? That you had the wrong man? My Dad advocated peace with the foreign houses, not destruction - he did so till he died. At home, he was a father, he was a gentlemen. He was loved.

Even if he was... a monster. In the shell of a man.

I hugged that shell. And I loved that shell. I would have followed that shell till death.

Did the two hundred and seventy five crew of the RNC Donau deserve to die for him? Maybe. I wish I'd died in their place.

I have lost everyone and everything because of you. My family, my friends, my cause, my house, my home, my name. I am barely alive.

So I suppose I should thank you. For saving the human race.

~Arno Schultzky.

Transmission Ended

[Omicron]

---

⧫ *REDACTED*
⧫ Omicron sector
⧫ 03/10/824
⧫ FROM: The Order Overwatch
⧫ TO: Arno Schultzky

---

Admiral Schultzky

I was forwarded this message by the Colonel as our intelligence only further confirms that you are who you claim yourself to be. The Order of Cincinnati in its current form that we command now is made to call and execute the hard choices that nobody else in the Colonies could do. Our precedessors were loyal Liberty operatives tasked with simple imperative: survival. With failure of the government, we had to act on our own.

We enlisted aid of everyone across Sirius that grasped the extend of taint, from all paths of life. Every single part of our once vast informant network that had not fell to the darkness was brought onto the boat. We had to hunt down marionettes, caricatues of our own commanding officers and set out to expand our ideology to cover not only just House of Liberty but entire Sirius as a whole. Powell and his yes-men in MIL industry would never forgive us putting them as equal to everyone else.

Your father was disposable asset, infested for sole purpose of accessing the Liberty's highest diplomatic circles solely on the principle that he, as the man of peace, was adequate choice of a diplomat to address inter-Sirian issues with president Jacobi. He was controlled against his own will by a foreign agent bent on utilizing Rheinland's entire reserves and assets in order to plot fall of every House: Rheinland included. Every other contingency was tried and failed, leaving us to 'sacrifice' Donau. The post-war purges were quiet yet bloody and we ourselves were involved in affairs none of us are proud of at Liberty, tying the loose ends with remainder of Nomad infested structure back home.

I would not call Admiral the monster. The Thing that had overtaken him had utmost priority in mastering his own body against his own will. I cannot tell how much or anything of him was still left inside the day we came for Donau. At the training, our experts elaborate it as freeing hosts from eternity of worst kind of slavery - bounded to a body they no longer are in control. Some justify that the person dies the momenth Incubi takes the full control. It entirely depends on willpower of the individual, those of strong will are likely to be extinguished as a person before they can witness the crimes of the Nomad. It is question for the philosophers in my opinion as it borderline touches on the nature of soul.

I cannot fathom what you are exactly up to right now, or what are your plans. What brought me in was heated urge for vengeance, followed by cold-headed self-developed sense of duty in later years. The Order's aim is to end it. It is callous for me to say but thousands now is understandable outcome than million lifes lost in prolonged campaign. I survived Toledo and I learned that when dealing with threats of apocalyptical scope and proportion like entire hostile civilization bent towards genocide and domination, honor is redundant value.

It is no act of consolation I can imagine but you deserved fully honest explanation. The Order can give you this revenge and purpose among the stars to ensure that your own children would have future to speak of rather than present filled with existential perils akin Nomads or Core. The one thing we cannot promise is that you will be loved or praised by it. We are outcasts of the system dedicated that said framework sees another day.

Grand Admiral Michal Golanski
Black Fleet, 1st Battlegroup "Wargods"