- StealthSlasher2
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Brains beats brawn get used to it
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Death to all fanboys.
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Posted by: StealthSlasher2
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Posted by: ROBERTO jh
You are just now figuring out ONI operates outside of the rules?
Perhaps. Then again before I thought it was a legit, intel group without retarded and evil goals.
I thought Head of ONI/top board of ONI answers to the admiralty board of the UNSC.
I was honestly pissed off when ONI got described as Cerberus from ME in glasslands chapters thus far...
Are you implying that ONI never sounded like such an organization prior to Glasslands?
This is the same organization introduced in The Fall of Reach that approved an unethical plan to create super soldiers out of children for the sole purpose of pacifying any element that would oppose the UNSC government.
You considered ONI to be a legitimate intel group despite that among the many other things prior to glasslands?
Difference, that plan involved the fact if they did nothing other then current actions, humanity would be thrown into a long and bloody civil war, resulting in massive losses.
They did SOME questionable things, but didn't appear as bloodthirsty idiots out for revenge instead of the good of humanity. (Bringing Halsey back for a trial with death penalty instead of bringing her back to help with forerunner tech much?)
And their attempts to unethically and preemptively curb a possible conflict with the Elites for the good of humanity is different?
Sure if you want to word it as "blood thirsty revenge" you can, but the motive doesn't change. Their questionable methods of subduing the Elites is ultimately the means to prevent Humanity from being put in greater danger.
You call ONI idiots, but from your posts it only seems that it's a judgment call taking out of the picture rather than actually looking at the perspective of the characters who are taking the action and what they perceive as the better course of action. Foolhardy or not, controversial decisions are made all the time in such organizations, but ultimately regardless of method it is ultimately to keep in line with whatever goal that is set (in this case the interests of humanity), and thus go ahead with it without the luxury of seeing the entire picture through an out of body experience.
That is of course in the realms of looking at fictional decisions from our perspective.
Yet at the same time, judging from your earlier post here:
Posted by: Cmdr DaeFaron
Why can't we have an intelligence agency that actually follows the damn rules of the nation they are tied to and sticks to what they are supposed to do, INTELLIGENCE. Not sabotage, assassinations, supplying a civil war in the middle of reconstruction efforts at home...
It seems that your dislike of how Traviss has written up ONI's choice in relation to your wishful thinking of wanting an intelligence agency that "follows the damn rules". When you consider the reality of the situation, it is incredibly naive to think that any intelligence agency in the world presently follows such rules.
To what extent such rules are crossed in reality is not the point, but rather in regards to how one would realistically write up a character or whole organization's response to a fictional situation based off how real counterparts function, why would one create an intelligence agency that was clean and spotless.
While fiction is made up, compelling fiction works grounded with realistic responses relies on still rooting several concepts in reality lest the reader be jostled out of immersion due to reaching a limit of suspending disbelief.
What would be incredulous is if ONI didn't have such a plan cooked up with the balls to execute it if necessary. Three decades worth of war does not erase three decades worth of loss. Billions if not trillions of lives were lost. Territory shrunk down to comparatively nothing. The military barely held together and in no shape to get back into tip top form anytime soon. Inversely the same with the Elites with some variations.
Personally I find it excellent to know that Karen will address the fact that this element of ingrained hostility cannot be explained away with the simple notion that a lying figure head had died along with a longstanding belief through immediate cooperation given the situation.
It's only natural that such controversial ideas, actions, and feelings by both ONI (and no doubt chunks of humanity as a whole) as well as the various parts of Elite society exist given the circumstances left off in Halo 3.
For there to not be such elements written in would make those individual characters, organizations, and whole races seem idiotic.
The same extends to those that think that the Covenant Civil war automatically taught all Humans and Elites to be nice towards each other. The Covenant Civil war only proved to the Elites and other client races that would listen that the Great Journey is a sham. Nothing more nothing less. Despite the quickly formed alliances that a faction of Elites made with various groups of other races, Humans included, it did not change perceptions of what each faction has felt, is capable of, and their motivations and ambitions post Human-Covenant war.
Congrats, as an Elite you are fully aware that the Great Journey is a lie and that humans are not heretics to that false religion. Yet, it does not change the notion that in spite of the lies, your personal feelings towards a person, group, whatever has not changed once the portions that were based off lies were removed.
Observe something in real life such as Eugenics back in the early 1900s. Eugenics was skewed to favor the agendas of organizations such as Gnatz-y Germany to prove racial superiority. Despite the particular sciences and experiments that were rigged to show a given race as inferior being proved to be false, it hardly affected how charged people held their prejudices.
In America, despite the grand Civil Rights moment that granted true freedom and equality officially by law to African Americans, it hardly changed the fact that people who were still racist continued to exist despite the gap in social status officially abolished.
That's what can be observed here with Glasslands with the resent left over between Humans and Elites. The Great Schism officially served as the turning point when Elites broke off from the Prophet's rule, but despite the means to reach the end in defeating the Covenant (an alliance for the sake of beating back the Covenant remnants) it did not set in stone anything else beyond that such as complete and total peace and understanding between all of Humanity and all of the Elites.