General Warning To The Masses

I will say this now. I did not approve of how the Colonel handled the situation, I would of preferred we just popped up and shot them all once we could see them. But he insisted that they get her closer to "Prove that she was real" which she obviously was. But I had no command over the situation. And I personally do not know of anyone threatening to "silence" her, but I was probaly getting treated for my own wound at the time. -Private Felgith

 

If there's one thing I can agree with my race on is that the USCM are SCUM.

Sorry Ashe, but my opinion has changed.

-Sativa "Noah" Oran

 

[Pidge]

I just want to make it known that two of these soldiers were.. Well, not insane. It was this man, and one other.. I do not recall his name. I just want to say... Thank you. For the help. At the very least you kept me from dying after your 'leader' had allowed me to be brutalized. It's truly sad to see kind, and dedicated soldiers being lead by such hateful, and insane people.

Again.. Thank you, you know who you are.. Thank you.

 

Would the galaxy have preferred the pirates get their payment, to enable this behaviour and encourage further kidnappings? Would the galaxy have preferred that we fired on them as soon as they came within sight, potentially killing the hostage? Bad things happen, and if I could have prevented further injury I would have. The truth is, I had to get the hostage clear. That means as close as possible to myself, and away from the armed thugs who were brutalizing her. It would have been easy to just fire on them, or give them the ridiculous ransom they wanted, or even just let them sell her into slavery. But that could have resulted in a loss of life for the hostage.

Allow me to say I don't have to justify anything. The hostage was cleared and offered treatment, and I personally apologized. I can understand from her point the anger at me, but I'm not perfect and this isn't a perfect galaxy. People get hurt, or worse. How me and my men risking our lives for the safety of a stranger can be linked to "corruption" and "tyranny" is beyond me. Put aside your petty hatred. If you truly care for this person's well being, answer their pleas over the radio. We offered treatment in our best hospital, and she rejected it by choice. We forced nothing on her.

As for "not bringing others was a huge mistake". Civvies tend to complicate things. Especially "trained marksman" who have no combat experience. The operation was a success, the hostage was saved from a life of slavery after sustaining some wounds, and we're hated for it. But we'll still do what we can to help those in need. We aren't petty.

As for YOU Private Felgith, the point was to get her close enough to clear her from the hostiles. Shooting at them while they had a gun to her head would have been about the stupidest thing possible.

 

Sir, I think the main point of the "Corruption" and "Tyrannical" is of the man or woman that threatened to "Silence" her. -Private Felgith

 

I couldn't comment on that, but after risking our lives to save her I doubt we would bring her back to base just to kill her. This was most likely exaggerated and taken out of context.

 

I suggest we let Pidge explain what exactly happened and was said? -Private Felgith

 

Sir. You are taking the standard stereotypical viewpoint on the USCM. I will admit, some of us are bad. But your letting a few bade apples spoil the bunch. I suggest you take a look at the rest of the men, mostly the ones NOT in charge, and then think about what you are saying. Because you already believe the ones in charge are corrupt, so I see no point on foucusing there. -Private Felgith

 

You seem hell bent on hatred, so I won't waste any time. The facts are, you weren't there. You can only speculate on "others handling it better". If we had paid off the pirates, they would have kidnapped again, and I'd be reading this same post saying "USCM IS CORRUPT, THEY FUND PIRATES". Do you have ANY proof other than the testimonial of 1 Avian who was traumatized? I've read a million and one posts like these, and every single one had no basis in reality. They were merely a thinly veiled attempt to rile the masses.

If anyone wants to see, I can provide helmet cam footage to show the EXACT happenings.

 

Sir, I think that would be best. -Private Felgith ((Have fun explaining what happened))

 

((First of all, she /did/ undergo surgery at Marathon. This was explicitly stated when we arrived, allowing her to timeskip to a recovery room instead of sitting in a surgery room for a long period of time. All burns, gunshot wounds, broken bones/cartilage would have been treated.))

To clarify on some aspects, as we know the pirates had taken this female Avian named Pidge hostage and demanded a rescue. The Colonel began negotiations and the pirates asked for a random world to meet them on. We set up an ambush on said planet and waited for their arrival. Once they arrived, we tempted to bait them closer to the Colonel so that we would have a realistic attempt at recovering the woman. The Colonel tried to use identifying her as a ruse to pull them in, but it backfired when they sliced a finger off to show her authenticity. Afterwards, one of the.. not so bright pirates dragged her forward in an attempt to seal the deal. At no point was she used to try to back the pirates down.

At this point, the ambush was kicked off. A flashbang was thrown. In the confusion, a stray round from a pirate caught her in the side as they intentionally fired on her to murder her. One pirate was killed in the ensuing firefight and the rest were injured and took off. Two Marines sustained moderate injuries. Afterwards, she was transported back to Marathon and treated surgically at the medical facility on world. There was a brief lapse of time in which she was not allowed to leave, along with everyone else as we had a separate incident regarding espionage that had to be dealt with. Afterwards, she was permitted to leave despite being drugged. I have no knowledge as to who threatened to silence her, but instead of crying like children and pointing fingers on StarNet.. you could provide names so that something could be done to rectify the situation. For the record, I was one of the Marines injured in the rescue of Pidge. I don't appreciate being called a "corrupt tyrant" by some random imbecile on StarNet for risking life and limb for an individual I have never met.

As for finding her in a hole in the ground, we allowed her to leave in her ship that was towed to Marathon after recovering her. Where she ended up is her issue, she refused further treatment and recovery at no cost.

 

*the helmet cam footage shown would corroborate Sloth's testimonial, and show Ashe standing in open cover to provide a window for Pidge to get to safety. The footage ends with Pidge being pulled out of cover and stabilized*

 

((Captain Eyepecker untraceable.))
I'm just some random guy who know nothing of the incident and I prefer this outcome.

 

This isnt the first poor hostage situation the USCM has been involved with, it won't' be the last. The lady is alive, what is what counts most. I think we all can agree marines make for poor diplomats.

Pirates in hostage exchanges. Gone are the days of rum and merriment among the stars.

 

[Pidge]

First of all, no. You didn't just 'pull me out of the fight as soon as possible'. You left me in the middle of the fire fight until it was almost over. Only after /crawling into a hole/ was I free, and 'safe' from the fire fight. Only to be left there for a long period of time while you 'gent's patted each other on the back in your 'victory'. One man finally crawled into the hole I was laying in, might I add in a pool of my own blood, to give me assistance.

Also, your 'captain' or 'leader', who he /IS NOT/, watched them slice my finger off, knowing full well he could have stopped it. When I was standing nearly at his feet, he complained that he could only see my forehead behind the small crevice they pushed me toward to get his precious 'better look'. To which I was KICKED IN THE BEAK.

Yes. I believe Aedan is placing you under an unfair blanketed blame The two men who fought desperately not only for my life, but my freedom, should be honorably remembered. They will be, by me. But your so called 'leader', let this /rediculous/ woman with a purple long shirt, and the brown jacket threaten to kill me. Word for word, she said. "You have a lot of tubes in your body right now.. It just takes one needle in the right one to silence you for good.. You 'Avians' don't know when to shut up. You're trash, and can never learn to show respect to the people that save you."

YEAH. OKAY.

Even though I am alive, I will not rest until this woman has learned that she can't use her powerful position in the USCM to bully the little people.

This being said, DO NOT think that I hate all USCM. Some of you did help me, and even went out of your way to tell your.. 'higher ups' that what they did to me was wrong.. I thank you, but I only wish that people like you were the ones holding the power.

I'm sorry to any legitimate USCM soldiers who get put under this shameful, and sad title. Maybe someday you will have a better name, a name more deserving of your courage, and kindness.

Again, I thank you, few braves soldiers.

 

We were engaged in a firefight with a larger sized force. You were not left anywhere for a long period of time, we were in a dragged out engagement with your captors in which two of us were injured. You were not treated until the firefight was over as you were in the middle of the beaten zone and there was fighting to be done. As soon as hostilities ended you were immediately stabilized by one of our Marines.

The "precious better look" was obviously a ruse. We were trying to close the distance to insure that the operation would succeed. It is unfortunate that you lost the tip of your finger and you were kicked in the beak, but the Colonel did not do that. Your captors did. I do agree that in hindsight we could have figured something else out that hopefully would have not lead to injury, but what we did not have was time. We can sit here and monday morning quarterback this for months. At the end of the day, you were recovered alive and not dead or sold into slavery. Also, note that up until the point that you were dragged forward to us that you had a firearm pointed at your head. We were waiting for the hostile to lower it so as to avoid you being immediately executed. Another thing to note is that you were shot by a captor, not us. They were intentionally trying to murder you at that point.

Five of us were involved in the operation, myself and two other Marines were in the pit from which we launched the ambush. I seriously doubt that the woman had any intention to make good on her threats; none the less I am sure that it will be investigated thoroughly by command and necessary action will be taken. Another thing to note is that she is a member of the United Systems Navy, so it would be preferable if you did not drag the Corps name through the mud because of her words. Different branch.

 

There's nothing that could be said that Morris hasn't said all ready. It was unfortunate, but in order to ensure that you could be cleared of any crossfire, I had to get you close. At the initial distance, any rounds fired could have strayed and hit you. That was not the preferred outcome. I don't expect you to immediately understand why I did what I did, or to even ever understand. Hatred is a toxic, blinding disease that too many people just can't let go of. I also never expect you to forgive me. But at least have the decency to thank the Corps. We put our lives on the line for you. You can criticize me for how I do my job, but don't you dare put this on my marines. EVER. Those men and women are willing to risk their lives for you, a person they NEVER EVEN MET who would just as quickly spurn them as they would their captors, the ones who beat and shot you.

Let me outline what would have happened in any other feasible scenario within that timeframe. If I had paid them, they would have shot me, sold you into slavery, and done it again to someone else. If I fired on them before they hurt you, they would have killed you. If I had let them go with you, you would be a slave right now, and with a good chance of being beaten to death by your new master...or worse. There are sick people in the galaxy.

Everyone, I urge you, look into these facts for yourself. Do not give credence to anything but FACTS, like those provided by us in this thread. The facts are, this woman was brutalized and attacks by scummy pirates. I made a hard decision, and some of my marines got wounded, as did she. In this line of work, things very rarely go smoothly. I implore you to put yourselves in my shoes, and ask yourself if we are really a group of "tyrants" that oppress our own people. Go to Taranis. Go to Honeydew. Go to Marathon. Go to New Hopewell. Go to Haus. Ask them if we oppress them. Ask them if we rule them with an iron fist.

It's this kind of unfound hate speech that incites masses into war and bigotry.

 

(( Not enough detail, Tacc. In the tape, you see Ashe attempting to negotiate with the pirates, trying to get them closer until they were right where you wanted them to be: The pit where you would grab the hostage, quickly draw and fire, then fall down into the pit while the ambush team lay suppressive fire. Things went wrong when the pirates decided that it was not worth the risk, and your character desperately drew his pistol, firing a shot and falling back into the pit WITHOUT the hostage. In the tape, Ashe can be seeing yelling at the hostagee to get in the pit with him but you see the poor avian cowering in fear as bullets from both directions pass by her. The ambush team, engaging way too early, Ashe firing way too early. These scenes were not described in your LIVE FOOTAGE. Unless you managed to tamper with the tape IC, you're leaving out some descriptions for those who weren't there. Your character's intention was to get the hostage as close as possible so you didn't have to risk shooting the avian that was meant to be saved. Well too bad, viewers can see that there was no point in waiting a little bit if the hostage was going to be shot at by her own rescuers anyways. Just wanted to provide more insight into the role play because it's easy to forget the little details. ))
Not surprising that the United Systems can tend to be extremely racist against species that are not human. There have been racism worse than the remark that this Navy leader has made. If United Systems Military have unprofessional leaders who would rather threaten to cause harm to the very people that they claim they're trying to save, it can be suggested that the United Systems should not be the ones taking action until some more suitable leaders are appointed. It's disappointing to find that instead of keeping their cool and politely explaining to the individual that no other actions could have possibly been executed, they deliberately threaten to silence them once and for all. You're trash, and can never learn to show respect to the people that save you."
THIS IS INTOLERABLE and enrages me. I'm sure plenty of others would be outraged as well. To sum it up: Don't take actions that you clearly do not want to take responsibility for. There were people willing to help. You say civilian as if they truly are incapable of doing anything but whine on starnet all day.
-Anonymous user. (( Not Dan or Ryan for the certain players who like to metagame))