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Any other vets imPorted here?

I'm a Marine. Have been since I graduated from high school. And until I ended up here, I was on a warship in the final push of a war. Sure, imPorts are under the military's jurisdiction, but it feels more like civilian life than the mandatory week of leave ever did. Somehow, that's almost harder to get used to than being on a different Earth over a century before my time.

It's not even the lack of major combat [sorry, random criminals, she just called you minor] that's getting to me; it's all the little things about military life that I'm missing. Like every day being scheduled: Obviously my classes at the gym and mass every week are scheduled but being able to eat when I want is weirder than I ever thought it would be. And I get to choose what to eat too, and what to wear, and there are a hell of a lot of choices and very little of it's like civilian clothing I saw at home - and I have to get it myself, instead of it being provided. My squad on the Normandy was like a family, as weird and multispecies as it was, but here everything's so individualistic.

I tried looking into vet support programs, but as far as I can tell it's all for American military vets, and, uh, I never even held a UNAS passport at home, let alone serving here. So other imPort vets have any tips for getting used to things? Or just want to hang out and vent?

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hey i'm in space right now but i'm kind of in this situation as well. i don't know how much of this is public? whatever everyone knows anyway. the war i fought only ended a couple months ago and everyone is just pretending they're fine with stuff and how it is but it's obvious no-one is you don't fight for so long and just flip a switch.

I didn't know. [Ashley has barely begun a skim of the network from before her arrival, finding a lot of it irrelevant to the situation now.]

Yeah, the switch is the hardest part, and our war's only been going for three years. [Though the media and most codexes count the Eden Prime War as a shorter, finished affair, she counts it and the Collectors' abductions as part of the Reaper war this year.] Sounds like you have more soldiers from your war here, though.

there's one other person here who was on the same side as me - tailgate. he slept through it. that sounds weird but we're inorganic. he's also six million years old. the others around were on the other side. and they were infamous for being pretty sick war criminals. so that's fun.

[synthetic xenophobia tingling........]

Yikes. Is there still tension between your factions?

[She hasn't heard of heinous crimes here being committed by synthetics, so at least maybe they're not still doing the war crimes?]

[own him ash do it]

yes of course there is you can't just drop four million years of hatred like that many people still alive were actually alive from before the war so they lived through the entire thing instead of being created in the middle of it like me there's a couple of decepticons here -- the other side they haven't done anything other than be assholes this specific group are good at playing the long game so not to worry not for another couple hundred years at least

Edited 2017-12-09 18:45 (UTC)

That's really comforting for us short-lived organics.

[Half sarcastic, half serious, 100% not entirely correct about being organic - good thing she didn't use video this post.]

Sentient species have been wiped out every fifty thousand years in my galaxy - I can't even imagine being at war for four million years.

it goes fast even with all the war crimes you witness or get forced into committing even with everyone dying around you i watched some human war films. they're not great but the timeframe is right at least.

[War crimes?! Thank God the Reaper War hasn't had as many (if any) compared to this one.

[Not that she particularly wants to discuss war crimes, so she seizes on a subject change.]

Does your species make decent war films? I swear I keep running into the terrible ones no matter what species made them. Especially when it's based on a true story or a war comedy.

it hasn't been over long enough to make films of it there's art work and writing about it but i haven't really checked that stuff out it's weird i don't really want to, cause i fought in it don't you feel the same?

My new unit put it on for movie night, forgetting that I was part of it. [Context might help, she realizes:] The politicians said the war was over, but it was really just the beginning.

haha embarrassing so wait are you in the middle of one or the end of one?

To be without a war raging around us is very.... different and a difficult adjustment at times.

If you want to spar or have need of combat traing to keep your skills sharp, then I am available for either or both.

It's what we were fighting for, I just didn't think I'd get it like this.

[Or like how the war actually ended at home, with digital telepathy for all. A sigh.]

I think I've got sparring mostly covered because I teach the same style at work, but combat training... [Sheepish:] I don't have a gun here.

I can provide the necessary weaponry. It is my job here.

[Surprised:] That would be great, actually.

Do I need any kind of licensing for it, or is it covered under the imPort registration?

Former Marine here. But I guess you already knew that, didn't you?

I'm always up for hanging out. Not sure I can give any tips on civvy life, though. I've spent most of my time here looking for a new mission. It's hard to leave that life behind.

Yeah, I heard a bit about that from Shepard - which made how I met you on my world kind of confusing in retrospect.

I'd like to hang out. Any luck finding a mission here?

Depends what you'd call luck. Can't really say I'm fortunate that there's always someone to fight. I've taken on a terrorist group, the Soviet Union, gangsters in Maurtia Falls... these days I'm with a team called RISE, tracking down a rogue science group called the OTO. There's always something.

You know how on the Normandy you couldn't explore a random planet without stumbling across some pirate base Shepard would want to shut down? Being here can kind of be like that.

I almost miss the pirate bases. These days the random planets are all Cerberus or Reaper forces.

Is RISE a full time thing, or...?

Full-time job. Pay's decent, but the work load is killer.

So... Cerberus has it's own army now, doesn't it? I heard they even tried to take the Citadel. Hard to imagine.

[In Jacob's time, Cerberus was a cell-based covert organization that relied on information more than muscle. Then again, he had never really seen the true face of the group until Shepard showed it to him.]

Think they'd take on a part timer? [She'd feel bad jumping ship from the gym so soon, but she feels like she can handle both.]

Yeah, Cerberus tried - I was there when they took out all the Citadel guards. And when we had a look at one guy on Mars, he looked like a husk.

Yeah, that's an option. You interested in joining? I'll bet you'd be a good fit.

[He pauses.]

I know a little about what they ended up doing to their people. Guess I'm just lucky I quite before the Illusive Man tried shoving any weird tech into my head.

It sounds pretty interesting, yeah. Who should I talk to?

When I met you on Arrae, you were also helping keep a lot of people out of Cerberus's hands, so you got out at exactly the right time.

[private]
... this is... kind of a personal question, but I've been wondering: Why'd you join Cerberus in the first place? From what Shepard told me, you used to be Alliance - how could you turn your back on it like that?

Me or Commander Sabriel. There's a qualification process to join, but I've got a feeling you could blow through it.

[private]

[Jacob sighs. He had this same talk with Kaidan, years ago. It wasn't easy then either.]

I guess I just... lost faith in the Alliance. After Eden Prime, after the Battle of the Citadel. I realized I'd been in the Alliance five years, and I couldn't think of anything I had done that actually mattered. The way the Council just covered up Sovereign and the Reapers was the last straw. So many people dead, and all the politicians wanted to do was pretend everything was normal.

The first time I was approached by Cerberus? I ended up helping to save the entire Citadel from a bioweapons attack. It got hushed up of course, but it convinced me that if I wanted to get something done, it was worth going outside the system.

[A quiet groan.]

And I guess you know how that ended up. It's good to hear I helped other people get out from under the Illusive Man's thumb.

[Teasing:] I'd hope the second human Spectre could qualify.

[private] [In contrast to the joke about her Spectre status, she's silent for a while as she considers his answer.]

I'd been in seven years when Eden Prime was attacked. Seven years mostly on backwater agri-colonies, and then I lose my squad and end up on the Normandy, and for the first time I'm doing something important -

And then, yeah, the Council covers it up, and the Alliance sends us on geth cleanup instead of fixing the real problem.

[And then they got ambushed.]

I stayed because I wanted to change that. I still wonder if we'd have been better prepared if the brass had bothered to take my testimony about the Reapers three years earlier...

And you saved the Citadel, with Cerberus.

[Pause.

[The bitterness edging on anger in her voice is directed purely at Cerberus, not at Jacob:] I guess it makes sense that the recruitment tour didn't include the colony they turned into husks, or the transmitters they left in the middle of Thresher Maw nests to bait marines, or the soldier they experimented on after the rest of his squad was killed by a Thresher Maw, or the rachni, or...

I'm not arguing with you. [She has just realized what that sounded like.] I'm just thinking out loud, trying to understand how someone like you [whom she first met protecting people, who's been nothing but good to her here] could end up with an organization with Cerberus.

[She'd thought he'd known the kinds of things Cerberus did and joined anyway. The SR-1 had constantly tripped over their experiments; surely other Alliance marines must have had Cerberus encounters that hadn't wiped out the entire team.]

I guess by not knowing.

[She sighs. As a lifer, leaving still doesn't sit quite right with her, but it seems less like defection now, and his heart had been in the right place. Plus, he saved the Citadel.

[And it put him in the position to work with Shepard, and then to get other people - families - out of Cerberus.]

... For what it's worth? I'm glad you got out. [Beat.] Even if you, here - you you, not the you I met back home [why is this so hard and stupid to word properly!!!!] - haven't helped those people yet.

Edited (I suddenly realized I failed at math + icon + formatting) 2018-01-16 11:05 (UTC)

[Jacob winces on the other end of the line. His voice is audibly ashamed when he speaks again.]

I knew some things about what they were supposed to have done. Assassinations, experiments... enough that I ought to have known better. But you know what they say the road to Hell is paved with, right? I convinced myself the ends justified the means sometimes.

[A bitter half-chuckle.]

That might as well be the Cerberus motto. But- thanks. I'm glad I got out too.

[He pauses, thinking.]

I wonder sometimes. What would have happened if I hadn't left the Alliance. Stuck it out, like you did. I had an offer to join Special Forces after I resigned- the First Earth Division. Maybe I missed out on a chance to do good the right way... but then I might never have met Shepard. Or helped bring her back.

[And that would have been a loss. Not just for the whole Galaxy, but for Jacob personally.]

I'm not a vet myself, but - I don't think that a vet support program for Americans would turn you away. All the stuff you're dealing with is pretty similar, right? I know my Dad went through it - him and all of the friends he made in the war. I think it helped for them to get together and talk sometimes.

[Oh hey, there's a familiar voice from church! But now saying things beyond "peace be with you".]

My stuff is similar, but a lot of the programs I saw helped with things like getting a job and a place to live - things that imPorts have provided.

Which branch was your dad in? I was a military brat too, before enlisting myself.

Yeah, the whole learning to be a civilian again would be a whoooooole 'nother program.

[ He switches topics pretty seamlessly, though. ]

He was in the Army. I wasn't a military brat, though - by the time me and my sister came around, my Dad settled down. Started his own garage and everything, [ he says, and if there's a little too much pride in his voice - well. He's real proud of him. Not everyone can make it out of war okay, and his Dad? He started his own business. ]

Hey, good for him. [More approving than one might think from a military brat turned lifer.] Probably better for your family to stay in one place, too.

Did he ever say anything about how he found settling down?

Yeah. He, um, always talks about that? About how he wanted stability for us.

[ He pauses. ]

He doesn't talk about it much. Not to us, anyway. But I overheard some of his talks with some of his old war buddies, about how hard it was to stay in one place after spending so much time not sure where he was gonna sleep next. And you'll never catch him without having his gun closeby either. I know that ain't a coincidence.

[ His father's not a naturally violent man, and Jaime's proud of that. But he can't remember a time when he hasn't known exactly where his rifle was. ]

Oh, man. Finding it weird staying in one place only starts kicking in for me after a year or two: I had a bunch of really boring postings before getting assigned to warships, but my family lived on seven different planets by the time I finished grade school.

[The gun thing just makes her miss her own, even though it was kept in the armory and not in her own room.]

Oh, wow.

[ Jaime, born and raised in El Paso, and having rarely traveled when he was in his own world, can't imagine that kind of life. Everything about him is anchored to a sense of belonging, knowing that he has his place, and that he has his people. A life where he would have only known Brenda and Paco for a year before uprooting again is unthinkable. ]

That sounds like it must've been tough. It's hard to make friends that way, isn't it?

[ It's an easy way to have someone want to join the army when they grew up too. ]

Yeah, it was. You'd meet people, and know you'd have to leave in two or three years, if their parents didn't leave before yours. Probably why me and my sisters are so tight.

Being here seems like it'd be kind of similar, with people being Ported in and out, except at least in the military, you usually know when it's going to happen.

No kidding! Even if we couldn't stop it, I'd love to have, like - I dunno, a countdown or something? Bet we could give a few people here some pretty great last days.

[ Then again, that would make it worse, wouldn't it? It'd be hard to let them go out like a bang like that when they'd be too busy feeling - well, any number of things depending on where they're from. At least they wouldn't have so much left unsaid that way. ]

But... you've got a point there. There's nothing like having that one thing in common to make us all, like, relate to each other? Even if most of us would never be friends if we met back home.

Yeah, that's true. Who would have thought accidental transuniversal kidnapping would bring people together more than the end of the world does?

The Normandy, hm? So you're one of Shepard's crew.

I was in the Japanese Self-Defense Force during World War IV, but I've been out of the military for so long that it's not been as much of an adjustment for me. I find that staying busy helps keep your mind off of how different things are here.

Edited 2017-11-27 04:10 (UTC)

I am - do you know her?

A lot of the things to keep busy with are the different things. [What is clothes shopping!!!!!] What kind of things are you doing to stay busy?

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