CHAPTER 12: Do Your Own Thing
2185 CE
I turned down Shepard's invitation to attend her grunt unboxing party. She'd handled it well enough originally, and I didn't want Grunt confused about who was in charge on this ship. Shepard was the battlemaster here, not me. I didn't have the biotics to claim the role.
________________
2185 CE
'You didn't tell me he'd attack me.' Shepard accused.
'I knew you'd be fine. How is the kid?' I replied.
'Going by Grunt now, just like you said he would. The Illusive Man called.' Shepard added.
'So? What's new on the Horizon?' I guessed.
'You know, I think I'm starting to understand your sense of humor.' Shepard decided.
'Not enough to share it, yet though?' I asked.
'I don't think I'll ever be that far gone.' she replied, hesitating before continuing on.
'Ash is waiting on Horizon.' Shepard admitted.
'Worried about that?' I asked.
'That she's in danger. That she won't believe me. That she'll think I lied to her and was alive the entire time.'
'She's gonna be angry, I think.' I admitted.
'You think?' Shepard asked.
'I'm a new factor here. You ever see that old Earth movie; It's a Wonderful Life? They play it every year on my birthday. Made me awful paranoid when I realized that, let me tell you... Anyway, that's what it's like for me. I know how events happen in my absence in various permutations. I see the future results of certain events all the way to the end of next year, but I'm in none of them.' I admitted.
'The end of next year?' Shepard asked.
'Could be the next two, probably not longer. It's the end of the Reaper War, one way or the other.' I admitted.
'Nothing after that?' Shepard asked.
'I'm an old man, Shepard. I think I might be the oldest Krogan still alive in the galaxy. I didn't see anything after that.'
'You've put your affairs in order?' Shepard asked.
'You're taking us on a suicide mission. I expect to live through it, but I'd be a fool not to cover my bases.'
'I mean, you've done everything you needed to do, right?'
'Ask me again when we hit Illium, Shepard.' I replied.
Shepard nodded. 'I should go.'
_____________
2185 CE
'Alright, let me dispel your misconceptions about my knowledge. When I say Bourbon is the best? I'm speaking with the authority of someone who was born the same day as you humans say Jesus was. I have been alive for over 2,000 years, and I have been drinking alcohol for the vast majority of that time. Everything from Noverian Rum to Asari Honey Mead to Ryncol. If it exists, I have probably drank it. And that includes your Scotch. That peaty aroma that you like so much? It's dirt. Your liquor tastes like dirt. If you don't like the taste of dirt outside your alcohol, why do you like it with you're alcohol?'
'Oh? And what makes your bourbon so much better?' Ken Donnelly challenged
'It's the barrels. Bourbon must be aged in a brand new, charred, white oak barrel. That aging process, along with the regular seasonal changes of the United states allows the drink to pick up its color and take in the vanilla-like flavor of the spirit.' I explained.
'We use the same barrels!' Ken protested.
I nodded. 'Yes. You do. The exact same barrels, after they've been used to age bourbon. If Scotch has any redeeming qualities it's that it picks up hints of bourbon in the aging from the barrels.'
Ken wanted to speak up but I cut him off.
'That sweetness in the scotch? That comes a bit from the grain and a bit from the barrel, but in Bourbon? That sweetness is all from the corn. It needs to be mostly corn. More than half.'
'The corn isn't that important. All the character of it is lost in the still.' Ken grumbled.
'The hell it is! Let me prove it to you.' I declared.
I left to grab my bottle of white dog, returning several minutes later.
'Alright. This is white dog. The unaged spirit, fresh off the still; more or less. It's under 80% alcohol because you want to keep the flavors. I probably don't need to tell you this but Vodka is 95% alcohol. There's basically no flavor to it. Bourbon and scotch are both different. One of the few things scotch gets right. Now, cup your hand, like this.' I cupped my hand to demonstrate, before pouring some white dog into Ken's hand.
'Now, smell that. Soft and buttery, right?' I asked.
Ken nodded. 'Aye, smells like fresh biscuits out the oven!'
'Now, smack your hands together, and rub them real briskly.' I ordered, demonstrating with my own.
'What do you smell?' I asked.
'Alcohol. Very strong alcohol.' Ken admitted.
'Good. Now, you know the strength of this whiskey. Now, wave your hands in the air a bit. let them breath.' I ordered, demonstrating myself.
Ken followed my instructions.
'Now, smack your hands and rub em again. Real Brisk.' I ordered.
'Now what do you smell?'
'Corn.'
'Exactly. Now, if this were straight rye whiskey, it would have smelled like Rye, and Scotch whiskey it would have smelled like barley. Smack 'em and rub em again.'
'Smells like bread.' Ken noted.
'Like yeast actually.' I corrected him.
'That little trick lets me know the strength of your whiskey, the dominant grain in your blend, and even the kind of yeast you used. None of that character is lost through distilling. That character carries through the aging process. Bourbon will always have that corn taste to it. It makes it sweeter than other grain based distillates, but not so cloyingly sweet as fruit-based alcohols. It's a perfect blend between sweetness and smoothness.'
'Aye, but it's not so fine as a fine Islay Scotch!'
'If you ask a human, any human at all, if they'd rather eat corn or dirt, you know what they'd tell you? It's corn. Every time. This obsession you have with making your liquor taste like dirt is a disease, Ken. It's a sickness!'
'The Illusive Man drinks bourbon.' Ken countered, knowing my distaste for the man.
I grimaced. 'Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.' I finally replied.
_____________
2185 CE
'Anyway, whatever is going on with the Hanar it's big right now. I don't know if that makes it more or less attractive to a xenoethnographer though.' Jacob admitted to Kelly as I walked into the CIC.
'I didn't realize you had so many contacts.' Kelly admitted.
'As a Corsair, we didn't get the support the Alliance pilots normally got. We were expected to be self-sufficient. That included intelligence. I had to make friends and learn to cultivate contacts. I took a couple missions in Hanar space and I still know a few folks.' Jacob revealed.
'I'm sorry. I missed the first part of the conversation. What's going on with the Hanar?' I asked curiously.
'Professor Krell?' Kelly gasped.
'Krell!' Jacob shouted at the exact same time.
'Surely I'm not that surprising. I'm not exactly stealthy.' I protested. I was actually pretty stealthy, for a Krogan. Which meant I was incredibly obvious to literally anyone else in any room I entered. You can only do so much to mitigate a half a ton of mass; stealth would never be my strong suit.
'We were distracted, I guess.' Jacob rationalized.
'So what's this about the Hanar?' I ask, intrigued.
'It's strange. Military build up, shifting the economy to a war footing, bolstering weapons and ship building. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it.' Jacob revealed.
'Could it be because they're taking the Reapers seriously?' I asked.
'Nah. My gut says this is something different. If it were the Reapers, you'd think that we would have heard people protesting or something. People being angry with the new rules. There's nothing like that. This is something different.' Jacob replied.
I pondered for a second. I don't remember anything like this happening before, but the games were games. They weren't a simulation of the world, per se; they were a window into a story, a narrow viewpoint of specific events within a world that was only broadly hinted at.
I actually didn't have all that many dealings with Hanar. I had a few granddaughters who were half-Hanar through Aye-Aye. They were all a couple centuries older than Liara; conceived before she ever met Benezia; the first of them in a series of one night stands with Aye-Aye's best friend at the time that ended up turning into something more long lasting, at least until her friend died and the kids moved out.
It had been a while since I checked up on them. One was a missionary. I remember that. The other one was a low level functionary at the Citadel. I think that the last one was a housewife to a nice Drell, last I checked. Not Thane, I made sure of that. Actually, judging by the timing, her wife was probably around a century dead by now...
I should check up on her.
Kelly wasn't convinced. 'What else could it be? The Hanar are a Citadel race. They don't need a large army. The Turian fleet can protect them from anything less than the Reapers; especially given their build up in the past 10 years.' Kelly countered.
Jacob of course, already knew the answer to that. 'Can. That's the key word there. They can protect them, but Batarian slaving is up too. Can doesn't mean that they will. The Turians never protected us from the damn raiders.' Jacob pointed out.
I laughed. 'The Turians Don't protect any of the Citadel races from Batarians. Well, except for their client races like the Volus. They're supposed to defend you from military threats; not piracy. The Council doesn't want to upset the Batarians, and the only races that actually care about 'Piracy' and can do anything about it are the Humans and the Volus. Of course, the Volus make up for the lack of caring by anyone else by really, really caring. You ever wonder why the Volus have the largest fleet of bombers in the Galaxy? If they locate a pirate stronghold they'll glass the place. That's why Shepard had such an issue with Torfan; the pirates burrowed deep to avoid getting glassed.' I explained.
'Really? Only us and the Volus?' Kelly asked.
'The Asari chock it up to life experience when they get taken as slaves. They usually outlive their owners and end up teaching their owner's kids for generations. They think that with enough time they can fix the Batarians. That's not gonna happen, but try telling that to the Asari back on Thessia.' I explained.
Jacob nodded, and Kelly got a weird look in her eyes like she was finally understanding a piece of the Asari puzzle that hadn't clicked into place before.
Of course, my Lecture wasn't over yet. 'The Turians think that if you're not a civilian and you're weak enough to get enslaved you're a failure and a disgrace to your species; and only their client races are civilians. Every Turian is a soldier, and on a governmental level they assume everyone else is the same, or at least close enough to the same that you guys can defend yourselves. If you Aren't a Turian client race, Turians won't protect you unless forced to by their Council duties.'
'The Salarians see the use of slaves as a cultural weakness to exploit. They have a weird love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand, it provides an excellent means to put in STG infiltrators into even the most otherwise secure households. The reputation of the Salarians is enough that they're usually put to work doing intellectual work and analysis rather than anything physical; so they tend to get a lot of access to otherwise restricted data that way. On the other hand, they hate slavery, and every so often they need to extract an operative. Of course, that brings up the other reason that they love it. It's a cultural weakness, like I said. Every so often an STG cell will end up sparking a slave revolt. That serves two purposes: first, it helps them free their people, and; second, it serves to destabilize the Batarian government and to demonstrate the structural weakness that slavery is in any societal infrastructure. They think of it as teaching the Batarians a valuable lesson. The problem is, there's no benefit for the Salarians in contesting the actual raids. That just leads to an increase in loss of life among those taken, and makes it harder to place STG agents. They're never going to defend anyone; not even themselves. So if you're relying on them? That's just not going to happen.'
'There are other races out there of course, but they all have similar problems. The Elcor have great artillery and heavy infantry, but they're terrible at fast response. If you really want to contest a pirate raid, what you actually need is a Navy which the Elcor barely have. A Navy's a thing that you may have noticed that my own race doesn't exactly have either. Humans are basically the only species that both hates these slave raids and has a navy. Well, until now, I guess. Good for the Hanar.' I praised.
'Huh. I never thought of it like that. Learn something new every day.' Jacob observed.
'How do you figure out stuff like that?' Kelly asked, a bit intimidated by my knowledge.
'You look and ask questions. It's not hard information to figure out. All you need to do is ask questions about anything you don't understand, listen to their answers, and then analyze them in the context of everything else you know about the species. Do that over and over again and eventually you get called an expert.' I admitted.
Kelly nodded and I could see a newfound determination in her eyes. She'd go far I think. She definitely had the temperament for it.
_____________
2185 CE
'You are a failure as a Warlord, yet Shepard keeps you as part of her Krantt, why?' Grunt asked me out of the blue in the lounge.
I'd been waiting for this ever since the Tank-bred's pronouncement of his opinion of me back on the planet where that moron finally died; but Grunt hadn't actually approached me before hand.
In other words, this was our first time speaking.
'Why do you believe I am a failure as a Warlord, Grunt?' I asked, simply.
Socrates was a lot of things I don't admire, but as a teacher his method is the best I've found for fostering introspection and curiosity. You don't know what you don't know. The Socratic method helped you to make your student aware of their own lack of knowledge and made them pay more attention to the answers. It wasn't really suited for large classrooms of course, but as a tool for one on one tutoring in subjects like philosophy or ethics? As a tool for teaching students how to come to their own conclusions? It couldn't be beat.
'Okeer's words. You were deposed and despite surviving over a millennia you never sought to regain your own glory. You were defeated and gave up.' Grunt pronounced.
'I gave up? That implies I'm fighting a war. What war am I fighting, Grunt?' I asked, curious as to his answer.
'None. You were defeated. But you were fighting the rebellions. Why did you give up?' Grunt answered.
'I never believed in the Rebellions, kid. I was never really fighting them. I fought during them because assholes kept killing and bombing and shooting at us. Made me real unpopular in the clan. That's why I was deposed. I didn't want to fight them. They were an annoyance. A distraction from the only war I've ever been fighting. The Salarians and Turians weren't worth killing, and after the Genophage it just wasn't worth going and killing Nakmor Qronak just to have to fight even more to stop my clan from killing the Turians and Salarians.' I admitted.
'You didn't give up because you weren't interested in fighting them? What enemy did you have that but the entirety of the Turians and Salarians to shame?' Grunt wondered, clearly skeptical of my claims.
'The Reapers, kid. For over two thousand years I've been preparing to fight this war right here. I'm pretty sure that Sovereign sent the Rachni way back when. That's why I made sure to be there when it died. Now Shepard and I are gonna beat the rest of them; the only real foes worth killing.' I bragged.
'Then why do you fight these Collectors, then?' Grunt asked, not quite sure of the connection between the two.
'Because the Collectors are the Reapers' pets. Or maybe minions is better? Whatever they are, the Reapers changed the Protheans into them, and have been using them to prepare for their side of the war. So I'm attacking the closest thing the Reapers have to supply lines. Tell me, Grunt. Which warrior is more powerful, the one who can beat a Krogan to death with his fists, or the one that can kill a Krogan in a single shot?'
'The Krogan using his fists. He doesn't need a weapon.' Came the immediate answer.
'Is a Krogan who can defeat a more powerful foe than another Krogan a more powerful warrior?' I asked, curious.
'Isn't that the definition?' Grunt asked, puzzled.
'Guns give us the ability to kill things that we otherwise can't. It doesn't matter how strong your fists are, you can't use them to take down a kilometer long space ship. You need tools to help you.' I assert.
'But that would mean that the warrior that uses the gun is the more powerful warrior than the one using his fists?' Grunt asked, mulling over the idea in his head.
I nodded. 'With the right tool a good warrior can kill anything. Therefore the most important aspect of a warrior is their knowledge. Not just of the right weapon for the job and of it's use, but also other knowledge. The knowledge of where and how to acquire the tools, of how to build them. If a foe strands me on a planet, I can eventually build a space-capable vessel to hunt my foe down. A fairly long period later, but well within a decade or two. Even if the planet doesn't have Eezo deposits, I can build a scanner to find Eezo, and I can build a ballistics-based spacecraft to get to it. I can build Eezo based weapons, and equipment. If I need a tool or a weapon to defeat a foe, with enough time I can get it assuming no other factors are involved. As Shepard and I proved when we used the Normandy to kill Sovereign, with enough knowledge and preparation there is nothing in this galaxy we are not capable of killing. With the aid of the right tools my granddaughter, Shepard, and the frail man at the helm of this space ship, and I; we four killed a Reaper; a foe that to my knowledge has only ever been killed twice in the entire history of this galaxy. If the measure of a warrior is how powerful the foes they kill, then Shepard, Liara, Joker and I are the most powerful warriors to ever walk the face of the galaxy.' I lectured.
Grunt's eyes widened. 'The frail man? His knowledge allowed him to equal a warrior such as you, and Shepard?' Grunt asked, in awe.
'It did. In fact, he more than any of us three deserves the credit. We three took down the shields on foot, without which Joker could not have killed the Reaper. But Joker was the one who finished it off.' I agreed.
Grunt abruptly stood up, scattering his chair behind him.
'If he is humanity's strongest warrior, then he is the one I must learn from.' Grunt declared and stormed up to the cockpit.
I blinked.
One of the great things about the Socratic method was that it taught a pupil to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions. Of course, their own conclusions might differ slightly from yours.
Such is the beauty of the Socratic method.
________________
Author's Notes: 3.5k Chapter. Title this time comes from
Bring it On the Musical; seemed like a good fit for the chapter's themes. I'm going to take a short break to work on some omake for my friends at
DoofQuest, it's an epic quest that puts the players as the Powerful CEO of the Shadowrun-esque MegaCorp Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated in a Disney megacrossover setting where the villains won. I've been following it for a while and already written a number of omake for it and since the latest turn results were just posted I figured I'd do something fun for the thread. I don't expect this break to last more than a day at the most, may take a bit more time than that before the Omake are posted though. Don't worry though, I have plenty of backlog and I'll be putting out at least a chapter a day on Till I Change Your Mind for the foreseeable future, even if my break runs long.
