#torfan

I'm chewing the drywall everytime the scraps of Torfan are brought up.

Every time Hackett goes back from all-knowing wise leader to shady ruthless officer.

The Ruthless profile is supposed to give you a Renegade head start, and I can’t stop thinking about what could really have happened down there. It’s pretty much implied that war crimes were committed. And you were twenty-four at the time. Why were you entrusted with leading the assault? Exactly how many soldiers did you lose? Unit is such a vague term. What did you do to drive your seasoned CO—a major, a mature officer—into PTSD? Or was he a weak man from the start? And why were you made the first human Spectre if your reputation still follows you years later?

Whenever I try to headcanon it, it turns out deliciously ugly every time. I still keep half the details buried in drafts, just to keep her from turning into a full boogeyman.

Kaidan watches Jenna closely as they walk out of Major Kyle's compound. She is silent, staring intently at a spot somewhere in the middle distance.

"Are you all right, Commander?" he ventures to ask.

"Just glad not to be the Butcher of whatever the hell this planet is, too," she answers shortly. "Hackett's people should be down soon to pick them all up."

A pause.

"You knew him, from Torfan?" Kaidan tries again. He's gotten to be able to read her pretty well; he knows she's rattled by the conversation with the former Major, but not whether she'll want to talk about it.

Jenna grunts. "He was the one gave me the orders to go," she says with a slight shrug of one shoulder (a maneuver that requires some effort in a stiff hardsuit). "Gave us, I should say. Me and my sergeant, and our platoon." She smiles bitterly. "Very explicit and direct orders. 'Millions of civilians in danger...victory at any cost...' Things like that."

Garrus glances over his shoulder. "And now he feels responsible for how many people died," he says noncommittally.

Jenna gives him a sidelong look. "You can go ahead and say it," she says. "He feels responsible for all the people I got killed."

Garrus shifts uncomfortably, glances at Kaidan, who hurries to fill the awkward pause in the conversation. "And so he's here now...running a cult. Talking about protecting people, and 'family', and 'blasphemy.' Bit of a 180, if you ask me." He frowns. "Must've hit him pretty hard."

Jenna snorts without humor. "You know I'm the last to say PTSD ain't a real thing," she mutters. "God knows we all know how this shit sticks with you. But given I'm the one who actually had boots on the ground and blood on my hands, you'd think I'd be the one cracking up, not him."

She cocks her head to one side, absently running her eyes over a heavy scratch on one side of the Mako. "Maybe I should try it for a while. Just go off the deep end. Really let myself think about everyone who's died because of me, because it was the only option or because every alternative was worse, and just go all the way to pieces. Might make for a nice change of pace."

There's a long silence. Neither Kaidan nor Garrus knows how to respond to this, and so they stay silent. The bitterness in Jenna's voice is unusual, a vent given to thoughts she usually keeps locked up tight rather than burden anyone around her.

Vakarian Sr kept glaring. “Your reputation precedes you, John Shepard. Torfan was a superb tactical achievement, but I question your attitude to command!”

Ah. This again. “Sir. How would you have handled the assault on Torfan?” He couldn’t outstare a turian, but he was damn well going to try!

The old man nodded curtly, his gaze flicking up and down John’s silvery metal arm. “I like to think I would have won the war. And perhaps even controlled Maryam Dravid, who had a known history of excessive force. However. I expect you to remember that your troops have parents.”

“Never forgot it. Not at Torfan, not now.”

“Dad,” Vakarian Jr snapped, “my temporary Alliance contract says combat certified. I’m as good a soldier as Williams or Crosby, and I’ll take the same risks. Understood?”

Senior ignored that. “So. You’re telling me you’ll only order my son to his death, if you think it’s tactically justified.”

“Mr Vakarian. This is a military vessel. And you need to stop wasting my bandwidth on your family drama. I have important calls to make.”

What is something that your character actively tries to forget about themselves or the people/things around them? Any memories they'd rather not be reminded of?

Hellos! 

There are rules about thanking the fae but let me say, it’s very nice of you to drop in and I was thrilled to find this ask in my box. Especially because it inspired me to actually WRITE something, which I’ve been struggling with for a good long while. This is my first fic for my newest Shepard, Donovan, who is NOT to be confused with Donovan Lír, despite their similarities.

Be Happy (also on AO3)

Why can’t you just be happy?

The first time Dmitri asks it’s an amused, almost fond question over their celebratory dinner. The charges from Torfan have been dismissed. The looming dishonorable discharge completely averted with a single call. Two hours ago he was musing over his preference between firing squad or lethal injection, now it’s red or white wine.

“Would you really prefer the alternative?” Dmitri continues, a lighthearted tease, and Donovan would rather be alive than dead, free instead of thrown into a prison to rot, so he tries not to think about the piles of batarian bodies and nods and sips his wine.

Why can’t you just be happy?

It doesn’t take long for amusement to turn to exasperation. 

It’s partially his own fault. A promotion, especially accompanied by N7 designation, comes with a change in assignments and he questions each of them in a way he never has before.

“This is what you wanted.” Dmitri sighs as he taps the symbol on Donovan’s chest. The badge of honor now a brand of shame. “Everything you wanted.”

He wants to answer that he didn’t want this. At least not like this. Not when it’s built on a lie. Not when the price is his team and hundreds of innocent lives. That there’s no honor in awards earned with other people’s blood. He wants to but he’s not sure how or if Dmitri would understand anyway, so he says nothing.

Why can’t you just be happy?

He isn’t sure when it becomes an accusation. The same brutal cross-examination that Dmitri built his own career and reputation on.

“They could have thrown the book at you,” Dmitri rails. “Disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer. Missing movement. Unauthorized absence. Willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer. Mutiny and sedition. Aiding the enemy. You should be thrilled with the way things played out. Or do you honestly think that justice was served?”

And for the first time he snaps back.

“You want to talk about justice? Where’s the fucking justice in leaving civilians to hang after after we made a bags of the thing? We led the pirates right to them and Kyle wanted us to abandon them! It was the wrong call!”

“That doesn’t make it an unlawful one.”

“But you honestly think following it would have been justice served?”

He spits the words back at him, some deep, desperate, wounded part of him hoping they cut just as deep. They do but Donovan finds no satisfaction in the flash of pain. Dmitri believes in the law the way he believed in the Alliance so for one terrible moment he is Dmitri’s Torfan. 

Then the hurt is gone, replaced by a certainty both harder and more brittle than it was before. As if denying doubt could make his faith stronger. As if by blaming him, he can absolve himself.

“It would have prevented this mess, wouldn’t it?”

Why can’t you just be happy?

Donovan “celebrates” the first anniversary alone but the words linger even with Dmitri gone. No wine this time, white or red, just eight shots of whiskey in a line on the bar in front of him.

One for the people he killed, by success and failure.

One for each member of his team, six Alliance soldiers dead in the name of justice, he hopes.

Behold, a meta about Lisa I’ve long wanted to write, inspired by this post about Torfan(got kinda long for just a reblog) and motivation provided by @fourthage‘s Mass Effect giveaway. (I’m much better about finishing things when I can give it a deadline, lol)

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Lisa is my Colonist/Ruthless Infiltrator Shep, and let me tell you, that background combo made her really interesting to play(through the first two games, at least; my computer crashed before I had a chance to import her to ME3, rip) bc she has this big, glaring problem with batarians. The tl;dr is Mindoir was deeply traumatizing and no batarian ever did enough to counter the extremely negative image she has of their race as a result. (apologies for slight stream-of-consciousness rambling, I tried to rein it in, but I think I was only partially successful >.>)