Ranger
Chapter 165: Blame
By Wanderer D
She had just taken a seat at one of the tables, cold beer in hand when she noticed someone approaching.
"Hey, Sport."
Scootaloo merely grunted in acknowledgment of Rainbow Dash's presence. She didn't want to talk to her right now, but it was an acknowledgement, in the end, and the pilot took it as a sign to sit across from her.
Dash grinned when she saw what Scootaloo had in her hand. "Aww, yeah. Sectoid Sweat! Best IPA around."
"I heard you also liked it." Scootaloo sighed. She looked at the bottle and groaned. She had just grabbed it out of habit. She had even stopped drinking it after Jane had mentioned Dash's like of it. "I guess it's too late to get a different one."
She tried not to feel bad at the slightly hurt look Rainbow Dash gave her.
"I could just get you another one, we don't have a dedicated bartender everyone here just, sort of pitches in on the role," Rainbow Dash offered.
"Nah." Scootaloo shuffled and looked away, it was too late anyway. "It's not a big deal."
"It seems like it is to me," Rainbow Dash said. "What's going on, Scoots?"
"You really need to ask?" Scootaloo stared at her, almost incredulously, before she sank back and shook her head. "I'm stuck in this ship with a bunch of terrorists. My friends decided to join you. People I thought were dead just appeared randomly alive last month, are terrorists themselves, or natives, and expect me to just take it in stride.
"My hometown was destroyed by my friend's not-quite boyfriend, who turned out to be a psychotic AI… who killed my friend. My dead friend made me place her brain and spine into a new body for her, my other best friend has been secretly a rebel all this time, risking her life (and mine) by defying the government.
"Our neighbors and friends are dead. We have a little girl whose parents died also in this ship, somewhere, and best thing, none of us are safe if we return to our normal lives. My choices are, join here and work on this contraption, go native in India, and finally get sent literally to another world." She glared at Rainbow Dash. "For the life of me, I can't figure out why I'm not celebrating yet."
Rainbow Dash grimaced at the sarcasm. "We're not terrorists, we're—"
"I don't care. That's what they call you." Scootaloo looked down, glaring at the table as if she could melt it away with sheer anger. Her voice rose. "I waited for you. For years. After Canterlot High, when you… joined the army… that wasn't the end of it. Did you ever wonder what happened to everyone else? There were more of us, besides your immediate friends, you know?
"Well. Even though I was taken in by ADVENT after the governments surrendered, my aunts refused to do so. They went native, along with several others. I don't know if Snips and Snails were there, but I know their parents were. I know Granny Smith was there. In true Canterlot fashion they named their settlement something idiotic and horse-related. I sincerely hope it wasn't something as stupid as "Ponyville" but it actually sounds legit.
"Anyway, I had just graduated from college. Twenty three years old, highest grades in my graduating class. ADVENT already had several location choices for me to choose. I was waiting on Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom… their graduations were staggered a few weeks after mine.
"So, when I heard that the city was doing a humanitarian mission to drop needed food and medicines at settlements near Canterlot City, I volunteered. Imagine my surprise when we avoided Canterlot and miles around it.
"We visited twelve settlements. Twelve. We set up shop, dispersed the assigned food and medicine… I asked around. None of them had people from my home. At least no one I knew. They hadn't heard of the Ponyville settlement. They thought it was a joke at first, but they asked around."
Scootaloo took a deep drink from her beer. "I went on two more volunteer missions. I never saw my aunts again. I never saw Snips, or Snails. Never saw Silver Spoon—" she glared at Rainbow Dash who had choked on her drink, then continued, "No one from Canterlot. None of our neighbors or acquaintances were there. I was told that violent groups had released toxins and viruses around Canterlot and it was no longer safe for anyone to even attempt access. That everyone within that containment area was dead.
"I never saw anyone but Rarity, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom, whose brother disappeared just before her graduation. He joined ADVENT security. I saw how Sunset and Jane looked when we told them, by the way. Big Mac is probably dead. He wouldn't abandon us. Sweetie Belle hid from me that Rarity was as much a prisoner as your commander."
Scootaloo's eyes raised to meet Rainbow Dash's. "But they were there. So, I was there for them. I thought we were still a team. I thought we were all on the same page, with the same ideals. The same hopes. I was wrong. And it all comes down to XCOM.
"XCOM, who was the only force the aliens feared was enough of a threat to bring the world against you. XCOM, who was not there to save Canterlot High. Who was not there to stop the poisoning of Canterlot City. XCOM, who took Applejack away. XCOM, who failed Rarity and Sweetie Belle. It was XCOM who showed up in the news whenever death and mayhem happened."
She took a deep breath, feeling the anger bubbling under her skin, waiting to burst. She wanted to hit Rainbow Dash again. "Who created Julian? Who defied the Elders? Who still fights them and forces ADVENT to even more retaliatory attacks? X-goddamned-COM."
Scootaloo finished her beer and sighed in disappointment, glancing at the empty bottle with distaste before putting it down on the table. "And you know what hurt worse? That the one person outside of my aunts and the crusaders who I had left—who I considered family—who I never, in a million years, thought would leave me to rot? Where was she all this time when I was afraid and alone, lost, or comforting my friends? The one that I never expected to make me think she was dead only to turn up like nothing was wrong the moment she needed something?"
The bar was quiet.
"XCOM. She was with fucking XCOM."
She slid back and stood up. "So yeah, Rainbow Dash, I guess you're right. This whole thing with everyone having secret lives, suddenly being alive all along—just not telling me—with me being uprooted from my home, finding out everything I knew for sure put into a different light and outright dismissed… finding out I've lived a lie for twenty years… yeah, I guess you could say that it is a big deal to me."
She turned around and walked out, leaving Dash and several other bar attendees in quiet contemplation.
She didn't feel better. Not really. All of it had hurt to say, especially looking at Rainbow Dash's pain while she listened. But she needed to say it, she just couldn't keep pretending none of that bothered her. She hadn't been active behind the scenes like Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. She hadn't been anticipating something like this.
She still had a lot to think about. She had choices to make, and also, thinking about the consequences of said choices.
o.0.o End Chapter 165 o.0.o
Well...it seems like a lot's been going on. And for a damn long time, too. And to top it off, Scoot's life as she knew it just got completely flipped upside-down.
Hopefully, her letting it all out like that is merely the beginning step on the road to recovery.
Also, TFW story updates but story does not appear as updated. Thanks FIMfic.
Thank god email notification still works.
Ugh, anyone else sick of Scoots' bull? You're one of the ones who's suffered the least. Stop wallowing in self pity.
This a great chapter that really capitalizes on the XCOM2 setting. Playing the game you never really get a sense of just how the majority of people see the war you're raging. As annoying as those propaganda bursts in WOTC are that's what most people actually believe happened. And yet the only way this is conveyed in gameplay is by having civilians alert ADVENT when they see your guys in stealth.
You can really feel for Scoots here. Even if she's been misled by alien propaganda this is how she sees things and I can't think of a way to convey the truth to her in a way she's believe and accept.
Why does the chicken have to suffer so much?
9146862
Nah. She does need to actually see what advent is doing, the footage of the black sites and everything, for her to actually understand just how utterly wrong she is, yes. But until then? Until then she's a woman that lost almost everyone she ever knew in what she spent some, what, two decades hearing were either the actions or inaction of freedom fighters cum terrorist groups that didn't know when to quit.
Of course, when she finds out that they're fighting against the methodical extermination of her own species for a bunch of four armed assholes to survive, well, she might just change her mind. Or be punched into stop being another a jerk, possibly by Applebloom - and hell that punch would hurt.
*finally decides to read this series*
ok, might as well read it now. Shouldn’t take too long to catch up.
*sees 165 chapters*
0_0
While I don't agree with Scootaloo, I can understand what she's saying.
Anyway, it's not XCOM's fault for resisting, it's the alien's fault for invading.
Please... someone smack her upside the head, and show her the truth. Get Sweetie to do it if they need to find someone she may believe, but she's clearly angry and blaming everyone and everything without realizing that there may well have been a reason and that XCOM is far from all-powerful.
Plucky resistance is all well and good, but they certainly aren't an army, and weren't during the invasion either.
9146887
I suppose no one has really told her much about it, but could she really not figure things out like Sweetie and Applebloom? I'm pretty sure she's willfully ignorant.
Also...
... That is one vile terrorist.
Rainbow:
1.Wright Twilight, ask about Ponyvilles location relative to Canterlot.
2. Grab Luna CMC and possible Sunset.
3. Go check it out.
*. make a stop in Canterlot to show CMC what happend.
The worlds are prity good mirroring after all.
Oh and allso this:
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And here there were people saying Scoots would just flip her attitude like a switch once she "finds out the truth". It's not that simple.
9146887
Well that is kinda the problem.
How many people ACTUALLY know for a FACT that the Elders are going to 100% kill the entire race of Humanity, and wipe them out completely?
Cause honestly, Scootaloo has a point without that knowledge. Logically, most slavers wouldn't want to hurt their slave work force. Cause a weak, damaged, hungry work force isn't going to work, even if you whip them to death. They mostly want to treat them right.
And most of the things that harm the 'slaves', like Scootaloo and other Civilians, are the Elders and Advent trying to find, fight, and kill X-Com. Can X-Com say, 100% fact, that if X-Com didn't fight against the Elders, that Humanity would stop existing and be completely wiped out? Cause other than a few people missing here and there, they lived very normal lives, were much more healthy, never had to worry about Jobs, Money, Food, Danger (Except if X-Com is nearby, those evil bastards), Security, Poverty, Disease, Health in General, and so on. Literally, other than slight minor changes to thanking the Elders instead of God, life was BETTER than before.
Until X-Com came into play, and literally ruins the life of everything and everyone they so much as touch, or even come near.
And worse yet, X-Com has no way of winning, realistically. In the game, there might be winning conditions. But look at it logically. X-Com only has a very, VERY small number of soldiers, like a few hundred at most. The Elders, have a few hundred WORLDS that are FILLED with Soldiers.
Like really, in a game it's balanced, but in a real situation, there would be Andromedon, Mutans, and Chryssalid scouring every inch of the planet within a few days Zerg style and kill everything and everyone. The Elders can literally seal up the known Advent controlled towns on the planet, then fill every other part of the world with just those 3 races to find, hunt, and kill any and every other survivor.
X-Com literally has no realistic way of winning. So fighting a loosing battle, harming Innocents the entire way, and making the Elders question if Humans are useful or if they should just blow up the entire planet and find a different one to enslave.
X-Com, logically, is 100% in the wrong in every arguement and form, except in the moral obligation of wanting their race to be free, even if they all have to die for that freedom and become extinct, and that's it.
9146939
If there's one thing stronger than human resistance to change is the reluctance to accept one's own flaws, nominally that you're wrong yourself. For Scootaloo to accept that XCOM actually matters and that Advent is the enemy she'd also have to accept that the truth and hope she held for decades is wrong, that she supported the villains and accused the heroes, that she's somewhat of a villain herself. And that's hard as balls to do.
9147007
Actually in the game it's shown that there's a fuckton of people outside of the Advent cities, and they're in no hurry to help those. All those marvelous Advent gifts are given only to those who submit, and fuck everyone else. There's also plenty of resistance groups going on in the world, XCOM is only one with access to a kickass ship that allows them global presence and the possibility of unifying every other group. The alien's resources are also not nearly that abundant, or at least it's never stated they are. Earth is a "last gambit" kind of deal, and it's heavily implied there are bigger fish out there.
When you win in XCOM 2 you don't do it by personally destroying every alien on the planet, you do it by unifying the likely thousands or tens of thousands of resistance fighters around the world, revealing to EVERYONE on the planet what Advent is truly about, so they take up arms, and then delivering a surgical strike against the leadership. That's rather plausible to happen, as small groups getting past the US military to directly attack their generals is something the army itself did. Hard? Undoubtedly. But doable.
Another facet is that the world is, although effectively controlled by the Ethereals, still ruled by humans. The councilman is still a relevant politician (that's how he can still help you in the game), public opinion still matters, etc. If the aliens had such resources as you say they have, they wouldn't need such deception and maneuvers. They're not after slaves, they want biological material. Therefore the logical conclusion is they need to keep the facade to keep control. They DON'T have the troops to hold everything under an Iron grip, they need to delegate and keep the population suppressed. If they lose that, they don't have the resources and manpower to actually hold onto earth.
They also would have plenty more UFOs than the game seems to imply. Hell, as far as we know their entire fleet might not number the low hundreds, with a dozen battleships at MOST. That might seem like a lot, but when you consider how much crew that could actually hold and that the attacked a planet whose population is in the billions, that becomes a drop in the ocean.
So how is XCOM wrong? They can only be dangerous if they are a real threat, and to be a real threat they need to have a reasonable chance of winning. The amount of propaganda against them only makes sense if they need the population to be as hostile to XCOM as possible, to not be turnable against their overlords - to suppress their conquests all they had to do is not attribute anything to them. And if they only wanted slaves, their blacksites wouldn't be nearly as grisly as they are.
All in all, I see a completely different picture than you. XCOM not only has to fight, it has a real chance of winning. And the only ones who could complain are the privileged minority in their gleaming cities, shielded from the reality of the world in their gilded cages.
Now, what happens when you show them how the world truly is?
9147021
I already understood that logically, but emotionally I want to tell Scootaloo off because she's being so selfish and has been for the last 20 years of her life. I don't fault her completely for being that way, but it makes me sick and sad to see her on such a self-destructive path, bringing others down with her.
This is because I'm emotionally engaged with the story and characters. My reaction is a complement to Wanderer D's work, and I endorse this story fully. So 9146924 , if you haven't already, get reading this story. You won't regret. More chapters is a benefit. On many stories people are literally begging for more.
9146946
Isn't that a drawing for the XCOM Viper?
Ive seen this on the features enough times that i think ill give it a read
okay somebody please sit scootaloo down, smack her across the face and SHOW HER THE FUCKING TRUTH! xcom records everything fucking EVERYTHING! show her the footage, make her watch every advent attack, make her watch the factories, make her see what they did to big mac. seriously i don't care if she feels abandoned nothing gives her the right to act like such a complete and total bitch.
It's wrong but understandable, SCoots goes through a lot but XOM isn't to blame, they did what they could back then. She just needs time.
Maybe someone should point out to Scootaloo that of all her friends, she's the only one that rolled over and accepted slavery. And that she's bitching about them (a) risking their lives for freedom, and (b) keeping her safe by not involving her.
Quite frankly, I'd be sorely tempted to kick her off the ship at this point. She has offered no help to XCOM, and her constant whining has got to be bad for morale.
9147054
Yes, yes it is.
9146924
Don’t worry too much. Each chapter isn’t too long, so a few days of planned reading and you’ll be caught up on no time. Enjoy.
9147140
Agreed. At this point, I just want to slap her.
I guess this comes down to how to want to live and or die. A quite life as a slave keeping your head down or willing to die horrible hissing and spitting and your bleed out fighting tilt the end for what you believe in. Or more simple would your rather go out as a caged sheep or a free wolf.
Spill all your poison Scoots, you'll heal better afterward. Even more so when X-COM shows you what ADVENT is doing behind close doors.
Scootaloo merely grunted and acknowledgment of Rainbow Dash's presence
We have a little girl who's parents died
1. In or Acknowledged.
2. Whose.
9147561 Fixed! Thank you!
I'd lock her up as a security risk.
9147140
I think projected self-loathing over this point may be a big part of what's going on with Scoots. We know she's not a true ADVENT believer. She was around for the initial attacks, knows that the Elders and Advent are a far cry from the sunny propaganda they bury everyone in. I think she's even been somewhat aware that Sweetie and Rarity are essentially mutual hostages for each other. But of all her friends, she's the ONLY one who just gave up and rolled over. Everyone else joined XCOM or some resistance settlement, or engaged in some kind of at least minor subversive activity on the down low, but she just surrendered. Her irrational lashing out at XCOM and everyone who is actually TRYING to do something (even if they fail to save everyone because running a global insurgency on scavenged scraps against a ridiculously technologically superior force is hard) looks a lot like her attempting to justify her own lack of action to herself.
9147007
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9148991
If you hadn't said anything (aka pointed out the obvious in this case) I might not have noticed that
She had seen the brutality, she has seen a battle Jane and Sunset were in, she knows what ADVENT is capable of
So even though she has suffered and has gone through a lot, she is the one that least went through shit because she decided that living safely was the best bet. We shouldn't actually blame her, her belief in the Elders is more of a clinging to her "pristine" reality. It never actually occurs to her that the monster that killed a lot of people in New Appaloosa was only created by Dr. Shen Sr. in name and maybe original programming; what really destroyed her city was ADVENT's own creation, methodically dismembering and re building Julian; she just wants someone to Blame because she never saw that coming. Her idea of the Elders can also be interpreted as "well they invaded at first, but they quickly subdued the government. There's no real reason to fight them anymore, they've proven to be reasonable and understanding. They fear XCOM because they refuse to accept this 'reality' that, even if they are violent sometimes, maybe to prove a point, they are still way better than living to oppose them". Her whole point of view is wrong, and so is she, but for the longest time, in her life, being wrong for her was actually a good thing.
She even goes as far as implying that the only reason people die are because of Humanity's tendency to Not Taking World Dominating BS and fighting back, when she herself didn't do anything because she thought the last of Canterlot City were there, with her and the rest were dead.
I quite understand people who are against rebelling against an unjust system. I have to, otherwise how to convince them rebelling is the choice that actually gives them a choice? Or at least puts them on the right side of history. Would you rather be happy or be right? Well, Scootaloo would rather be happy even in a society that's clearly... creepily even... wrong.
One last thing is that no one that was in one of the resistance groups knew she and the rest of the CMC were alive. Even Rarity's whereabouts were spotty at best until recently for most of them. So it's understandable that maybe Scoots felt left out a bit. Lmao
Very low point in the story... Guess only death could make it worse...
Scootaloo knows the truth.
Knows everything about Advent and the Elders.
She isn't an idiot. That doesn't mean she could just roll over and accept things. There's no way anyone would be in a stable state of mind... apart from maybe the Commander... after having an, all together comfortable and safe life be flipped upside down and utterly destroyed.
Grief is complicated, and unique to each individual, and Scootaloo has dealt with a lot of grief
Not to mention her abandonment issues. She was what... 14 when the invasion started? Her world and life crumbled, destroyed by the invasion.
Then Xcom lost.
People she relied on for being stable also vanished... destroying her world again.
After that she only had two stabilizing elements.
The stability the Elders brought with Advent, and her two best friends. Who, she was also separated from for years.
Of course she would cling to the stability of Advent. It was the only stable thing she had during her formularive years.
And... now she's lost that too.
I feel for her... and I hope that Xcom gives her as much stability as is possible for the organization...
Otherwise she might never recover or heal.
Everyone has a tough life under the Elders rule, one way or another.