The thing Gaheris had blamed for him turning on the Commonwealth, on his ship, his captain, his best friend. Though Dylan had fought as hard as anyone in the war while it lasted, had received the Order of the Vedran Empress for saving Dawkinstown Station from a Magog attack, had met Sara evacuating a research base in the face of their wrath, Gaheris had said it wasn't enough. Gaheris had decided that the peace that was made in order to save lives from the horrific war of attrition as Commonwealth worlds fell to the Magog had been weakness, and that the Commonwealth deserved to fall for it. And with the Commonwealth, Dylan.
They'd all hated the Magog. They'd all been horrified by Brandenburg Tor, by all the Magog attacks. Peace hadn't been an endorsement. It had been an escape from a threat that the Commonwealth was completely unprepared for. Now the task of dealing with that threat was now his, with higher stakes and fewer resources than the Commonwealth ever faced.
Fortunately, Dylan was good at not showing what he was thinking, though Gaheris had once known him better than almost anyone. He managed to look, if not as he once would have at the question, at least impassive enough to not flash anger at Gaheris for the thinking he was sure was behind the question.
"We're far enough in the past that there's no way to tell. This is long before the Magog appeared." He holds up one hand in a non-committal gesture. "But given that in this reality humans haven't met the Perseids and there's no sign of Vedran technology or of any alien race I know, maybe not."
He hoped not. The Magog and their World Ship in their reality was more than enough.
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The thing Gaheris had blamed for him turning on the Commonwealth, on his ship, his captain, his best friend. Though Dylan had fought as hard as anyone in the war while it lasted, had received the Order of the Vedran Empress for saving Dawkinstown Station from a Magog attack, had met Sara evacuating a research base in the face of their wrath, Gaheris had said it wasn't enough. Gaheris had decided that the peace that was made in order to save lives from the horrific war of attrition as Commonwealth worlds fell to the Magog had been weakness, and that the Commonwealth deserved to fall for it. And with the Commonwealth, Dylan.
They'd all hated the Magog. They'd all been horrified by Brandenburg Tor, by all the Magog attacks. Peace hadn't been an endorsement. It had been an escape from a threat that the Commonwealth was completely unprepared for. Now the task of dealing with that threat was now his, with higher stakes and fewer resources than the Commonwealth ever faced.
Fortunately, Dylan was good at not showing what he was thinking, though Gaheris had once known him better than almost anyone. He managed to look, if not as he once would have at the question, at least impassive enough to not flash anger at Gaheris for the thinking he was sure was behind the question.
"We're far enough in the past that there's no way to tell. This is long before the Magog appeared." He holds up one hand in a non-committal gesture. "But given that in this reality humans haven't met the Perseids and there's no sign of Vedran technology or of any alien race I know, maybe not."
He hoped not. The Magog and their World Ship in their reality was more than enough.