avalononline | Ninth: A Tactical Decision (Text; anon)

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Ninth: A Tactical Decision (Text; anon)

(TW: Murder/Sororicide, Betrayal, DR Spoilers)

[The last few months had given Mukuro a lot to think about- especially with regard to her own death back home. One part still didn't make any sense to her:

What had she done wrong? Why had Junko killed her?

...It was with those thoughts swimming around in her head that she sent another late night message to the network.]

27 AUG XX, 0324

Reviewing the strategy from a recent battle at home. I want to understand the rational for the decisions taken.

A soldier is engaged in a stealth/undercover mission. However, they have made a mistake that risks the operation's success, and have not realised their error.

The mission commander is in a position to eliminate the operative to preserve their mission, without exposing themselves in the process.

Is that course of action reasonable? To put it another way- under what circumstances would you consider sacrificing one of your own men to ensure a mission's success or to prevent it's failure?

Don't feel you have to answer.

🔪

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[ This is an interesting question, but Steph's not quite that comfortable with people knowing her history, so. Anonymous it is! ]

That's not enough information. What's the point of the mission? What's at stake? When you say 'eliminate', do you mean without warning?

So you think it would depend on the objective and whether the soldier in question was aware of that potential course of action?

What level of stakes would you consider it acceptable, then?

On the second point an operative should be aware of the risks without needing to be told.

[She'd get to her own case in a moment...but Mukuro wanted to dig a little deeper into those questions first.]

[ Oh no, one question in and she's drawing on her own experiences. ]

The only acceptable situation would be when lives are at stake. Specific, immediate lives, people you can point to and say "if we don't do this, they're dead." You don't throw a life away on a 'probably'. And it's never okay for a commander to sacrifice someone who works for them without their consent. For one thing, that's murder. The only reason soldiers are exempt is because they're killing 'the enemy'. For another, this is someone you're responsible for. Whatever the context, your job as a leader is to take care of the people who look to you for command. If you fail, it's a tragedy. If you pull the trigger, it's monstrous.

A good commander doesn't rest an entire operation on the shoulders of one person. And if they had to, they'd come up with a backup plan should that go awry, not blame the person who made the error.

Strategy is all about planning for every eventuality.

[Another anonymous person, hm?]

What if killing them was the backup plan? Or do you believe that is an unacceptable consideration?

You're right that strategy is about making sure you have plans or orders in place to deal with changes as a combat progresses, but the question is which of those plans are discarded due to being unreasonable.

Perhaps

Perhaps the key flaw, then, was trusting someone unreliable to carry out such a key role in an operation.

[...Junko should have known she'd let her down eventually.]

That's the wrong way around.

A Soldier is supposed to do as they're commanded. They're supposed to not let their Mission Commander down, they're supposed to protect them, and ensure their safety and that their plans are carried out. If a Soldier is a detriment to that plan then

[She cut off, there, leaving an awkward half finished sentence before her brain jumped to the next point- now she was drawing on her own experiences.]

She's not a monster.

Soldiers aren't tools to be used and thrown away. They're people, and they deserve to be treated like people. Their lives have value. They aren't worth any less than the people they're fighting to protect.

I would never consider sacrificing a life to be a reasonable course of action. Regardless of any mission's success or failure, the preservation of life should be the highest priority.

[That wasn't a username she recognised, but having someone putting a name to the message was nice, in its own way. Perhaps more so that it wasn't someone she knew.]

Would you try to preserve a person's life no matter who they are?

I'm a soldier. A mercenary. I've taken many lives in the past.

A life is irreplaceable regardless of who it belongs to. If any life can be spared, then every effort to do so should be made.

Even in a war, our priorities shouldn't be different. If the way we conduct ourselves in battle diminishes our reputation afterwards, then what have we gained?

if the operative knew that termination was one of the possible consequences of failure, and its made clear to them, then the matter is consensual between the operative and their commander. theres nothing to discuss there, the matter is understood.

[Oh no this was- she found her cheeks heating up a bit. But at least, she respected him, and when it came to tactics he knew what he was talking about.]

Agreed. If they were warned on the possibility of elimination should they ever let their guard down or fail in carrying out orders then. Yes.

The only part that remains to be understood is why then and where the point of failure was.

Then do you think on a battlefield one army should try to spare the lives of those they fight against? A war can't be won that way.

It depends on the Soldier and the Commander, doesn't it? Who's life is worth more.

No, it doesn't. You can't weigh lives like that, one against another. That isn't war. That isn't a Soldier and a Commander. That's... something different. Something personal. That's murder, or sacrifice, not collateral damage.

You know, it probably depends on the circumstances and how important the mission is.

Those are the sorts of questions that leaders face all the time, and the answer is never easy.

Ideally, there would be a solution so that the mission could be completed without sacrifice.

[He could certainly find a way, because that's what he does.]

However, to answer your question, and based on what little information this scenario has given me, I would choose the life of the operative over the mission.

Edited 2021-08-27 19:24 (UTC)

[There's a long pause before his next message comes back.]

Not necessarily. Wars are won when the opposing side is no longer fighting, correct? The outcome doesn't require the opposing side to be killed. Sometimes it's enough to convince them to lay down their weapons.

If your cause is righteous, then the effort should be made to convince your opponent to stand down. If they can't be convinced or subdued, and they are endangering yourself or others, only then should taking a life be carefully considered.

Does that make sense?

In the Galactic Alliance, without question, this course of action would be reasonable. It is understood that lives may need to be sacrificed for the overall good of the mission. If the mission fails, it is not only a failure for the unit assigned to undertake it but also endangers humanity's continued existence.

It is also understood that each individual has value. The Galactic Alliance does not waste resources needlessly. Therefore, if one must make sacrifices, clear regulations determine the best course of action.

Nonetheless, sometimes there are those who break regulations and make decisions based on sentiment and not reasoning, as they should, and this I still do not understand.

thats for the commander to decide. and trust me, its not a decision a good commander will take lightly. skilled soldiers of any kind are a resource too valuable to waste, so when one of your options for a failed mission is to kill that soldier, then you need to make damn sure its your last resort.

I wouldn't call that a backup plan. I'd call that a desperate attempt by a leader who's trying to save face.

Any military operation is bigger than one leader's ego. If they can't handle setbacks and failures, and lash out instead at those who support and believe in them, they aren't qualified to lead.

I can't comment on the reliability of any operative in question, since you know the scenario better than I do. But it's still the duty of a commander to pick out the correct person for a given role.

A soldier would know that losing their life is a potential for any action they take, even more so for something undercover. The risks for failure for such a mission could result in far worse consequences than the death of one person. If I were the solider, I'd find it reasonable because I know that any mistake I make can be deadly to me. I don't need to be told that I could be killed by my own commander for a mission to realize that it could happen. People can killed by bad decisions, bad strategy and plenty more. That's just how battles go.

[And once again, Walter responds without creating an account. But he doesn't use text like the others. He wants her to know who is talking to her.]

...Did your commander kill you?

[Decisions taken. Past tense. She was writing about something that had already happened.]

the people i used to work for would say
yeah
sacrifice the operative to save the mission
100% of the time
but uh
in the case of Bees
capital B intentional lol
that's not really an option ?
so it doensn't really matter
Bees can be killed but they come back
i guess u learned something ?? maybe
i've had to die in order to get the job done so
it's a thing that happens ??

me personally tho
i wouldn't kill somebody who couldn't come back
not over a mission
i wouldn't wanna make that decision
i'd rather do the job myself
then if i fucked up its on me
but i guess that's why i'd never get promoted haha

if everybody agreed to that then yeah. if u take a job and u fuck it up and knew the risk u deserve exactly what u get.

if that wasnt the agreement and someone tries to kill u heh then u better try and survive out of fuckin spite cuz now u gotta score to settle

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Ninth: A Tactical Decision (Text; anon)

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