I’ve mentioned before how much of an asset the journals of
my predecessors have been. Getting their thoughts, their recollections and
observations, their perspective on events and people and other matters at such
an intimate level is very informative and had been of immense aid. Between
them, Sel, Jelek and Annika left behind quite a lot for me to work from, even
if each has their own way of recording those events and their own idiosyncrasies
in their retellings. For all her self-absorbed flighty nature, Sel is surprisingly
verbose her writing has an amazing depth to it.
Sadly, my own father was far less detailed and thorough in
his own efforts. His journals have long periods between entries, and many of
them are far from complete. A number of major events in the unit’s history receive
only the briefest of notes, and often he just skips over things altogether.
There’s times where they become almost frustrating, as I go to them looking for
his thoughts on some matter, only to find a blank or a couple of hastily
scrawled notes. While it’s tempting to also point out that his period as
commander also included the golden age of the Republic and the greatest waning
of the mercenary trade since the fall of the Star League, there’s also that
wish that he’d written something.
With that brevity of course comes one great mystery. His
journals yield no clues whatsoever as to why he took his leave from the unit in
August 3135 or where he went to. All I know is that he was last seen heading
into Prefecture X, and that I can assume that he is inside the walls of
Fortress Republic.
My father’s journals are not the only places where there are
gaps, however. What’s more curious is that those gaps are very different in
nature to those he left.
Large chunks of Annika’s journals during the mid to late
Jihad are simply missing. There’s inconsistent sections from 3075 through to
3081 that clearly are gone. It’s not that she neglected to record what was
going n by any means, but rather that certain parts of them have been removed
or eliminated with little indication as to why. The result is that her recounting
of her experiences (and the unit as a whole) of the most important conflict of
the 31st century are far from complete. Added to this, Sel’s
journals from the same time show a similar level of missing content.
Why is a mystery, and one that I can only speculate at. My
first and most likely theory is that whatever events they were recounting are
still considered to be classified by one or more of the parties involved with
them. This, of course, can only make me wonder as to what exactly happened
during those years, what my grandmother saw and recorded that was considered to
be too much of a risk for her to recount or pass on. While yes, military
secrecy and operational security are a key part of the mercenary life, this
goes beyond even that.
Many other Mercenaries have kept similar journals, even
those that were involved with the Jihad (and those of many that didn’t survive
it have become available one way or another) and none that I have seen feature the
same level of clear censorship or redaction. (The McKinnon dairies were
especially illuminating). Often, where something has been removed, there will
be notes to the effect of ‘I cannot talk about what happened, but this is how I
feel’, which can be very illuminating in and of itself.
And yet, Annika and Sel’s journals lack even that. I can
only imagine that whatever content was removed from them occurred after the
fact. This only beggars the further questions as to what it was that was so
sensitive and why then was it removed as a postscript with so little effort to
cover it up. Sadly I suspect that any answers that I may find lie on the other
side of Fortress Republic, shielded from us by the horrible secret of space.
Or maybe I’m just being overly dramatic about it. I suspect
so.
What does catch my eye, however, is a number of
inconsistencies that occur around these events. As probably the most glaring example,
every source I’ve seen lists Raymond’s Roughnecks as being destroyed in combat
with the Irregulars in June 3075. And yet, Annika’s own journals mention Nina
Raymond’s death in combat circa mid 3076, while having any indications of where
or exactly how removed. Any explanation for this inconsistency probably lies
within those missing pages. And that’s just the first one that comes to mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment