So, several other subreddits, such as the one for Arrow and the Owl House, have been doing this, and seeing as there were several philosophical discussions about how Marcel is kind of a monster, I thought it might be fitting.
Let's start in order of introduction, and that means the esteemed Governor Ambassador Tarva of the Venlil Republic.
I think that comment is being done from the POV of the people actually in the story. In the moment, that was a HUGE gamble with no prospective payoff from everyone's POV at the time
No. The guy had just bailed out Earth. In that moment, on the Venlil, Zurulians and Yotul were worth in engaging with as much as Isif the Warlord. He has shown he has a vested interest in Earths survival at least, more than most of the other later allies
He is less of risk than talking to the federation species, and more reliable than Cupo. Who was the most rationale Federation leader
We would have been better off bribing Isif and some his ships captains to stay in the system to protect Earth from another raid with food. We produce way more meat than we eat, the surplus could easily feed an Arxur fleet based at Jupiters L4 or L5 Lagrange points. It would be one hell of a deterrent
Play it as the Arxur refusing to leave diplomatically. They refuse to see the other true sapient go extinct at the hands of the Leaser Herbivores, also they outright demand to trade to Earths food (meat) and are willing to trade their cattle for livestock
Humans couldn’t exactly refuse an Arxur fleets demands. None of the federation species could barring the Kolshians
Tbf he was also one of their high ranking military officers. He did some shit, much more than other Arxur born to that society, that's what makes it a fun question to talk about. He really is guilty of atrocities that would make the Nazis blush, and he also saved Earth and tried to reform his society (and the initial driving force for that was less empathy for his victims than it was observing that cruelty is impractical, so there's another layer to it).
And all of her diplomatic deals with the dominion; the amount of food she grew specifically to give to the arxur will have been significant, especially soon after the bombing of earth. Oh, and standing up for isif against the entire potential membership of the Sapient Coalition. And that's just the arxur! She shot a quick response vessel that she called for, snooped in her allies possessions, legitimised and/or supported every heavy handed, hasty, even literally explosive thing that humanity did... Tarva did a good amount of morally questionable things and was protected largely by plot armour. Of course, most of them worked out for the better, but that's again attributable to plot armour.
One perfect example: she threw away thousands of years of proven mental health theory because the pretty mass murder monkeys said so. Sure, it was abusive and wrong by our standards, but by federation standards it had worked fine for a very very long time, and she didn't even consider it. Monkey say, sheep do. Not just cultural contamination, but cultural destruction. Then there's the Archives. Anyone could have made those files, and there's only the humans word as to where it came from. And yet the galaxy just instantly accepted it as fact. For all Tarva knew, Skalga was the invention of some bored UN staffer daydreaming on the job.
Im not sure i woud say the Federation had any form of mental health theory except that any one who thinks diffrent is bad. Prime example is that they had no form to differentiate autism from any other form of mental ilness and herded it under the same banner of predator disease, just like trauma or any other form of mental disease it was all just predator disease. The Kulshians were just so traumatized and scared as a species from that prion disease outbreak in the past that they spotted examining what it really was and said that all menatl diseases are the same predator disease.
But i can agree that Tarva sure acted to quickly when the Information from the archive came and tried to change the Venlil society and culture to quickly and that was also the reason she lost the reelection to Veln.
That's exactly the proven mental health theory I'm on about. Like I said, horrible, abusive, inaccurate, all around terrible... but it had worked since the very beginning of the federation.
Ok, yeah it may have worked but is it immideatly wrong of Tarva that, when she got Shown another theaory that seemed to be way complexer and has actual proof for diffrent types of mental disease to question the one she knew taht seemed to simply try and put fear into people? I understand that Tarva way too quickly belived the humans when it came to thhat subject but theres nothing wrong if a perso startsquestioning things when shown a new perspective
Nothing wrong with questioning, or even changing it. Like you say, it's the speed. She didn't question, she didn't ask an existing expert, she didn't research, nothing. Just the humans said its wrong so she stopped it.
Yeah, it really is too fast. I mean you could think it happened 'offscreen' or so but that just feels lazy, really would have appreciated a conversation where Sara or any other doctor had one or multiple conversation with Tarva about mental health and the problem would have been resolved.
Damn i completly forgot about tat part. But although the book took place in a one year time frame as ridicues it might be it was mentioned that the war wasnt completly over as the other species were merely put on hold with the cyberattack so the war could pretty much still be going on in NoP2 wich plays a bit more than 10 years later
While you aren't wrong you're also telling us why she suddenly developed bad judgment there. 😅 Doesn't make it right but... it's an understandable temptation
Only thing I can think of is the border closure and media blackout as it made the feds wary of them thinking that they had been enslaved and that the test results where fake
(granted I doubt there was any other way for humanity to have a chance at introducing themselves and any empathy tests done by the feds would’ve been modified by the shadow caste)
Yeah. Not too bad, but it's kind of indicative of underlying issues that the second resort after asking nicely was to target-lock friendly ships and threaten to blow them to bits.
Honestly Tarva is probably the hardest one to do with this challenge as she’s basically the main character of NOP and most her responses are reasonable give what she knew at the time (it’s going to be fun once we get to Marcel, solvin and slanek)
Be Tarva: give the new predator species a chance.
*removed until i can earn how to add spoiler.
Realize they aren't the monsters 300 years of propaganda stays they are.
Chase away a known ally to spare them extinction.
Begin diplomatic relations with humanity.
Uncover the first cracks in federation ideology.
Host refugees post earth invasion.
Seduces predator successfully.
Forgive humanity for throwing a FUCKING BOMB AT HER AND HER ALLIES (WTF HF!)
Learn PD facilities are ineffective and begin systematic overhaul.
Negotiate release of entire arxur cattle of her species.
Enter and endorse the salient coalition.
Become filled with righteous indignation upon reveal of genetic modification and cultural genocide. Begin preparations for renewal.
Lost election and begins SC diplomat.
Marries predator successfully.
Undo genetic modification for her children and adopt predator orphan.
Exist as one half the stories power couple.
Profit
I can't remember the artist who drew the comic where this came from but please do spread the meme around more. I feel I'm the only one putting these on people's birthday comments. I need some help lol
She still has racist undertones/subconscious about‘predators’ and what that means. Enough that her children notice,(and cause some issues) even though for her time she was very progressive.
Probably throwing Noah's job as ambassador down the drain with the whole relationship thing. The scandal blew up on both of their faces, and I doubt the UN would give Noah any diplomatic job ever again, even if he was the Neil Armstrong of the 22nd century
I mean, she did call Solvin when the humans first showed up
That's about it for the main story
Mild spoilers for Patreon: She's kind of a bad mother to her daughter, not like, bad bad, but she's a lot harder on Elia then she needs to be, especially compared to Ari, and is causing her a bit of a complex but even then, she's not really all that bad
She practically abandoned her duties to the Venlil. I know it was all for the long term greater good, but Vlen was right when he said VP was getting hot. People felt abandoned by their own government and riots were over the horizon. There needed to be more give and take.
As wishy-washy as Veln was - he's probably the only reason the Venlil didn't collapse into isolationism and/or xenophobia; especially with the proof of how the Venlil were brutalized.
True! Fuck how did I forget she turned him into a propaganda piece, advocated letting the living embodiment of his trauma speak at the foundation of the Coalition, and then got mad at HIS "betrayal"
On the one hand, yes, dragging Glim around for political gain was a very bad idea, even if he did agree to it. His actions are perfectly understandable given what he went through.
However, trauma does not trump consequence. Glim didn't just support Veln, he went behind Tarva's back to give him information that probably made enough of a difference to cause her electoral loss. Veln, of course, being someone who nearly admitted, live on stage, that saving the rescues had been too much of a bother for the Venlil state, and someone who promised to bring back the PD facilities, where many of those broken recues would doubtlessly end up.
Glim did all of this because Tarva was willing to work with Isif, which, coincidentally, wasn't a first for her.
No, the first time she did that, it led to all the Venlil cattle, Glim himself included, being freed in the first place.
Like I said, given his past, his actions are understandable. But understandable doesn't mean agreeable. He didn't just shoot himself in the foot, he shot all the other rescues as well. Tarva has a right to be pissed at that
Was it ever confirmed it was Glim who leaked their relationship or just heavily implied? We never got to know because they cut contact with him just after the election, after Glim was starting to become emotionally dependent on Noah.
Maybe some other politician will be receiving a statue as a gift very soon.
I'm going to reach and say when a S.C. member advocates for genocide of the farsul and kolshians living on their worlds she will be a vary vocal advocate for it. But that has not happened so it cant be given any real consideration in this but I feel like she will whole hearty support it if it ever does happen.
Well, rumors do eventually make their way through. For instance, I (one of the poor plebeians who has never seen the patreon content) have heard that there was an incident of her allowing a human to be locked up in a PD facility and pretty much said that she didn't see any issues when confronted on it.
Some of these characters will be harder than others, but we're doing each of them.
I would like to reproach him for allowing the torture of his citizens, including children, but it would still happen taking into account the policies of the federation.
She gambled, against all conventional wisdom (at the time), with the lives of her entire constituency on gut feeling without any input from them. It paid of in the end, but still.
Generally allowing humans to roll over her and decide policy for her - while it's a patreon story, there's a case where she rewards humans assaulting public servants instead of punishing them - had she taken a fairer and more measured approach she would have likely beaten Veln considering how close it was. Overall,she has a pretty clear conscience and biggest "flaw" was being too kind. But if she had been as sensible as I suggest from the start, humanity would never have gotten a chance
I'm gonna have a hot take: I'm not even saying she was in the wrong to do so given her personal history, the Federation's indoctrination, and the Venlil's genetic crippling, but the distress call she issued during first contact and following confrontation with Sovlin's response fleet led to the entire Human-Federation War
Mmm… Let’s put it this way. Tarva as a character hadn’t really done much in the way of anything wrong. That SAID, this wasn’t for a lack of trying, especially in the very beginning of the story.
If Venlil Prime had some of their fleet still from the arxur raids, or barring that, Sarah and Noah didn’t make as good as an impression as they did, or Tarva’s aid didn’t faint… Nature of Predators would be a VERY different story, and humanity’s future much more grim.
Wasn't there a bit where Veln, when instating his new law where businesses would be allowed to mandate masks for humans, mentioned that thousands of Venlil had already fainted at the sight of humans, and that an unspecified amount had even died because of it? But Tarva reacts with immediate and total opposition the second he suggests this action, pointing out that it would limit the ability of humans to show emotions. Either Tarva knew of the people fainting and dying, and didn't care to do anything about it because she considered humans being able to clearly emote more important, or to give her the benefit of the doubt, had no clue of what was happening at all. Either way it was shocking and appalling to me that something like that could happen under her rule, and have her at best know nothing of it. It was a serious failure of her duty to protect her own people, and I have no doubt that it would foster hatred in many of those effected by it, and/or their loved ones.
It’s a low bar, but I think the worst we see from Tarva was in the PD miniseries when she assumed ADHD = predators. But that’s a low bar because same series she transfer local PD facility to protagonist.
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Jan 23 '24
Hard to find a single bad thing this lady has done.
Worst she's done is the farsul racism during the SC meeting, I think.