[Media] Controversy Surrounds Book on Donnel Udina

Controversy Surrounds Book on Donnel Udina

Michael Pierson, Interstellar Standard

Thomas Gottlieb, a historian and author at the University of Constant in Eden Prime, has come under fire in regards to his biography of former human councilor Donnel Udina.

Veil of Power: The Rise and Fall of Donnel Udina covers the disgraced councilor’s latter political life, from his tenure as ambassador to the Citadel prior to humanity’s invitation to the Council to his Councilorship during the early months of the Reaper War. Udina, who collaborated with the now-defunct Cerberus organization in organizing a coup d’etat aimed to overthrow the Council, was killed by Commander Shepard as C-Sec routed the terrorist organization from the station.

Gottlieb has insisted that his work in no way is intended to glorify or revise Udina’s reputation. “As a historian, I feel that there are lessons to be learned from Udina’s fall from grace,” he said in a statement to the Interstellar Standard. “His ambition. His desire to advance humanity’s standing. How his desperation to liberate Earth drove him into the arms of Cerberus. I know there are many who were hurt by the consequences of his actions, and I in no way intend to justify them. But I feel there needs to be a record set...There is still much we do not know. Was he indoctrinated? Was he coerced by Cerberus, or did he do this by his own free will? This book was made so that perhaps we can understand what drove a man like him to commit such an act.”

Publisher Reliquary-Press has issued a similar statement, saying that “It is a book on perhaps the most controversial figure in human history. It is one we feel deserves to be told so that the galaxy can understand the context”.

Others were not so pleased. C-Sec Sergeant Tyrix Cavan, who assisted in the defense of the station during the coup, said “I’ve heard all the excuses: ‘Udina did it to save Earth.’ ‘He snapped.’ ‘You need to know the context.’ All the excuses people made for him, including the guy who wrote this book, I can care less about. All I need to know is the fact that lot of good men and women in C-Sec died that day, people I had served with the force for years. And it was all because of him.”

I already hate this book if only for the fact it reminded me Udina ever existed when I'd almost pushed him out of my brain forever. Prick.

Perpetrators of war, genocide, and other heinous crimes often have their stories told via biography. Nadi turned a planet to ashes. Hitler killed millions for their ancestry. Saren's destruction can still be felt on the Citadel. Vidmir killed dozens, maybe hundreds in her quest for eternal life.

Every single one of them has at least one biography written about them. I fail to see why controversy must arise in the case of Udina, when many of the biographies listed above are considered 'celebrated' works on insight into the criminal psyche.

Because it's been hardly a year since it's happened. The biographies written about Hitler were written decades afterwards. His autobiography was considered paper trash until around the same time, and some still believe so.

As I recall, it was the attack on the Citadel by Cerberus forces brought there by Udina that galled the asari and salarians into finally committing resources. I doubt he planned it out like that but hey, that's more then most people did for the war.


Who is this person?

Asari. Look up Maiden Rebellion, by Loreth.

That response fails to answer the question. I admit, I only know of this 'Hitler' in passing, but why should an unbiased source of information be seen with scorn?

Because it's impossible for anyone to be unbiased about the subject one year after the event. Especially since the war was on a galactic level. Noone came out of the war without an experience, except maybe the salarians on Sur'Kesh. Not one person, not the writer, not the editor, not the readers are going to be unbiased about the subject, nor will they be for another couple of decades.

Because the drooling masses like to forget that bad things happen. They'd much rather get up in the morning, go to their boring ass nine to five job, then come back home, screw their spouses, and play with their kids, never once needing to think about the fact that horrible things have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen. Ignorance is bliss and when you threaten to take that away people will whine like a toddler denied candy.

Fair enough; bias exists and will continue to exist. But this is no reason why an author should not attempt to use fresh material to help us understand the galactic war. Udina was not some winged monstrosity that steals the youngest of us while we sleep; he was a man, like all of us, who was corrupted by a want for power.

Pompous claims do not further anyone's cause, lest of all my own. The "drooling masses," as you describe, have lost nearly everything in this war. They are hurt, with good reason, and to paint them as fools with no intellectual or moral concerns is stupid.

I agree that it's no reason to stop the author from doing it. I'm not trying to justify the controversy, I'm just explaining why it exists.

Yeahhh...I think it's too soon to pick at the wounds yet. Maybe give it a decade or two before people start churning out biographies for TIM and Udina and who else there are.

Ah, the double-edged sword of digging into why the infamous of history did what they did. Someone will always complain one way or the other. Frankly, yes, a year after the whole mess is a bit soon, but I'd rather at least have some information out there to debate and digest than having to wait until people feel it's polite to talk about it.

And if we were to wait a few decades or centuries before writing such a work, much of the details would have been lost or distorted with time.

Given that it took an uprising on my home world to actually make things more egalitarian I can't exactly say I disagree with Udina's methods, though hindsight allows us to make the conclusion that, had Cerberus succeeded, the war likely would have been lost, given Cerberus' indoctrination. My condolences are with those who lost people they cared about in the coup though but there's a reason that personal feelings and politics, history, etc don't mesh well.

It leads to such things as historical revision and corruption within the system.

The controversy is entirely understandable, but if you ask me Sgt Cavan's comments are a convincing illustration of why our historians should be looking at matters like this. I don't begrudge the man his feelings at all, but if any sort of explanation less absolute than "Udina participated in the attempted coup for selfish reasons alone and with no outside pressures bearing on him" is rejected out of hand as 'excusing' his actions, we may as well just forget about the whole notion of learning from history; at least, learning any lesson besides 'Don't give authority to cunning monsters,' since that's about the only interpretation left.

Not even then, I'd suggest. I'm no historian myself, but in what I did study (and I had some agreement from my elders, I think it's fair to say) I never felt the elimination of bias was the objective, but rather accounting for bias. Neither time nor distance nor even disconnection from an event will invariably make one impartial to its nature - even supposing a hypothetical reader were utterly unaffected by the Reaper War, if she were ambitious herself perhaps she'd find that aspect of Udina not so disagreeable, and ascribe his obvious failure as a leader to the other factors at play; a woman who had in her life been faced with an impossible choice of her own might feel sympathy for the man trapped between the apparent destruction of his kind and a demon offering aid.

Certainly true - also the contrary, with time more evidence may emerge, and as the pain fades to memory our thoughts on the war may become less distorted. As they say at home, the Matriarch listens to the Maiden. (That doesn't invariably translate well - bear in mind that the Maiden listening to the Matriarch is a given, it's intended to express both at once.)

Jesus Christ, people. The man was complicit in a violent coup d'état, and he is getting comparisons to Hitler?

I may be no fan of Udina, and had his scheme achieved fruition this whole war would probably have been lost; but if there is a scale of atrocities, he definitely ranks on the shallow end. Hell, there are beloved founders of nations and great racial heroes who have been responsible for more bloodshed than he has. Genghis Khan got a 40-metre statue and no one cries foul; Donnel Udina gets an unflattering biography and the torches come out.

I don't get the whole "it's too soon" thing. It's humans, right? Wouldn't it be better to write the book while everyone still remembers everything?

I lost my foster-mother in the Cerberus attack and I'm going to read the damn book.

Consensus reached.

With current methods of multiple data redundancy, early and repeated documentation is desired for maximal yield in examination. However, multiple paging and improper classification errors indicate an approximated 85% chance of “significant” factual inaccuracy within this work.

The likelihood of this book’s relevance on ascertaining motive for the 2186 Cerberus Citadel Insurgency is low.

Delegating queries of “Motive: Donnel Udina” to low priority.

Oh please, controversy over trying to examine why facists do terrible things and what drives them to do so. I'm all for the book, anything that exposes or informs the masses about government corruption, conspiracy and exploitation is fine by me. Besides, there really is quite a lot we don't know about Udina's sudden joining with Cerberus. If this book can shed light on the matter maybe it will convince people to take a better look at their leaders before they put them into office.

Coincidently, this would be the point I'd go on an extended politically charged rant about how Udina was a Cerberus plant from the start and got what he deserved... but I don't do that anymore. So I'll just say he was a racist asshole like most other people no doubt believe and get on with my day.

It is entirely possible to come out of something without being biased. More so, it is entirely possible for people to set aside whatever personal bias they have in regards to their professional occupation. A biographical editor, for example, or anyone who has studied history on a academic level - these are people trained to examine a subject as unbiased professionals. I can give you a whole list of occupations that require any personal feeling to be set aside at a moment's notice to be able to judge anything objectively.

As for the nature of bias itself, especially in regards to topics in history, it doesn't just seemingly stop existing in a couple decades, or even a couple centuries. You and I are both human, we could look back on our Renaissance and be entirely biased towards one side or another. A salarian whose ancestors never saw the Krogan Rebellions can still be biased towards the genophage and its effects. Quarians, three hundred years later, still struggle with seeing the geth in any other light than the one they have known for centuries.

If historians waited until people were 'unbiased' towards it, thousands of years of knowledge would be lost. Humanity would still be trapped in the Bronze Age, if we even made it that far, and I shudder to think of where others would be. I understand that wounds may be fresh, but, as in forensic science, every day that passes is another piece of memory that fades, another scrap of evidence lost - another moment of history behind us.