[Politics] AFS Calls for Council Seat Removal

AFS Calls for Council Seat Removal

The past week has seen a sharp increase in protests across Citadel Space as the Political Action Committee “Accountability For Sur’kesh” has questioned the legitimacy of the salarian Council membership.

“A Council member’s duty is to protect Citadel Space as a whole,” explained Takus Tran, event coordinator for AFS. “Where was the Union during the Reaper War? Where was it during the single most important threat the galaxy has ever faced? Nowhere, because Allied forces wouldn’t pander to their little games.”

The tone was similar at the Presidium protest, with over 400 members of various races calling for the salarians’ removal from the Council.

“[The salarians] can’t even feel our pain,” argued guest speaker Opheus Lonad (H-Tier 14, Palaven). “Out of everyone in the galaxy, they’re the only ones with an intact homeworld, the only ones with a fully functioning industry. They should have been spearheading that war, but they could barely send a token resistance.”

While many protesters stayed “on-message” throughout the event, several members had their own to make. One salarian protester, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated that he was there as a reminder of his own species’ dissent from his government.

“What I want is for our political caste to take a hard look at themselves, and spur my people into limiting our Dalatrasses’ power,” he said.

The protests were largely ignored by those uninvolved, though the Salarian political body has expressed mild contempt for the movement. Dalatrass Mendon (Miscigle, Jaeto) in particular noted covert actions taken throughout the war and afterward a statement condemning the protests.

“This is an outrage,” she said. “If you think we just sat there during the war and did nothing, you are grossly mistaken...We kept the galactic economy running, and overtly supported our allies as best we could. We were conducting thousands of simultaneous operations to give us an edge on the Reapers, and the worst simply came to worst.”

Mendon declined to comment on the Union’s wartime operations, citing operational secrecy, though she further noted the salarians' involvement in galactic reconstruction.

“The Council’s duties are not solely based in waging war,” she stated.

Further protests are scheduled for this week.

I'm not sure what to think on this...yeah, Union sat on their amhpibian asses for the war, but naturally they can't tell they've got operatives plotting to blow up Reapers here and there in the most ingenius way possible, and we can't forget the amount of relief-work Sur'Kesh is putting out with their intact society and government to support rebuilding.

I heard even the Volus sent more armed forces to protect the Crucible than the Dalatress. It's about time someone tries to call them out on this. Salarian people must be disgusted with their government.

"Conducting simulations"?
Millions of people died on Earth. More on Palaven and Thessia.
Suicide missions were taking place all over the galaxy.
The citadel was attacked.
Cerberus were commiting this century's second largest genocide.
The Reapers were commiting the largest in recorded history.
And the Salarians were playing fucking computer games and whining about the Genophage cure?
Fuck
that
shit

She said "OPERATIONS," not "SIMULATIONS," you hamfisted, blithering idiot. Perhaps if you spent half your energy in reading comprehension instead of self-righteous posturing, you would have noticed.

Is it any surprise that I love this? I've got a playlist of the best speeches linked [here]. Like, triple kudos to the Salarians that went out. It takes a ton of courage to call your own culture on it's bullshit.

I know they're not going to pull the council seat ever. But keeping the pressure on might lead to some kind of accountability.

I wish the protests were a bit broader...Seriously, pretty much the entire Council had its thumbs up it's various orifices regarding the Reaper threat. None of them took On the other hand, the high ranking Hierarchy, Alliance, Republic officials we could blame? A lot of them died.

No. It's been a year since the war. That's plenty of time for the frogs to declassify anything about any operations against the Reapers the Union might have ordered. They don't even have to give specifics, only that such operations existed. But they're not declassifying that information, because the information isn't there, because they did no such thing. The frogs left everyone else in the galaxy to die in the hopes that they would have a chance after the mechasquids were done with our corpses. Fuck them.

There's no precedent for the removal of someone from the Council, but the salarian government needs to take a close look at how they govern their people and what their interests actually are.

Also I like that. That's good. They overtly supported everyone else as best they could. By.... what exactly? Sitting their fleets over Sur'kesh with their thumbs stuffed up their cloacas? How helpful! Clearly they were anally masturbating the Reapers to death. What the hell were the rest of you doing?

You are completely full of shit.

No. Some of us were actively fighting the Reapers around the galaxy.

I don't get this logic, really, I don't. Do you idiots seriously think the Union sent us all a mass e-mail telling every salarian in existence to not participate in the war?

If you hate the Union, fine, that's cool. A lot of us (like me) aren't happy with how Linron handled it. But laying out these blanket statements and saying the salarian people didn't do shit while the galaxy was burning is stupid

These people are fucking idiots.

At the end of the day, the Council represents the strongest, wealthiest, most influential species in the galaxy. The Union is all of the above. The points they insist on making are exactly why no one can afford to lose them. Their homeworld is untouched, their infrastructure is largely undamaged, and their industry can't be matched by anyone else. Is the gravity of that somehow beyond these people? Can they not put these things together and assume they're meaningful?

Yeah, they didn't help out much in the war. Maybe we'll never find out the extent of how much or how little because the salarians like secrets. But the war is over. There's literally nothing anyone can do about it now. It's like all those humans whining about 314 thirty years after it happened. And it did. So everyone should sit down and deal with that. Don't think that I don't know that the salarians cost the Hierarchy time and lives with its' games. But they're here now. And some of these people should just take their fucking medicine.

We can keep playing the shame game and hope it makes us feel better about ourselves (protip: it will not), but the righteous indignation that these people milling about pretending to stand for something are displaying is just sickening.

Espiza surely you don't abide by the Dalatress' decision right? They pulled your fleets, played it safe while the galaxy was burning! I'm not like the people who diss the salarian race because of that, I know a lot of salarians fought whatever the politics said. But you can't defend their decisions. This is a black mark on the salarian's history, take my word.

Edit : Steel_unifier : What about accountability? The way I see it nobody really wants the salarians off their seat, but everyone wants the dalatress to be forced to look at what they did. And maybe encourage the salarian people to operate some much needed changes in their political system.

I'm wounded. You did absolutely nothing to address the point. Why would these operations need to remain classified? The war is over. The Reapers are gone. The Union is being called on to prove they actually did a damn thing to help the rest of the galaxy and they won't produce anything. Maybe the proof just isn't there. I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Sure some frogs contributed. Individuals. A few groups. Your government did jack and shit and they should have to answer for that. Just like the turians, or humanity, or the asari, or any future Council member should have to answer for not living up to their responsibilities. And one of the responsibilities of being a Council member is defending C-Space. Unless those responsibilities just don't apply to the SU. Because what? The SU is more special than everyone else somehow?

I sure as fucking shrell can. Linron’s a twit, but the Union also recognizes its greatest weakness in that we are absolutely terrible at fighting an overt war . And as Mendon said, we aren’t on the council because we’re good at war – if that were true, the only races on there would be the turians and humans.

We’re on there because we’re good at other things that preserve the galaxy.


The Reapers aren’t gone, they’re just not massacring everything in sight now. Exactly how is revealing possibly vital intel while the enemy is still around good tactical advice?

You know, I wish more people would understand what it's like for some salarians these days. It's like we're caught between the teacher and the rest of the playground. Despite what some of you believe, we don't all cheerfully support whatever nonsense is going on back home, and we get why people are angry. Really. We have our own issues with the Union, and some of us think it's spent too much time holding incredible influence without much of a plan, besides "constant meddling". We get what some of the humans, etc, are saying - plenty of us were outside the Basin during the war, you know, being one of the galaxy's leading races and all. We experienced what you did. So I don't appreciate the Union saying this is nonsense, but I also don't get why so many people act like the government's decision is the people's decision and salarians all sat on their behinds. Don't take it out on us because the Dalatrasses got all paralyzed and inefficient.

I also wonder what they think would happen if the Union *were* somehow pushed out of its council seat by the rest of the galaxy, however that's supposed to work. How would that help? Wouldn't that just make things worse? Why alienate the only government with any actual resources and a functioning infrastructure, the one who's helping coordinate the rebuilding? I mean, I'm not enthusiastic about having the galaxy run on the inevitable salariantics either, but what's the alternative? Drive a bigger wedge between your best source of aid and the peoples that need it?

And what a great record you have with that.

All that rhetoric must let you sleep easy, it's one thing to claim that another species has fundamental issues and should introduce needed changes, it's another thing entirely to actually put any meaning into what those changes should be. It's like all those humans obsessed with injecting 'human rights' into discussions concerning purely turian matters. At best, it's eyerolling. At worst, it's fucking insulting.

Moreover, what about accountability?

Do we want to sink them financially by demanding reparation payments? Hold them up in meaningless condemnations and get salarians even angrier at us? I don't get this obsession with closure that humans have.

"Plenty of time?" Oh, that's good. That's really good. You have no fucking idea how classified information is handled, do you?

Operational secrets are kept classified for decades or longer. The Alliance still has sealed files on the First Contact War, and I would be very surprised if the Hierarchy didn't have a few of their own too. Bloody hell, the UNAS only released all of their records on the Second American Civil War in the 2170, over 75 years after the war took place.

Anything the frogs had planned for a year ago is still very sensitive information. Most surviving assets or methods they used against the Reapers would be capable of reuse under different contexts. The STG isn't going to jeopardize the safety of its agents (or the success of its future operations) in order to placate a bunch of bitching protestors.

400 people in a protest?

The movement's irrelevant in its entirety, nevermind that it is based upon some immensely shaky footing.

Yep.

I can do pithy too.