The fate of Kadara Port

Like I said, sipping Tann's kool aid. 

In all seriousness, I think the situation can can be likened to those who played the OT, and those who didn't. The newcomers won't really catch the full meaning of the OT references, I imagine. Similarly, I guess Kandros' humoring of Tann in those emails didn't land for you, since you lacked the novel's context. Taken in the context of Kandros' later revealed contempt for Tann (really everyone's contempt), it isn't too hard to put the pieces together.

In regard to Sloane, she's changed a lot. I kept waiting to see her ease up, but she didn't much. It is pretty realistic, in a way. They must've experienced, and done, many horrible things in order to survive. Some things leave a permanent mark. Doing "whatever it takes" can be more than it's worth, at times. It made me think of The Last of Us, and similarly bleak settings and situations. (There's also the brain issues exiles displayed. Maybe she's experiencing a touch of this heightened aggression, as well?) She made it work, though, in the end. She kept the exiles alive, until a Pathfinder could start cleaning up the Nexus' mess.

No one has mentioned much about Tann. I figured he deserved some background. Ryder learns that he was "Number 8", and that he was originally just a bean counter. What isn't addressed is the method of his rise. His name appears in the Nexus computer system as emergency "Acting Director", apparently based entirely upon seniority within AI enrollment. They had to awaken him to authorize emergency repairs, and he started being a pain in the ass immediately, before he even knew the situation.

Tann's racism toward the krogan, and his "social stupidity", caused nearly every problem they encountered. He's not a bad dude at heart; he's just supremely unqualified. Tann's appointment was so non-sensical that I kept waiting to learn that it was a form of sabotage. Maybe it's yet to be revealed? Sloane later lamented that she hadn't declared an immediate state of emergency, taken control alongside Kesh, and simply never awakened him. Hindsight...

I dislike Tann because of the way he treats the Krogan, as well as the fact that he wants to screw over the Angara whenever possible to put the Milky Way species on top in Andromeda. He's an asshole, but I have to say, I don't know what the Nexus would look like if Sloane had been the leader from what we've seen. She's not a competent leader. She seems like a good soldier, but not a leader. I imagine she would have been good as chief of security, if things hadn't gone south. Her leadership on Kadara was just awful. It was a really unsustainable situation. They weren't adapting, like you see the Collective trying to. They were making enemies of the Angara. They relied on dwindling supplies pilfered from the Nexus and were constantly banishing people to die in the Badlands. In the end, Sloane needs Ryder to save her, because she makes an incredibly stupid mistake going out to a cave alone to meet some shady merc leader with no reason to expect she won't be ambushed. Sloane is just really, really stupid.

Though, I guess a lot of what Tann did was also stupid. Turning on the Krogan actually made no sense. There wasn't really anything sustainable about his approach, either, without the Pathfinder. It just hadn't gone so immediately south as Sloane on Kadara. But Reyes doesn't like Tann either, it turns out. He seems happy to deal with the Pathfinder and to align with the Initiative, but he says he left the Nexus because he didn't like the way Tann was leading and thought he could do better himself. IMO, it looks like he really can do better than Sloane or Tann. The Collective is well stocked. They're learning to live with the environment on Kadara and they've enlisted the help of the locals. With the exception of Kaetus, the Collective also seems more loyal to Reyes than the Outcasts are to Sloane. I think it's fairly hard to argue that Sloane is a better leader than Reyes, based on the evidence. But I can see why some people think that's not necessarily positive, if they're hoping to just take the port back later, anyway. Personally, I like that the Collective is strong and makes the Angara stronger. I think the Collective and the Angara will be great allies to have in the long term. Sloane strikes me as the "Milky War First" choice, even though she charges the Initiative. Siding with Reyes is ceding power to the Collective and to the Angara a bit for the long term, where as Sloane seems like more just a short term sacrifice of power. Arguing subjective morality aside, I think a lot of the choice is wrapped up just in how you feel about that.

The "drinking Tann's Kool-Aid" was a joke. I'm sorry that didn't come across well.

Head to the bar in the slums the quest marker doesn't update. Its not the only one of the slums markers that are broken.

Yif you can't talk to the doctor take the lift and come back.

Saying that the Nexus looks better than Kadara at the time you come around assumes leadership, not circumstance, is the dominant factor, though. Tann starts with the Nexus and all its resources and a clear (if mediocre) organizational chain of command. His resources are limited, but still substantial enough to spark many colonies, and most of his political dissidents and troublemakers are already exiled. On the other hand Sloane starts with a much smaller number of shuttles and no clear hierarchy. She has fewer people, and more of them are the genuine trouble makers that deserved to be exiled regardless. Tann has limited resources but effectively no major hostile threat. Sloane has far less resources and far greater threats. Outcomes are affected by starting points, and it's illogical to assume that personal character would have remained the same despite massively different circumstances.

Compare the alternatives if they swapped. If Tann were the leader of the exiles, would he have been better? Would he have even been able to take Kadara Port from the Kett in the first place?

Similarly, consider the impacts of 'winning' on Sloane's character. If she's not forced to change for the exile, and instead comes out on top, why exactly would she have the same development without the same circumstances? Why would she become 'pirate queen light' if she doesn't have to? (This ignores the books, which point out the sort of things Sloane would have approved of- like leadership reform, internal elections, and a higher skepticism of Spender.)






I've heard these lines of argument, and I'm not sure I agree.


Criticisms of Sloane's treatment of Angarans typically comes down to the beatings we see for protection money, and the collection of protection money itself. This isn't an Angaran-specific policy issue, and- speaking as someone who has worked in a third-world country before- extorting protection money by threat and force is something we in the civilized world typically call 'taxes.' It's not an illegitimate thing when it goes for a collective good, which Sloane does provide by providing actual, well, protection.

The difference between an extortive protection racket and governance is the presence (or lack of) some higher authority who could/would keep order and safety otherwise. When there is a higher government that would keep the peace without it, a protection racket is a crime because it provides an unneeded 'service.' The government will (usually) protect you so long as you support it, part of that social contract, while the only thing the protection racket protects you from is itself. 

When there is no higher government, though, the protection racket is the government- because it provides the core-most necessary functions of government, which is to provide security and essential necessities. But security requires resources, and resources have to be collected whether the beneficiaries want it or not, and we call that sort of uniform, open government-sponsored theft 'taxes.' When people don't want to pay their taxes, enforcement follows. Only extremely established societies collect taxation as a matter of course, rather than through coercion.

Sloane collects taxes. They call it protection money, but the difference is semantic rather than functional. Sloane is not living a hedonistic life for personal pleasure on pilfered gains. She's not hoarding public funds in a personal bank account while others are left to fend for themselves. She's providing a well-armed militia that both freed the port in the first place and keeps it free, she's guarding against what quickly becomes rampant criminality without her, she provides a rudimentary justice system (can't spell 'rudimentary' without 'rude'), she manages a basic foreign policy, and she's doing it all in a context where there is no higher government with a mandate to step in if she didn't. The Exiles don't trust the Nexus, the Angaarans of Kadara are basically a rogue colony of Aya that don't even bother to join the resistance, and the Kett are, well, the Kett. Short of making no move after the Kett were driven out and throwing herself on the mercies of whatever Angaaran leadership figure could first rise out of the post-Kett occupation, there's not much alternative governments for Kadara.

Sloane is basically setting up a proto-state in the context of anarchy. Coercion is basically how this works.

And in the context of that, the Angaraan residents of the port... have pretty much the same burdens as the humans or other exiles. Everyone pays their protection money, or else. No one has exclusive sympathy from Sloane. Kadara isn't a human-only or Exile-only democracy. Sloane isn't a populist, or a racist oppressor, or interested in crushing Angaaran cultural heritage or identity. She's not oppressing the Angaarans, and about the only way we see her NOT treating them equally is that we haven't seen any Angaarans recruited into her security forces. We also don't know that they aren't. As it is, Sloane pretty much treats every category the same in Kadara.


So I'd disagree in part Sloane treats the Angara 'worse.' That implies a disrepency based on race. You can argue that Sloane treats everyone worse- but this seems to me more about whether you prefer hard government or no government.



And as for whether Reyes is better for the Angara...


This, to, comes down primarily two things: a figure-head Angaara to be his puppet-ruler, and a lack of public extortion for protection money.

I disagree that having an Angaran puppet is a pro-Angaran political policy. It's not political empowerment, and it doesn't reverse any particular policy Sloane put in place besides the protection money. Kadara Port's leader is still a human. The humans and nexus exiles still dominate the Angaran colony-world. The Angarans are still denied political primacy by virtue of coercive alien rulers, except now there's a willing colaborator willing to be superficially responsible. Alliances are  between equals- Reye's tie to the Angarans is subordination as much as Sloane's, except for the people who don't realize it. That's no more an 'alliance' between the Collective and the Angarans than Sloane's relationship was.

At least that's arguable, though. You can at least try to say that a puppet leader is 'better.' But saying that Reyes doesn't make the Angarans pay?

That's a joke, right? The Collective doesn't extort protection money- it just robs the Angarans.

The difference between a protection racket and robbery is that you pay the protection racket, they generally protect you. Not just from themselves, but from other malefactors. Think mob protection, where gangs tend not to go after businesses if they know not just the cops but the mob will come after them. Sloane runs a protection racket of sorts, but she doesn't loot her subjects past the tax. The Collective doesn't even offer protection after they take their share.

When you remove Sloane, crime in Kadara Port jumps, because no one's providing the security. You can hear ambient dialogue about a jump in muggings, and significant cargo theft, and even fewer people are going to investigate the disappearances. Things that Sloane had prevented, the Collective doesn't just not care- they're complicit. And as long as they're in power, the puppet government is going to keep turning a blind eye to anything the Charlatan is involved in.

The thing about near-anarchy, though, is that the weak suffer the most. The rich have the most to lose, but also have the most ability to resist. Eventually, they'll pay their own protection money. Either to the Charlatain- protection fees to keep their stuff from getting stolen- or they'll hire their own security. Protection money gets paid, people and cargo gets protected.

But the poor? The weakest? The Angarans? They aren't the powerful. They're the prey- and the Collective will prey on them as much as anyone else. This is how corruption works in third-world countries, and it's getting established here: the poor cling to a figurehead to represent them, who's complicit with the very people exploiting them. Systemic corruption keeps people poor longer, and keeps them in their place. And anyone who gets to close to actually exposing this sort of system of corruption and figureheads is likely to be disappeared so that the man behind the scenes isn't troubled.

What's good for Angaran relations? Well, on Aya there doesn't seem to be much care about Kadara one way or the other. From resistance files, they aren't even getting volunteers for the resistance. What's good for the Angarans, though?

Well, setting up systemic corruption that will be extremely hard to uproot is hardly a boon for them in the short or long term. And that's without the issues of an unaccountable leader who can have his identity leveraged without his say-so by virtue of being anonymous.





(Disclaimer: I actually sided with Reyes with my Sara Ryder.)



That makes the Collective an effective criminal cabal, not a government-in-waiting. Sloane runs a city in a resource-scarce context- the Collective steals shit from that scarcity and hoardes it for themselves.

As for how 'efficiently' they're living in the system, the Collective is growing poisons, not agriculture. That's good, if you think proprietary murder is efficient living. It's not good if you want someone to provide public services of a non-lethal sort.

A reminder, while well-reasoned, the reason the Outcasts did so well is because Kadara is an Angaran Mos Eisley.

They went to a mostly-abandoned city and populated it.

They didn't build it themselves.

Technically, they liberated it. Or captured it from the Kett- your call.

Compared vis-a-vis the resources onboard the Nexus, though... not exactly clear how much was there for them to sit on. Most of the port that we can see is Milky Way modular architecture, slapped on top of (and below) whatever the Angarans had.

Something like a society, but not a civilization? Kadara is pretty much limited to a mountain, after all.

Albeit, the Kadara Port did have power, water, and places to grow food plus a local population to tax for credits as well as trade with.

The Exiles had a lot of resources simply by the fact it was a habitable (albeit barely) world versus a space station.

If I have two bad opportunity, I choose the change. This always refreshes the air. People need to know that the powerful people still people, and capable to die/lose prover...

Why screwing over the Exiles is the right choice

Regarding Tann and Sloane Kelly, I think the issue is The Nexus Riots are yesterday's news by the time the Pathfinder comes around. It's an interesting case that Tann really did ruin the lives of the Exiles and created a crap ton of problems for the Pathfinder. The Pirates on the Asteroid World (which was to be the Turians home), the pirates who murdered the Navigator's people, and the fact the Krogan are planning a
genocide war with helium-3 bombs.

As far as Sloane Kelly is concerned, I imagine she has a loyalty to her people and making sure they are taken care for. As such, she's oppressing the Angara on Kadara and ruling with an autocratic iron fist because it works. She's nasty to the Initiative and with good reason as they forced her into that situation. But at this point, the local Angara hate her and she's caused a bunch of trouble for even the Exiles since she's sent many into the Badlands to die.

By the time you arrive at Kadara Port, though, things have changed significantly. The colony on Eos has been established and the Angarans have allied with the Initiative. You may have also established a second colony that also eases the supply issues of the AI. Tann has been behind you 80-100% of the way, giving you the support you need to do your job that means he's your strongest supporter.

In short, by the time you arrive at Kandara Port, you may have a bunch of desire to help the Exiles or mend the rift but it's not actually a matter of CHOICE to support Sloane over Tann because you're stuck by political realities with your team. Tann is the reason things go well in the Initiative and Sloane wants nothing to do with you unless you're willing to pay through the nose to occupy "her" land and help her with the Collective.

It's not a matter of morality or who you "like" more but a matter of realpolitic and your goals. You want to establish a colony on Kandara to continue to support the Nexus with food and supplies. Kandara is a trading port that has access to Andaran goods and supplies plus is under human control but NOT Initiative. It's, in political terms, of strategic importance. You need that Outpost and siding with Sloane means you're subject to her revenge for past wrongs. Also, her Captain Bligh/Lord of the Flies autocratic style of government. If you side with Reyes, he'll play nice and not tax you while also mending fences with the Angara through his mouthpiece.

You CAN side with Sloane and the Exiles as restitution for the wrongs that they've suffered but it will hurt your colonists and the Initiative as a whole as you're taxed heavily while the land becomes a point of contention with the Angara. It also won't improve the life of the Exiles who aren't under Sloane's control, which consist of 2/3rds of those who were Exiled. It's putting morality over progress.

So, yeah, this is a matter of siding with Tann and the Initiative's goals because sometimes you just got to do what's right for your people even if it isn't moral or fair. For me, that was finishing off Sloane's faction of the Exiles because life is not fair. They deserve better but if they're murdering Angarans and oppressing them while sticking their middle finger to the Initiative, they're a problem which needs being dealt with.

Even if, yes, that means essentially fixing Tann's mistakes over and over again as well as killing a bunch of desperate colonists who should have been your people.

This. Pretty much puts an end to the debate.