hiemfire, on 14 November 2011 - 04:32 PM, said:
I am going to need your source, apparently who ever set up the Sarna page for the Outbound Light decided to be sloppy and didn't actually put in references. If that is your source, then there may be a slight issue due to the fact it cites the possibility of them not having been "sent on their way" but possibly taken as bondsmen (not as bad a case as I would expect from Smoke Jaguar, but not the best thing for non-warriors to have happen).
Stormwolf, on 15 November 2011 - 12:38 AM, said:
Like Jaroth said, that page is wrong. There is also mention of this in the Clan Wolf sourcebook, I don't have access to my books right now, so I can't give a pagenumber.
IIRC, there is also mention somewhere that Comstar tried to reconstruct the memories of the Outbound Light crew to figure out the location of the Clan homeworlds (this didn't work though).
Actually I think whoever posted on Sarna might actually have a case. Sort of.
Page 17 of The Clans - Warriors of Kerensky shows that when Phelan writes to his father, he believes that the crew of the Outbound Light were tortured the way he was, based on a chemical analysis. He also believes (to his knowledge) that only 7 of the 53 members of the crew were returned to ComStar.
Now in the actual BT universe I can see how this can happen. According to the Jade Falcon sourcebook, it says that before the Smoke Jaguars released the crew & returned them to their point of origin, they put them through "a thorough electro-chemical process" to wipe their memories. Any reports that Phelan would have read could have led him to the conclusion (although a wrong one) that the crew got pumped for info the same way he did when in fact they did get pumped, just not under the same circumstances.
If the person posting on Sarna was using The Clans - Warriors of Kerensky as his source he is correct. Sort of. We need to keep in mind that that book was written by Phelan, who underwent a particularly tough early encounter with the Clans & his view cannot be taken as pure fact. (Especially the fact that he says quite honestly, "To my knowledge....") Well he may be wrong & I think that is the case. I believe the events went just as they say in the Jade Falcon sourcebook due to simple logic.
If 53 people were sent out on a mission & 53 came back & said, "Nah nothing interesting in that region. All uninhabitable as far as we see. Give us the next set of coordinates.", then the people at Comstar would not think twice about it & carry on as usual. If only 7 of the 53 came back & were completely traumatized, I would think they would send more ships in that direction.
Edited by Jaroth Winson, 15 November 2011 - 03:19 AM.