The Lies of Gage Yevgenny

[ONI_Recon_Bravo]

I’ve always found the story Dirt to be a bit odd; the behavior of seven of the ODSTs is completely sociopathic and doesn’t really resemble what any actual human being would do in this situation. I mean, “stealing gold while leaving kids to die” is Saturday Morning Cartoon villian stuff, not how an actual character would act.

But then I realized, who’s telling this story? Gage. Every word we hear could be totally made up- can we actually trust him? Is he an unreliable narrator?

First, let’s consider the standoff between Orrin, Dale, Sita, Felicia and Gage. Gage is standing right in front of Sita, Orrin and Dale; yet somehow, they hit his arm and leg. Bad aim? Contrived storytelling? Or Gage lying to the Rookie, making sure his wounds match his story?

Also, notice that, while Sita and Orrin are getting into a verbal sparring match with Gage and Felicia, Dale says absolutely nothing. During the whole thing, Dale never does any individual action; he’s always grouped with Orrin, perhaps indicating that Dale didn’t really do anything wrong.

Another inconsistency in Gage’s ramblings; how the hell did the schoolchildren get past several vault doors Dale had to literally explode to get through? Also note that Gage’s first reaction is to call for more pelicans; seconds later he’s saying that they have to throw all of the gold away and save the children themselves. Huh? He also seems to detest the others, simply because they were in the CMA; he basically says that leaving a bunch of innocent kids to die is something an Innie would do.
This is what I think actually happened; the other ODSTs decided to load up the pelicans with gold, and then after they had left, call in the evacuation squad to save Julian’s class. Gage kept demanding that they get rid of all of the gold and evacuate the children right that instant, despite the fact twenty minutes would probably make little difference. In the end, Sita and Gage started arguing, so Gage shot her, as well as Dale; his hatred of the CMA fueled the attack as well. Notice how the story makes clear that it is in fact Gage who opens fire first: “It sounded like all the shots happened simultaneously. My body armor crumpled as it absorbed the shock, but I’d gotten Sita first.”

Gage managed to reach cover before Orrin could really realize what was happening. Orrin and Gage then proceeded to enter a firefight; Felicia was killed in the crossfire. While Gage was victorious in defeating Orrin, Orrin hit him twice during the skirmish.

Gage whacks Eric three times on the back of the head with a pistol to knock him out, which would obviously kill him in real life, or at least give him a serious head injury. He wouldn’t be up and running by the hour. So Gage actually killed Eric.

Gage then lands in the middle of the retreating ODST forces, and it can be interpreted that he basically holds an ODST at gunpoint to steal the Shiva; he knows Teller and his goons are coming to kill him, he decides to take them both down. There was really no reason for Gage to shove a pistol into the ODST’s face; unless he’s not telling it as it is.

Anyway, it’s important to keep in mind that Teller and his two surviving goons still have a pelican, and it’s implied there’s still quite a bit of gold left in the bank anyway; why didn’t Teller, Charleston and Amey simply take that, and offer a bit to the kids if they threatened to grass?

Because they wanted revenge. Revenge on Gage Yevenny for killing five of their friends.

Now, the Rookie sees that the three people (Let’s face it, would the pelican’s pilot be likely to stay in the cockpit in this situation?) totally ignore the dying man on the ground with a NUCLEAR BOMB. So it’s possible that the Rookie simply didn’t see it properly; he’s on the top of a mountain, after all. And, anyway, if Gage was telling the truth, wouldn’t they shoot Gage in the head quickly to make sure he wouldn’t try anything? Why leave a potential enemy alive? Did they just go into James Bond villain territory?

Also of note; why would the UNSC send down an entire wave of pelicans to save thirty people? Doesn’t make much sense, unless they were actually there due to entirely unrelated reasons. Maybe due to an ODST holding another at gunpoint and stealing a Shiva, which they need to get a hold of RIGHT NOW. And, hey, why doesn’t the Rookie just take all those Forerunner artifacts in the back of the Pelican? Because they never existed; Gage just needed an excuse as for why he landed to steal the Shiva.

True? Probably not, but I had fun putting it together, and it explains something that had always been bugging me. So basically Dirt is riddled with plot holes, one dimensional characters. and nonsensical actions… or it’s a brilliantly subtle play on the Unreliable narrator trope. Many stories that use the unreliable narrator (such as The Telltale Heart) make it fairly clear what’s real and what’s not, and others (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) may not clarify what exactly was real or not, but make it obvious our narrator is unreliable. This? This leaves it to the reader to figure out what’s actually real or not, with Gage’s subtle yet plentiful inconsistencies; it’s a complex puzzle, and it would be stupid of myself to say I’ve done anything but present perhaps a vague outline of the true events that happened that day. Maybe I’m totally wrong, and I have merely said, “This is a puzzle” without presenting a correct answer. But doesn’t that make it so much nicer, knowing that there may be an actual answer out there? One that we can guess at for years to come?

Either that or I just wasted two hours of my life analyzing a crap story.

[ONI_Recon_Bravo]

Another thing to note; Gage mentions that he had to move the Shiva out of the way when adding gold to the pelican; this makes no sense because he doesn’t even have the Shiva yet. Again, it’s either really, really badly edited or all intentional, and you would have to be an extremely awful editor to miss that. Eric also claims they have so much gold on the pelican it’s going to barely be able to fly; possibly hyperbole, but Gage manages to fit both the Shiva and the forerunner artifacts on board. Almost as if the Forerunner artifacts are completely fabricated.

“But I still had a heart. I still knew what was right and what was wrong.” Maybe I’m looking too deeply into this, but he seems far too adamant of his own nobility, as if he has something to hide.

“I crawled over to her. She’d drawn as well, on Orrin and Dale.”
How the hell would Gage possibly know this?

Notice how Teller is with Sita, Dale, Orrin and Gage, but he’s never even mentioned again after Eric’s knocked out. This may because Gage doesn’t have any real way to vilify him (he’s probably not just trying to convince the Rookie he did the right thing, but he’s trying to convince himself) ; while he can blame Amey and Charleston for shooting him down, (and, to be fair, even in my “correct” version of events they shot him down) blame Eric for not allowing him to take the pelican, blame Sita, Dale and Orrin for being in a firefight, he cannot blame Teller for anything, and in a rather Orwellian manner keeps his appearance in the story to a minimum.

Another thing to consider; let’s take this entire thing from, say, Teller’s point of view, while assuming every single thing said by Gage is true; he sent five men to retrieve the gold, and he hears nothing except a radio report about there being children in the vault. Then gunfire, and he finds four of his men dead; the fifth then proceeds to bash in the head of his pilot and steal the pelican. He has no idea about the argument, and, in fact, he never said a word against just calling in another pelican after they had escaped.

I think pretty much everybody’s reaction at this point would be to shoot the -Yoink- down and then go after him.

During this whole thing, Felicia offers a perfectly viable middle ground; they’ll take the gold and then call in for an evac once they’ve gone. Gage, for some bizarre reason, says that this can’t happen and demands the ODSTs throw away all the gold. The only negative effect this could possibly have on the ODST’s plans is that the children could grass them up for stealing the gold; but the children never even saw them take the gold, and thus they could just claim that they heard the children or something. And before you say, “How the hell would they hear them underground with massive vault doors?” A) the bank is probably going to be glass within a few days anyway; the UNSC would have no way to check. B) HOW THE HELL DID THE KIDS GET DOWN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? C) Are we really meant to believe these children are naive to the point where they didn’t pocket a few gold bars themselves? I know I bloody would. The ODSTs have nothing to lose by saving the children, so Gage probably twisted their argument to the point where it made no sense.

Another thing to note; when Gage holds Eric at gunpoint, Eric says that Amey, Charleston, and Teller are all Watts loyalists… yet he doesn’t mention anybody else. So he either A) didn’t know they were dead and by total chance said the three goons who were still alive, or B) he did know they were dead… and then decided to not do anything about it. Another inconsistency.

I think it says something when even I, the most cynical and detestable -Yoink- in existence, think that the actions some of the ODSTs take is so self centered and horrible that they defy my suspension of disbelief. The fact that NOT ONE of the ODSTs other than Gage and Felicia (possibly Eric, maybe) gets a single sympathetic moment, nor has anything on their minds other than money shows that Gage probably isn’t telling it as it is. The sole exception to this is Dale, who gets one line of dialogue regarding the power generator, and he answers pretty civilly to Gage; I think Dale was probably killed by Gage unintentionally. Maybe he shot Sita, and he shot Dale (standing next to her) on impulse before he could even do anything; this would explain why he feels guilty over killing him and tries to awkwardly skirt past him when telling his tale.

At the time, this was pretty much the only Halo story to take place in first person, and it was pretty much the only one until New Blood came out (I think). Seems oddly coincidental that all these inconsistencies and contrivances turn up in one of two first person stories. I mean, there’ve been mistakes before, sure, but not on this level,
packed into a short story.

Man, I have serious problems, don’t I?

Sorry for the double post, ran out of room.