Omg, this is amazing and heartbreaking. It’s very true how quickly people can become indifferent, and how easy it is to forget how much a tragedy can hurt those affected. I never really understood this until I lived through the 2011 East Japan earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster. While I’ve never considered myself a victim since I was lucky enough to live outside of the tsunami hit area, it did affect me in the sense that I had no power for 2 days afterwards, no phone for a week, no means of transportation for 5 weeks. I lost aquaintences and knew survivors and helped with the clean up. I don’t think I’ve ever understood the full impact of a disaster until I was cleaning mud from photographs wondering if anyone was even alive to claim them, or until I drove through entire towns that had been flattened in one long afternoon. The nuclear meltdown was worst for me; for months people lived on edge, afraid of the rain, afraid of the food, afraid of the very air as we obsessively checked Geiger counters and calculated the risks of staying despite know we had no choice because there was no petrol, no trains, no buses and no escape.

So yeah, this fic resonates with me on a personal level and you’ve done a wonderful job of capturing the pain of apathy. As I say, I’m not a victim, but for the first time a disaster wasn’t a million miles from my heart and I learnt to be more considerate when talking about disasters and wars and tragedies that don’t touch me. So thank you for shining a spotlight on this behaviour because it shouldn’t take knowing a victim to show so compassion and respect to them.

Sorry for the super long review!

It's been almost seven years, are you ever going to continue or am I just getting my hopes up

where is your story Strenght? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

good fic, but please write strength either connected to this or as a sequel don't care which, but really want to read more

I love it! It says that you are doing a sequel, but I can't find it. Are you still planning it? I hope you write it soon.

Are you going to write a sequel?

Even for a short fic, this was pretty deep and shows the "darker" side of his character. Good job!

I found a problem with the way Kirk handled his anger in "The Conscience of the King." Surely what he and others went through was horrendous, but he acted recklessly. He put others in harms way, including his crew, to get the bad guy.

In this story, he reacts to what others say about the incident, in a most negative way, because they are not as sympathetic as he deems they should be. Well, what if some of those people he comes across, have been through something worse than the genocide on Tarsus IV? What if starvation was something they had to endure, year after year, for many yearss? What if, at any moment they could be killed, and the act repeated, year after year, for many years? Death would be the only escape or rescue, they could fathom. Yes, I am talking about life in some of the worst prisons in this world. And there are innocent people who have been imprisoned in them. I though Kirk ws very short sighted and confrontational, in this issue. But then he was in the original episode, also. I found it to be a good story and keeping in line with his view on the issue.

Very nicely done. Have you ever considered writing longer Tarsus fics (in the 10k plus range)? You're quite a good writer, and it would be fascinating to see.

*thumbs up*

Really awesome writing!

This is excellent, very well done. Reminds me of when I was in college and people told jokes about the Ethipian famine. It's amazing how calloused we humans can become. Keep up the good work!