Daniel wishes he could excuse said terrible things under the banner of necessity, but he's spent so much of his unofficial military career convincing those in power that there's always another way that now he'll never believe otherwise for himself. There may not be an alternative in the heat of a particular decision, whether to fire upon one's enemy or get killed, but the chain of options leading to that fatal choice rests on Daniel's shoulders. At least, in that particular instance and in countless others like it, it did.

"I forgive myself for the things that were necessary," Daniel says carefully. "Or I try to. I'm less forgiving of the innumerable lives I've doomed through my own arrogance, or misunderstanding, or rash decisions."

He told himself he'd never lose count of the souls on his conscience, only to find to his shame that he can no longer delineate when that number climbed into the millions.