It would have been a lie to say that Soto hadn't considered it: the notion that he could change the Resistance for the better. Deep down, that was why he was here; why he'd left the Alliance behind, and come home. While the events that had sparked it all - the Treaty, the Destroyer, the Blockade - had simmered and congealed in his mind for months, it was the highly publicised death of Ecidae Mandrill that had been the final catalyst. It was the notion of a Resistance that had lost one of it's leaders; a Resistance that might be succeptable to his influence and steadying hand.

Yet, in that same thought, Soto had set aside the notion of leading. This was not the military. A new Commander was not simply assigned: they earned their place, rose from within, floated to seniority by the buoyancy of their reputation and the respect they had earned. It was how it had always worked, until the Alliance started getting a litttle too fixated on it's obsessions with legitimacy. Sato replaced by Syndulla. Raddus replaced by Ackbar. That was the path that Soto expected, and strove for. He would come to Corellia, make contact, and through Roz he would establish himself as an advisor, a voice in the ear of whoever was next to step up and take seniority.

What Coralix suggested, however? She expected more from him. She always had: either more, or better, whichever fit the situation they found themselves in. Indecisiveness gripped him like a stasis field. Over the course of his life and career, Soto had grown comfortable with the notion of command; but there was a subtle difference between the command he embraced - of a ship, of a unit - and the kind of leadership that something like the Resistance or the Alliance required. Soto was a strategist, and an engineer. He saw fixes and solutions, and he strove for them. Place him in a situation, give him a set of parameters, and he would determine the best choice. Leadership was subtly different, though. That required you to make the right choice, and that wasn't the sort of man that Soto knew how to be. Roz spoke of the fragmentation within the Resistance, the different viewpoints and attitudes; and who was Soto Terius to tell them they were wrong; that his version of right and wrong was any better? Soto knew what he believed was right, but lacked either the arroogance or the moral certainty to insist that his belief was gospel. Place him in a room with conflicting viewpoints, and he would argue his case; but ask him to mediate? Ask him to choose between options that he did not agree with, or satiate people whose loyalty and obedience he needed to win and maintain without the structure of a military hierarchy to encourage their compliance.

He shook his head, mind and mouth reaching the same dismissive conclusion.

"I'm no Garm Bel Iblis, Roz. I'm no Mothma, Organa, Dodonna, Syndulla. Give me a job, and I'll get the job done; but I'm not the man who decides what the job is. I'm not the man who decides if you did it the right way, or inspires people to want to do things differently and better the next time. You know me, Roz. I'm -"

He faltered slightly, the worse leaking from his lips almost sounding like those of his father, or his brother.

'I'm not the right sort of man for this. The cause is there, and I'll fight for it; but I'm not a statesman, I'm a commander. I'm a Captain. Give me a ship, and I'll steer it; but I don't know a damn thing about how to wage wars or fix the worlds. That's the business of better men."