It works for me, as well. That Surak cold be a man of violence and logic would be a nice touch, not that he repented his former life, but took to the path of logic out of necessity for survival than any kind of altruism.
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
John Stuart Mill