User blog comment:Pandawarrior/Why Sabo being alive could be good for One Piece/@comment-4899461-20121002022347

I think if he was alive, you're right in that it could be a very important artistically (in a literary sense) for the series.

I just don't think it's very likely that Sabo would be a Marine. Sabo's final letter talks about Sabo wanting to be as free as he can be on the seas. That's one of the major effects of Sabo's death on Ace and Luffy, and a goal that both of them hold from then on. (references to this early on in the series foreshadow Sabo's death long before anyone would have expected Sabo to even have existed.)

If Sabo wanted to be free, why would he join the Marines of all things? A group founded on the idea of taking orders just doesn't seem like the right idea for Sabo. Not to mention his hatred for the government after what he witnessed in Goa Kingdom. If he survived the incident, he probably wouldn't care to work for the World Nobles either, considering they almost killed him. If wants to be free, he's not gonna work for the government.