dramatispersonae | Heliodor + Turquoise

Heliodor + Turquoise

Through the doors, you find yourselves in a small circular room that seems to be decorated much in the same way as the ring is decorated today. The curtains are in alternating colors of your teams, and in the center stand are three surprisingly lifelike, but faceless sculptures. They stand with their backs to one another, facing out to the chairs. About each of their necks is a cord that holds a sign written in a fine, looping cursive.

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[because war crimes apparently]

Rider, what happened to you? You look...not great.

...we had to remove someone's hand.

[Kind of looking at the sign, looking some cross between wanting to rage, or maybe break down, and a sick sort of relief.]

And then we go back to something like lashes...what sort of mother does any of this...

Someone overly obsessed with orderliness. They'll be able to get that hand back -- or at least a good prosthetic.

So tell people to maim each other? That's not order.

And going against what she said herself...

Edited 2012-09-30 03:37 (UTC)

She might just be putting more of an edge on what everyone decided. Lashes when we said we'd give someone a slap on the wrist...

But I deserve this.

Well, not a song about pessimism.

We didn't. We were going to annoy you with a song because it sounded like you misunderstood things and kind of implied it was more a dark force that did it because of how you saw things.

Assume things are better than they are sort of thing.

I'm sorry, Rider, but not this time.

I was talked into breaking a cease-fire to destroy a civilian target. There's more to it than that, but it's bad enough, isn't it?

...no, it's not.

You don't stop the bad things by just knowing what was done and reacting. You need to know why, so it's not done again.

...What do you need, Rider?

...it's what my people will need of me, if I'm to be the leader I want to be.

Understanding why people have done the bad things they've done. What made them decide to do what they did. A lot of people do bad things, and I don't think it's often that they don't feel justified in some way.

Why would they do it if they didn't?

So...why did you?

I was told the Yuuzhan Vong were creating a superweapon -- something that could kill a star. False intelligence backed up the claim.

I took it to my superiors, and convinced them to take action. I became part of the lie.

A star...? Those dots in the sky?

[she'd find that cute if it weren't for the context]

And the sun. To oversimplify it, a star is a mass of burning plasma, far larger than your typical life-bearing planet. It's the primary source of light and warmth for nearby planets, and when it dies, it generally means wiping out the life on those worlds.

Problem is, that isn't what was happening. It wasn't until we were already destroying the target that I found out they were building a worldship to carry their noncombatants. Their older ones were dying and couldn't get their passengers to habitable worlds.

... [Makes a note to look up LATER.]

A worldship...

Did someone want it destroyed that badly?

...Yes. The enemy had already conquered or destroyed a number of our worlds. He wanted to send a message to them that he wouldn't consider their homes any more off-limits.

And would you have done it, if you knew the truth?

Not then. I hit him after I found out. Still...most of the people who helped with the attack supported him after he explained his little message, and it doesn't change the facts of what happened, or what the consequences would be.

Consequences would be the normal reaction of anyone after something like that. Not many people can resist striking back after they're hurt themselves. That's the tricky part of ever getting peace.

No one wants to be the first to say they'll stop.

But you hit him for making you the one to make it worse. Because he was the one to make the decision, not you. Did you even have a real way to know he was lying?

Jedi are empathic. Normally, I should have been able to pick up on it.

But you couldn't that time?

He was going out of his way to keep me off-balance.

[Nods and seems to think on it a moment.]

Sometimes a leader may have to lie. Can't think of specific examples, but I could see it coming up.

But a leader must also think on what's best for their people, and do right by them. And even if he wasn't a leader then, he was making a move that would put him somewhere with power, so it's a mindset he needs.

He didn't do right by you. He lied, deliberately deceived you. The fact he felt he couldn't trust anyone to do what he felt must be done is telling. A leader is already partially responsible for all actions done on his orders, but by not letting you have proper consent, it's all on him.

You wanted to destroy a weapon. That's defense and prevention.

He wanted to hit back and hit harder, which will always make things worse before they're better.

The problem is we didn't just hit back. We killed.

That's what hit back is in war.

Why else would it be so hard to say stop?

I don't think there's a way for you to get rid of that guilt. It's horrifying, beyond words that could describe it, I imagine.

But in the end, the 'problem' isn't you. The point that needs to be fixed, the point of prevention, is him.

I can't get rid of it, and I'm not going to try to. I should have known better.

[and it's problematic that later in the war she started wanting them all dead, too]

Re: Round Three - Discussion

wouldntkilladragon - 2012-09-30 05:49 (UTC) - Expand

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