un: werther | video | foward-dated to after the Iceland excursion

[imitationsoul]

[ Despite who you might expect from the username, the video opens with Flat’s voice. ]

Good evening, staff and students of Daybreak! Wait—that’s kinda wordy, isn’t it? Hey, wait, [ there’s a pause as Flat walks up to the camera. ] Oh. This thing’s on, Miach. Well, that’s fine!

[ he walks back to where he originally was, and some seers and staff may recognize the area—it’s the Cassandra. ]

Well, live from the Command Room of the Cassandra, we wanted to give you a message! Or, well, Miach wanted to. I told her that maybe we shouldn’t say anything and that we should be like secret spies but what she wants to say is pretty cool. Moved my heart and everything!

[ and, with a dramatic gesture and a grin as bright as the sun itself, Flat turns towards Miach. ]

And now—! Miach Mihie!

[ With that said, he turns back to whatever is doing, allowing Miach to take the reigns in the message—this was her idea, after all. He was just there to support her...and to break into the system.

Miach does not match Flat’s casual enthusiasm. She is clearly trying to project some gravity in her body language and when she speaks, her voice is very even and persuasive. ]

Have you ever thought about what freedom means to you? In a world where we are bound by obligations and we owe ourselves to the creatures we coexist with, a full freedom is impossible to achieve. Yet we put freedom on a pedestal. It is the goal society claims to strive towards, a freedom for all.

Freedom is the ability to look within your mind and act solely on your own thoughts. It is being one with your mind before you are one with others. Freedom is, in its essence, self.

This self is being threatened. It is being taken from us and then sold back to us repurposed and repackaged.

They want us to think that Cassandra is nothing but a tool that streamlines the inherent abilities of all our Seers. They want us to believe that forcing every single Seer to open their mind to the administration on a monthly basis, under threat of violence, is simply a way to make things easier.

It’s not. A vision is something intimate. It is a part of the person who has it. To extract this, to outsource its interpretation, is to outsource a part of your self, your freedom, your autonomy.

Cassandra looms over us. We march by her tunes. She is the tool of expression the powers that be have chosen - and she lies. Cassandra, she who is cursed to never be believed when she speaks the truth of her prophecies. What an ironic namesake. Our Cassandra is believed without question, followed and obeyed. And all of you are letting it happen.

Today, we’re putting a stop to this.

We’re asking you to consider once and for all: who are you? What is your self? Without selling yourself to the administration, what is it that you can and want to do about Nightfall?

[ She smiles, sweet and gentle and sticky like a spider’s web. Flat glances back from where he seems to be quickly typing into one of the computers, and smiles fondly—not at the camera, but at Miach. ]

I’m looking forward to your answers. Bury your prophets.

[ Depending on where in the academy you are, you might hear the security system go off. It seems these two are entirely serious. ]

((ooc: replies to this post will come from both Miach and Flat, until they're physically chased out of the server room. the log to do the chasing will be up in the log community shortly!!))

Comments

Just text you know who it is

[hatesdeerstalkers]

GODDAMNIT FLAT

[That's it that's the message]

[escardos]

[ he feels a little bad about this one, ngl. ]

un: werther

[imitationsoul]

Do you really have a right to criticize him? Your part of the faculty that drags him to have his mind invaded month by month.

[spelleton]

All things considered it could have been worse

Not by much

But at this point I have to take the silver lining

UN: ThreeCoffins

[improbablenotimpossible]

There's escalation and there's diving off a cliff to make a point.

[imitationsoul]

You have perfectly understood the principle behind the matter.

There are causes worth falling for.

un: xx_heartoffire_xx

[stavros]

I tolerated your silliness, but this kind of rebellion is far from harmless. What do you propose to accomplish? How cruel must you be to put yourselves over the world so often, and now with such excess?

If you succeed in causing Cassandra any damage, I know not who will forgive you.

[escardos]

forgiveness isn’t necessary, kokoro. and cruelty

well

you don’t know anything about me, tbh. if you think this is cruel, then im not going to change your opinion either. youre just like everyone else.

but i do appreciate the advice!

[imitationsoul]

Is critical thought not a worthwhile accomplishment in itself?

Let humanity break out of its self-incurred immaturity, to say it with Kant. Delegating our plans and thoughts to a filter system is exactly that immaturity. I can't bear to watch it.

If there is no forgiveness, good. That's a choice made by your self.

UN: jaybird

[nor_iron_bars]

[The text consists of a single word:]

dude.

[No further inflections or elaborations, just "dude". She's not going to reply, she's already on her way to the server room.]

[escardos]

hello! did you like it? tips? comments? like and subscribe for more!

un: yuie

[evangelclairvoyance]

And what, may I ask, if your proposed replacement for the system?

While I can understand why you might be hesitant to make use of Cassandra outside of Nightfall's extenuating circumstances, can you deny its aid in pinpointing the location of the Heralds that have appeared? In saving other people's lives?

Or did you simply intend to leave a mess for other people to clean up with little thought to the consequences?

Re: un: yuie

[escardos]

question: why is nightfall something you fear?

[imitationsoul]

The administration is very insistent that Cassandra is merely a tool to process the visions that Seers have to begin with. The visions are not going anywhere.

It will merely be left to the Seers themselves whether or not they want to band together and save the world. If this world is to be saved, it should be by choice.

un: ornithology

[hawkwardness]

Yeah, yeah, the world is horrible and the administration here is using us, Seers or not. But the alternative is worse, admit it. Millions of innocent kids out there.

You really think Nightfall and daemons destroying the world would make things better? That this is helpful in any way?

[imitationsoul]

The innocent kids are already getting hurt. The big bad demons already gnaw at their bones and then the humans... the humans try to turn them into dolls. It's already happening. But it's a nice thing to think 'out of sight, out of mind' about, isn't it? It's easier to be a hero when the foe is so beautifully grandiose.

We're not stopping you from preventing Nightfall.

If your conviction is genuine, good for you. Go right ahead. Be a hero.

[escardos]

again, why do you think that daemons are bad? that nightfall is bad? what makes you think that daybreak is good, aside from what we’ve been told this whole time?

UN: xhatgurlx

[hattersgonnahat]

.......what are you gonna do to it?

[Look, she's going to cut through the philosophical nonsense and just get right to it.]

[imitationsoul]

Disable it entirely.

[ A forward question can get a forward answer. ]

UN: AZURESTRIKER

[shockingblue]

And what do you know of freedom? What you're talking about is chaos, not freedom.

What you're selling is selfishness veiled in individuality. Talking that the mind, that your choice in all things matters more than everyone else around you? You're selling the state of nature, which commits to a brutality we've left behind for a damn good reason! That kind of extreme individualism will happily throw away unity, and even empathy, for gratification of self. It's anarchy.

And in society, sometimes you have to make contributions, even sacrifices for shared liberty. And I'd be more than happy to debate the morality of the Cassandra System and how it can be changed for the better, but throwing it out entirely is a stupid thing to do when the literal apocalypse is less than a year away and the lives of over 7 billion humans and who-knows how many others are at stake.

[escardos]

ehhhh morality stuff is more of miach's thing. i'm just the programmer.

but you know what? all beings born from the earth must return to that state at one point. no matter how much humanity wants to act like they're better than what they evolved to, in the end it will not matter.

in the end, you will all return to the dust from which you once came from.

disabling the cassandra is proof of it. i can do it with just a few lines of code, you know? very easy. and if it's this easy to do that, how flimsy is daybreak's attempt at stopping the "apocalypse"?

[imitationsoul]

The state of nature is not inherently brutal. It's the most human. Even Hobbes made clear that the desires and passions of man are no sin. Suppressing one's desires and bending oneself needlessly under a government that has grown oppressive to its subject... there is no empathy in this either.

It is nothing but arrogance to declare ourselves the saviours of a world that lives oblivious, governing ourselves and them alike through a computer's code.

un: Galanthusnivalis

[buddinghopes]

Oh, what the FUCK you guys

[escardos]

hi lia!

un: hemlock

[spelleton]

While I cant say Im surprised that this is the conclusion you came to

I am still very disappointed in the both of you

[imitationsoul]

I wasn't expecting your approval.

Nor was I trying to make you disapprove, however. It simply couldn't be helped.

UN: murakumo_emille

[hatesdragons]

As a faculty member, I should be joining in with the other faculty members in their threats of punishment, but their voices are loud enough. I only ask that you do not disturb the archived visions, because I have not finished combing them for Dragon-related prophecies.

I will only have true freedom once I have savored my revenge against the Dragon daemons. And yes, I am willing to peer into and re-interpret the "freedom" of long-gone Seers in order to fulfill this. This is my "freedom" of choice, is it not?

--Emille

[imitationsoul]

Your goal is your own. My target is a society in blind obedience to authorities and a declared greater good. Personal revenge is far from that.

That said, I can't make promises.