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

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"?

[shockingblue]

And who are you to decide who gets to live and who gets to die?! Even if everything dies and entropy takes over eventually, that doesn't mean life has no value while it exists! That there is beauty in life and its existence exactly because everything is finite!

I thought you might've actually understood why I was sick of hearing this dark, nihilistic horsejitt the last time we talked about this, Flat!

It's easy to goddamn destroy everything, to write it all off, to burn it all down! What's hard is building, creating, and making it so the world isn't full of suffering and death for what little time we all actually have!

And if you fully intend on taking away what we all worked so damn hard for, what we sweat and bled for? Then I'll come down there and stop you my own damn self!

[escardos]

I don't need to decide who lives or dies. you're giving me too much credit.

but you know where to find us, gunvolt :)

[shockingblue]

Count on it.

action

[silksoul]

[ En route to Cassandra, Hornet catches up with Gunvolt. ]

Wait.

[ She sounds brisk, like she's not taking no for an answer. ]

[shockingblue]

[For what it's worth, Gunvolt seemed to be lacking his Dart Leader on his way to the Cassandra hall, it still being in the Anvil where it was properly stored. There were still rules about that kind of thing, and even as upset as he was, he didn't have any intention of turning a weapon on the two. Enough to just stop them, no more.

The boy did pause, hearing a familiar, and incredibly determined voice call out to him. He glanced over his shoulder to see who it was, but turned more fully once he saw who it was.]

Hornet? What is it?

[silksoul]

[ Rookie mistake, just keep your weapon on your back at all times like Hornet

There's a slight pause before she speaks, as if she's deciding how to phrase her words. ]

Going after them would be a bad idea. That boy in particular. Something else is in him. It's dangerous.

[shockingblue]

[GV's brow furrows, his tone still short, but she has his clear attention, at least. Enough to get him to stop marching toward what might be a very bad idea.]

Flat? What do you mean "something else?"

[He doesn't question dangerous. He knows well enough by now if Hornet's giving a warning about something being threatening, he'd do well to listen.]

[silksoul]

...I don't know exactly. [ The frown as she admits that is obvious. ] But it was created for a purpose. To restore what their creator perceived as balance, the righteousness of the 'natural order.'

[ 'I will do as I was set to do, even if it means destroying an entire civilization.' ]

He's not aware of it, whatever or whoever it is. But it seems to come out whenever it feels the need to. Threatening him would probably bring them to the surface.

[shockingblue]

"Righteousness of the natural order" sounds like it'd check out with the nonsense Miach is spouting too.

[Given that he seemed perfectly fine with the idea of chaos and nihilistic views of everything being nothing in the end.]

And if you're warning me about it, that means you think it's way more dangerous than what Flat's doing now, is that it?

[silksoul]

Metal is easier to replace than flesh and blood. [ People would likely be more panicky about the state of the machine, if the damage was too much. So she thinks. ] I know little about its capabilities, but its killing instinct is strong. I don't doubt it would be capable of wounding anyone it viewed as a threat.

[shockingblue]

Dammit.

[Gunvolt's eyes glanced back toward the center, seeing people congregate outside, held back by the faculty. Didn't look like much of anyone was going to get in very easily.]

...Much as Flat might deserve a knuckle sandwich, it looks like there's people better suited on site to handle this. ...And if he's that dangerous, I wouldn't want to go in without everything at my disposal anyway.

...Not that I actually want it to get that far. I'd prefer if he'd just listen to reason, but I think that ship sailed long ago.

[He gave something of a mix of a sigh and a growl at that.]

Should've guessed something weird was going on with him.

...Something weird seems to go on with all of us, around here.

[silksoul]

This place seems to attract strangeness. [ It's a neutral statement, or her tone implies it is, at least. ]

He is a strange person, but not entirely unreasonable. [ She sounds a bit distant, like she's thinking of something else, or someone else. ] Many things seem unreachable, when you've been born to fulfill a task and little else.

[ There's a strange sadness lingering in those words, but it's quickly brushed away. ]

[shockingblue]

We're all strange people here. Underdogs and misfits, in a lot of cases. Doing our best with what we have to rage against encroaching shadow.

[Frustrating as it was, especially with the particularly eccentric individuals that sometimes found their way here. Maple, Toki, Flat, Miach, the list went on. But like it or not, a lot of them came from... unusual circumstance.

Still, as much as he was waxing philosophical, he looked back to Hornet, with his full attention.]

...Does he remind you of someone you know? Flat, I mean.

[silksoul]

[ There's an incredibly long pause as Hornet decides whether or not to even answer that question at all. Normally, she probably would just walk away at this point, but.... ]

I have a half-sibling. We share a father.

It was our father who raised them from birth to be the prison for a god, then to be imprisoned themselves. An unquestioning, noble purpose.

[ The brittle disgust in the word almost crystalizes with frost. ]

They yet lived when I left that place. [ Her mouth twists, tight. ] I have no doubt that they still live now, much as that existence is nothing but suffering.

[ She came here to find a way of breaking that curse, to destroy a god forevermore. For the sake of her mother, and her suffering half-sibling. ]

[shockingblue]

[There was a long, heavy pause as Gunvolt took that in, some of the vitriol burning, churning in his chest settling down. Or perhaps, maybe spreading out wider, but finding a way to cool down a bit. He wasn't quite sure what to say about it at first, words coming from both his heart and mind tripping and falling all over themselves at the weight of what he just heard.]

I... I'm sorry, Hornet. I didn't think it'd be... so deeply personal.

[Because wow, is that a lot to take in, especially with how the normally stoic Hornet betrayed very strong emotion in so many subtle ways. It was often very hard to read her, even setting aside some obviously significant cultural differences. But that chilly bitterness she emphasized on the concept of 'nobility' as told by her father was enough to make his blood run cold, but at the same time feel a different fire ignite within too.

To him, it sounded like Hornet's half-sibling was never given a choice in this either, or if they were, it was a false one. And that was something he didn't like one bit.]

...Is there a way to help them? To free them?

fine I'm doing it

[hattersgonnahat]

you want me to die?

[She had never done anything that bad though...]

[escardos]

uhhh thats kind of a tricky question

do i want you to die? no. you haven't fulfilled your purpose yet!

but you will die eventually. everyone will. every human should. those that don't are going against nature and that's really bad.

[hattersgonnahat]

....so its wrong to wanna live. or help other people. because everyone should die?

[So basically he would kill her for any other reason. Great, that feels so much better.]

[imitationsoul]

You shouldn't be asking us for wrong and right.

Those are socially created categories. They're not 'real', there are no absolutes of that kind.

[hattersgonnahat]

wanting to live is not a socially thing!!!!!

[And there shouldn't be a question if it's right or wrong at all!]

[imitationsoul]

It's not. It's an inherent desire in most living creatures.

But good or bad? That's made by us. It's categories we merely force onto such basic desires.

[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.

[shockingblue]

Except he did say it was brutal. He may have said there was no sin in it, but he also said life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" under those circumstances. It might not be a sin, but even Hobbes thought it sucked.

Nothing about trying to save the world as we know it is arrogant. Even in the state of nature that exists outside our collective societies, we have the natural right to defend ourselves, because that's part of being alive and in nature.

Did you even read Leviathan? Because it sounds like you took the wrong lesson out of it.