text 💎 un: Tohsaka Rin

[defenceless]

[shortly after the storm clears on may 11th and the network connection between both sides of the group is reestablished, the following post appears:]

We're fine, as far as I know. I don't think anyone's dead, at least.

The storm that separated us was brought about by a Dakal named Pomarr. Some of you may remember her as our feline friend who sold her soul to Ryba—or whatever it is she did—to continue to live on after death.

She swept us to an island that looked like it was raised from the seafloor. It wasn't a vacation, but there were definitely remnants of what those big cats must have called home.

Her plan is to revive her entire race, in the same way Ryba "revived" her. As if life-or-death deals with shady goddesses aren't concerning enough, she wants to grant Ryba the power to carry out this mass revival by having her suck Nalanni dry. Pomarr understandably doesn't care much for Nalanni after she drowned everyone she loved; in fact, she showed us this in morbid detail. She's taken Nalanni. Hence, all the Nalawi losing their Gifts and all of this inconvenience we have to deal with.

Pomarr knows where Nalanni is, but she's asking us not to interfere, and she wouldn't give us the opportunity to speak with Nalanni when I requested it. For some reason, she didn't expect that we would be suffering like the Nalawi are. She's promised to try to fix that.

What do we do now, ALASTAIR? I can share anything else you want to know about our meeting with Pomarr, or Yukimura Sanada-san or Mr. Keats can, but this is most of it. We have a situation where the balance of this whole world might be upended if we sit and twiddle our thumbs.

I don't think I need to remind anyone of the potential consequences of messing with either goddess. Or a litter of zombie cats roaming free.

(( ooc: infodump for rin, yukimura, and keats' conversation with a dakal npc, for one of the plot slots! feel free to handwave your character (in either the marooned group or the left behind group) learned this info by reading the post or talking with rin/yukimura/keats/another recruit. yukimura and keats may also be replying to tags! ))

Comments

[adlantisag]

This is not anger levied against a person, Motochika! We speak on a god. A god with no business wiping out entire peoples!

[dokyuu]

I'm not defending what was done! You know I have no reason to. But what becomes of this place if we do this? Do you know?

[adlantisag]

I know what happens to this place if we do not.

Nalanni continues to run unchecked, to wreak havoc as her whims dictate.

[dokyuu]

Okay. So we take her out. I'm not concerned about whether the Nalawi get their powers back, they could stand to learn to live without 'em. But what if we just fuck the place up worse. What if more people, who didn't do anything, end up dead? Because then it's not on Nalanni anymore, that's on us. And I gotta tell you, I'm not sure that's a thing I can handle.

[adlantisag]

I can live with my choice to act, no matter the consequence. I know my heart leads me true. Though I may be weak, I will find the solution I need, or I will carve it out.

I could not live with myself if my inaction caused suffering, Motochika. It is not in me. Do not ask it of me. If we fail to act now, and a thousand years from now Nalanni wipes out her own supplicants, or fights with her sister and the whole world falls to chaos, is it not just as bad as what you describe?

Your choice matters little to me. I want to know that your heart beats to war-drums, Motochika. I want to know you feel.

[dokyuu]

I'm not asking for inaction, Kida. I just don't want people doing stuff they won't be able to live with later. I don't want anyone here getting hurt if they don't gotta. Seen too much of that already.

[adlantisag]

That anyone can see this--see what destruction the mighty has visited upon the weak--and not take up arms, and still sleep soundly?

That is what I do not understand.

I am glad you walk by my side, Motochika. Truly.

[wardance]

You have no proof this is what will happen, Kida, get a grip on yourself! You are not making any sense demanding proof of one thing and speaking without proof of another.

[ this is crazy-- he has never seen her this crazy!? ]

[adlantisag]

[ What? ]

We saw it happen!

[ As in VIDEO FUCKING EVIDENCE. Isn't that what they're arguing here?! ]

[wardance]

You have no proof she would ever destroy like that again.

[adlantisag]

What are you saying, Masamune?! We have seen her do it! We know she is capable!

It stands to reason that she will always be capable!

[wardance]

Of course she is capable.

But, the only instance we know of her ever doing it was in which she was provoked and threatened first. We do not know this place well enough to know how much of a threat they really posed to her. For some spirits, destroying something of theirs is death for them, no matter how great their power. The war went on for a while before ending, why did Nalanni not wipe them out sooner if she was merely a destroyer?

[adlantisag]

Threatened? She is a god! I do not care to know her perspective; gods operate outside mortal understanding. That is part of the problem, do you not see?

[wardance]

So you think she is a literal goddess? Do gods normally have such ... human faults?

[adlantisag]

[ Just. Boggled. How does she take this response? This doesn't make sense. ]

Yes. And--why would you not think so?

[ If Nalanni is a true goddess, then Kida's point stands--she is unpredictable and evidently not a reliable protector to all the life of the planet.

If she isn't, then Kida's point stands doubly--what possible refuge could she have from the consequences of her act then? ]

[wardance]

Why are you so convinced it was done out of pure malice? If goddesses experience human emotions, can't they obviously lose control and perhaps do more than they would deem normal themselves?

It's just... you speak as if we were here to experience it and have right to pass judgment on an event that happened decades ago. what about Pomarr? She is the one who experienced it. Why not assist her to right the wrong committed..?

Are you doing this for the Dakal out of compassion for them being wronged or for your people that were wronged because you have no ability to kill the ones responsible for Atlantis...?

audio | un: archer

[anti_altruisms]

[ He wasn't going to say anything, but that comment prompts him speak up. ]

Would you not also consider Servants to be a 'problem' by that criteria, Kidagakash?

Or is our existence more acceptable to you because we are bound to serve humans lest we perish and fade away?

[ There's no ire in his tone. He's simply asking a question. ]

[adlantisag]

[ Has she truly been so unclear? ]

Nemeshos. If your Master had not demanded it of you, would you have taken all the lives you have?

[anti_altruisms]

[ She's been very clear. He's simply making a point. ]

My Master has never demanded that I kill.

[ If anything, Rin is more soft-hearted than he is. ]

There are Servants with the power to drain the lifeforce of an entire city.

There are others who can slay a man with a blow that never misses.

Others can destroy Fortresses, obliterate entire city blocks.

Gilgamesh possesses within his Gate the prototype of every Noble Phantasm ever conceived.

We feed on magic, the blood and the souls of human beings.

Some of us have betrayed our own Masters and sought our own selfish goals with all the power we possess.

Answer my question, Kidagakash -- are we not beings that operate outside the realm of human understanding?

[adlantisag]

[ She doesn't mean his master Rin. She means whatever entity he was bound to when he told her that he committed atrocities as a slave--but regardless, she's still not buying his point.

If having the power was enough to earn condemnation, she'd have to line up to execute her own father. But of the list he's given her, only Gilgamesh would come close to the unpredictability Kida speaks of, and that's because he's three-quarters divine himself. She's had quarrel with Gilgamesh since she met him. Archer, Lancer, Saber: they can be counted on to act in specific ways given specific cause. A being like Nalanni cannot, and that is what makes her objectively dangerous to keep around mortals. ]

No. Because you were human, once. Acknowledge it or not, Archer, there remains a man beneath all that armour and all that magic.

[anti_altruisms]

[ Archer's expression hardens. ]

And are humans so much better, Kidagakash?

Humans, who enslave and kill one another?

Humans, who have caused more problems for themselves than any deity ever thought to?

Humans, who wage war and commit atrocities just as horrific as Nalanni's slaughter of the Dakal?

Humans who constructed a magical device that could grant any wish and now, instead, houses enough curses to obliterate the world?

[ His voice grows colder with each state. ]

I have seen every Hell, every foul and deplorable thing humans have ever done to their own kind. They are no better than this goddess, or an other deity. If they were, the world wouldn't need beings such as myself to clean up after them in every age of human history.

Do not tout the goodness of humanity to me, as if it is somehow better and less destructive than a goddess, Kidagakash.

[ Nothing could be further from the truth. ]

[adlantisag]

How can you be so willingly absurd?! What have I said of the goodness of humanity to you? Had the fight been between but the Nalawi and the Dakal it would have been a battle of equal forces; such as it is between men!

[ If she could reach through her bracer and grab him by the collar, she would. From her perspective, she's being as clear as she can. His humanity doesn't make him good, far from it--but it makes him understandable. ]

I want Nalanni exterminated so that there is no chance that one thousand, ten thousand years from now she does to her own followers what she did to the Dakal, over some perceived slight they cannot anticipate. Surely you of all people can understand the need to destroy two to save two hundred.

[anti_altruisms]

Is that what you believe, Kidagakash? That it is somehow more "fair" when mortals fight and commit atrocities against one another, as opposed to when gods do it? That all wars are fought between enemies of equal power and prowess?

[ Pathetic. Laughable. ]

You wouldn't consider the perspective of a goddess who obliterated an entire race of people, but you would excuse the power of Servants, whose destructive might can be just as great, for the simple fact that we were "human once"?

[ His words are frigid. Clearly, he sees nothing about his past humanity that makes him more understandable or less monstrous. ]

I excuse nothing. We are not here to impose our own sense of justice based on events we did not experience firsthand. The role of guardians, of those who maintain timelines, is to ensure balance.

It may very well be that both goddesses must die so this world can continue to exist. It may also very well be that should both goddesses be exterminated, the world would fall apart. Or that the Nalawi will survive, become a more technological people, and eventually, in thousands of years, become capable of killing each other more effectively than Nalanni ever could.

[ Humans sure are good at it these days. Atom bombs and all. ]

Where will your crusade for justice be then, Kidagakash? What good will your outrage do you when for every injustice you seek to right, ten more emerge?

Seek her head if you will, but do not condemn the rest of us for taking a more cautious approach.

[adlantisag]

[ The more he speaks the more apparent it becomes that her words are flying into a void, that her outrage is without ally and meets no understanding. Archer is not mortal and cannot see her perspective. Very well. He doesn't have to.

It pains her that she's so wound up, because the one she'd ordinarily call on to ease her stress is the very one causing it.

Let him lie in the cold calculus of death. Kida's resolve was built over millennia, and if he intends to unmake it, there are yet years ahead of him. His condescending disrespect cloys her almost as much as his words do. ]

I will condemn as I see fit. 'Caution' is not a worthy approach in the face of wanton destruction; I refuse it. Do you think to cow me, Nemeshos? Do you think you frighten me? Walk with me or against me; make your choice and keep your peace.

[ He'll recieve no answer to whatever, if any, response he gives. She's past done arguing. ]

[wardance]

—But she displays and acts on human emotions and human faults. What does she have that makes her not the same as a human if she can't do anything other than think and react like a human?


[ he is really trying so hard here to see her side of this. And he does, but only as a result of strong personal empathy to what has happened to her own people rather than the reasons presented. ]