text | un: Sasaki

[ex_adept136]

[Haise has talked with several teammates about the lack of cohesion, and how difficult it is for all of them to coordinate. It was something he'd meant to discuss, or perhaps encourage others better suited, to bring up when they had some down-time. In the wake of a rather heated debate he chose to sat out on, he thinks maybe conversations about how they unify can't wait]

It seems that some of us may be feeling a little hot under the collar after recent events. Since I am an advocate for mercy, and am only alive because as much was extended to me when others may have argued against it, I don't want to touch on moral disagreements. Our stances will naturally differ, because our organization doesn't give us any unifying principles to abide by.

As a member of the CCG, I had very set guidelines to follow. Those weren't all things I agreed with, or felt right about. But they did maintain order, and did keep people safe. They made us an effective team, and more than once it's come up with colleagues here that we might benefit from that.

This was something I'd hoped might come up on Oska, when people had time to relax, but considering the circumstances...

Would any of you be interested in opening that discussion? That is, talking about our backgrounds, where we're coming from, and what we believe. If we start there, surely we can find a way to work together. If we're constantly at odds with one another, that isn't good for anyone. When I first joined, that division was certainly in place, but those I disagreed with still took the time to speak with me, and we did have common ground. I'd like to suggest that, as a team, we try to find that...for all our sakes.

Edit: Although I spoke of my own background in the example I provided, by no means am I suggesting that everyone do the same. Most importantly, we need to establish where we stand on issues we're often confronted with in our line of work. These things would inevitably show in our actions, so speaking on personal matters is not necessary for discussion.
What each of us believes and what course we're inclined to take is what I mean to inquire about.

[ooc: Naturally, thread-hop/jack as desired]

Comments

text | un: Sasaki

[ex_adept136]

To accompany the above, I'll try to start us off with an example. For those who don't know me, I'm Haise Sasaki. I come from one of various iterations of Earth, in which humans deal with a predatory species known as ghouls. Unlike folklore from other worlds, ghouls look human enough, but differ in their biology. The organization to which I belong is the Commission of Counter-Ghoul, where I act as an investigator. My superior, Arima, is here as well.

[And also the one to whom he attributes the merciful act of sparing him]

Among our many guidelines is the expectation that we will exterminate ghouls. At the same time, we are to avoid causing unnecessary suffering. Those who know me will not be surprised that I prefer to take captives over lives, and the CCG has a tightly secured containment facility for this purpose. What may surprise others is that I have killed. Many times. In point of fact, I was awarded honors for the extermination of one hundred ghouls during a large-scale operation.

I'm accustomed to squads that number less than ten, which may be coordinated by a division responsible for monitoring battles during collective efforts. Although I served as mentor for the squad to which I have been assigned, I technically belong to another, under a superior. Rank is very prevalent, as is organization, so I've found my time here disorienting on occasion.

Personally, I've seen us divided on issues of taking and sparing lives from my earliest days in ALASTAIR about a year ago. It's important enough for us to have strong opinions about, and I don't think that's wrong. But I do want to find a way to work together and support one another, and better use our skills and abilities.

Among the skills I can use in service of the team are my experience as an investigator, hand-to-hand combat, and swordsmanship. In the case of the last, Arima exceeds me. My body heals swiftly and is impervious to normal bullets and blades, so I'm often on the front lines. By virtue of my time in ALASTAIR, I've been granted magic that allows me to heal wounds and repair broken objects, although I'm unsure where my limits are.

I don't believe there's any one way to talk about ourselves, but I hope this will be a start.

private

[p66]

You've taken a great leap, Haise-san. Is this really okay?

audio; un:hound

[ofobedience]

I still don't believe that preserving life at any cost is a mercy. It was different, perhaps, in Woodhurst. But not with those who's minds had been hollowed out by the Taxara.

[His voice is cool and even, without heat.]

Allowing those people to live was a mistake, in my opinion.

text | un: Arima

[prodigism]

[ Sup son, dad here to feel guilty about some of the things Haise has mentioned in his post. He still replies to it however, not in voice but in text. He agrees with most of what Haise says of course finding a common ground among everyone is just an ideal that can never really be fulfilled. ]

Allowing the Taraxa infected people to live was a mistake. Hopefully we can learn from this in the future. I don't think keeping them alive is an option anymore.

[ Honestly if there's no cure and no way to really help them then the whole point is moot. Especially now that they're going on the attack and trying to harm those of ALASTAIR. ]

un; harmonia

[digiorno]

You speak as though you expect the answer to your question to be yes--that everyone here is willing to open up their wounds for everyone to see, that that will be universally helpful and healing and unifying rather than potentially much more damaging to some people or even to all.

It seems cruel to me. I doubt that was your intention. But not everyone is capable of trust. Even working on the assumption that everyone on this team is worth trusting, that it would be physically and psychologically safe for everyone to open up in that way, not everyone is capable of doing so. Not everyone wants to. Not everyone will be truthful about doing so. The people who tell the truth and receive negative or ignorant reactions about their truth will fester resentment.

Asking for universal honesty is artificial. People open up at their own pace and on their own terms. Again, I don't feel you meant harm in any way, and the initiative is admirable, but I feel the response you'll get will be heavily skewed towards the people who were comfortable being open anyway.

[ex_adept136]

I'm sorry it has come across to you that way. It's not my intention to ask after details others find too personal to share. For my part, I have disclosed matters which are known to my associates in my own world.

As such, I don't claim to be entirely forthright nor ask for it.

My intention is to open a dialogue. What each of us may wish to say, I can only imagine will depend on individual views. We are a very large squad. But if we don't talk about our perspectives and what we agree on, I don't see us working as a unit. If I have worded it poorly, that's my mistake, but we're expected to determine our own course as a team and I hope we can begin with finding out where we may agree.

Trust is something earned with time, and I hope I haven't suggested otherwise. If even this is problematic, how would you say we should approach the matter?

text; un: redlion

[secondnature]

We're supposed to say where we come from, right? I can do that.

[There's a lot he's debating sharing, but the biggest part is that he's part alien. But if he told his team back home, he can do that here. He's certain of it.]

I never knew a whole lot about myself. I lost my dad at an early age, and the only thing I had from my family was a weapon. This weapon turned out to be a big deal. When I was ready, I entered a school to become a fighter pilot, and I was the best of the best. But I failed out. I ended up lost for a while. And then I started sensing this weird energy, which led me, and a bunch of other guys, to a giant blue robot lion.

That led us down a path to where we are today. We're all paladins. I pilot the red lion, and if you've met Lance, Shiro, or Pidge, they pilot the blue, black, and green lions. We're fighting a war back home against an evil empire led by a man named Emperor Zarkon. Most of his race, the Galra, are involved in their control of the universe. They've taken over planets in countless galaxies. So many people need help. And we're meant to liberate them.

There are two things, though.

First, it turns out that I'm part Galra. I don't know how much. But it was hard for me to take. How could I be a part of this species that hurt so many people? I saw that there were good people, though. They wanted to fight back. They'd even die for it.

Second, I've been a member of Team Audentes for even longer than I've been a paladin now. Our team back home is a lot smaller, but we've been gaining allies along the way. Not everyone has the same idea of how to do things. The Galra on our side are afraid of taking risks, because it could destroy their infrastructure. Others are willing to give up that if it means finally stopping Zarkon. Either way, we are fighting a war. A war is exactly what you think it is.

Either way, I've decided to protect my universe and the multiverse. If I'm here, then that's what I'm meant to do. A friend told me that it's likely that I was meant to walk this path. I didn't believe her at the time, or maybe I didn't want to believe in myself.

I'm not sure which way is the right way to think. But I'm going to fight. This is my purpose now.

text; un: reika, private

[p66]

I know we're strangers at this point, but

To be able to help people and protect their lives even knowing your past, it's admirable. A friend of mine had a similar experience and they're still recovering from it. This probably puts me in the 'idealist' camp judging from the rest of the team's attitude, but it still matters to me. Deciding your own path despite what you are.

[ Keith is also being very open about this, which makes him easier to reply to. ]

text; un. hawkeye

[strictdiscipline]

You aren't defined by the actions of your people, though it seems as though you've realized that already.

[But perhaps of more interest:]

You hold a very positive opinion of your place here, and it seems of ALASTAIR by proxy.

un: fiona

[cachemoney]

[She doesn't quite get the point of this, but she's anxious waiting to return to Oska, so she'll bite.]

Oookay, well, my beliefs are that as long as nothing is a threat to me or mine, it can do whatever it wants.

Unless it's in the way of our mission goal, then I guess whatever's the most surefire way to reach that, whether it's killing etc. I figure we are supposed to be saving timelines from destruction, so if we have to kill a couple people to make sure an entire universe doesn't die, that's a pretty fair trade.

[iomnic]

We have already been "killing a couple of people," Fiona. I believe the true question is that, if we are in a situation where we are given the opportunity to rescue potential survivors- should we?

[fateality]

Can't say that I particularly disagree, but what else is new.

[twinsies!]

text; un: zenyatta

[iomnic]

This is a wonderful idea you have, Haise. I know some do not agree with it, but I believe our honesty with who we are, and how we feel about the situations we've been handed will help us out overall.

I am Tekhartha Zenyatta, an omnic, and a monk. Omnics are essentially "robots" as you from other worlds may know of, but we are... different. We are not just A.I. beings- we have thoughts of our own, intelligence, sentience... souls.

As a monk, I am an advocate for mercy as well, in most situations. But I also will not stand for the harming of innocents, and if a reaction is needed, then it will be provided. Our problems stem from our inability to foresee how our actions will have repercussions. I do not believe we made the wrong choice overall. We had attempted to save lives, and we had. We could not have accounted for their escape, and sabotage. To say that we should have simply killed innocent lives because it might come back to hurt us, then we should ask ourselves, what is the point in saving any lives at all? Every mission has this potential.

On another note, as one might think, I am slightly at odds with how I feel on our enemy sending in a robotic army. We are not there yet, and so I have no information on the details of their presence. But I am quite troubled at the potential they may also have a level of sentience I find on par with my own.

audio; un: hound

[ofobedience]

The problem is, we weren't saving lives in this instance. Those people were already something worse than dead. What's the point of preserving a life when all that remains of it is a hollowed-out empty husk of what an individual used to be?

[He says it coolly enough, calmly, unlike his reactions during Perdition's Rest. But the fact is it's still a subject that slides beneath his skin like a parring knife, cuts into him in a very personal way.]

Preserving live at any cost doesn't sound much like mercy, to me.

[ex_adept136]

That's kind of you to say. I can only hope that this might be a step in a positive direction for us, though as others have reminded me, we have a lot of work ahead of us. Having such a very large team is quite the challenge, in its way.

It's true that we have no way to foresee these outcomes. Even with the Timeline program, this situation still caught Oska by surprise...

I've inquired regarding their weaponry, but I'll see what our senior in Kittypaw has to say about them beyond that. Maybe we can at least get an idea of whether there's a potential, so we can have an informed perspective.

text; un: anonymous

[skelepun]

a monk, huh? man, dimensional rifts really knew what they were doing, dragging people like you into all this.

text; un: redlion

[secondnature]

If they're sentient, we should stop them, right?

That means they're doing this of their own free will.

un: shitpost king

[hedonistic]

this is a nice thought and all but sitting around in a metaphorical circle and sharing our individual sob stories isn't going to do much

the idealists have their heads so far up their asses with moral superiority already that they'll never change their minds about anything and there's so many of them that eventually they'll just shout the rest of us down and do what they want

if u so much as suggest doing something that's not all warm and fuzzy and feel-good ur a heartless bastard that wants to go on a sociopathic killing spree and should just shut up and sit in the unhelpful corner so

what's the point tbh

private; un: harmonia

[digiorno]

I guarantee you won't be listened to unless you use ten dollar words and smile demurely, darling. Isn't that the pits?

[ex_adept136]

You'd probably characterize me as an idealist, but I like to think my reality has grounded me a little, but I'm sure that depends on who you ask.

Even if it's futile, I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. For the past year, I've seen people butting heads in the same way, no matter who comes and who goes. I hold no illusions that I'm the "right man for the job" insofar as getting some kind of discussion started, but I'd rather make the attempt.

And maybe some of us can overcome this, with some work. I doubt it will ever be a case of "everyone", even my own squad back home had disagreements... But if we can come up with a few points that we do agree on, at least it'd give us something.

text; un: anonymous

[skelepun]

got any regrets yet?

[ex_adept136]

Everyone has regrets in their lives...

Unless you mean about posting. If that's the case, then no, I'm grateful for the discussion.

text | un: Princess (tl;dr i'm sorry but here goes)

[assent]

[ If anything, this is not how she wanted to do this. The reality of it is that she had been getting better at opening up about her own situation, one on one with others, but this is on another scale.

After all, she's one of the few who can understand the situation of the taxara well enough to give a statement on what it actually feels like. Even if she isn't ready, it feels like it should be said. Instead of trying to do this on her own, at least, she's putting these thoughts into text while holding onto Haise like a lifeline. ]

Some of you will already be aware of what I am about to say, though there are many I still have not been able to be more open about this to. I do not hide the fact that I have come to realise that my country, Novoselic, is not exactly a good place to be. Wars have waged, coups have been attempted, and even with my status as a princess I was unable to do very much to help my people there. There is a lot of gang warfare there, and I, myself, have been abducted twice by insurgents who were aiming to take control of the political system.

There is a lot that happened after that which is much more difficult for me to say.

Many are aware that I went abroad to study in Japan to an Academy named Hope's Peak. What they are not aware of, however, are the events that transpired months after my start at this school. A young girl, younger even than myself, had capabilities beyond what you can imagine. Alongside those capabilities, she also had a vision of absolute destruction for the hell of it. No motivations aside from her own desire to see despair befall the world.

My class was targeted to be used as a means towards this distruction. We were led into a trap, forced to watch our friend die as a process for brainwashing us. My mind was practically erased to be filled only with the desire for absolute despair for the next three years following that point. The amount of lives on my hands is unimagininable. Due to my status in Europe, and my influence there, the continent fell mostly because of me as well. I took the throne from my family, took our armies and had them lay waste upon the lands. My entire world is almost in an apocolyptic state, where people are either beating each other, shooting each other, or killing themselves for the pleasure that despair brings.

There is one organisation back home that is trying to fight against us, and they did manage to capture us. One of their newer members took a risk and "uploaded" us into a virtual world as a means to try and erase our minds of the brainwashing, and replace them with our personalities and what they knew of our memories from the past. This process was dangerous and risky as it had not been completed before. Sadly, it also failed. A virus of our "creator" was uploaded into the system and the virtual world that had meant to be a paradise was changed into a murder game. We had to kill one another in that world and keep it a secret. Any that murdered another and fooled the rest would be granted passage, and the rest would "die". We were lucky, those of us left in that world, that the same person who wanted to save us took the risk to fight the virus head on. The only reason I am cured now is because he gave us that chance, talked to us and asked us to take the risk of returning to our former selves once we knew what we had done. Those of us who did actually murder another in that game or were murdered are still unable to wake up and I am left wondering if they ever will again.

I admit, that I had wanted to stay there. I had wanted to pretend that none of what I had come to learn was real. To have your memories erased and learn that you have killed millions is not an easy task. It is even worse to have those memories erased and have them all return upon awakening, only to then find yourself in a different universe altogether. It is something I have to cope with every day, no matter how much I smile and pretend it did not happen, it did. I will never be forgiven, I may never forgive myself, but all I can do is my best to ensure nothing like it happens again.

I imagine for those infected with the taxara are no different, only in a way I envy the fact they may never have to remember the awful things they did.

None of it was their fault, and none of us can say what is the right or wrong way to handle the situation so that is not what we should be arguing about to begin with. We gave them a chance, it is up to them how they would handle it from that point. All I know is that anyone in that situation should be given the support they need.

Personally I sit in the middle of both sides, knowing that sometimes lives must be sacrificed to save others, yet also wanting to preserve life due to how little is left of it back home. There is no answer that is always right or always wrong, and it will always vary due to differing circumstances. All I want is for people on both sides to actually sit and understand this.

Thank you for reading this.

text; un: anonymous

[skelepun]

[Sans knew that humans had strange priorities. Time spent studying their souls generated no concrete data on how they worked or what motivated them. They were all different, capable of existing without the fundamental traits that made up a monster soul -- and significantly stronger because of it.

But also with significantly more capacity for cruelty. In monster history books, there was always the unwritten conclusion that his kind were punished and killed for their differences. That humans were a kingdom unto themselves, acting as one community to better themselves by whatever parameters they saw fit. Reading this now, Sans can hardly believe humans would inflict that kind of pain and suffering on their own kind. But there it was, in black and white.

It's also hard to believe this is the same girl who giggled about his eye socket; a girl who had been through unspeakable things and still advocated for mercy, even when Sans wasn't sure he would do the same in her shoes?

He thinks about passing it over unaddressed, but decides against it. She put the herculean effort into committing her experience to text, least he could do was toss her a few texts of his own in acknowledgement.]

that took a lot of guts.

[And, because the mood is heavy enough without shining some light on things.]

you can count on that. i'm something of a guts expert.

text; un: urahara

[predomination]

[LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT THE INFECTED ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM THAT WAS THE LAST TIME THEY TALKED OVER A MONTH AGO. URAHARA WAS NOT AVOIDING. HE WAS WORKING.]

If nothing else, it's much more difficult to argue with people willing to share their personal experiences with near-strangers.

Always so sensible, Sasaki-san~

[ex_adept136]

[WHAT ATTEMPT AT SMASHING HIM THROUGH A WALL WHEN DID THAT EVER HAPPEN. NEVER THAT'S WHEN]

I'd call this the tip of the iceburg, so I haven't ventured terribly far. Still...I'm sure there were plenty of people who thought me much too soft for what I've had to do in actuality. And maybe there's some benefit to considering that we all have more to us than might first be evident.

At least, I'd like to think it'd help. I derived my approach in part from a discussion we once had, but we'll see how it goes.

text; un. hawkeye

[strictdiscipline]

That's a lofty goal, Haise.

[Not one she disagrees with, by any means, but eighty people is a large number to try and corral at any given time.]

[ex_adept136]

They do say aim high, after all.

...But mostly, I got to feeling that I'd rather make the attempt than do nothing. Even if it yields very little, it'd be a start.

[He thinks, in his own way, Kaz was aiming for the same. They'd once spoken about the lack of cohesion, and how concerning it was]

text; un: cardmaster

[fateality]

I don't know that this kind of discussion is going to change anyone's minds. We've all had difference experiences and backgrounds, and what we personally know is the be-all, end-all for most. After all, people tend to be the stubborn sort.

That said, it's hard to say if we were too merciful or not.

[He doesn't really offer a personal opinion, clearly.]

text; un: anonymous

[skelepun]

you're gonna make me swoon with all this measured debate, twisty. take it easy on the reasonableness.

next time we're in a place that's cool and has a real bar, round's on me.

[Good luck holding him to that non-promise, but the sentiment applies. Sorta.]