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

[iomnic]

By that logic, I do not have a soul either, then.

[Which he already had a feeling Giovanni was thinking anyway.]

Is this what you mean?

[ofobedience]

[A slight hesitation then, a small delay, a vague ripple of feeling burgeoning behind his ribs, but he never has been the best at identifying emotions, nor at observing social niceties, so after a moment he answers honestly.]

Well. I suppose that's what I mean, yes.

[iomnic]

But I do.

[It isn't said in an argumentative tone, but just a calm explanation.]

What makes a life? Is it how you are made by being born or created- or is it your existence? Am I not alive? Do my actions not matter?

If I am not real, and neither are you, but our actions and our words have the same effect on others as other living beings, then why are we not "real"? What is the difference?

[ofobedience]

[His frown deepens around another momentary silence, thinking it through. It's a hard thing, he thinks, to put into words, but the certainty is there in him all the same. That whatever he is, it's something false, something artificial. The moments tick by one by one as he gathers himself, fumbles after the words he needs in order to form an explanation.

This kind of thing, this conversation, it's not something he's accustomed to having.

Eventually though his lips part, and he tries.]

I don't think it's about living, or actions. It's about what we are, what we're made of and why. I was cloned from the cells of my maker, cultivated specifically for high resonance with Kerberos - the thing that makes me what I am - I'm not something that was ever supposed to act on the world in ways other than the purpose for which I was intended. I don't see how something like myself could have a soul. I'm just a copy, of sorts. One of many.

[Or well, there were many, once. Now there are only two. But this, he thinks, is irrelevant.]

[iomnic]

Do you like where you came from? What you were "made" to do?

[He knows, based on what Giovanni's already said, the answer is probably no.]

[ofobedience]

[Perhaps he doesn't. But admitting that, even to himself - at least consciously, overtly, a kind of doublethink always employed to keep such thoughts quiet and small, near silenced - isn't something easily done.]

That's irrelevant, ultimately.

[iomnic]

[ Welp, sorry Gio, but Zenyatta loves Helping People Who Don't Ask For It. ]

I do not believe it is irrelevant, considering how you use it to determine your worth. You have also said how important your memories are to you. If you did not remember who and what you are- would this version of you still think you are not human? Not worthy of having a soul?

[ofobedience]

[His voice then, it dips slightly lower, turns bitter-edged and faintly tinged with something raw, almost painful. What he says, it's far more honest than he intended it to be.]

When it comes to that, when I'm returned to my own world, if my plans fall through and I lose all those parts of himself that make me what I am-- well. It won't matter any more, and I certainly won't be human. Just one of the many throw-away Dog Soldiers, mindless and obedient and used up like canon fodder. I won't be worthy of anything.

[iomnic]

[But it's what Zenyatta was hoping to hear, even if it's more bitter or scornful than intended.
He pauses for a moment, in thought. ]

I assume you wish to be free.

[Which he might be wrong, but he continues on anyway.]

If the thought of your future is as much of a plague on your present as your past has been, true freedom will continue to elude you. This future you are afraid of- it is a far off time, unseen by you and anyone else. You are not your untold future, and you are not your past.

You are who you are, right now.

[Slowly, one of the orbs the Zenyatta keeps around his neck, floating in a slow rotation, he removes from orbit. He holds it in his hand, tracing lines on it's details.]

Acceptance of your existing worth does not come easy for those who have such anxiety.

[ofobedience]

[Does he wish to be free? Perhaps. A small secret part of him still wants it, an end to the madness of the place he was created into, some kind of salvation. A salvation and a freedom he thinks he'll find in death, a death he hopes Heine will bring to him before he loses so much of himself for it to no longer matter.

He wants it to end with some part of himself left in tact, still knowing who he is. Still remembering something. Heine and Lily-- the only brief, good things he'd ever had, no matter how sour they'd turned in the end.

His expression remains thoughtful, bleak. And though it's a while before he responds, he does speak again, eventually.]

No-one exists in a void. I'm more my past than I am anything else. Without it, you see, I'd be nothing at all.

[he truly believes that-- it's what makes him what he is, those tainted memories, his sad collection of failures and experiences of never being quite enough. He's been trying to exist more in the present here, to do as Haise has suggested, to make the most of these experiences whilst he can. But it's a difficult thing, for something like him. It's hard to see outside of himself, outside of that place he still carries with him despite that they're now worlds away.

All of this, it only brings it home to him more sharply.

He feels he has no worth, or at least very little, but it's not something he wants to express out loud any more solidly than he already has, and so he tries shifting the focus away from himself, instead.]

What makes you think you have a soul?

[It's not said in an accusatory way, not a challenge or a discrediting. Only curious.]