[bendy-timed] Let's Get It All Out [locked to New Hires except Price, Mac, and Jack Spicer]

[credit_not_blame]

[Not too long after some of the New Hires come back from this mess of a mission, a locked down video post appears on the secret network from everyone's favorite still-underaged-shhhh werewolf. She looks perky, in the slightly manic manner of someone gearing up for a fight.]


Since everyone got so excited about my question regarding what we were going to do with the Jorgmund scientists on the last mission, promptly turning it into a seething argument on whether or not killing is ever acceptable, I've decided to bring it up here on the Rig. Because apparently we need to have this conversation now or else we're going to have it at a completely inappropriate time and place; like on a mission where we're trying to plan out how to escape a prison that mind-fucks us.

[Because really, people? Really? Stacia clears her throat and schools her expression back into a smile.]

I'm going to need everyone to shitpost like crazy on the public side of things, because I can't be in charge of that and in charge of moderating this, the hottest of topics.

Speaking of, guess what. I'm in charge of moderating this conversation because Lonestar likes me best. Or because I volunteered; six of one, half dozen of the other. That means that I can freeze your threads and put you in time out if you break the rules.



1) Don't be an asshole. This is my favorite rule, and I am become Asshole Arbiter. Keep a civil tongue in your head and/or civil fingers on your keyboard. I recognize that this is a topic that is very contentious and very important to a lot of people, but we have to be able to work with each other. Allow me to remind you that we have been literally enslaved by a corporation in a reality separate from our own that has implanted internal shock collars inside our bodies. The attitude of your fellow enslaved are not the biggest problem here.

2) Participate in good faith. There are a few people who have not been invited to this conversation because I don't trust them to follow this rule. While I believe that having shit-stirrers around is important, I don't have the energy to wrangle them and all of you right now. If you decide that now is the time to reveal yourself as a shit-stirrer and you just want to piss people off, you will be declared an asshole and in violation of Rule 1.

3) This is a discussion to help determine what we're doing to do moving forward, not a moral debate. Obviously if you feel that killing someone is always wrong, that will inform your argument. That's fine! But if I see anyone going on about how so-and-so is naive idiot for refusing to kill or such-and-such is a monster because they do kill, I'm gonna put you in time out. Even if I agree with you! Because see Rule 1.

4) Feel free to self-moderate! I can't be everywhere at once -- in fact, there's only one of me. If you find yourself in a debate that isn't going anywhere, feel free to excuse yourself. Or even to not respond! You will not actually die if you don't get the last word in! If someone excuses themself from an exchange with you or stops responding to you, do not follow them around to continue harassing them. See again Rule 1.

5) If I freeze your thread or put you in time-out, go shitpost until you've calmed down again. Or read over what you were posting and ask yourself what was happening that I came in and put a stop to it. Or, if you feel that I am a most unfair and power-drunk bitch, you can go and make your own discussion post. Then whether or not you're in violation of Rule 1 is not my problem anymore.

Comments

[credit_not_blame]

I'll kick things off, since I imagine I won't have time later: I don't care for killing people. Outside of extremely specific circumstances, dead people stay dead and if you find out that you done fucked up somehow, it's fucked up forever.

On this last mission, it turned out that accidents not befalling the various Jorg scientists was the most correct answer. Our mission was their retrieval, and they had Other K the Saboteur among them. I'm relieved it worked out that way, and especially that the Bey and his people showed up to nab the townsfolk and the other people Jorg had yote into sitcom hell. Frankly, if they'd wanted to chuck a few rocks at the people who'd hurt them, I'd have been inclined to let them.

However, I also think that sometimes killing someone is the lesser of two evils. Speaking as a monster, sometimes the only way to stop a monster from doing further harm is to kill them. And regular humans can be monsters, even without teeth and claws.

[video]

[tr1xx]

Honestly I cannae fuckin' believe I didn't say this during that whole shiteshow, but knowing there was a saboteur amongst the scientists reminded me:

[ She claps her hands together. She's talking animatedly, but not agitatedly. She'd had time to think about this. ]

Ye cannae assume that every scientist workin' for a corrupt power is there willingly.

For one, look at us! Aye, we're an extreme example, with the shock collars, but ye know what people like Jorg do when they don't have enough smart people willing to help 'em? They kidnap and force people to do it!

Back home, we're dealin' with our own evil bastards and recently rescued multiple scientists they kidnapped to make work for 'em. There's plenty others still missin'. Kidnappin', threatenin' families, blah blah blah, ye get the picture, are real effective blackmail. It's all well an' good sayin' everyone involved in projects like we saw are 'evil scientists', but people like Other K exist.

And I dinnae ken about you guys, but I think that's something we oughta keep in mind. With scientists an' otherwise. Regardless of yer feelings on murder as a whole.

Which, for the record? I don't like killin'. Not unless there's no other choice. And I say that as someone fightin' in a war.

Re: [video]

[credit_not_blame]

That's a good point, and something we should maybe ask the K's about. Which people here are only here under duress? Which people are here because the Jorg is better than any other option they have, even though they don't like the shit the Jorg does? Is there anyone in the collar program who we can possibly flip?

[walkingballpit]

[ Somewhere in the Rig, Robbie is debating all of the pranks that he could, but won’t, pull on Stacia in retaliation for “Lonestar likes me best.” Bubblegum is heavily involved. ]

[video]

[zerg_rush]

I'm curious where the no-killing side draws a line. Is there ever a point where you decide that yes, okay, the world would be better off without a particular asshole using up other people's oxygen?

I don't like killing, I just don't think it's always avoidable.

[This is a very nuanced position from the actual assassin, y'all.]

[tr1xx]

Aye, I think that'd be a good idea. People are people, there's no way everyone left with brains is so evil they're goin' along with all this shite without some reason. Not sayin' every reason is gonna be one we can do anythin' about, but...

[ She gestures vaguely. ]

Re: [video]

[walkingballpit]

Imminent and otherwise unavoidable risk to sentient life. It can’t be about whether someone deserves to die or doesn’t deserve to live, or if it’s easier to kill them.

[tr1xx]

Particular assholes, maybe, aye; I can think of a few people I probably wouldn't dump a bucketa water on if they were on fire, even if I'm never gonna be the kinda person to set 'em on fire.

But outsida self-defense? If ye have the choice, ye gotta save it for the kinda people who there's absolutely no chance yer gonna stop 'em hurting people otherwise. And usually that's the big assholes in charge, aye? People with the actual power to do harm that ye can't hope to stop any other way.

[video]

[zerg_rush]

[Kerrigan, who is definitely all about revenge and/or purely strategic killing:]

Huh. Okay.

[Pause.]

What if it's tactical? Like taking out the officer with the nuclear launch codes before a battle starts. That's not some war college hypothetical—I've done that.

[hallelujahjunction]

I don't reckon we're a side so much as a spectrum with lines drawn in different places for each person.

[Dan's not exactly psyched to see this be the topic of network discussion, given how the last debate of this nature went down, which is why he's hanging out on the roof again dodging butterflies for cheap adrenalin to occupy his mind before he jumps in.]

I know it ain't always avoidable either. Robbie put it better than I could, but naturally, what's an "unavoidable" or "imminent" risk might could look different for different people.

[video]

[walkingballpit]

[ He takes the time to consider This, because Robbie’s not out for a fight here. He’s just answering her questions. ]

I don’t know enough about your universe to really answer that. And the ones I do know about - that’s still a no-go. For one thing, those sorts of weapons get used so rarely, even in actual war, due to the civilian lives lost, that it’s not an issue. For another, if someone’s close enough to selectively target an individual, they’re probably close enough to take them into custody if they tried.

[zerg_rush]

[Kerrigan blinks at the thought of nukes being rare or taboo.]

Tac-scale nukes are common where I'm from. Any decent-sized battle is going to have a launch or two. Part of my operational specialty is painting targets. It's not as easy as calling in an artillery strike, but there's not that much more red tape.

[They're pretty high up the tech tree, though, so that constrains their use.

And she's not getting into custody, because where she's from that's functionally equivalent to a longer, slower death than the nice clean headshots she uses.]

[walkingballpit]

[ He looks equally shocked at the idea of them being used that frequently. The bombs used in WWII killed about... a quarter million, quickly. He read somewhere that modern ones were at least ten times stronger.

That is a crushing amount of lives lost. ]

I... don’t think your issue is with the officer, if there’s 1-2 nukes going off every skirmish. How do you even have a habitable planet left? How is everyone not dead?

[zerg_rush]

No one really misses a barely-settled colony.

[Kerrigan shrugs. She doesn't agree with writing off worlds, but it's true.]

A limited exchange only messes up a single continent, usually. Plus you can terraform them back to habitability. It's just expensive. Arcturus [she puts a lot of...something on the name. Hate mixed with ruefulness mixed with guilt, maybe?] is definitely going to have his homeworld done after he wins the war. He—

[Her brain catches up to the implications of what Robbie's saying.]

—Oh, you don't have spaceflight yet! Yeah, I can see where it would be a bigger issue if all you've got is Earth.

[credit_not_blame]

That's a decent assessment of our situation, thanks Dan. But I think we need to come to some kind of consensus on where we as a group are going to draw the lines, or else we're going to end up fighting each other as much as we are the Jorg.

[walkingballpit]

[’No one would miss a barely settled colony’ is exactly the rationale that lets people nuke the daylight out of a planet. ]

My home universe technically has spaceflight, but not really space travel for Earth. We don’t have colonies, but I think the Kree do.

[ And judging by the never-ending mess of Skrull and Kree relations, they are very much upset when someone attacks them. ]

The universe I was in between there and here, the U.P. has billions of inhabited planets, and it would be a big deal if one of them was wiped out. Like intergalactic war crimes trial big. Sentients are sentients - there isn’t some magic number where lives become negligible.

[zerg_rush]

[That's a lot of planets, but Kerrigan has started to get a feel for that scale from talking about the Imperium with Garviel.]

It's headlines if a Core world gets hit, like when the Confederacy did an orbital bombardment of Korhal, but a good half the Fringe colonies aren't even counted on surveys. No one would notice those. Besides, before it was just us nuking us. We weren't fighting any other species until recently.

[And she is not going to apologize for nuking the zerg.]

[zerg_rush]

Yeah, it turns out we have more of those than I thought back home.

[Haha everything in StarCraft is always on fire.]

[walkingballpit]

I don’t think being noticed is what makes it wrong. And doing it to your own people doesn’t make it right.

[ He can see it now, the morality canyon between them. Robbie suspects that he will never manage to see eye-to-eye her, so he keeps brief. There’s no point in launching into the Sermon on the Mount. ]

If I treated anything like that, I’d be in prison for the rest of my life.

[tr1xx]

That's kinda the thing, really, isn't it? Lot of us have come here from places where killin' is usually the only option, more often than we'd maybe like.

[ She shrugs. ]

I think the point some of us on the 'maybe we don't jump right to murder' side of the mess from before were tryna make is it isn't the only option here. Not all the time, anyhow. Cannae speak for everyone, 'course, but for me, at least, that's where 'm comin' from.

[zerg_rush]

[Kerrigan's not great with people when she can't cheat telepathically, but even she can take the temperature of this conversation.]

I'm not justifying it...you just seemed so shocked about how things work where I'm from.

[A place that isn't a tire fire? Sounds fake.]

The government caring about a colony world getting attacked, at least enough to do anything about it? Not in the Confederacy. It's one of the reasons I was working to take them down.

[With nukes, if necessary.]

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday is using video for this; her usual laissez-faire typing style seems inappropriate.]

I don't have moral objections to killing, exactly. What I do got problems with is who, how, and why. Like in the recent thing - if we'da had time to figure out each scientist's deal an' isolate the bastards from the fellow sufferers - well, I still woulda been against it 'cause tactically an' strategically it wasn't the right time for that kinda strike on Jorgmund. But if it had been, I woulda preferred to exercise some discernment. Not just 'cause everyone was real pissed, which seemed to be where people were coming from. If you're gonna kill, do it fast, do it for a sound tactical an' strategic reason, and do it as little as possible. 'S how my pops taught me.

Not sayin' I'm an angel in that regard, though, or always did right. I've killed with hate and vengeance in my heart, for no reason other than the bastards picked a fight with the wrong bitch that day. I've killed to send a message. On at least one occasion, I've let someone die a bad death 'cause I figured they deserved it. Ain't proud of it, but there it is. The place I grew up in ain't the kind of place where doin' the right thing is easy even if you can figure out what it is.

[Saturday shifts, uncomfortable. This is unnerving, like talking about sex or politics in public]

I guess, lookin' back, the line I don't cross is like - not doin' t'others any worse then they've done or tried t'do t'me. Proportionate response, as much as possible. Not really sure where to go with that, except I'll try to remember what other folks think, and abide by it when I can.

[zerg_rush]

I think...there's a difference between killing and murder.

[Deep Thoughts with Kerrigan]

I've killed to protect other people and to save my own life, but I've also done political assassinations, back when I was still with the Confederacy.

[And mind-controlled, but she's not discussing that in public. She's remarkably unfazed by admitting to it, but Kerrigan wouldn't know "normal" if it bit her.]

Only that last one counts as murder.

[hallelujahjunction]

I think it might could be a fool's errand to try and get a consensus out of this group. These are sincerely-held beliefs that folks often pick up because of the most painful things that have happened in their lives. It'd like be trying to get all us to agree on a religion. [He shakes his head.]

No matter what the group decided, if it ran against someone's instincts or morals enough, they'd just go rogue. And I include myself in that number.

[paganpoetry]

My dear, the fact that you're asking for people to come to a consensus instead of simply asserting your own will over them means that you have a ways to go before you are truly an unfair and power-drunk bitch.