7, Video

[darwinatrix]

This is Major-General Olivier Armstrong. If you can ignore the bevy of Imports wasting our time with their age-changing frivolity, I have an announcement to make.

It's no secret that whatever their other feelings towards us, the natives of this world recognize that we Imports pose a threat to them. For how could we not? We have powers they can scarcely conceive of, let alone match. Even a single Import could outclass a regiment or more of this nation's army.

Therefore, I am hereby announcing the formation of RISE: the Rogue Import Suppression Enforcers. We Imports shall police and judge our own, apprehending those among us who would prey on the most vulnerable of this nation's native population and passing sentence as necessary.

Those among you who wish to lend your aid to the RISE mission are welcome. I await your questions.

Comments

[kittenjones]

You know that there are a lot of worlds where those things haven't happened yet, right?

[chiroptophobic]

Fortunately this isn't one of them, and that proves that, at least in its general form, this democracy works. If we don't have faith in it, trust it, then what remains is chaos; you leave yourself open to being compromised by those who would lean your doubts and fears toward their own motives.

[kittenjones]

I'd say chaos is better then a bunch of fat old men who sit on their arses and shrug when their people get killed.

[chiroptophobic]

It's easy to condemn a system you don't understand when you have no direct experience of the alternatives.

It is not our place to arbitrarily dictate judgement over the lives of others. The system proposed here is no better than raising a mob; it has no interest in guilt or innocence, only the vindicating satisfaction of making someone pay.

Revenge and justice are not the same thing; a line must be drawn. I fear misuse by those incapable of seeing it.

[kittenjones]

OK, and what, you see it? Even though others can't?

[chiroptophobic]

I'm not alone in that ability.
But I have experience. I have fought my entire life for justice, and experienced the temptation of revenge.
Major General Armstrong said it herself: she doesn't believe the standing punishment is enough, and she intends to take justice into her own hands; the hands of a shady organization loosely backed by someone in the government.

[kittenjones]

OK, except that no one's got any reason to believe you. She's done good for us. And who even are you?

[chiroptophobic]

The Batman. I'm known. I also have no interest in raising myself to a position of power over others.
She's intelligent. She has good intentions. But what she's done, and who I am, are irrelevant. The question isn't one of character. It's a question of right and wrong.

[kittenjones]

Yeah. It is. But guess what - what the government's been doing here, which is NOTHING when innocent people are getting killed, THAT'S the thing that's wrong. Doing something about it? THAT'S right.

[chiroptophobic]

I don't disagree.

[kittenjones]

Except you do. Except that's what you've been doing.

[chiroptophobic]

No, it isn't. I don't trust the government, and I'm certainly not blind to their failings. But there are ways to address them that are being shunned for the sake of following the easy part. You can bandage a stab wound, but the damage has still been done; it's deeper than that, and you will never be able to address it by ignoring it.

[kittenjones]

And what do you think is the 'easy' way of doing things?

[chiroptophobic]

This is it.
I won't repeat myself.

[ Damn you youthful impatience. Actually it's amazing he's continued the conversation this long. ]

[kittenjones]

Yeah, OK. Only what you're proposing is sitting back and letting other people take care of it. She's proposing stepping up herself. I think YOUR way is the easy way, and you're just dressing it up with a lot of fancy rhetoric to hide the fact that you just want to pass along the responsibility.

[chiroptophobic]

I assure you, I'm not as blind or as inactive as you seem to think I am. I don't have to justify my activities to you, nor would I. It would be dangerous.
Do you think they're not watching us?

[kittenjones]

"They" who?

[chiroptophobic]

You tell me. Aren't you sufficiently paranoid enough yourself to have some idea of the lack of freedoms you face here?
This is no place for that kind of discussion, and frankly I'm done discussing it.

[ Sorry Kitty, he has work to do. He'll be off now. ]