02 . text

[systemize]

[The comm tag reads Stormer and is untraceable.]

Someone asked me recently how I'd define moral and immoral, but I think my perspective's a little skewed. How do you define it?


> private to Magicman
I need to ask you for a favor. Do they have you listed as an adult here? I wasn't sure what your official age would be.

> private to Isaac
I think I have your software finished. I can send you the file to download and you can check if it needs troubleshooting.

Comments

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty finds herself nodding a bit in agreement with that. ]

Yeah. The best we can do, I think, is just make the best decision we can using the information we have, and to always make the effort to learn more. To never stop finding out everything we can find out, so that we can make better choices, until - if we're lucky - we can really make good ones.

[systemize]

It really does feel like that, being lucky. Lucky to be informed enough to know what you're actually deciding.

[rathercommon]

Yeah. It absolutely is being lucky. Information's never just handed over, is it? Because being able to choose for yourself, in an informed way - that's real power. And no one likes to just give power away. So being able to break free of a cycle of ignorance, being able to really learn how to go about things, is all too often a matter of being lucky. Were you in the right place at the right time to find the right path? If luck is with you...

[systemize]

[Cadel wasn't expecting to find someone that so totally understands what a luxury it is to have honest, clear understanding of someone or something. It's a little sad, but it's also a relief. It makes him feel like less of an ostracized freak.]

No, it's not. Well. Actually, some people are so kind that they do just hand it over. But I didn't know any of them until recently.

Sometimes when you find out how ignorant you've been, it's like the whole world has shattered around you. I don't ever want that to happen again. I can't afford to be ignorant. I don't think anyone can; they'll end up paying for it even if they don't see that yet.

[rathercommon]

[ Oh child
Child you are singing the song of her heart
Kitty feels a recognition of those thoughts so strongly it practically feels like a throb going through her. She might have written those words herself. ]

Or making others pay. But someone suffers for ignorance. One way or another, it always comes around. I know.

I didn't introduce myself, by the way. I'm Kitty.

[systemize]

[Cadel doesn't often feel badly about not giving out his real name, but in this case he does, inexplicably.]

I go by Stormer online. Some people are okay passing off the fallout, but I'm not. I still haven't decided what I want to do about it here yet.

[rathercommon]

[ She guesses that's probably not his real name - but she comes from a world where most people use false names, and she herself went by a false name her first months here; she's unoffended. Because of that, though, she assumes that she knows the answer to this next question even before she asks it: ]

Can I ask what your experiences have been? With being kept in the dark, all that.

[systemize]

I was brought up in a hall of mirrors. Nothing was what I thought it was. Not even my adoptive parents -- they were never married. They were plants for the man who was monitoring me.

I didn't figure it out until two years ago.

[rathercommon]

[ Oh. More honesty than than she was expecting. Also: God, how awful. ]

Monitoring you for what?

[systemize]

[Despite his efforts to rise above his upbringing, Cadel defaults to being manipulative when he's put under pressure, and he very much feels under pressure in this world. He's too isolated. It's sheer survival that he needs to find allies, and he's telling nothing more than the truth. It's all information the police have on him at home, anyway-- his court case has been dragged from trial to trial. The legal complexities are bewildering.

And ultimately, Cadel is just not used to having any privacy at all. That doesn't mean the emotional content he'll be so free with sharing, and in his public network persona here, he certainly can't say he was grooming me to take over his international criminal empire.]

It's complicated, but he wanted me to be his heir. And some people don't trust anything that isn't in their direct control.

[rathercommon]

That's so completely beastly. Completely awful. I'm really horribly sorry to hear that.

[ She hesitates. She's not really able to relate to anything so grand as that, but - ]

In my home, there are lots of people in a position similar to yours. My country is ruled by magicians, and they're awful to my people and to spirits, and so I cannot fully forgive them. But they do that because they were just taught badly. They're all apprenticed really young and starved of useful information so that they grow up ignorant and blind. So that they learn to hate and oppress because of their ignorance. And then they do the same to their own next generation of apprentices. It's horrid.

[systemize]

[The open sympathy is always surprising to him. Cadel had grown up in that environment, so the reaction out in the wider world hasn't lost its edge to him yet.] Thanks. It's not so bad anymore-- I have new adoptive parents and they're wonderful. [He's mostly offering that because he really doesn't want her to feel too badly.

Her description, though, rings a bell for him. It's like the Axis Institute, although Axis hadn't been that well established by far. It is similar to the trap he'd almost fallen into, except Cadel had woken himself up from it and dragged himself out.]

I don't know anything about magic or spirits, but having it institutionalized is horrible. It must be entrenched. I know what you mean about them being taught badly, though. I've watched kids who... who degenerated into that mentality. When everyone around you is paranoid and hostile, you end up that way, too, because you have to protect yourself. It's not right. But sometimes it's like there's no way to convince them of anything else.

[rathercommon]

Yeah. Same. Absolutely the same. The magician that I know better than any other - I can tell that at his core, he's a decent person. He's brave, and really clever, and he genuinely wants what's best for people. He's trying really hard to be good. But everything for him has always been twisted around to being strong, and ruthless, and cruel, and never allowing the least bit of weakness and he was always taught that kindness was weakness. So he's fighting hard to be good, but it's such a difficult battle. And it just leaves me to wonder...My people have been ground down under the magicians' heel for hundreds of years. How many of them have only been treating us like this because no one ever showed them any alternative? Because they were surrounded by paranoia and hostility and just were dragged down into it? How many of them started out good but had that goodness choked off?

[systemize]

Kindness as weakness... I know all about that.

Probably most of them just didn't know there was another way, not really. If you disparage anyone who shows you an alternate example, you're never going to seriously consider it. It's vital to maintaining that mindset that you perceive anyone less than ruthless as stupid or slow. And if they're that slow, they're practically asking to be taken advantage of.

You have to get them early. I think if I'd waited any longer to realize what was going on, I never would have.

[rathercommon]

Well...The one I know - he's already seventeen. He changed his mind, and he's already an adult. AND he came to the decision himself.

[systemize]

That's amazing. Though the hardest part is what you do afterward.

[Cadel starts to feel badly that he's not sure he could have done that, but it's reflexive guilt. He has done that, honestly, every time Prosper has approached him again, tried to ensnare him again. He's resisted every time.]

Do you think something similar can happen with the others?

[rathercommon]

Yeah. I really do. I think that decency is a thing that can only be smothered, but never killed. I think that nearly everyone can be talked around to seeing a new point of view. It just takes understanding them, and where they're coming from.

[systemize]

I hope that's true. It would be nice if it were.

[rathercommon]

Yeah...It would. Sometimes I wonder if that's not wishful thinking. I'd really like for it to be true.

[systemize]

I wonder that, too. I worry about who I'll get hurt by thinking that way.

[rathercommon]

What do you mean, who you'll get hurt?

[systemize]

If I'm in a position to do something about it, and instead I'm idealistically trying to change them, the people around me can get hurt.

[rathercommon]

I see what you mean. But on the other hand, violence is often answered with revenge, isn't it? So being too ready to do something about it can get your people hurt too.

[systemize]

I don't want to do anything violent. That's not the only way to retaliate.