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srwu Mar. 1st, 2016 08:46 pm)
pulledplug posting in srwu Mar. 1st, 2016 08:46 pm)[Beatrice Willson. The successor to the SCCF's initial leader and mad scientist, Lilian Cavinagh, who didn't last long in the position seeing as how she's locked up in a cell and facing interrogation.]
Right. We get to meet face to face now. In a sense, since... yeah.
[... From a Doomba with the video setup for Roy.]
And you came because you thought I'd just tell you information you wanted to hear about the Foundation, or the Cambio Protocol in general? Or what happened to your friend after Carina attacked with the Gatekeeper?
Sorry, but let me be your paperboy for the day and give you the news: Carina's dead, her plan was bust from the get-go, and Lenore's safe and sound. Though that's actually good news for you, 'cuz now I'm not gonna badger you about that.
But your buddies who're probably trying to elect a new boss since you're locked up here? Yeah, start talking. Lilian was a nutjob from the start, but all the info I could dig up on you was that for a couple of years you were making it as a paranormal detective. Guess huntin' ghosts just wasn't putting food on the table for you so you decided to be a terrorist then?
... That's how you think it played out? For being an advanced robot you certainly can't see the bigger picture. Another thing you don't understand at all, in fact. So I'll start at the beginning, and maybe... you'll understand why the SCCF does what it has been, for trying to save the world.
I don't know my parents or how I was born. In fact, I'm an anomaly even stranger than Dakova. You see, I was found, as a newborn, in a sealed, isolation cell in a maximum security, all-male prison. The cell would've required identity cards from five senior members of the staff, all of whom had been on vacation for the past week... and there hadn't been a woman visiting the prison for the past six months.
"Willson", they called me. Not after anyone special, but just that I'd somehow come into existence and survived until I was found through nothing save my own determination to live. The warden was generous enough to provide me an education and I grew up, and decided to try to find the truth about anomalies like myself.
Strange things happen in the world all the time, but all too often there's a method to the madness. The Kijin came from somewhere. Those black domes came from somewhere. Even the PRAYERs came from somewhere. But a true anomaly simply can't be explained. It has no origin, no common threads connecting it to anything else, and trying to understand how it came to be doesn't even reward you with more questions, to say nothing of more answers. An anomaly simply is.
The only "anomaly" I'm freaking seeing is you thinking all the crap you and your buddies pulled will help anyone at all.
You would, wouldn't you? Then again, how old are you? A few months? Half a year? Dotrice likely didn't finish you until days before arranging to meet with the Unity Group. You haven't seen what I've seen of the world.
In the shadows there's nothing but tragedy. Desperate people trying to do anything they can to get ahead and be happy, and all too often victims of things well beyond their control. Sometimes it's "normal" things, other times anomalies. But it keeps happening. I've seen what could only be described as sexually-transmitted killer ghosts, murderous lion statues that can only move when someone's looking at them, shadows that would consume us all if they so much as understood the concept of "food" and that we were all prime specimens.
Millions of people die every day and nobody here cares. And millions more will die because that's how the world today operates. And the SCCF's killed... maybe a thousand? But we are on the precipice of real change! Change for the better!
You keep spewing that out like it isn't a massive load of bullcrap! You and your goons aren't heroes and you're not making the world a better place at all! Boss man, Erria... you even went after a buncha people on the Moon just to make them lab rats for your weirdo tech!
And if someone dies from hunger because you can't give him food it's a tragedy, but if you kill him the instant before he would've otherwise died, somehow that's wrong? Monstrous even? Everything the SCCF's done will one day benefit everyone who lives after we're in power!
For instance, consider this. One anomaly the SCCF had in their possession until a short while ago was a man who could not get hungry. He didn't need to eat or drink at all. And unfortunately in the process of examining him, learning everything we could, he... passed on. But the research we gained though can save lives! We're already in the process of replicating his condition in others, and the going is slow but just imagine!
[Her face brightens up, eyes shining with something you would not expect: idealism.]
With one life, the SCCF's taken a bigger leap in ending world hunger forever than the rest of human civilization has in... in forever! In another fifty or twenty-five years... or maybe even just a decade, food will become obsolete! Millions of acres can be repurposed for ecological conservation! And that was just from one very mild anomaly. Dakova's power to control minds is magnitudes more potent than that! Even if only a deterrent, imagine the wars that would be averted, the destruction and death averted as the threat of Dakova's power cows warmongers to the bargaining table!
[But the Doomba only has one response. As dramatically as it can, the little robot slowly turns, clipping a folder of documents and sliding them slooooooowly off the table, after which they scatter all over the floor.]
You're more bonkers than a headbonked guy bonking other guys in the head while screaming "BOOOOOOONKKKEEEEEERS!" every time. You and your entire group of nutso scientists and crap.
Be seeing you around. Maybe a little time in another cell'll get your head outta the clouds.
[Anyone else is free to talk to/interrogate Beatrice if they want, even as groups.]
Right. We get to meet face to face now. In a sense, since... yeah.
[... From a Doomba with the video setup for Roy.]
And you came because you thought I'd just tell you information you wanted to hear about the Foundation, or the Cambio Protocol in general? Or what happened to your friend after Carina attacked with the Gatekeeper?
Sorry, but let me be your paperboy for the day and give you the news: Carina's dead, her plan was bust from the get-go, and Lenore's safe and sound. Though that's actually good news for you, 'cuz now I'm not gonna badger you about that.
But your buddies who're probably trying to elect a new boss since you're locked up here? Yeah, start talking. Lilian was a nutjob from the start, but all the info I could dig up on you was that for a couple of years you were making it as a paranormal detective. Guess huntin' ghosts just wasn't putting food on the table for you so you decided to be a terrorist then?
... That's how you think it played out? For being an advanced robot you certainly can't see the bigger picture. Another thing you don't understand at all, in fact. So I'll start at the beginning, and maybe... you'll understand why the SCCF does what it has been, for trying to save the world.
I don't know my parents or how I was born. In fact, I'm an anomaly even stranger than Dakova. You see, I was found, as a newborn, in a sealed, isolation cell in a maximum security, all-male prison. The cell would've required identity cards from five senior members of the staff, all of whom had been on vacation for the past week... and there hadn't been a woman visiting the prison for the past six months.
"Willson", they called me. Not after anyone special, but just that I'd somehow come into existence and survived until I was found through nothing save my own determination to live. The warden was generous enough to provide me an education and I grew up, and decided to try to find the truth about anomalies like myself.
Strange things happen in the world all the time, but all too often there's a method to the madness. The Kijin came from somewhere. Those black domes came from somewhere. Even the PRAYERs came from somewhere. But a true anomaly simply can't be explained. It has no origin, no common threads connecting it to anything else, and trying to understand how it came to be doesn't even reward you with more questions, to say nothing of more answers. An anomaly simply is.
The only "anomaly" I'm freaking seeing is you thinking all the crap you and your buddies pulled will help anyone at all.
You would, wouldn't you? Then again, how old are you? A few months? Half a year? Dotrice likely didn't finish you until days before arranging to meet with the Unity Group. You haven't seen what I've seen of the world.
In the shadows there's nothing but tragedy. Desperate people trying to do anything they can to get ahead and be happy, and all too often victims of things well beyond their control. Sometimes it's "normal" things, other times anomalies. But it keeps happening. I've seen what could only be described as sexually-transmitted killer ghosts, murderous lion statues that can only move when someone's looking at them, shadows that would consume us all if they so much as understood the concept of "food" and that we were all prime specimens.
Millions of people die every day and nobody here cares. And millions more will die because that's how the world today operates. And the SCCF's killed... maybe a thousand? But we are on the precipice of real change! Change for the better!
You keep spewing that out like it isn't a massive load of bullcrap! You and your goons aren't heroes and you're not making the world a better place at all! Boss man, Erria... you even went after a buncha people on the Moon just to make them lab rats for your weirdo tech!
And if someone dies from hunger because you can't give him food it's a tragedy, but if you kill him the instant before he would've otherwise died, somehow that's wrong? Monstrous even? Everything the SCCF's done will one day benefit everyone who lives after we're in power!
For instance, consider this. One anomaly the SCCF had in their possession until a short while ago was a man who could not get hungry. He didn't need to eat or drink at all. And unfortunately in the process of examining him, learning everything we could, he... passed on. But the research we gained though can save lives! We're already in the process of replicating his condition in others, and the going is slow but just imagine!
[Her face brightens up, eyes shining with something you would not expect: idealism.]
With one life, the SCCF's taken a bigger leap in ending world hunger forever than the rest of human civilization has in... in forever! In another fifty or twenty-five years... or maybe even just a decade, food will become obsolete! Millions of acres can be repurposed for ecological conservation! And that was just from one very mild anomaly. Dakova's power to control minds is magnitudes more potent than that! Even if only a deterrent, imagine the wars that would be averted, the destruction and death averted as the threat of Dakova's power cows warmongers to the bargaining table!
[But the Doomba only has one response. As dramatically as it can, the little robot slowly turns, clipping a folder of documents and sliding them slooooooowly off the table, after which they scatter all over the floor.]
You're more bonkers than a headbonked guy bonking other guys in the head while screaming "BOOOOOOONKKKEEEEEERS!" every time. You and your entire group of nutso scientists and crap.
Be seeing you around. Maybe a little time in another cell'll get your head outta the clouds.
[Anyone else is free to talk to/interrogate Beatrice if they want, even as groups.]
Tags:
From:
no subject
...Do you understand why I hate you?
From:
no subject
[Beatrice can only offer a sympathetic, but otherwise unhelpful smile.]
Any number of people seem think the SCCF's nothing but monsters, if that's what you mean. If you mean something else though... I'm sorry but I don't.
From:
no subject
My mother was a sacrifice for such a thing. As was my father, and my siblings, and the rest of my family. I very nearly was myself.
And that project failed miserably, you know. Not because of anyone's intervention, either. So many lives were destroyed, and it amounted to nothing. When I hear you speak of your ideals, your mission-I hear the echoes of Pedantic Blue, the words of people who killed hundreds for a mirage.
From:
no subject
But... they didn't die for nothing.
It doesn't change what you lost but... I did hear the truth about Pedantic Blue when it came out. And at the very least, now nobody else will attempt those kinds of experiments ever again.
You might not think it's much, but something good still did come out of all of it.
From:
no subject
Don't- [The lights flicker as Eva stops herself, taking several deep breaths.]
...That kind of result isn't worth the cost. It's not worth the suffering. Do you understand? You can't undo the deaths you've caused just because your experiment fails.
From:
no subject
And Pedantic Blue wasn't our experiment. As terrible as you can accuse us of being, our concern is the bigger picture, the future that we leave to generations to come. We would never conduct such a test.
Lilian's murderer wouldn't stop bringing up what happened on Erria. But how would anyone have known about Dakova if we hadn't captured Dotrice? And the ESUN's quarantine of the island wouldn't have mattered at all in the long run.
But thanks to the SCCF, no-one will fall to Dakova's influence ever again, and it's Dakova who is being used by us, for the betterment of life on Earth!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
This isn't rationalization, this is just honesty and seeing the big picture. Lilian Cavinah had a dream of a better world, and she died long before she had a chance to make it happen.
But I'm still here, just like the rest of the SCCF. And just because she died, doesn't mean her dream has to.
From:
no subject
What about killing ten men to do the same? Would you be alright with that? A thousand? A milion?
When does the rationalization end?
From:
no subject
"Ms. Wilson," Dido says at last. "Have you ever read the story called "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"?"
From:
no subject
[Eva's hands ball up into fists.]
Are you really so prideful as to be blind to even the possibility of your failure? Do you even begin to realize what you're gambling with? Even if you think it's worth it, you have to realize the risk...
From:
no subject
That scare tactic pretending to be a story always gets brought up by people who can't find any other way to discredit us.
But what I always found horrifying about the that story was its writer. To think up such a situation, and then act like those who walked away were any better than those that stayed. They knew of the child's plight, but they just ran away from the reality of life in Omelas to ease their own fragile consciences like that betters the world. Their own personal solution would benefit no-one, least of all themselves.
Or do you disagree?
From:
no subject
We didn't kill anyone!
[Beatrice's voice raises as she stands up, genuinely offended by the accusation.]
Subject 301 understood the risks and was the loudest voice encouraging we continue experimenting on him, even in his final moments! He had nothing in his life, no meaning or happiness before he was scouted, but the possibility of being the solution to world hunger meant more to him than... than even any of us!
What's wrong with a man in our care dying in such away? Or ten, or... or even a billion! Aren't infantry trained to dive onto grenades to save their comrades?
And besides... how many people have you killed on the battlefield to save lives? Were any of them as willing to die for your sake as Subject 301?!?
From:
no subject
I've seen the risks already. Lilian already died, thanks to Dotrice's doll.
[The prisoner's tension matches Eva's, her own hands curled up like claws on the table.]
And stop bringing up Erria like what the SCCF did was somehow wrong. The island and the people on it already were a lost cause, their minds warped by Dakova! You were at that battle, you must've been able to feel his influence at some point.
Imagine what almost thirty years on that island could do to your mind without even the basics of mental defenses! Everyone there was living on borrowed time, and my heart goes out to anyone who survived; you have my word that once we can the SCCF will find a way to help treat them...
But the victims who didn't make it?
[She shakes her head slowly.]
They were as good as dead already. Their blood isn't on our hands!
From:
no subject
Were people of Erria soldiers? Or do you think they all volunteered to be murdered or worse?
From:
no subject
"In my case, I'm intrigued by how horribly attractive that city of Omelas is. It's vibrant, intellectual, sensual...happy without being banal. And if it can only exist because of the hopeless suffering of a single child...well, that makes Omelas far more ideal than the world of mass exploitation we live in."
Dido pauses. "But here's what bugs me," she says. "How exactly does a child locked away in a cupboard bring a city happiness? And why would their happiness end if the child was free? As a metaphor for apathy, the reasoning behind that child's suffering is way too vague!"
She raises an eyebrow. "Or do you disagree?"
From:
no subject
No, they weren't. But it didn't stop Dakova from ruining their minds, either. And the ESUN was more concerned with just making a quarantine to make sure nobody else would be affected than doing anything to help the people that were.
It was the SCCF, no... it was Lilian to thank for resolving all of that! And people may have died, but their lives were already over and their minds ruined because of Dakova! If not for us, the problem of what to do with Erria's inhabitants would be no closer to being resolved!
From:
no subject
Sometimes the reasons are beyond human understanding. Over its history, the SCCF's found any number of subjects we can barely comprehend the mechanics of. Anomalies are like that... often all you can do is understand what it does, not how it goes about it.
From:
no subject
No, I think I heard enough, at least on this topic. No matter how much you try to rationalize it, you probably know by now - that other members of Cambio Protocol don't bother with even that.
You're not friends. You're at most allies of convenience. But you know where they are hiding.
And you will tell us.
[Setsuko sounds very cold saying these words. So uncharacteristically like her. Chief taught her more than just piloting.]
From:
no subject
And... if I don't?
[Beatrice's own voice lacks that coldness, but the resolve is still there.]
You're right... they're allies of convenience. But they have been very convenient, and they've no reason to be enemies with us yet.
And Lilian entrusted me with the future of the SCCF and even the world. I won't betray that trust!
From:
no subject
With the likes of Carina Gloster, or anyone in VIPER - there won't be any future for the world. You worked with them, you must see it too.
From:
no subject
Dido leans back in her chair. "But here's the point I'm working towards, Beatrice: you don't know–can't know – if your 'sacrifices for the greater good' will actually lead to any greater good."
She spreads her hands. "What if your cruel attempts at mastering these Anomalies are just...unnecessary? As pointless as a caveman beheading a firstborn to turn on a lightbulb?"
From:
no subject
...His name is Roy.