thisavrou | [voice]

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[voice]

[Ryuuzaki's low voice is accented in a way that people from places other than the U.K. might think of as "generically English," and when the message begins, his tones are pleasant and measured without being effusive.]

Hello, everyone.

The Ingress has brought us to the Moira from any number of places. When I meet someone, I can't say whether our similarities will outweigh our differences, or vice-versa... when you're this far from home, even small commonalities can seem important. It's led me to be curious about the broad strokes of everyone's backgrounds.

[A pause, as he approaches his real question.]

What can you tell me about the government in the place you came from before this? Both the form of government and, if possible, specific names of leaders.

If it wasn't your original home, I'd be interested in hearing about that, too, even down to what year it was for you.

If you'd prefer to answer privately, that's all right with me. I can promise you my discretion.

Thank you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'd have to agree with you, although I suppose it's a matter of perspective.

How long has it been like that, to your knowledge?

Two hundred and nine years, eleven months aaaaaand...[He thinks for a moment.]...twelve days, I think. At least that's how long it'd been as of the last day I was on Earth. With all this multi-universe time is relative space-stuff, figuring out time has gotten kinda complicated.

That sounds about right. [Enough anarchy for long enough seems to lead inevitably and inexorably in the described direction, at least according to all the reading he's ever done, and it seems to accord with his own observations.] Do you know what caused the crisis?

Yeah, some people decided to launch nuclear missiles at some other people, and so the other people decided to launch nuclear missiles back. And then it was bye-bye national governments!

[Deacon manages to sound relatively chipper for someone talking about the nuclear apocalypse.]

[It's amazing what people can get used to.]

And before that -- why the initial decision to launch missiles was made? There must have been tensions leading up to it.

Something about Communist threat, war, everyone wanted Alaska for some reason, maybe because moose are awesome, blah blah blah.

[It was the oil fields in Alaska that everyone wanted. But Deacon finds it hard to take any of the reasons for the War seriously. Nothing, nothing could justify what happened, the mess that was left for those people's descendants to suffer through.]

I don't think it was the moose. They aren't typically a very valuable resource.

[His tone dips, becomes dry for a moment -- but the subject is sober, and he doesn't continue in a wry tone.]

What would you do to restore order there, if you could?

I don't know, those antler things are pretty impressive.

[He replies in an equally dry tone.]

Yeeeeah, I don't like the phrase "restoring order." The idea is nice, but it sounds too much like the sort of thing that some creepy old guy in a uniform dripping medals would say before sending out the secret police to go oppress the masses.

I'm totally behind the general goal of fixing things, I've just never seen a big fix that anyone's proposed that I could really get behind, you know?

Mm. If you have a hunting lodge.

It's fair to say that restoring order on a large scale when everything is in chaos could involve some state oppression... furthermore, whose idea of order are we talking about? That's always a loaded question.

Exactly. There are groups out there who talk about restoring order, but somehow their idea of order always seems to involve arranging shit so that it benefits them at the expense of all the people they don't consider worthy.

Hence your despotic mayors.

[That's said maybe a little too flatly: there's something he especially dislikes about the situation under discussion, about what people do to people they don't consider "worthy." The case is a few years in the past, but there may never be a day when its outlines don't annoy him to some extent.

And this conversation mirrors what Cassandra has been saying to him: that civilization falls apart, that survival depends on the protection of the strong, and so on. Neither of them is wrong -- it's just disappointing.]

It doesn't seem that there's any efficient way to empower the "unworthy"... but the situation you're describing has been typical for most of human history. Even the ideals of Magna Carta, or of some Enlightenment thinkers, favored privileged classes... the people who were speaking at the time. I suppose it's part of human nature.

That said, because you wouldn't want to leave things in the hands of a despot, how would you run them if you were in control of a territory? Or is that too much trouble... or is despotism inevitable under those conditions?

[Deacon blows out a puff of air between his lips.]

Man, I don't know. There's a reason no one puts me in charge of anything. I am not the guy to make the big decisions.

I don't think despotism is inevitable. I guess if it were me...I'd start with the little things. Like, just make sure everyone's got the basics--food, water, shelter. I think you could cut down on a lot of the assholery if people didn't feel like they had to murder their neighbors and steal their tatos to survive. People have got to reach a point of at least sort of trusting each other and caring about each other and not all "every man for himself" before we can even begin to have a functioning, not-corrupt government. To have a social fucking contract, Rousseau-style, we need an actual community first.

I can't disagree with that.

Would it be feasible, however?

Yeah, probably not. Not any time soon, anyway. Human nature's a bitch and building trust takes a long time. [He shrugs.] Maybe eventually. [He's gotta hope.]

I'd say "maybe we're all doomed," but I suppose there are reasons for optimism: conditions might be very bad, but at least a number of people have survived for several hundred years. That's a start.

Is there anything good?

Oh sure, there are good things in the wasteland. Takahashi's noodles are fantastic.

Noodles?

[Worlds die, civilizations fall, but ramen is apparently indestructible. It figures, he thinks.]

Is it a noodle stand?

Yeah, it's a noodle stand in Diamond City.

We say "city" but it's more like a shanty town built inside an old baseball stadium and run by one of the previously mentioned despotic mayors. If you don't mind bigotry and authoritarianism, though, it's one of the nicer places to live.

[That gets a soft sound, a mirthless dry chuckle. It's not really hard to imagine how the world could come to scenarios like that.]

Somehow I'm not completely surprised that a noodle stand might be a viable concern, under the circumstances.

What about the worse places?

Wow, the list of worse places is so long I hardly know where to begin. There's the oh-so-ironically named Libertalia, a raider nest of impressive proportions, where this season's big home decorating fad is cages and severed body parts. Then there's Quincy, the site of the now-famous Quincy Massacre of a few months back. University Point was nice, until the Institute wiped it off the map two years ago.

The Institute?

[The rest is almost self-explanatory.]

Otherwise known as "those evil bastards." A cadre of mad scientists with an army of synth slaves, get their kicks out of terrorizing the populace...

The Commonwealth is a fun and exciting place to live.

For certain values of fun and exciting.

Isn't there any other scientifically inclined group, to balance that?

There's the Brotherhood of Steel, but I can't say they really balance out the Institute. Their mortal enemies, sure, but it's like Mothra versus Godzilla. Like, there's not actually a good guy to side with there.

So... really more of the same, and you can only hope that they remove each other from the equation.

Is there any particular group whose success you'd favor?

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maybe a moose bit someone's sister

a majestic moose

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