VIDEO; MAY 5th OTA

[neveroutwrenched]

[Time for another rousing round of Get Off the Network, Ratchet. At least this time he isn't drunk posting, although he is in the bar. It's just convenient. His tone is relatively cheerful but he is very, very serious. Something is going wrong on this ship.]

Okay, soooo, are we all gonna talk about how broken the justice system on this ship is now? How it doesn't work?

Because I feel like this is a great time. What with, people taking matters into their own hands, and all that.

Comments

[t65]

[Muttered,] Well, at least you don't want him punished for the sake of it.

What's an example of a justice system that isn't broken? I admit, I've never really seen one I liked.

[neveroutwrenched]

[Someone woke up on the cynical side of the bed this morning. Ratchet smiles though.]

I don't know. All systems are going to have their flaws, you know? But it's about weighing the advantages...maybe it's an ongoing process. Assess, keep what works, get rid of what doesn't, rinse and repeat. Progress. Maybe it doesn't happen over night, but I'm sure people would feel better if it was happening.

[t65]

[It's an odd, mismatched life being a whiny optimist. Luke hopes for the best, but he's always quick to point out when something's not up to standard. So Luke smiles when he sees that someone is clearly trying, in their own way, to improve things.]

That's a good point. Where I'm from... there used to be better justice systems, I've heard, but they all ended around when I was born. [Like. The same day.] There was something called... juries? Do they have those in your system?

[neveroutwrenched]

Some parts do, yeah. The system I'm from is big though...there's more than one way of doing things. [And admittedly, some of them work better than others. And how well each system worked was...probably subjective.]

A jury usually decides guilt though...here, we all get a say but it's just based on punishment. Maybe that's what's missing here, I dunno.

[t65]

So... you think it should be based on guilt? People should vote on whether they think someone's guilty?

[Luke considers it.]

What are the ways it's done in your system? In mine, it just depends on whether an important person cares enough. There's no... [What's the word?] It's completely biased.

[neveroutwrenched]

Ah....well, when you say it like that it sounds bad. I just meant that only leaving punishment to people, but not the decision of whether they should be punished in the first place is...sort of imbalanced. People need to be more involved in the process.

[Ratchet looks aside thoughtfully.]

There's a lot of that where I'm from too...or even worse than bias, you can just buy your way out of trouble. That's one side of things I don't think we'll have to worry about here, at least.

[Money, not bias.]

[t65]

I'm a little worried... why is it based on punishment? Why are we so wrapped up in punishing people? Shouldn't we focus on making sure they don't hurt anyone else, instead? That seems more important. Otherwise, it's just... voting on hurting someone because we're mad at them.

[neveroutwrenched]

Exactly. This kind of system just...pits people against each other. You can see it happening already and it's... [He hesitates.] It makes me worried too.

[t65]

I think it's hard to fix something broken when you don't know what the working model looks like. But it's good that you're trying. Sometimes, that's all you can do.

[neveroutwrenched]

Yeah. And, hey, maybe someone here does know what a truly working system looks like, and we can all learn something.