thisavrou | 03 | audio; forwarded to the 8th

It’s almost funny how you guys are rallying around Rinzler lately. All this talk about how what we did wasn’t right, how we need to fix the system here, how we need to be better people. So much outrage, you guys seemed like you really cared a lot about free will and doing the right thing.

And I could have bought it, I really could have, if it weren’t for what happened a few months ago. When the captains did the same thing to someone on board and well, I checked because surely if you’re so upset now it must have been all out war back then. [A small, hollow laugh.] But no. You guys were pretty calm about it. Not even a peep.

And so I started thinking, why? I mean, free will matters right? Justice matters.

There had to be some reason you cared more about what we did to a robot than a mutant, right? Because that’s what he was. A mutant. You even voted to suppress his mutation. Cure him. Temporary of course, because you’re not evil.

It's just, we are. We’re threats. We’re uncontrollable, dangerous. It’s not like we’re real people. Not like Rinzler. [He starts to get louder, faster. Something close to hysteria starting to seep through.] Our free will and DNA and heads, they’re okay to mess with! It’s okay to go after us! Not with a person like Rinzler though. I mean, there’s just a few of us, so it makes sense right? There’s so many of these robots and computers, and you humans out there made them. And that computer can attack and hurt people like us and whatever! The rest of you got to protect your tools. Got to be able to use them again.

We’re different and everyone always fears what’s different. That’s what it is right? Right? Either that or you’re just a bunch of damn hypocrites pretending majority rule has ever been good for the rest of us. Just rather call out people like me and sit on your asses than ask yourselves why this kind of shit was let go on so long and why you never did anything before! Rather take it out on people trying to do something, trying to survive than fix your own damn mistakes!

So come on. [There's no pretense of calm anymore, but the rushed tone is gone. He speaks slowly, pronouncing each word with vitriol. He wants to be sure he's not misunderstood, that people are listening.] Which is it?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You always take everything so personally.

[Somewhere, he's pinching the bridge of his nose and rolling his eyes. He's being a shitty teenager in how he goes about this but there had been a list of people he found exempt from his anger. She was on it.

Either he believed they can no hand in the vote, too close to something strange themselves for him to think they would have weighed in either side, or the most likely. He was just willing to overlook whatever trouble he felt they'd caused. For all he wants to scream the people here were hypocrites, he was the biggest one of all.]

I want people to realize there is a problem. And I have to piss them off to do that? Fine. I'd rather have them angry and reacting than everyone just continuing to let things go.

I know that the people here want to act like one person is worth rallying behind and another isn't. I know that people here think trying to kill someone is a lesser offense than trying to fix a problem with non-violence. I know that's screwed up.

Tell me something I don't know.

[It probably came from spending years alone. Or from being the literal center of so many universes, and still alone. It's not a good thing but--]

I just figured since you were throwing out accusations at people who are human, I was included in that group. Maybe it would have been more productive to make a list of specific people you don't like, then I would have known to shrug and go about my day like I did when you were in the medical bay.

...you're speaking for quite a few people when you say 'people', and you're applying your own moral code to them. People die here, Peter, and so far it's only been the end twice out of a handful of times. It doesn't make it acceptable, but it's different than if it was permanent. Consequentially, being unable to die but living lobotomized is, in my opinion, torture.

But I'm not suggesting you feel that way. I'm only suggesting that you take a long, hard look at what you define as 'right' and 'wrong', and realize those words are the two most subjective things in the universe. There's a definition of that for every sentient being on this ship.

I said the people who voted and let it happen. The people who are acting like hypocrites in letting it happen to one person and getting mad when it happens to another. If you're not acting like that, than I'm not making it apply to you!

Unless the science department's made some real break through lately, we still don't know when it's going to be permanent. It doesn't make it different just because there's a change they might come back. Murder is still murder. Death can still be the end and all that it implies.

This wasn't a lobotomy. It was a fix. He was made to be different than this. Something happened and Alan was going to fix it!

Someone made to be one thing and becoming another doesn't mean they need to be fixed. Especially against their will. Who gets to decide who's broken and who's fine? What line will be drawn? 'If you kill someone, run or get ready to be fixed'?

Guess I deserved to have someone try to fix me, then.

When that thing becomes dangerous. Isn't that how it always goes? This is an easy line to be drawn. He has something wrong with him that's making him hurt people, so something has to be done to stop him.

Because you're presenting such a threat to the people here! Because you're going around threatening innocent people because you got pissed at someone else! Jesus Lizzie, this isn't something that would happen to you!

[There's a long pause as she fights a very difficult internal battle. She could tell him and it might make the point, or she could tell him and he'd just brush it off and insist the situations weren't similar at all.]

[But she was dangerous back then. She had killed people, people who were just trying to get her to go back home, people who were rightly scared of her. She'd become dangerous the day she started puberty, and from that point it had escalated until nothing could contain her power short of breaking the rules and losing all of it.]

[If she could do it again, if something happened on one of these planets and returned her to how she was, this is what would happen. There would be accidents, and network transmissions, and trials, and people demanding she be 'fixed' so everyone could be safe.]

[This is why she can't say anything-- because it would require an explanation. And then he'd know, and who knows who else he'd tell.]

I have some work I have to do.

[He knows a dismissal when he hears it and he's only a little confused as to why it comes now. He suspects she's just too mad at him to keep talking, he's just burned another bridge. And fine. Whatever. If she wants to believe he'd really let this sort of thing happen to people he cares about, then maybe it was for the best. If she thought he was really going to let this mess with Rinzler go after the trial, doubly so. She just hadn't known him at all.]

Yeah, you go take care of that.

03 | audio; forwarded to the 8th

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