Text/Audio/Video; open to all members of the crew except for: Kobra Kid
[On the 17th, Captain Thán sends out a text message addressing all Moirans.]
The environment on the ship has been extremely hostile, more than what's typical for us, and that has to stop. The punishment system was put into play to discourage these kinds of actions, but there have been more after its installation.
This means that things are going to change, beginning with the treatment of other crew members.
As your captains, we don't wish to force anyone to do anything, and we'd prefer that everyone learn to live and work together to achieve our common goal, but that idle behavior we've adopted is now over. All of us are extremely displeased.
We're going to start with reworking the punishment system. This will mean the creation of new positions (arresting officers, mediation officers, etc.), and the implementation of new rules.
Please state your suggestions, thoughts, and offer yourself as candidates for the new roles.
[Messages will come from all the captains.]
The environment on the ship has been extremely hostile, more than what's typical for us, and that has to stop. The punishment system was put into play to discourage these kinds of actions, but there have been more after its installation.
This means that things are going to change, beginning with the treatment of other crew members.
As your captains, we don't wish to force anyone to do anything, and we'd prefer that everyone learn to live and work together to achieve our common goal, but that idle behavior we've adopted is now over. All of us are extremely displeased.
We're going to start with reworking the punishment system. This will mean the creation of new positions (arresting officers, mediation officers, etc.), and the implementation of new rules.
Please state your suggestions, thoughts, and offer yourself as candidates for the new roles.
[Messages will come from all the captains.]
no subject
private
That sounds good in theory, but I don't know if it works like that here, not really. It works where I'm from - but I'm from the military, and I grew up on a whole fleet of nomadic ships. We're a community. A ship is like a family. We all trust each other and that's why responsibility works. But no one on this ship trusts everybody. We're not a community, we're a big holding cell and we're still trying to figure this out.
I've been trying to think of things we do in the Migrant Fleet that might work here, but most of them work because of the culture we spent centuries building up together, not from a hundred or so people kidnapped from different alien cultures and pushed together. I've heard people talk before about putting military-style laws on this ship - but it's always their military. Not mine. Not the other soldiers here. It ignores the civilians on board and the children. And it ignores that we're all victims of kidnap here. It was by accident, but it still happened. I don't want to accept people who were kidnapped with me being responsible for me again.
Maybe that's the problem. I look at this and I see the last ship I was on. You're talking about giving people responsibility and I hear you saying they can kill us if we step out of line. You say new punishment system and I remember getting my life support turned off for screwing something up.
Other people are helping with solutions, but I don't have much right now. I just don't know if I'll be comfortable with anything like this.
[Enjoy that stream of consciousness containing exactly no useful suggestions, Thán.]
private
The first system was to show that we don't want to force crew to do anything. That we don't make the consequences or punishments. That the crew is one large unit that is responsible to and for each other. That has backfired. Nobody wants to take responsibility.
That is not the kind of responsibility that we mean. Not the right to kill. Never that. But the responsibility to do better and make this work.
I wish there were another way, Tali. But we can't do nothing.