Week 3

[airlockedmods]

[Four people dead now - six, if you include the crew. Things have been a little rough on the Starfield Penitentiary this week. Blaze Dudely doesn't make a public reappearance during the weekend, so you've got a few days to yourselves to recover, though he's probably still sticking to his office hours if you really feel like going to see him. On Sunday morning, you may find that you're recovering a a few other things as well - both strange dreams and some new items.

In addition, there's a new set of doors at the end of the corridor, by that empty space where you'd been having your fight club. Looks like you've got a new wing to explore.]



Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

(( ooc: Don't forget to turn in your AC for Week 2, submit your memory regains, and put in your benefactor threads! ))

Comments

[empathiser]

[Will hadn't been expected to be... cornered, is probably the best word for it, in the middle of a corridor. He's not in the best of moods to talk, but... he has no reason not to.

It's not like he has anywhere else to be.]

Sure.

[tuskenlancer]

[ Good. She nods, expression serious, then turns and leads him to an empty corridor of the arts and crafts room, as close to private as she can find.

Once they're there, though, she has trouble figuring out how to start. CT hesitates for a moment, biting her lip, then finally begins. ]

The...trial.

[ From the way she spits out the word, it's obvious she doesn't think much of the title. ]

...It wasn't right. Doing that to Diego.

[empathiser]

[Right. The trial.

The elephant in the room.]

Did you have another idea then? Because not convicting him and having everyone else die instead isn't a better option.

[He does... get what she means though.]

[tuskenlancer]

That's why it's wrong.

[ Which isn't an answer to his question. But she feels like this is important. ]

You don't convict someone and let them die like that just to save your own skin. What if we hadn't found any evidence? Would we just...decide on a sacrifice?

[ Her voice breaks a little, and she shakes her head. ]

He's manipulating us. He wants us to turn on each other.

[empathiser]

It's no fun if we don't.

[Which is the angle he's looking at here. No one puts all this effort into something if there isn't a pay off at the end of it all - what the payoff is, he doesn't know. But there's a real emphasis on keeping things "entertaining".]

For Dudely, and whoever else is involved with this. It doesn't make it right.

[tuskenlancer]

[ CT scowls, deeply disapproving. ]

Yeah. "Fun."

[ Her tone is bitter. ]

Is that all it is? Just...turning this whole ship into a bloodbath for kicks?

[empathiser]

People do worse for less.

[He's speaking from experience.]

The sort of person who can plan this--pull this off... whether something interests them is a major factor. [He exhales a little sharply.]

I'm speculating, rather than saying that's what it is.

[tuskenlancer]

[ She's seen some questionable things, but she's never seen quite this level of...gleeful, casual cruelty before. She ponders it for a moment, shaking her head. ]

So...what do we do?

[empathiser]

[Will has.]

Endure.

[He pauses for a moment.]

Until we can figure out a little more about who's running this show, we don't have much t work on.

[tuskenlancer]

[ It's not the answer she wants, and her eyes narrow in displeasure. ]

And if it happens again?

[empathiser]

We hope it doesn't. But unless you're willing to throw some ideas around as well, instead of snapping over ones your given, I don't think we're going to get very far at all.

[He doesn't look that impressed.]

We've seen exactly what happens when someone goes after Dudely directly.

[tuskenlancer]

[ Wow. She looks surprised, then angry, then just kind of miserable.

He's right, after all. She'd come to him hoping for some answers, but she doesn't have any of her own to offer. ]

I know.

I just...

[ She turns away, muttering to herself. ]

This is so fucked up.

screeches for nine minutes about the you're* spelling error in previous tag

[empathiser]

[Will just watches her, fairly impassively as she cycles through emotions before settling on something sad and defeated. If he had and answer, he'd have put it into practice by now. He has no desire to stay here and watch people die until there's only a handful of them left.]

Never said it wasn't. But we're in a position where we don't have a lot of leverage, or even understanding of what's going on.

[It sucks, but...]

HONESTLY i didn't even notice

[tuskenlancer]

Yeah.

[ She knows. She knows they're stuck, and hopeless, she'd just...she'd hoped for an answer. Or at least some righteous anger against their captors.

This is not how she'd wanted this conversation to go. ]

Fine. Whatever.

OTL

[empathiser]

Alright then.

[Will just leeeeaaaans back a little.]

What were you wanting me to tell you?

[tuskenlancer]

...I don't know.

[ Surprisingly honest now, she sighs, shrugging her shoulders. ]

That you had an idea? Some kind of...way to fight back. Or at least keep from getting involved.

[ Pipe dreams, sure, but she'd hoped. ]

You just didn't seem to...like that trial very much.

Nobody else seemed to care.

[ Everyone had been so eager to find the killer, to solve the mystery, to blame someone, there hadn't been much room to think about just what it was they were condemning Diego to. ]

[empathiser]

If it were that easy we wouldn't still be here.

I didn't like the trial. Trials are... complicated. Easily skewed to one perspective. [He knows first hand how easy it for a someone to twist the truth and plant seeds of doubt that spread like wildfire throughout people, and colour their perceptions. He sat through a trial and listened to a prosecutor who truly believed him to be an intelligent psychopath convince a room full of people of her beliefs.

He would've been curious to see her face when he was proved innocent after the Chesapeake Ripper killed again.]

But putting people's lives on the line changes that. I don't agree with playing God in this situation, but with everyone on the line we're... unlikely to make a snap decision. I hope. That's really all we can ask for.

[tuskenlancer]

I guess so.

[ Begrudgingly, she sees his point. The trial may have been a witch hunt, but it was a witch hunt with consequences if they got it wrong. Either the real killer died, or everyone suffered. Still... ]

I hope nobody else dies like that.

[ Seeing Diego skewered had been brutal. ]

[empathiser]

I hope so as well.

[He exhales, slow and pointed.]

I don't know what I was expecting, but giant robots weren't it. But considering how Blaze took over the station in the first place...

[Maybe he should've expected it.]

[tuskenlancer]

Yeah.

[ She mirrors his exhale, looking troubled. ]

Guess we should be ready for anything.

so apparently i.... deleted a bunch of tags thinking i'd replied to them??

[empathiser]

Easier said than done. But good advice anyway.

[Expect the unexpected is vague advice, but seems very fitting for here.]

Robots should be easy enough to deal with, once you can get under their hoods and see what makes them tick. [Literally.]

whoops

[tuskenlancer]

You'd have to get past their defenses first.

[ She shakes her head. ]

...But it's not just robots. That...thing that killed him...I've never seen an alien like that.

[empathiser]

Could be worth trying.

... I can't really weigh in on that. I've never seen an alien at all. That was a special kind?

[tuskenlancer]

...I don't know if it was special. I've just...never seen one of them before.

It looked more like an animal than one of the Covenant.

[ because it was a dinosaur, ct, not an alien. ]

[empathiser]

It looked like a dinosaur. But I don't know enough about aliens to say it if was an alien dinosaur, or just a dinosaur.