ain't seen the light since we started this band ( open )

[willrevile]

Who: Jim Kirk (willrevile) & others
What: Plot + adjacent stuff. My plotting comment is over here if you'd like to do something specific, otherwise I have a general open starter.
When: March!
Where: Mostly Wyver, probably.
Warning(s): TBA.


that cut was a fakeout sry.

Comments

[willrevile]

People started wanting to do blood sacrifices, and stopped being satisfied with their own blood. They wanted Olympian blood, specifically, but were happy to push anyone who objected into the fire just for spite's sake. Shaman from up on the mountain were handing out 'dragon blood' that were making people nuts, and also doing-- what we're going to go check out.

[ It's been .. A Week. Jim's exasperated with all of it.

Oh, and: ] Coincidentally, Olympia lost its shit at the same time with rioting and their hospital barricading its doors and refusing to aid anyone. Someone or something was riling people up with.. weird, rage-inducing fog.

[motivation]

[ dutch makes a face at 'blood sacrifices' because she never got that until the hullen, but now watching someone bleed is more of a comfort than she ever would have thought possible. it means they're human. it means they're still themselves. ]

People are shit sometimes.

[ a lot of times, if you ask her. it took johnny to make her see that sometimes, they're amazing, too. ]

[willrevile]

People do things because they're motivated to do them. Be it cultural or something else like-- profit, I understand that's still a big thing here.

[ People are shit sometimes goes over Jim's head as a flippant criticism of the situation, and not an actual judgement. Because people have invented medical care and most of them have empathy and he's seen so many incredible things.

Even here. Sort of. ... Alright, he's struggling a bit with here. ]

The dragon's blood being passed out here seems to have had a similar effect of 'mist' that appeared without an as-yet-identified source in Olympia, causing uncontrollable aggression. There's no way that's a coincidence.

[motivation]

They hate each other. They're not going to coordinate.

[ unless there's some third party involved, interested more in stirring shit than subject to old resentments. using those old resentments.

dutch hates shit like this. ]

Profit's not a big thing where you're from?

[willrevile]

[ Jim just glances at her, about coordination. Because hate can be a hell of a motivator – but he's discovered over the years that there are plenty of things that overrule it, even when the odds are so, so against it. He's seen Romulans and the Federation sit down and talk, he's worked with one faction of Klingons against the other, he's seen Romulans and Vulcans work together.

Shit that just sounds like gibberish to anyone else, he's sure. So, moving on - ]

Nope. [ A lopsided smile. ] We don't use money or any kind of currency. There's still industry, import-export, service work, but Earth has been fully socialist for over a hundred years. It's one of the requirements for admission into the Federation, even.

[motivation]

Must be nice.

[ where dutch is from, joy (which is their currency) matters a great deal. the more you have, the more power you have. with the entire quad owned by the company, which in turn is owned by the nine, well. the quad isn't even a democracy, much less socialist. ]

[willrevile]

It is.

[ The Federation is great!!! >:T ]

Don't get me wrong, it's not some mindless utopia. People still can end up with shitty lives, or have bad things happen to them. Humanity had to survive a war that brought the planet to the brink of extinction, the stretch of post-atomic horror, practically re-evolving from nothing. The only reason we managed to make contact with anyone off planet is people were so desperate to leave.

It takes constant, dedicated hard work to keep it what it is, but.. [ he shrugs. It's worth it. ]

[motivation]

[ her tone might have been sarcastic, but the thing is - it does sound nice. the quad is, well. it's the quad. it's on the brink of civil war, there's an actual war with the hullen happening... it's nothing like what he's describing.

what he's describing sounds unlike anything dutch has ever known. ]

Place I'm from? I guess it's still in the "brink of extinction" phase of things. [ okay, things aren't quite that bad yet, but - if they don't win this war against the hullen, it's goodbye humanity. ]

[willrevile]

[ To be fair, it's unlike anything most people have known, even in the universe Jim's from. The Klingon and Romulan Empires, the worlds beyond, the Dark Market - they all operate with money, they all operate with fascism, or capitalism, or vicious tribalism. (He thinks of Eurydice giving him shit over being on a ship called Enterprise but not dealing in money. Dutch reminds him of Eurydice, a little bit.) ]

The only place to go from the end is to start again, [ he says, though his tone of voice isn't exactly optimistic. More like-- stubborn, determined. Because Jim isn't a blind optimist, he's just the most bullheaded incidental genius there ever was. ]

You're much more put together than any post-atomic horror blight I've heard of, though.

[ :) ??? ]

[motivation]

War's only just starting.

[ and isn't that the truth? aneela and her ships are in orbit and everything is going to shit. dutch just needs to kill aneela to end this war -- but killing aneela will end her, too. it's hullen 101. either way, dutch is going to die. was going to die, except now she's here.

she's not sure how she feels about this new lease on life, but she's not thinking about it very hard, either. ]

[willrevile]

Peace could be so easy.

[ People just have to let it.

And, welp.

Case in point: this fucking mess. Getting up to the Altar of Vwhatever is a bit of a hike, but Jim doesn't find it too taxing. It's getting dark by the time they arrive, torches and lamps lit up, anxious activity milling around outside the entrance. ]

[motivation]

You don't know shit.

[ how can peace be easy when aneela is insane and intent on killing them all or turning them into mindless parts of a hivemind?

but they're at the altar soon enough and dutch forces the surge of anger she feels down to look around instead, taking everything in. ]

[willrevile]

[ He doesn't argue, but not because he's offended or particularly shut up about it-- he didn't mean it in any other way but the plain mechanic of it. Sometimes, he's noticed, jaded people become defensive about their shitty situations, as if the lack of solution is a personal failure, and not just the way the universe has dealt a hand.

(Like he used to.)

Jim doesn't look offended. He just looks back at her, as if waiting for her to go on, maybe get something out of her system, but that's all.

And then the moment passes, and there's work to do. ]

[motivation]

[ in dutch's case, she's pretty sure it is personal failure. the hullen would have taken over the quad without her involvement, sure, but -- aneela never would have come if not for dutch. khlyen never would have died. johnny and d'avin and pree and alvis never would have joined a war.

but she won't linger on that. instead, she'll look around for any trouble, for any creatures, for anything. ]

Which way? [ she asks, after a moment. ]