exsilium | [video] -- backdated to yesterday (5/22) because of ooc cat-herding >

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[video] -- backdated to yesterday (5/22) because of ooc cat-herding >_>

[Greetings, Exsilium. It's Sue Richards, in her white and black Fantastic Four costume, sitting in the DITR offices. She looks tense, but composed. Guess who drew the short straw on responding to this whole mess?]

Hello. I'm Susan Richards, of the Department of Initiative-Transport Relations.

[She's good at reading from a teleprompter, but this is obviously not extemporaneous.]

On behalf of the Initiative, we would first like to extend our condolences and apologies to those affected by yesterday's events--

[Sue stops, and her expression darkens.]

--No. You know what? I'm not reading this. I'm not making excuses for them.

[Oops. Sue just went off-script, and her spokesperson persona drops in favor of what she's really feeling, a simmering, controlled anger.

There's a strangled noise of outrage offscreen from Saul, but it's rapidly cut off.]

Thank you, Medusa.

Not at all, Susan.

[Sue takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and addresses the camera again. This is no longer someone playing the role of a bureaucratic functionary. This is the woman who has stood against gods and won.]

We just watched a world die. Some of us died ourselves.

We've been conscripted to fight a war that the Initiative tells us could come to our homes at any time. It's already come to theirs--and now, to Elmer Albatross'. The Initiative is desperate, and it's a desperation I understand. If my world is threatened--and it has been before, many times--I will do nearly anything to save it. I can't speak for others, but if the Initiative had asked, I would have helped gladly.

Desperation is an explanation, not an excuse. No matter how understandable the Initiative's motives, they've still wronged us, and I don't blame anyone here for not trusting them, or for being outright furious. I'm angry myself.

Unfortunately, United Earth is worse. First we were told, and now we know that they have the capability and willingness to destroy a civilization of billions. We might be able to find the right point in time to avert what just happened--I know a little about time travel myself, and I've seen such things done before. However, even if we can't manage to save that world, there are an infinite number of universes, some of them our own, that could be targeted next.

The Initiative is due a reckoning. I acknowledge that. But if United Earth isn't defeated first, that reckoning will come in a form none of us will be happy to see...if we even live to see it. I'm not asking any of you not to be angry. Be furious. What I am asking is, for the time being, that you to point your anger where it will do the most good--at United Earth.

My colleagues and I fully intend to take the Initiative to task for what a fiasco this turned out to be, from the security breach that caused it to the mismanagement of the response. This cost Adam Jensen his free will and ultimately his life. It also cost the lives of an untold number of people on Elmer's Earth. This cannot happen again. We Transports have an enormous amount of experience--in technology, in government, in logistics, in war--that's going to waste while we're shut out of the decision making.

The Initiative made this our war when they brought us here. Now they need to let us determine how to fight it.

Thank you for your time.

[Well, someone might not be working for the DITR after this.]

[OOC: Pink is Medusa. Medusa and Saul appear courtesy of Ammay and Heather. I'll hit up all the replies, but your comment might also get answered by any member of the DITR. Even Saul after Medusa lets him go.]

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Not that you should have been in the position to begin with. You're clearly inadequate to hold that rethponsibility.

[Sue finds the idea that she's inadequate to any given responsibility pretty funny.]

Noted.

You probably think what I'm saying ith really funny, don't you? Which ith weird, thince ithn't it jutht a few minutes ago you were being super upset about the Initiative's actions?

Oh wait, right, I don't see you helping anyone, or anything. Just criticizing.

You don't know me, it's true, so you don't necessarily have reason to trust me over the Initiative. That's a problem only time's going to solve.

[Sue is very, very hard to get angry, which is why how she acted in the announcement is so notable.]

Yeah. I don't know you and I don't trust you. You thaid your problem with how things went down is that they shouldn't have sent us into Elmer's world at all. What price did we actually pay there? Thome people died but wow! Miracles! They were brought back! Pretty much immediately. Tho let's tally: no actual loss there. Oh no, but the people of Elmer's world! Well shit! If we had NOT GONE AT ALL like you said you wished happened, THEY STILL DIE. There is no end result with them NOT dying. I'll bet a million marques that if we hadn't done anything there'd STILL be people bitching to the Initiative about BLUH BLUH WHY DIDN'T WE SAVE THEM??

[ Coming from a voice that barely sounds 15 probably doesn't help convey his message much.]

[Not really, but Sue likes kids, and Sollux isn't much younger than her brother was when they started doing the superhero thing.]

Dying isn't harmless, even if you get a second chance.

[Sigh. Comic book problems.]

Still, it's not that I think we shouldn't have gone. We should have gone with a plan.

Death is cheap and maybe when your perthonally tally reaches six, you can say the same.

And what would the plan have been? "Maybe if we attack in formation, we won't be picked off slowly from UE forces, but instead be blown up in one go instead!"

Tell us, O wise one: what would you have done differently?

Well one, not try to tempt fate and demand the Initiative to force more multi-dimensional holes when they aren't necessary, to thtart. Which I believe, ath your role ath liason, you argued for to the Initiative to do to begin with. So doesn't that mean, really, you're the one at fault for this?

Two, taking into account your inevitable lack of forethought about NOT fucking with spacetime, we could have, I don't know, brought back some of the people that were busy getting killed in Elmer's world? Did anyone think of that? Did anyone even try that? And before you accuse me of failing to do that, I wath busy flipping tanks like they were flat cylinders of fried batter, thince I'm apparently one of the few people here who can actually do that.

Oh, yeah. This is totally my fault. Sue me.

[He sounds amused, but then his voice turns serious.]

Elmer's world was completely overwhelmed. By the time the Initiative realized what was happening, it was already too late. Beyond that, even. So while I know that now is a great time for coulda-woulda-shouldas, I'm gonna need you to cool it and stop patting yourself on the back for two seconds. What's done is done. And if the Initiative can figure out a way to go back and fix what happened, they will.

Anyway, I really hope that telling yourself this is our fault makes you feel better. I hope it makes you forget the fact that your presence here means your world is at risk, too.

Okay, so let me get this straight. When I place the blame on you, you get all passive aggressive on me, even though it'th your group of liasons who pushed for this idea to begin with. But when YOU "task for fiasco" on the Initiative, it's a-okay, everyone ith supposed to agree with you. Am I getting this right?

Two, my world is gone. And even if I had to choose between it and here, I'd still pick here, even in thith state.

Kid, I don't care if you agree with us or not. For better or worse, we got something done. We got the Initiative to do something for us. Now, I haven't been here very long, but was that a thing that happened before? Because I don't remember hearing about it.

If this place is so important to you, maybe you shouldn't be attacking the people who are trying to help. Maybe you should be focused on the ones who want to blow the whole place to shit, like, oh, I dunno, the United Earth, maybe.

Adult, maybe you need to calm the fuck down.

Getting something done for the sake of doing it instead of looking at whether or not it'th for the best ith the absolute shittiest way to get anything done. Ever. Hey, I'll even use my own dumbass mistake as an example! I threw a big rock at UE, because they are they enemy! And I did damage to their territory! Wow I did something for the sake of doing it, aren't I great? Oh wait, now they are bombing our city in retaliation! Well shit, it seems doing something for the sake of being a dumbass isn't a good idea at all! Who would have fucking knew it?

There are two kinds of enemies right now. Those who want to, ath you put it, "want to blow the whole place to shit" and those who want us to stupidly make a bunch of mistakes without thinking because they THINK THEY KNOW BETTER WHEN THEY DON'T.

[Calmly:] I don't know where you got the idea that we did it just for the sake of doing it, but if that's what you want to think, fine. If you threw your big rock at the UE just for the sake of doing it and not because you were trying to protect something you care about, that's also fine.

You've obviously got a lot of baggage. It's not my job to deal with that. So when you're ready to discuss this calmly and rationally, by all means, leave us a message and we'll set up a time to talk. Until then, take your own advice and think before you start yelling again.

...

[And being calmly spoke too, actually does calm him down. At least, he tones back the sass when speaking now.]

The Initiative didn't do any more wrong than the DITR did, and if they're punished, so should you.

[Saul was going to let this go, but if Sollux is going to finally chill the hell out...]

What was done wasn't done under this department. That was a deal being worked on behind the scenes for a long time, i.e. before DITR existed.

Who wath working it?

Even if I had a list of names, I wouldn't be at liberty to disclose it. But I imagine more than a few people wanted something like what was offered. A chance to go home — people like you and I aside, who wouldn't want that?

People with cushier lives here than they get at "home."

Was your planet destroyed too?

No. I just don't see any point in going back.

[It's an honest enough answer, really. People want him dead back home. The UE wants him dead here. In which of those locations can he come back from that...?]

I wouldn't call it cushy, though.

I wouldn't feel the need two pull out the "my planet sucks worse than thith one" card tho much if everyone jutht believed me when I thaid things are not tho bad here.

You have to consider where some of these people come from, though. I mean, the mess here is so much worse than anything I've handled back home that I'm still having problems believing that anything could suck more. But you can't take that shit personally. Impossible as that sounds.

I've learned to accept human entitlement issuesth ath a genetic fault.

[Oh whoops spoilers he's an alien.]

Edited 2013-05-24 07:23 (UTC)

[And Saul's learned to accept that non-humans are kind of dicks, but hey, he's not gonna say that. Everyone has their faults. Or something.]

Do you have any other questions about all this?

I suggest, since you're certain the Initiative will listen to you more now, that you start looking for time travel expertsth. And I don't mean jutht going on the network and going "Tho who knowsth how to make a clock go backwardsth."

... There'th two people I know of that have fixed situationsth like thith. I know the Initiative says they can't control who comes in or not, but if you thee anyone by the name Aradia Megido or The Doctor wind up here, they're your best bet for getting thith torn fabric of multidimensions at least sort of fixed.

That'th it.

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biwinning - 2013-05-24 15:30 (UTC) - Expand

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[video] -- backdated to yesterday (5/22) because of ooc cat-herding >_>

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