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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Maybe next time they won't send us on a suicide mission. That'd be great.

Edited 2013-05-23 17:50 (UTC)

( She will concede that not all adults are entirely terrible. In fact, some of them are actually kind of amazingly cool. )

I think that's the first good thing I've heard anyone say in a long while.

( A breath. Okay, right. Good. What's a constructive, helpful thing to chip in? )

So, I guess-- we wanna try and get the transports working together more, right? Or something like that? Is there anything that the people who aren't involved in Initiative... stuff... can do? I dunno. To help.

( Today is not an articulate day. )

They tried to help! How is that wrong? The UE could have attacked other people's worlds anyway, they Initiative didn't cause it to happen! If you believe for a second that they did it knowing it would make the UE attack, then I think you are wrong. All they were trying to do is what everyone else has been trying to get them to do since we came here, and maybe it did not go as planned, but at least we learned! What else could they have done?

[ Yeah she mad. Tiny and mad and her fins are kind of agitated so that she looks more silly than intimidating. ]

[At first, Saul is struggling against Medusa's hair like a fly caught in a web, itching to intercept before Sue can continue on with whatever the hell it is she plans on saying.

But then she says it, and gradually, he calms down. He's still mad when the feed ends, but not mad enough to do anything about it. Not that he could, anyway. What would be the point?

Once she's finished, his angry writhing turns to a let me go, please wriggle.]

Well, Sue, you either just saved our asses or cost us the whole department. Nice work.

[Said only half-sarcastically.]

Edited 2013-05-23 18:06 (UTC)

I'm not sure they realized that's what they were doing, but I agree.

Right now? Recover and don't do anything you'll regret later.

[She might have a lot of experience with hotheads, ahem.]

They probably knew. They just didn't tell us.

I guess we should be ~thankful~ that they can bring us back!

[So cute--which is probably not the reaction Fef was going for. She reminds Sue of her wards from Old Atlantis.]

I do believe that the Initiative means well, or at least doesn't mean ill, but good intentions don't erase bad results. If you're in charge, you don't get to take credit for the things that turn out right but avoid blame for the ones that don't. They were caught without a contingency plan, and while I'm no soldier, even I know that's no way to run a war.

You can't plan for everything though. Do you really think that was something they could have expected?

[ She doesn't sound like she's being sarcastic, sincerely interested in the answer. ]

All of this because of one dumb mistake.

[ Which he isn't sure the DITR even knows about, much less that anyone could have foreseen this happening, but... ]

At least it sounds like we're in a position to actually demand that kind of involvement now. That always did bother me.

[Sue is 1000% done with Saul's crap, PR, and anything else related to this disaster of a week. She leans back in her chair.]

The Initiative needs us a whole lot more than we need them. Ask the US Army circa 1972 happens when most of your forces are unwilling conscripts.

I think they're in over their heads, not malicious, but that doesn't excuse anything.

Better resign quick, because you're tho fired.

[He rolls his eyes.] Yeah, great. Let's start making comparisons.

[After a moment he stills, takes a deep breath, and tries to relax in the hope that Medusa will finally let him go. She does, but not without giving him a warning glare, first.

He then smooths down his tie and glowers at everyone in the room, especially Sue.]

A little warning would have been nice. 'Hey, Saul, I'm gonna go ahead and disregard everything you've written. Is that cool with you?' Oh yeah, Sue, sure, go right ahead. I mean, it's not like we could have maybe discussed this beforehand, right?

Opening a portal and finding the UE already there? Yes, that's something they should have considered as a possibility.

[She comes from a universe with professional paranoiacs like Dr. Doom, so her idea of what kind of contingency planning is possible is kind of...skewed, but she doesn't think what she's suggesting is too much to have taken into account.]

[I don't know if they know the exact details of how Adam was compromised, either.]

That's what happens in wars, which is why I'm pushing to get qualified Transports in positions to catch mistakes. We have soldiers and intelligence operatives here, and we should be using them.

[Which could sound like election sloganeering, but Sue is just too serious about it for it to come off as pandering.]

Oh, no.

[Sue just sounds so broken-up about that.]

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

[She's been glowered at by scarier than you, Saul.]

Next time you'll know better than to stick me with your PR flack dirty work, won't you.

[A coffee mug floats across the room from a side table and into her hand, and she takes a sip before giving the cup a betrayed look. Cold.]

[ I just realized I don't know if anyone knows that yet either, so quietly being vague on what the mistake is now until we know. Doo de doo. ]

Soldiers, operatives, and a heck of a lot more highly trained people. More highly trained than the Initiative in most cases, I'd bet. [ Any other time he would have complained that it sounded like that, too, but this is a real problem. ] I can see why they wouldn't want us meddling with time travel directly, since they would know their own history best, but everything else?

They shouldn't have tried to recover the world at all. It was a massive tactical blunder.

[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.

[Liz says the liaisons know about the nanobots, but I'm not sure if they know how Adam came down with a case of sleeper agentitis, so vague it is.]

I understand the impulse to do something--I went through the portal myself, but I have a lot of experience with things like this. Not everyone can manage on their own in a battle. Nor should they have to.

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.]

I...

Wait.

What?

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

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