exsilium | → video

[She looks tired, a little strung out, like she's sure most people do right now, but this is important, and it's important that people listen, which means she's using video, in the hopes it'll help make this message stick.

When she speaks, it's steady enough, though there's hints of worry and desperation in her tone, at times. Indications of how serious she's taking this, how hard it's hitting her.]

I know everything's a mess right now, but if you're seeing this, I need you to take the time to sit and listen, please, because I'm trying to help all of us and that won't work if everyone ignores me. Some of are probably going to hate me for this, but that's okay, as long as you keep listening while you hate me.

[a beat; a breath]

We're not abandoning the Exiles.

[This might seem a little on the fly, but she does have a rough idea of what she wants to say, and getting that across first took priority.]

And I don't mean that in a 'we're going to ignore the Initiative and stay to stop the bomb' kind of way, because, well. Let's say we stay, we've got some heavy hitters here, powerful people, so maybe we manage, in the short time we've got, to find a way to stop the bomb. We save us, we save the Exiles, everyone's happy.

[Her smile is sad, before slipping away, attention focusing more on the camera.]

Do you think the United Earth are just going to let that be the end of it? "Oh, our nuke failed, I guess we'll leave 'em alone"? Or do you think they're going to keep sending them until they wipe us out?

[You all know the answer.]

So we stop the first, maybe the second, hell, maybe even the third. Maybe they even run out of nukes, but they still won't stop, which means they'll likely start using regular bombs, and we've seen what that does to the city, or they send in the Masked. [another pause, this one to let the implications of that sink in.] There's about 500 of us, and we're good fighters, some of us work really well together, but there are five hundred thousand Exiles. Do you think we can protect them from wave after wave of Masked? Can we protect them inevitably? Can we protect the Hold, so that it doesn't get destroyed and we've lost our only any way of ever going home?

Because I hate to be the pessimist here, but I don't think we can.

[Sorry, team.

Steph sighs, running a hand through her hair before starting again.]

If we stay, if we stop the nuke, we're just inviting more trouble down on ourselves and the Exiles. Trouble that's going to keep us fighting twenty four-seven, trouble that won't leave us the time, energy or resources to fight this war the way we've doing since our arrival. We can't face the United Earth in an all out battle; we tried that, and a world was lost. If we stay, we're gonna lose the Exiles slowly, and we're gonna lose our own, and we're probably gonna lose them for good.

[There's no smiles now, not even sad ones, she just looks grim.]

We've been fighting this war using time travel, by going back and changing things to make the present a better place for everyone, and that's what we need to do now. That's why we need to pack up and go to the moon base, where we can keep fighting, no matter how much it feels like a retreat. We're not abandoning them, we're going to save them, they won't be gone forever, neither will Exsilium, but we have to do it the Initiative's way, not our own.

I know it's hard to put faith in the Initiative, all it seems like we do is react and run without winning any of our battles. But the reason we've even got a moon base to use is because of us. I'm sure those of us who were here remember that mission to the American Frontier? All it took was changing one election and now we've got a base on the moon that wasn't there before. And that's not all, the Initiative let me look over their files, and we've taking funding and supplies from the United Earth, weakening them, we've made their military less effective, and I know it might be hard to see the effects now, but we're playing a long game, here, and all those little changes will be what lets us win, in the end.

[She isn't sure if she believes all that, about the Initiative being effective, but she has to say it anyway, because she does believe they need to get everyone on the moon base to fix things.]

We've got better technology, better medicine, better health care and they've even improved the environment with the missions we've undertaken. We even have more information on the United Earth and it's AI than we did before, and none of you can tell me that isn't going to help us win this war. Information is everything.

[And she does believe that, at least.]

If you want more proof, I can share it, but I think I've gone on long enough. And I'm not gonna say this won't hurt, losing the Exiles, that we won't feel guilty, that it won't be hard living with limited resources on the moon, but if you really want to help us stop the United Earth, if you really want to save the Exiles, please take some time to think about this logically and strategically. All us Transports need to get to the moon base, and we need to keep working with the Initiative, because using the transporter and stopping the United Earth before they can become so strong is how can save everyone.

[She looks straight at the camera, falling silent for a moment to let that sink in.]

Please stay safe, everyone. If you're not too angry with me for this, know that I'm here to help with anything you need, and I hope I'll see you once we're settled up there.

Good luck.

[And the feed cuts.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So what you're saying is that the name of this game really is 'fuck around in all of time and space until everything comes out the way the government wants it'? That's--you're messing with shit that's not meant to be messed with.

I did not sign up for this shit.

[sorry, steph, today you're representing The Man.]

[Resisting the urge to ask "are you new?"]

None of us did.

[just saying, dude.]

The Initiative aren't the government. They're an organization, and I don't agree with a lot of their methods, but so far using time travel to weaken the United Earth has had positive results for the timeline. Much more than outright battle has done.

[brand spankin', and he doesn't even care that he's showing his ass at the moment.]

Yeah, what's the difference between a government and an organization in charge of a city that's responsible for half a million lives and kidnapping people to force them to do their bidding? Fucking semantics.

What gives them the right to play god? What you're saying is that we all go to the moon and then it's on our heads--the people who got kidnapped into something that nobody asked for--to unkill everyone who just got vaporized for the shit that this not-government made you do.

That is one hundred percent fucked.

[She's glad this is audio, since it means he can't see her pinching the bridge of her nose in an attempt to stave off the threatening headache.]

It was always on our heads to change things. [a frustrated sigh] I don't agree with how the Initiative run things, what I'm trying to say is that this is the best option we've got, and that people need to accept it, because otherwise they risk making things work.

[he takes a breath like he's going to shoot something back, then stops, sighs out a frustrated sound. cages and obligations (which are just invisible cages) are up at the top of the list of things peter deeply dislikes, and people in positions of power rank up there.]

And you're probably not wrong. Maybe you're okay with having that on you, but I didn't have a damn thing to do with any of this, and they're sending us to a tiny box on the moon with a practical genocide on our heads and then it's going to be up to us to make that clean while they sit there with spotless hands.

If that's the best way to do a thing, I gotta wonder why that thing's being done. Why any of this is being done. This whole world is sick, it's cancered and dying and sometimes things die, just like sometimes things get born.

So you're right, if that's the thing that works that's the best thing to do. But this whole deal is fucking unclean.

[She's quiet for a little while, not evasive, but she's trying to work out what to say to all of that.

The thing is, she agrees with him, mostly. When she finally does speak, it's quiet.]

I have worse on my conscience than this, and at least it can be undone. I don't like it, but yeah, I deal with having it on my head.

[Not as many people died in the gang war, but she started that, so it weighs more heavily on her, that guilt.]

And it's being done because once the United Earth is finished with this world, it's going to come for our own.

[That's all she can say, really.]

Yeah, well, I don't. They did a bad job picking me, I'm not a hero or a soldier.

[not that his conscience is clean anymore, but for a boy who turns into a wolf once a month there's a remarkable lack of blood on his hands. peter doesn't pick fights, and if he can't avoid one, he runs.

there's absolutely nowhere to run, here.]

What a damn perfect little guilt mousetrap. Do our bidding now, they're coming for you next. That's not just something you were told?

[She doesn't know what she is, anymore.]

We saw what they did once they were able to access a world. It didn't even last a day.

Fuck.

[there's really nothing else to say to that. it's a small sound, like he's saying it through hands over his face.]

What are they even in it for?

The United Earth? Resources, mostly; they're bleeding this world dry.

But what are they doing with it? Who needs that much anything?

They have a huge military to keep everyone in line, not to mention the general population. I can't imagine how many resources they've already burned through to create weapons and infrastructure.

The world's never had unlimited resources, and this is a world that's gone through a hell of a lot of war.

You think--you really think, down in your gut, that this side isn't just biding their time to become that side? That they're going to fix this and then not just fuck it right up again?

[She's quiet for a moment, not avoiding the question, but genuinely thinking it over.

Eventually:]

I think the Initiative, the people I've talked to, genuinely want to save their world. I don't know what their plans are once they do that, and I don't know if they'll fuck things up, but I think their intentions are good.

[and thus was paved the road to hell, but the adage is old and peter's not going to bother with it. he's quiet for a long moment. it's not that he trusts steph, he doesn't know her from adam. but she's obviously done the reading, and he hasn't, so that's worth listening to, at least, even if the jury's still out on his opinion.]

Guess we better all hope so, since there don't seem to be any other options.

[another sigh.]

I'll let you get back to the bleeding hearts.

There's us.

[And she means that; if the Initiative were to step out of line, she thinks a majority the Transports would try to put a stop to it, even at the risk of never being able to return home.

Maybe she has too much faith in people.]

Yeah. [She'd rather not tbh] Stay safe.

[even if she doesn't know him, she wants people to be careful and make it to the base okay.]

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