voidtreckerexpress | We're all in this train-gether 🚂

Entry tags:

We're all in this train-gether 🚂

Who: OTA. If you’re a passenger with a ticket on this train, then you are most welcome here!
Where: Upper Music Car
When: Imagination 18, at around brunch.
What: Welcome to the train’s first ever community open forum. Come for the food, stay for the best discussions ever.
Warnings: Lots of top-levels for easy access to relevant topics to your characters, but apart from that, nothing right now! (Not a warning but a heads-up that one TL will be dedicated to the dissemination and discussion of the bonus trek during the last mission. For your OOC reference, please see here.)

Someway through the 18th of Imagination, an announcement for the already spoken for meeting is shared by the ICPs, giving people twenty minutes to come to the upper Music Carriage for the gathering. While the chairs mostly face the stage, they’ve been curved to allow people to face their fellow passengers too, so not to put the sole focus in one place.

This is a meeting for all, and everyone will have their chance to speak and be heard.

The promised snack table sits to one side of the room, and on the stage, the white board from the standard coach has been brought in, written on it bullet points for the planned topics. To assist in the flow of discussion, familiar moderators stand in place to help jot things down, carry conversation further should one idea end while another is ready to begin, among other such administrative tasks to organize the forum. Plus, the ICP’s are in constant use all throughout the meeting, with basic announcements about what’s being discussed now, and how more people are still welcome to catch up to the Music Car if they hear something that interests them.

Grab a plate, settle down, and let’s get to work.

(OOC: Specific top-levels will be set-up for ease of tagging. Select ‘Show Top-Level Comments Only’ if you would like to skip ahead! And as much as possible kindly keep to a single thread in that TL, unless a very special or private point has to be made with regards to the subject! :) Of course if you will be tagging the snacks table, the extra suggestions, or the meta-thread, this does not apply any longer.

Also, very important: Please see here for an example format of how documentation of missions can go! It is most relevant during the discussion on information gathering.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah. I understand. No, that’s not how I mean it. It’s…[He crosses his arms a moment, thinking of how he can word it better, so he’s not misunderstood, but ultimately sighs and gives up with a shrug.] I’m not the best with my words.

[He literally has a guy who does this for him for a reason.]

I think if people felt like they wanted to cooperate more, you wouldn’t see resistance to that. It would be nicer if people were working together in general.

[ Gen didn't speak for Senku, though, and certainly he had a point to be made. Even if he hyper-focused in on the casualty. ]

[ That was a particularly sore point for Senku, and Gen didn't want to argue with that. He didn't even find it acceptable for the people actively trying to kill them to die. ]

[ But he finally spoke up; ]

Certainly, in the heat of the moment, well laid plans can go awry. No-one can fault her for doing the best she could while so many people were in battle. And with curing magic - I'm sure she saved many lives. That's extraordinary.

However, things at the outset did ... not seem well organized? And if things are chaotic before ... Ah. I keep thinking of a performance, with lots of entertainers in a venue. Eventually people need to start improvising because the audience will react differently, but if things are organized in the beginning, if people know their roles ...

Of course, no one can force anyone to do anything. And things might go pear-shaped later on. Please correct me because. I know nothing about combat, in the end! But if people have a better idea ... they're to help this person, they're to call this channel for help, maybe ...

Maybe someone even can coordinate for the leaders, too, if they're in the fight itself. A mission control, maybe!

... I think I've seen too many movies.

Yes... Sorry I don't really know anything about battle or anything either. [He glances at Lord Gyousou, taking strength from his presence there.] But um.. I think those ideas are good, a mission control or command... maybe.

You got some good ideas here! [Galo says as he glances to Gen then focuses on the group.] It's part of what I noticed that needs some work. We need everyone to know the importance of the SCA and how it functions. A guide or something when they get on board. Course that can only help so far!

Buddy system is good! I think going as far as to tell people we need some folks sitting on coms as tech support/coms could do some good too. We can look into other ways to get the word out aside from SCA network too just in case and for accessibility! I don't think repeating the equipment available bit before missions hurts either.

Anyway! [He claps his hands together.] We can go over that later and hash that out. Point is, we want to keep doing meetings like this? Do we want to keep a council? Do we want a mix? We need to figure this out so we have a structure to build up around!

Edited 2020-12-05 20:41 (UTC)

One solution would be to have Council Meetings have an open section. If we keep the council, they could have two meetings on the same day--one section closed to the council where they handle things most of us wouldn't be interested in. Then another section of meeting open to anyone bringing anything up.

[Eva's done her best to follow the talk - and stay out of the argument.] We have the Welcome Guide; we should at least have the leaders hand out copies to the newcomers and get them to read it, though a more detailed guide to the SCAs would be nice.

[A sigh.] Two points about the Council:

I'd strongly suggest we don't disband what we have; all of us have been here since the beginning or near enough that we've seen pretty much everything to date on the train. What we do is get some members from the other teams onto it and then go from there. I have my own ideas, sure, but that's not the point.

I'd also rather open meetings -that is we didn't try and block access to a carriage while we met- with a time people can come and ask questions.

[Glorfindel smiles ruefully.] I would like to try a mix, personally. I was elected to the Council, but have never attended a meeting, but I do remember being frustrated by the attitude of the person who insisted on micromanaging everything, but never did anything. And I know that Tidus and Edge were similarly frustrated by him, among others.

That said, he isn't here now to impose his opinion on us, so we can make the changes that the Passengers would prefer. I have always been in favor of open council meetings, personally. If there is a specific bit that we need to address without anyone there due to the sensitive nature of it, we can step into another space and discuss it. If there are boring bits that no one wants to hear, that would be an excellent time for those people to visit the snack table. But having an open forum is an excellent idea, because the Council is only as good as the information and input they receive.

And honestly, we are a Train full of kings, princes, rebels, scientists, leaders, followers, and everything in between. What the Council decides is only a suggestion. We really have no way to enforce anything.

I would also like to volunteer to run an Orientation Class on the day the Train docks and we bring on new passengers. It would be wonderful if there were an instructor from each team participating. I would encourage anyone, not just new passengers, to attend, as well.

[He listens in silence and waits until they're both finished.] So, I don't know anything about this council. Tell me exactly what you're doing that requires one? That was never made clear to me.

And do you have a plan for if you all vanish? [He shifts slightly and looks at Tidus.] I don't like assuming what people are thinking. It's rude. Since you just got brought up want to weight in here while I think this over?

Edited 2020-12-06 01:52 (UTC)

When I arrived, I wouldn't have sat nicely in some stranger's class, listening to weird things. [ It sounds awful, none of the stuff they'd said on the first day had made sense. ]

Anyway, I'm Blue team's communications specialist, Master Gladio appointed me before he left. So maybe the other teams need one, but we're alright. Okay, you can keep talking.

They weren't the only ones. [Eva says with a nod, but she's more than happy to let Tidus speak for himself on that.]

The Council was started as a way to have some sort of day to do non-mission or Team-based leadership on the train, though it very swiftly became basically, in my view, a rubber stamp for Tony Stark to impose his opinion on us and nothing really got done outside one or two things. He's gone now, and I want to see to it that we get a functioning Council up and running and that people are aware of it and what we do.

As far plans if we all vanish at once, we don't have one yet. What we need first is to elect more members from the other teams, sort out an internal leader -ceremonial for the most part but it'd be useful to have and it should be the person on the council who's been on the train the longest purely from a logistics standpoint. [That it could end up being her has so not crossed her mind at all.]

And then, once that's sorted, come up with a plan for what to do when we lose members.

Edited (html fail) 2020-12-06 02:05 (UTC)

I didn't agree with Tony, but maybe you guys can let me talk for myself? [ A look over at A-Qing. ] You're cool.

[ She can interrupt him, that's fine. ]

Personally, I don't see the fuss of electing people into roles, or why we need just a few people talking about what you guys did on the last meeting. What I remember was talk about the same things we're always wondering, what we're bringing up now. How to help the train, how to deal with the train, what to do on missions. Why's that got to be decided by a few people? Why've we got to go through people to speak for us?

Why can't we give people the chance to speak and bring their own ideas forward? I get having people to take notes, figure what's been brought up and decided and all that, but it doesn't need to be down to just a few people. And we don't need a weird election where people have to sell themselves.

[ He lifts his hands, spreading them. ] If we're talking about having people administrate at the end? Sure. But it should be based on what we all say. If we need something to be decided, it can be done on a vote.

[ He nods, arms crossed. Might as well chime in now. ]

I understand the need to put structure to a community - trust me, I do - but I have to wonder why we're putting so much effort into a vastly ceremonial role. What we need is to get people to work without all the red tape. We don't need it. We're not a large enough of community to enforce it, or warrant it. I'm not throwing in my vote to disband anything yet, but I respectfully dissent to the idea that we put energy into process instead of progress. We make contingency plans now, we don't need to hold elections for roles to do that. We don't have the time. [ Especially now...knowing more. ]

What can the council propose as a concrete plan of action to legitimize their roles such that it requires bureaucracy? In other words...What can the council do that isn't already being done at the moment by the community? Support would come in droves if we knew this, first and foremost.

[ And just to say it out loud: ] Please don't think we are not acknowledging the seniority of certain folks on these roles either. But that's precisely why we'd like to demolish as many walls as we can. You all hold so much early knowledge about the train...we should be able to just talk without the rigidity. No one can take that experience away from the early passengers, to begin with.

Edited 2020-12-06 02:28 (UTC)

Only the internal leader of the council would be a vastly ceremonial role. I don't think the Council itself should be one at all as we're now about the size of a village back on Arkea.

As to what we can do? I don't know yet. We haven't really had a chance to figure that out, though, I can tell you it won't be anything like Tony Stark's brand of 'democracy'.

[An exhales as she gathers herself.] I agree with you on the being able to talk without rigidity and I want that. What I also want - what we need - is a group of leaders we can look to when things go wrong on the train. The void storm being a good example, or times when we're told we're going to be boarded by Inspectors.

Which if it ever happens again, I will be telling people to do what they want because that way we get them off the train faster.

However, quite frankly from my view as a Councilperson, we the Council haven't had time to sit down and discuss any of what's come up here, and then present what we, the Council, feel is the best workable solution -at least in terms of non-mission things- to what everyone's saying at this meeting and then go from there working with the community to make sure everyone feels as though they got an equal say.

We can give you all the proposed progress we'd like to see, yes, but if we're out of touch, then we need to be told so.

Or when an outbreak of flu happens again. It's not just things to do with the void inspectors or missions, always.

[Because Raven was here for that, and she and Lightening had spearheaded most of the effort of quarentining and dealing with it.]

Edited 2020-12-06 03:17 (UTC)

I do beg your pardon, Tidus. You are the best person to speak to about your feelings on Tony Stark. I do know you are the one who originally advocated to open Council meetings, and he was...rather against the idea, though none of his reasons sounded convincing to me.

We may end up with some other plan, and not go forward with the Council, and if that is the will of the Passengers, then so be it. As I said, we have not had a meeting since I was elected, and half the previous members have left, so this is the perfect time to explore other options.

The larger the roster gets, the harder it is for some people to feel like their voices are being heard. Ideally the Council would be those advocates. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case in the past. Do we need A Council? Perhaps. Do we need Tony's Council? Absolutely not. Parties and gatherings like this one need no one's permission. Plans to improve the lives of the Passengers or to make missions smoother can be brought up by and implemented by everyone.

An Advisory Board of those who have been here may be preferred, to guide and offer historical context, "Ah, we never did that because of X reason, which is still valid," or "We did it for Y reason, and that is no longer present, so let's try it!" can be very helpful the longer we are here.

[Senku’s been quiet, letting other people talk, but now they’re on the subject of the council itself and like he’d said at the beginning he felt like his thoughts had gotten lost in the discussions.]

But what do you do? I don’t mean it to be rude, I know that’s how everyone is going to take it, but the council at present isn’t doing anything. If I were you, I wouldn’t be surprised to have people asking these questions. The thing is, the day to day isn’t really being managed by anything. People have the choices and freedoms to do what they want. We’re not working on a unified train goal, for example, so there’s no real need or maybe desire for structure like that.

An outbreak of illness is better managed through the healers and doctors though. My problem with the council is what it’s not doing, and maybe what it should be doing.

I’ll say it again. [Senku raised his hand a bit.]

I think the purpose of the council should be to connect the teams. It’s wildly unbalanced right now, but that aside, it’s the best bet for inter-team communication. I honestly don’t think you need to do anything else.

You’re talking about a hierarchical structure with very little power to pass around and no one being in charge of anything at all, actually. If you have a council, what do you need the team leads for? In the present state I mean, not in what I’m proposing.

And in the spirit of more people getting involved I don’t think the Team Leads should be on the council. Then you have things that are not out in the open, if you’re going to have closed door meetings. There are a lot of people, and as you said, a lot of us are rulers in our own right and have our own ideas on how things should work, but personally I think you’d foster more community goodwill if more people were involved in general, and to do that, that means spreading this so called power around.

I get what you’re saying about people with more experience, and that experience is valuable. Whether or not they have a title is not a correlation to their knowledge though. If you’re saying all this power, which is only there because people are ceding to you in the first place, should only be determined by those who have been here the longest…

I think a lot of people might have a problem with that.

Give the Council at least two months to function like it was intended to and not what it became under Stark-san. He tried to micro everything and as a result, nothing truly got done, so it's not a shock that people don't know what we're supposed to do - and I believe we will have a unified goal of a sorts soon, at least.

Team Leads deal with the mission side of things and intra-team issues, or that's how it was supposed to be when I first stepped up to be Orange Lead way back when. The Council is, largely supposed to deal with the daily life side of things and deal with issues that arise from it, and I at least, am able to be impartial and separate my various duties as Councilperson and Team Lead. I've mediated between two of my best friends back home and that's not easy to do.

Not everyone can do that, though and getting people more involved is why we shouldn't have closed-door meetings, be the Council or otherwise.

However, the council is not supposed to be a dictatorship, which is what it turned into under Tony Stark, only he had all the power and micro'd everything, or tried to. The Council at that time felt like little more than a rubber stamp to whatever he wanted.

I'm not saying that at all re: power. Council people should be elected, or at least nominated and then approached and offered a spot. Ideally, the Council would elect its cermonial internal leader, but I personally feel that should go to the Councilperson who's been on the train the longest as that, In my opinion, is the most important criteria for the position. They're still going to be very much answerable to everyone and if they're very needed, then they need to be able to justify any actions taken.

Edited 2020-12-06 04:07 (UTC)

Eva my dear ... I don't believe that was Senku-chan's point. Impartiality is very good! And it's a relief to know it's not about power. But I don't believe ceremony has any place on this train. Who are we trying to impress? After all, whenever I do all my dramatics for magic, I get eye-rolls, and rightly so. Ceremony and dramatics serve no function.

Your intentions are good, but the issue is this - the council does nothing that you've said. That is the point I believe we were raising. Having someone there who's simply been here longest, functionally, does nothing. I'm certain they've learned a lot and they have seen many things! They have a lot to teach people. But if I was here the longest, should I lead?

... That's a resounding no, by the way. I'm a mentalist. I can read fortunes and hopefully make my point with a slight amount of elegance, but I'm not a leader.

And maybe you'll say - there's no such thing as a 'perfect leader'. And I'd agree. Everyone here has wonderful strengths we should be leaning on. You know so much about how to grow things, train pokemon, how these missions work! Lightning knows her healing magic. Galo has helped teams fight with robots. Nita can do her train speaking thing. Glorfindel apparently can be a tremendous baker. Tidus has so much energy. Senku is a genius. And I've just mentioned people who've spoken in the last five minutes.

Having all of the people involved as possible, who can do tremendous things - isn't this what a council of people is? Or is it a ... ceremony of stuffy elders? I don't believe you think that, Eva my friend.

[She has to remind herself this is not Tony Stark she's talking to, that he's not talking down to her - but gentle questions and gods. She doesn't like the fact that Tony's left this impact on her. And it's that reminder that gives her time to think and not just react.]

Cermimonal. Figurehead. Someone we can, if it ever comes down to it, shove out to be the 'face' of the train as a whole. I doubt it'll ever be needed, but what if it is and we don't have the time to choose the best of us? That's where the internal leader would come in. At the very least, it'd buy us time.

[Another breath; address the most pressing and leave the rest for the others.]

And it is and in my view, they should join the council. But we can't force people to take up that role- and if ever becomes a ceremony of stuffy elders or a rubber stamp for a dictator or even a way to grab power, then it needs to go.

[Another breath as she forces her emotions back into calm.] Sorry, the last time we got really talking about any of this- Well. If Tony Stark didn't like it, he has a way of making you feel... not valued at all.

It's nice to not deal with that.

Didn't Enna already volunteer for that role?

[ A little lighthearted interjection. But he's feeling anything but lighthearted. ]

Look, I come from a cutthroat business world. There is no tolerance for error in a leader when shareholder profits are at stake---if I'd failed a quarter back then like I failed these last few missions, I'd be dead. Literally, and that's over money. We're talking about the lives of people we care about here. So the calls to disband are expected...and I'm not sure I can disagree. We haven't earned our place.

But as far as a structure that would be useful...

A company has divisions that are each responsible for overseeing different processes, and the heads of each department have meetings where goals are set and the practicality is discussed. For example we had research and development, accounting, human resources, and marketing, among others.

Maybe what we need are...divisions, or guilds. Engineers, cooks, transport specialists, comms team, artists, warriors, healers, and more. The guilds could have a meeting, or if they got too big, self-appointed leaders of each guild could. And at these meetings they might propose a new training program, and the smiths would tell them whether the weapons they'd need were available or fixable. Or the healers might send a reminder that 3 people sustained injuries from careless fencing last month, so wear your safety equipment at all times. And it'd also be a way to ensure critical roles were represented in every mission group.

[Glorfindel smiled at Senku.] I do understand what you are saying, though I disagree on one point. If we do end up keeping the Council in some fashion, then the Team Leaders definitely need to be involved.

[He held up a hand to forestall comment as he continued.]

Not necessarily ON the council, but their information on the teams and the team members is invaluable. Most people go to their Team Leads first and foremost, after all. A huge issue that I had with the Council under Tony Stark was that he ignored any opinion he did not like and he hamstrung the Team Leaders and disregarded their input. Only Eva and Curufin tried to organize Orange to be more proactive until his influence started to wane. Gladio, Lightning, even Roland and I, basically had to start from scratch to get our Teams to actually be teams and get more people involved.

No matter how the Council Issue is resolved, having an open forum where the Team Leads get together and discuss missions, both before and after, is something I advocate. And I will invite whomever are the Leads for Team Science, Black Squad, and White Squad to be equal participants in this.

[He nods in agreement with Kaiba's points.] I am not familiar with the corporate structure, but that does sound very similar to how Imladris was run back home. Lord Elrond was the leader as he was appointed by the king, but he acted to remind people to stay focused on the big picture and not turn the stables into another Healing House, that sort of thing, and to mediate between groups that had differing opinions.

I did my best to bring him down to place, but... Needless to say my culture, my world has a very different view on boys in power and as far as I'm concerned, Tony Stark exemplified every stereotype we have. If you want to know more, ask me later.

[There's a shaky sigh as she shifts the topic.] That said, a Council's job with a rise of the guilds would be to mediate between groups that had differing opinions.

It'd be the same with Team Leaders on a Team level.

[She falls silent after that interjection.]

Edited 2020-12-06 05:42 (UTC)

I think you’re onto something Kaiba. [Senku says honestly.] Regardless of team colour a lot of people have a wide variety of skills, all of them are useful and it would be good if they felt like they could contribute to the overall community. If you were telling me that the council was going to help with something like that, I’d wholeheartedly support you.

[It isn’t that he doesn’t think people don’t need to be leaders, it’s that he wants people to have a place to belong while they’re here.]

Ideally the people on council would bring the news back to their teams, however it is you want to organize that.

Ultimately, this is drawing from my experience okay, people feel more involved if they have something to do and the more things we can come up with for people to join and feel a part of, the more the train will come together as a community. I’m not trying to say that what you’ve been doing is wrong exactly, I just think there might be better ways to do things.

I think it’s really important that everyone feels like they belong here, while they’re here.

[He won’t comment on how he thinks the team is run, that’s not the topic of the discussion, but he does think it’s very similar in that few people have tasks and everyone else is left to flounder on their own.]

And if there is a Team Science, I need to know about that, I’ll very gladly sign up. [This should surprise absolutely no one.]

Edited 2020-12-06 05:45 (UTC)

From what I was hearing earlier, it may still be in its infancy, but there are definitely enough people here interested to start Team Science here today. My world is not science based, but I do have experience organizing things, if you need any help getting it up and running.

And I completely agree with people getting more involved. I did appreciate the earlier comments about my baking...that was how I chose to get started in becoming a part of this community, as my job back on my own World is much, much different.

[Lea has stayed silent on the subject of leadership until now, partly out of lack of having a real opinion on 'council vs no council' thing, but Kaiba's suggestion got his attention.]

I like Kaiba's idea about the 'divisions' or 'guilds' thing too. Makes a lot of sense with people coming in from so many different worlds; it'd make it easier for people with similar skillsets to get together and share ideas and stuff. Maybe come up with new ideas for things specifically suited to life on the train.

We're all in this train-gether 🚂

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Team Science

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

OOC