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

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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

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.

[She's nearby, eating a pancake and listening. This meeting was weird. But interesting. She's just listening, hasn't interjected at all, not sure what she can say that isn't already being said.

But she had paused as Glorfindel and Eva had started talking here and her anger was growing. She should walk away.

But she doesn't.] You two do be shutting up about mister Stark! He do no even be being here to be defending himself! You have been having a month already since he did be leaving. Did you be doing anything to be making the council no a dictati... dictato... whatever that word you did be using do be being?

And I do no even be thinking people who did be being here the longest should be being in charge just because, Eva. That do be being stupid. I did be being one of the first. Can I be being the queen of the train?

I'm on the train Council myself, but I'm not for having the Council make all the decisions. I think that communities work best when everyone is involved and everyone has tasks, roles, and functions in any project we think is worth while. Thus, I prefer meetings like this.

Same here. It's better, more open.

[She sighs when Little One speaks up, but her voice is gentle and she doesn't blame the girl for her thoughts.] He's not, no, yet this is an honest opinion of what he was like as a Councilperson, not as a person. There's a difference between the two.

A dictatorship means he had the final say in everything, where he thought he could do as he please, and I did my best to keep that from happening, but it is very, very hard to do when the person continually steamrolls over you and everyone else to do as they please without a thought as to what the vast majority of people want.

[She grins, though, at the last part.] You'd need to be on the Council first and even then, you'd be a figurehead queen, which is someone who doesn't actually have power to do more than rubber stamp things, if that.

Edited 2020-12-06 07:35 (UTC)

No there do no be being a difference. They do both be being the same person. [She glares at her harder. Some of her words were true, yes. Tony had often pushed to do things even if people argued with him.

But she didn't think Eva was any better than him.]

What do be being the point of a figurequeen then? Why do we be needing a leader who do no be leading? That do be being the most stupid thing I did ever be hearing.

[Eva cocks her head.]

So, because you hate someone as a person, you would hate how they lead, even if they did a good job and kept your home safe? Because you like them as a person, that means they're a good leader even if they lead your home to ruin?

Stark-san was a good person but he wasn't a good leader.

Edited 2020-12-06 08:40 (UTC)

He did no be leaving this train to be being ruined, he did no be being a bad leader and you do be being a stupid head Eva Iden'no and you did no even be answering my question.

[She wants to punch her in her stupid face. But there's so many people around and also other people are trying to have a conversation about leadership. Like Curufin and the red haired boy. Lea? Leon?

Anyways she can't punch Eva right now so she turned and marched off, heading towards the snacks.]

[ moved over to here! ]

Edited 2020-12-06 09:57 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We're all in this train-gether 🚂

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Team Science

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OOC