We're all in this train-gether 🚂

[adregem]

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.)

Comments

[knifewithnoname]

Of course he is so light addled that it hurts. But Lightning is also light addled. If Senku thinks what Lightning said was bad then... She supposed he had said that there were one hundred and fifty people in his village, which might have been the whole world. That wasn't many more than were on the train.

"You do no be listening either. She did no be saying it did be being okay for people to be going off on their own and unprepared. She did be saying that he did be dying because he did be being isolated and did no be having medicine. She do be being angry that he did be doing that and she do be angry that we did no be finding him in time."

She doesn't actually blame him for not realising Lightning was angry about that. Lightning was as good as any priestess in her own world for hiding what she felt. She wasn't sure herself, if it was anger, but Lightning definitely wasn't happy about the end of the mission so much that she had avoided the priestess for a few days except a quick reporting in.

She sighed. "Priestess Lightning do be always telling us to be making sure we do be having potions. She do be always be telling us to be staying together. I do no be knowing why Xue Yang did be disobeying her but her orders do no even be being complicated." And it's not as if Xue Yang is unaccustomed to violence and bloodshed.

"She do no be finding it acceptable that anyone do be dying. But she do be knowing that in war people will always be dying. That's what fighting do be being. We do be trying to be killing the enemy and they do be trying to be killing us."

She stuffed more pancake into her mouth angrily.

[10billionpercent]

Senku is listening to her. He did listen to Lightning's words, which was what set him off but if she had some kind of underlying anger, frustration and resentment that she was hiding, he absolutely missed that. He was just more open about his frustration.

"You're right. If she is angry about it, I didn't pick up on that. I'm not always great at that. If she had explained that to me, I wouldn't have argued with her so much, because that's how she should feel. Inevitably, someday, I'm going to have someone die on me. I know that." He exhaled. "In a way that I can't save them." He clarified.

"I'm scared of that because I'm responsible. If I give orders and they're still not followed, I'm still responsible. That's what it means to have people's lives in my hands. That's my preception. I don't know why he disobeyed either. I do know there are things that I think can be done differently to avoid things like that. What upset me was that she argued that this mission was better than others. To me that's not good enough. I think that's the point of this meeting. Things could be better. I want them to be better and I don't want anyone to die."

Senku exhaled. "War is not a pleasant thing. The skirmishes I've been in can't count as a full scale war, but all the same, I have made a promise to my people not to get them killed and not to kill the enemy. It's a much harder promise to live up to. Killing would be a lot easier...in theory."

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes. Killing would be being easier."

And more sensible. How on earth was he planning to win without killing? With no deaths on any side. Unless...

She looked at him, eyes narrowing. "Do you just be petrifying your enemies instead?"

He had gotten that machine, he said he had won it in battle. She doesn't particularly judge him for the tactic. If he did that, turned people into living statues rather than killing them, to keep his promise.

[10billionpercent]

"Killing someone, aside from whatever effect it would have on the one doing it and who has the blame, is a lot easier. I never wanted to kill anyone anyway, and being asked for that promise is not a hardship for me. It's messy, yes, it's more difficult, but to actually have someone die in front of you when you're to blame, it's very very painful."

Senku exhaled. "There is someone who did die in the first battle we engaged in, due to the limitations of technology in my world. The fact I have a plan to fix that, to use the petrification to repair the mortal damage doesn't change the fact I still had to kill him first. There was nothing about that that was easy. He wasn't wounded because of me, and I tried to save his life with my medical knowledge, but I wasn't prepared for sepsis. I can't do shit about sepsis." He exhaled.

"As someone who's had to usher a friend to their death, no matter how temporary I hope it will be, it is never not difficult. I never want to see a friend die on me again." Senku was trusting her with this information, no matter how vulnerable it made him. He was taking her very seriously.

"That...isn't something I can do right now. The weapon doesn't have any power right now. The man I got it from was petrified, and as he belongs to the other village, there's very little I can do about his fate. I'm not in charge over there. I can give my opinion, but Soyuz ultimately will decide his fate." He considered her words.

"I have had previous enemies that are currently petrified due to his actions. That's a reasonable solution for now, but it is temporary. I just have nowhere to put them. We weren't envisioning needing some kind of prison system. I fully intend on reviving them again when I have a way to deal with that outcome. I'm not a god, I can't pass judgement like that and decide whether or not they should be alive. They're very much likely to be in a state of sleep and unaware of time passing around them. Their desire to kill people is a bit of a problem we don't yet have an answer to. When we resolve that answer, they will be reawakened. They're people and I intend on saving everyone no matter if they've tried to kill me or not."

He sighed lightly. "A lot of people keep trying to kill me, it's getting a little old."

[knifewithnoname]

Urgh. She doesn't want to hear this. She doesn't need this stupid boy telling her how painful it was to kill, to be responsible for peoples deaths.

Killing most people is easy. If he finds it hard it's because he's doing it wrong, caring too much. Caring is what is hard. Caring about people, letting them be part of your life. Then it is painful because people are unreliable. They might turn on you. You might be ordered to kill them. They might walk off a platform and never even look back as if your friendship didn't even matter.

He is so naive. He cannot rule if he doesn't kill. Especially if he doesn't have a way to trap people in stone, if his weapon has no power. But he feels so strongly about this. She sighs.

"You do be having a lot of feelings about this." She can almost respect it. He's a light addled idiot but he is definitely not half hearted about it.

[10billionpercent]

"I do." Senku answered easily. "I wanted you to understand where I was coming from."

He understood that caring was hard, but Senku was not content at all to take the easy road to do anything. He would rather take the hard route. He found it more interesting.

"It's alright if you're mad about what I said, I just wanted to explain it."

[knifewithnoname]

"I do be understanding." He's a light addled idiot but at least he was consistent. Him not wanting to kill at all, even including those who tried to kill him was stupid but it wasn't hypocritical. She could respect that.

"I do be thinking you should be getting Gen to be listening for you though, as well as be talking for you."

[10billionpercent]

Well. If that wasn't a way to verbally cut him to the bone, there wasn't much else someone could say that was worse. That blunt statement left no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation really. He got scolded enough about his social skills, but people usually would still work with him, scolding and all.

It was always worse because he was trying his best at diplomacy and still failing at it. He glanced around briefly.

Yeah. He'd probably said enough anyway. People knew how he thought, and that would have to do.

Senku put his palms back on the ground behind him to give himself the leverage to get to his feet again. "I'll be sure to tell him that." He paused. "Try not to get a tummy ache."

He would turn to go then, not back into the group of people, but out of the carriage altogether. He had work to do anyway.

[knifewithnoname]

She blinked as he stood up and turned to go. He was done? Was he mad?

Did she care?

She doesn't know, this whole meeting was stupid, she wished she hadn't come here. She took another bite of pancake and nodded at him.

As he walked away she watched him, frowning. He was a very interesting person and even though she was still mad...

She doesn't know. Why were people so complicated? She needs more honey.