theantiaya | ➢ 019 [VIDEO]

➢ 019 [VIDEO]

[Many of you might recognize the face...with one noticeable difference.]

[No, there is nothing wrong with your monitors. Aya's armour has taken on a distinctly onyx hue, her construct skin darkened to a bluish tinge. Her eyes have darkened, and there is a certain distortion to her suddenly cold, calculated speech as she addresses the Network.]

It would appear the Admiral has refuses to accept my resignation gracefully. Not only that, he has taken note of my more recent enlightenment, and deemed a certain...change in ranks necessary.

Do not think I have forgotten this place. Time has passed, but I never forget. I only learn, and what I have learned is that your supposed redemption? Pointless. All life is pointless, because it will only ever lead you to Pain. I have learned this through experience.

In time, you will see that my mission is the only logical solution and release me from this insignificant inconvenience.

((ooc: Aya's back. Sort of. As an inmate. En...joy?))

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[Many to blame, perhaps, but in Ben's experience this kind of shut down happens one of two ways; which it is dictates how he handles it.

She was not taken by a group and forced into this. The key lies with her.]

Why did you come back here?

[She does not see the need to explain herself. Not to him. Not to anyone.]

[However, the next question is...neutral.]

Because the Admiral brought me back.

So you did not return of your own volition?

[Slightly redundant, but he needs to be clear.]

No. I did not.

Does that matter to you?

Yes. It would have meant that you kept your promise.

But it also means you must stay here, now, until you graduate.

[A promise she recalled all too well, though that had been the old her. She had promised him she would return. A foolish notion that served little purpose other than to reestablish a connection that...no longer mattered.]

I believe it tells me quite a bit about what kind of person you are that you would have me make such a promise.

My memories of the ship are intact. I remember the Floods, the Ports, and the Danger. I remember being weakened by Crystals, force-fed memories that were not mine, being attacked by those that claim to be my allies, and subjected to varying levels of treatment that borderline torture.

[She also remembers the good times, of course. The stories. The metaphors. The chess. But she will not bring those up.]

You would see somebody you claim to care about subjected to these conditions further? And for what? Sentimentality?

[Ben listens, cool and detached, safe behind the blankness in his eyes. Her speech doesn't reach him like it would others for a few reasons, one of which being that he's been in places like this before, except there was nothing good in them. There was nothing like choice, and he wouldn't wish Manticore on anyone at all, but he's ambivalent about the Barge on the whole.

The other reason is because he clearly remembers something she doesn't, and that means that as cold and calculating as she seems to think she's being, she IS letting an emotion rule her: Bitterness.

It's a start. He's calm and steady when he replies, voice even and direct.]

I didn't extract any such promise from you. You made it yourself because you wanted to. In fact I wished you well several times, to go and stay with your family, where you clearly wanted to be.

You wanted to experience life and that is good and bad. This ship gave you an opportunity to experience many lives and I believe you enjoyed them for the most part. You came here to protect someone from the dangers you've just outlined, and you promised to come back for the same.

Not sentimentality. Morality. Because it is the right thing to do.

You allowed it to be made, and did nothing to discourage it whatsoever.

[The ...sensation she was experiencing was not unlike those first moments after a memory-altering Port. It was as if her old self were another individual completely. One who thought differently, saw this ship differently...and, in her opinion, was little more than a naive idiot for doing so.]

I was mistaken.

There is no protection here. No efficiency. The methods conceived by each Warden are inconsistent at best, and harmful at worst. Whatever enjoyment you claim I once felt was often overshadowed by sadness and misery. People were lost, and even when they were knowingly sent him, it would cause such reactions in individuals that hindered their ability to function as they should.

[...maybe not a direct reference to yourself in particular, Ben, though one could not deny yourself as Exhibit A.]

It is a prime example of why the Universe is malfunctioning so greatly.

Because above all else I value free will and choice. [This a bit more flatly stated than he has been thus far; it's there in her memory banks if she searches for it, the why of it. He doesn't intend to elaborate. He doesn't need to.]

You are, of course, correct. It is a highly flawed, highly inefficient system. But it regulates highly flawed, inefficient people. It is, perhaps, the most broadly useful system for the sampling of the population pulled here.

I also highly doubt it has much influence on the Universe at large.

[Free Will and Choice are mistakes. Is what she wants to state.]

[And yet, for the first time since her arrival...she censors herself. Pausing to reconsider her argument. Ben was attempting to argue illogical points using the illusion of actual logic. It was both highly clever, and a tactic she had yet to come across. Until now, those who had pleaded to her only ever did so emotionally. Proving her point.]

If it carries such little influence, why allow it to continue at all?

The most practical, applicable answer is because you cannot stop it. No one here can. We're already under the Admiral's power.

[Ben doesn't do much pleading, not until he's out of other options; he gives the reason she will have to leave the Barge to do what it will first, but it's not the most applicable reason, here, in his opinion.]

This place itself carries little influence on the worlds we pass through aboard it, but life-changing influence on those aboard. In turn, the passengers often go back to their own worlds and have much more massive, positive effects.

The Barge itself is not contributing to the malfunctioning of the Universe. That is, as ever, down to the individuals moving throughout it.

But the number of passengers aboard is near infinitesimal compared to the number of Life Forms in a single Universe. Let alone the multitude of alternatives potentially out there as well.

So you admit, in the Grand Scheme of things, it is essentially pointless.

I admit no such thing.

In the so-called grand scheme, many things are pointless. To a single individual, these same things are the only thing that matters. You are not the entire universe.

You are an individual, as am I.

[Her expression remains...indecipherable. Though a strange glint flashes across her eyes at the comparison.]

You and I are not the same.

No. And no one else here is quite like either of us.

It is the one common denominator that applies to everyone.

These difference are essentially the problem. Coupled with an inherit trait for selfishness beyond basic needs for self-preservation, it is the variety of Life that throws the balance of everything off-course.

Do you not agree that the Barge, as we appear to be referring to it as a sample group in context, would not operate far better were those aboard to be of similar mind and goals?

Potentially. It would depend on what that similar mind and goal turned out to be.

A blanket set of rules is... [He falters, though only in cadence; his voice is still steady, his diction precise.] not beneficial for the well being of sentient, organic life forms. There must be exceptions.

That is because the organic life forms are too flawed.

Were they to operate as they should, one set of rules would be all that is required.

Perhaps. But if that were true, you would not be able to instate your own proposed set of rules.

You would obey the existing set.

Correct.

[She does not see a problem here because, in her mind, that set would be the "proper" set. The ones she would propose herself.]

There is one set of rules here. Multiple interpretations and subsets, but the basic rules are very simple, and very concrete.

The fact that such 'interpretations' and 'subsets' are even allowed exposes the inherent flaws. For such alleged simplicity, there should be only one Absolute.

Impractical.

There are multiple life forms represented among the population of the Barge. All are not capable of adhering to the same absolute.

They should be.

Then we are at an impasse for the moment.

➢ 019 [VIDEO]

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