"Listening to others, considering well what they say" (Part 3: Maingate Hotel)

[cityship]

The Maingate Hotel was pretty extravagant, and an entire section of it had been eked out for the crew's use during their stay. They had several suites, three communal areas, a conference room, their own kitchen with a chef on call if they required her.

They were all teleported from the main teleport pad of the hotel into the conference room, which was a large enough room to be able to hold a group their size and had plenty of chairs arranged in a circular pattern so they could mostly all face each other or whoever was in the middle of the room.

Everyone had to settle down so they were all able to talk, and the meeting itself would have to be carefully controlled so they wouldn't all talk over each other. But they were up for the task, right?

[ooc: Guardian Setup, General Mingling, Clone Checkup, Newbie Briefing, General Briefing, More Mingling, Back to the Meeting, and The Idea Guy sections are open. Backup characters introduced to the plot can join in the mingling subthreads if they want. The opening of new subthreads will be announced here and the ooc. Please read the linked OOC post for a plot timeline.]

Comments

[imperious_lex]

Ah, the girl from before. She argued well, he had to give her that. Far better and more respectful than most people her age. She seemed to have a reputation for having a thirst for knowledge, so Lex decided to give er a sip.

"Here," he said, holding out a data pad. "I believe that this might be relevant to some of your interests."

[encourage]

Sakura looked up when Lex spoke, nodding to him and turning her lips up into a small smile. "Thank you, sir. It's appreciated." There was a lot more reading to do, as well as discerning between the agenda of the Councilor here on Galilee, and the agenda for a contingent of people they hadn't yet come into direct contact with.

Decisions either way needed more information to be made, which meant she was honestly thankful for Lex's offer. She was already starting to look through the information when she chanced asking Lex a question. "What's stood out to you so far, from what we've been told?"

[imperious_lex]

My goodness, a youth who was polite and displayed the proper amount of respect for an adult. A rare creature indeed.

So he was kind enough to answer her question.

"Aside from all the things we haven't been told?" Though that was a fairly obvious answer. "Though, if I'm being honest about it..." he glanced around to make sure there weren't any prying ears.

"I know the casual way this society functions would likely surprise and appall most people who consider themselves enlightened. But its not that surprising if you stop to think about it. They've gone five thousand years without a war, very little poverty, and virtually no mass pandemics. It's clearly been working for them.

"Up until now. Which only makes me wonder whether this is the first time a situation like this has developed." He would guess not, though he doubted there'd be much, if any, mention of it in the history books.

"What's your take, based on what you've seen so far?"

[encourage]

"I don't think it's possible this is the first time. It might be the most persistent." What bothered her was the outside involvement. "It's also possible this was a case of good timing for Galilee and the GIA. Both want something from the other, and right now they can both stand to gain something through using us." But it was poorly thought out to her, like they were prematurely making assumptions about how well this would pay off for either party.

"Without casting judgement on their society, with what they've not said so far, I'm not sure how much I trust any of their actions even if we end up doing as they ask. We don't know enough right now to make an informed decision. They've violated general trust once, regardless of if it's customary for this place or not. And they don't see it as being out of place. It's not a problem for them, because it is casual, like you say. It's how they function." It sat poorly with her, if it wasn't impossible to understand. Madara's army was built on Zetsu clones, after all, and cloning had both positive and negative connotations on her world.

Violating members of their crew over foreign policy, no matter how standard it was claimed to be, gave her an idea of exactly how important they were as individuals. "Until the ship's back, I'm hesitant to hear us come to any final decision with the council."

She grimaced, looking up from the datapad. To be entirely honest, all of this made her angry. It was a minor blessing that she could push that anger off and try to concentrate on absorbing information for now. "I really wish this had stayed off comms."

[imperious_lex]

"I wish this had stayed among us as well, but some people lack discipline." That only made Lex's job remarkably more difficult. But not impossible.

"I don't think negotiations will be ending soon. Which gives us more time to learn about this world."

[encourage]

Sakura nodded. "We'll have to take advantage of that." Tomorrow, probably.