"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

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"Conflict of their views and ours," he repeated with a grimace. "I don't care how different our views are, and I think it's just as stupid to try and assume that a civilization based on being lazy and using slaves to do all of their work might not be all that bad just because it's the way they are. If they really wanted jobs done, they could have just made robots. Or, shocker, done the work themselves. Even though they're rebelling, even though they're showing that they're alive and have wills of their own and don't want to do this anymore, all these people are doing is turning a blind eye to it because they still think of them as property just because they came to exist differently than everyone else did."

He took a deep breath. "They need us more than we need them, that's for sure. They need us to basically help them get the slaves back in line. And I sure as hell don't plan on doing that. Especially when they've already pulled some fast ones on us with no warning beforehand."

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel didn't say it out loud, but he had to agree. He didn't like slavery, period, much less the idea of breeding people to be nothing but tools anymore than Jr. did. Granted Jr. certainly had a more personal investment in it. The point was that personally, he didn't find it any way conscionable to subjugate a people like this. Jr. was onto something about taking responsibility and doing work themselves.

"I didn't say it was good or bad. I'm just saying that there's a certain way to see what's going on. To them, clones are no different than the robots you just suggested. Whether they show what we define as will and intelligence has no bearing in their society. It's likely not willfully turning a blind eye as much as it is just not noticing it. To them, it's not there," and if those robots he suggested also had a functioning AI, maybe even one that had room to grow in order to handle complex situations, what did that say about Jr's own prejudices? Flesh and blood wasn't the only form of life. "I also don't think it's quite the issue here either now. This isn't about a view conflict, this is about the possibility of an attempt to deceive us."

Getting slaves back in line was one way to look at it and Daniel wasn't arguing that point. Allin had repeatedly tried to drop hints that they wanted the leaders flushed out and assassinated, the status quo restored. Daniel didn't see that happening. He wasn't going to let it happen if he could help it. It was weird that the Councillor had just expected them to come as a police force for hire.

What was equally worrying was that some of the other diplomats had been more than eager to help in that vein. That wasn't what their roles were.

"They need us to stop their people's lives being taken too," Daniel amended. "If they expect us to be mercenaries, they're going to be disappointed. Preferably we can work something out for both sides."

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"The difference is that it's entirely possible to create machines with no form of AI that can do the same thing. Making a robot with self-learning abilities would probably have left them in the same position they're in now. And I'm sure we'd be in the same place if that were the case, instead." Realians were somewhat like that. KOS-MOS was a lot like that - unlike the Realians, KOS-MOS was made entirely of machines. But Jr. hadn't dealt with KOS-MOS as much as her creator, Shion did. Jr. on the other hand worked with different Realians, and MOMO. They were just as real, just as alive as he was.

"I don't want the people who don't want to be involved get hurt in any of this as much as anybody else does. We're not even sure of the scale of what we're looking at, yet. It's probably not just clones out there hiding and fighting back. There are probably people from this city who understand that this is wrong, too. I wonder what's going to happen to them if they're ever found out, too. It'd be pretty damned funny if they wanted us to suddenly not see a line between them when it comes to crushing their so called opposition."

[hi_there_aliens]

"I get what you're saying. There's a difference. But you're arguing semantics with a society that probably just flat out doesn't have that definition when it comes to clones. It's not going to change over night," he said. "The best we can do at this point is to keep calm and not get overeager. Actions will speak louder when it comes to what they've done. We can't allow them to completely trample our own beliefs just because of whatever technology they can offer. We also need to keep the pressure on them to make amends for offending us, to show there's a consequence."

At least Jr. seemed calmer than a few seconds ago. That was good. Daniel wasn't asking him to forget or even forgive the offense, just to keep a cooler head.

"It's likely." Not really his idea of funny at all though. "If there are non-clone supporters, I really doubt they're involved in the negotiations or touring."

The archaeologist stuffed his hands into the BDU's pockets and looked around, trying to gauge the atmosphere now. They couldn't do much right now besides get everyone briefed. Hopefully calmed down. "So do you know what you're doing next?"

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

No definition ... Jr. found that absolutely absurd, considering what was happening right in front of their eyes. They were probably trying to play it off the same way as his own father did, simply call them incomplete, failures, defected. Anything to make oneself not seem wrong.

"Of course they're not, that's why we've gotta find them and talk to them about what's going on here." That was Jr.'s answer as to what he planned on doing next. But after he said that, he looked down, clearly frustratedly upset about something.

"But we can't. Not us anyway. Not when we don't know what it is they did to us. If they can find us using these brands, we can't make any moves. Especailly if it might lead them to the resistance." One of his hands balled into a fist, he hated that like this, he couldn't help them at all.

[hi_there_aliens]

Easier said than done. It wasn't as if the rebels had any reason to believe that the crew wasn't already firmly on one side. Unless they witnessed the processing and the reactions just now. Daniel could see it going down several ways, one of which had them being lumped together and in danger.

Not only marked, they'd basically had their freedom taken away from them. He'd practically been chained down to a chaperone. Jr. was right, they could easily use it to track them. Or, Daniel realized suddenly, be used to record and monitor. They didn't know that much about them. God, he hoped not.

Maybe they better not talk about the rebels for now. Just in case. Although it was kind of late to worry about it now.

"I'm sorry. Did you get that thing checked out yet? Is it hurting you?"

[carrieswar.livejournal.com]

"It doesn't hurt," he said, "but the medics are planning to check'em out."