"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

[hi_there_aliens]

"Who cares if they're watching or not!" Daniel was too seconds away from throwing his hands up in frustration. This was like trying to reign in a crowd of angry alley cats. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to get bullied around by the GIA to do my job. I don't care who it is. And I'm not trying to get out of anything, Zetta. I'm saying we need more time to look around before we make any serious action."

He looked gratefully to Sakura. Someone got it. Although he was surprised that Zetta had picked up the very points he had told Jr. earlier, about cultural perspective.

"No, they probably don't think so. But they do know we found something wrong with it because their action had a consequence: negotiations were shut down. However, the fact that you two attacked them puts us in a bad position. We had them in a position where the onus was on them to make amends for the offense. Now we just insulted them. We lost our advantage."

Daniel went on thoughtfully. "I'm just not so sure it's all due to a serious divide between us. Even if it was just a matter of cultural perspective, they aren't acting as they should. They actually answered your questions," and he glanced to the clones closest to him, "If they really were following the parameters of their society, they would have ignored you. They wouldn't have scrambled communications either, because as a non-person, you wouldn't have been considered capable of using them or even a 'threat' in the first place if you had. It strikes me as deliberate. I don't think this is all due to miscommunication."

[kandrakar-heart.livejournal.com]

Will sighed, rubbing her head for a moment. "Okay, saying we DID decide to steal the tech? Do you guys really want to use medical stuff that we have no clue about when we have no way to be shown how to use it because we stole it?" she asked. "I mean, once we do that, we can't exactly ask them how to use the stuff."

"As for your argument," Will said, turning to Zetta. "We obviously can't do that, what you're talking about with the other worlds after we get a chance to restore everything. But that doesn't mean we have to actually help them here."

[brustriese.livejournal.com]

"You know, in the long run, Zetta makes an important point," Signum admits, obviously quite grudgingly. "We're not here to be moral arbiters, we're here to save the multiverse."

She looks up from where she was staring rather intently at a table for - oy - agreeing with Zetta. "However, in the short term, sacrificing everything from basic humanity - sapienity, rather - on up through our dignity for some fancy surgical equipment isn't a worthwhile trade. And for that matter, leaving a world a slightly better place than we found it, while possibly a distraction, is a hell of a laudable distraction."

[futureisclear.livejournal.com]

Ildraniath sighed and shook her head in Zetta's direction, "Of course they don't think they did anything wrong - but by the same token, they will understan that we think they did and if they're halfway decent negotiators or diplomats, they'll realize that it doesn't matter if they think they were perfectly correct - if we feel insulted enough we can and will walk away from the table and they'll have nothing to show for it. I understand their perspective perfectly. However, they will likewise understand ours, even if they don't think we're correct."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

Zetta smirked in Signum's direction. "Hey, I lost all those things when I admitted I had to work with this ship. And was a book. Not the finest moment this Overlord has laid claim to.

"This may be kicking a bee's nest," he continued, looking towards Kang and Kon, "but, uh, from what you saw, did any of that stuff they were using look conveniently stealable? I figure that's not the top-line stuff we're here for, but I'm kinda thinking that cloning technology and really good healing stuff isn't man-portable."

Of course, the perverse Netherworld physics that governed his minions meant that one of them could actually pick up and walk off with an entire hospital, but he sure wasn't gonna point that out.

[brustriese.livejournal.com]

"Pride and dignity are separated by a very fine line," Signum points out to Zetta, "but they are different things."

"Speaking of pride, though, I am not above stealing some technology and leaving. The Galileean government is hostile as far as I'm concerned, so frankly I won't object to most ideas as long as they don't involve working for them."

[badassfreakingoverlord]

"Hmph. Working with humans and level one nobodies is beneath both of those for me. As is being a book." Though the Overlord softened a moment later. "Though I guess some people on the ship aren't so bad to know, despite that.

"I've still gotta say, I think whatever we do on this planet will follow us. The GIA won't like us breaking an agreement they made -- even if we weren't given any choice in the matter."