Utari's Puppies (Formerly Off-Topic Thread)

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
1228

I’m not supposed to talk to you, Miz, but given the depth of feeling involved and how often this is likely to come up I’ll explain as best I can for the community generally.

Morgana Tsukiyo is a fellow Achur seeker. We’re from different sects, but our traditions are similar enough that hers is probably distinct from Shuijing by only a couple points of doctrine (exactly which, I don’t yet know). Talking to her isn’t like talking to an animist or even just someone who seriously believes in the Creator. She could pretty much even be from my home monastery.

And she’s awful, in all the ways I try really hard not to be: arrogant, callous, prone to extremes. She’s got curiosity down, but otherwise it’s like she’s understood just enough of the teachings about the nature of this reality to decide that literally nothing matters, missing the flip-side of that particular coin.

Considering that I get accused of nihilism from time to time myself, watching someone whose belief system is so closely linked to mine representing us in such a way is … it’s hard to take. And the fact that she’s not completely unperceptive doesn’t help. In a way, we’re maddeningly similar: not least, we’re both too clever for our own good.

Also she thinks she’s ahead of me on the path, which, coming from someone like her, is especially grating.

And I even find myself wondering if … I envy her, a little. Her sense of freedom. The teachings aren’t a license to just do what you want, but she genuinely doesn’t seem to care, or suffer from her own disregard. I haven’t been able to avoid getting entangled in this world, while she seems largely free of it. It’s a psychopathic kind of freedom, but it’s freedom even so.

But I don’t think I’d be happy, being as she is.

She’s correct that now isn’t a very good time for me, but, even at the best of times, her attitude tends to grate. It’s not that she’s blithe and happy and uncaring so much; it’s that she’s so cheerful to show it all off. Look at me! I’m so enlightened I don’t give a rat’s left hind foot about anyone or anything! Whee!

I don’t know whether my predecessor would have liked her or hated her. But there’s a quality of inhumanity about it all, a sense of not only carrying the world lightly, as I try to, but washing her hands of it, and herself, and all of us, completely.

If I shrugged off the cares of this world, shrugged off the virtues, shrugged off even my humanity-- just accepted myself as a destructive force, or else just didn’t care WHAT my role was, and just prioritized satisfying my curiosity and ego and sensory wants-- would I be someone like her?

It’s an unanswerable question. I value these fetters too highly to try that kind of experiment. But it’s enough to make me want to pluck her from her serene and cloudless sky with a plasma rifle.

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1229

Something like this:

You do know the way! You just don’t want to walk the walk.

I just point to you that you don’t want to walk the walk, i’m not judging you for it.

I wholeheartedly accept you the way you are and the choices you make. I couldn’t do otherwise.

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1230

… yeah, I’m going to go ahead and say I think you need to examine why you’re reacting this harshly to something like that. It’s way overkill, for what you’re saying in this post. So, either there’s something you’re not telling us about, or something in your reaction to it is way off kilter.

Why aren’t you supposed to talk to me, anyway? You of all people should be inherently immune to pretty much anything I say.

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1231

It is so sad to see a once beautiful and sensitive soul (however misguided she were in how she directed her feelings) become a rage-filled monster.

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1232

It’s not me personally. It’s SFRIM generally. No one has permission to talk to you without a specific go-ahead from the directorate.

The exception is if it’s necessary to let you know about the policy, which I just did.

Edit to add:

This policy will remain while the wardec is active.

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1233

Well, we will always go into this, start from which topic whatsoever. Interrupting is not a problem. We’ll pick up later.

Well done, Miz.

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1234

I suppose that confirms it. I was also banned from a comms channel, without ever having broken the rules in it. It’s kind of fun, since I’m told actual rule-breakers remain. Slightly awkward, since it’s one less avenue of communication or diplomacy. It’s kind of weird, quite a few of them told me they didn’t want the war, but at the same time… none of them have even tried to settle it diplomatically.

Ah well, it’s not like I’m actually active in space these days.

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1235

Actually the last time we spoke at an Arc event, I suggested that some issues transcend our differences and that sometimes we can cooperate for the betterment of all of us. I suggested you fly on an op with Arc and I indicated I’d fly personally with you and take the risk. You didn’t want to.

On a prior “circus tent”, SFRIM adopted an ROE where we wouldn’t shoot you if were both engaged in a mutual effort against the Butcher. That ROE remains in effect by the way with respect to the current one (or two? who knows at this point how many a maniacal capsuleer can erect).

I’ve also indicated on other occasions, we didn’t want to be at war with you. We still don’t.

But given that your note you graciously sent me when you war decced us indicated there really wasn’t anything we could do to shorten or end it… Welp.

I still tried to offer some bridge building, but I am foolish that way I suppose.

If you do want to talk, I am sure or one of the directors would be happy to. I suspect I may be too emotionally involved to be effective at this point so I’d likely ask one of the other directors.

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1236

Me? Oh I don’t particularly care one way or the other. Like the very same note said, it’s not like it’s some sort of orchestrated campaign. I am just a bit amused at the continuous closing of avenues of diplomacy. You mistake the fact that I have no current reason to cease fire, that reasons couldn’t be found. Of course, that’s not up to me. I must admit, given that there’s been no attempts to find such a reason, I’ve gotten the impression there’s no desire to end the wardec.

And no, “we don’t want to be at war” is not a reason, and it’s quite a strange thing to suggest I should be risking crew flying alongside war targets against those who have done nothing to my people.

Not that it matters, I don’t seem to be in the pod very often these days.

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1237

You know I’m not affiliated with any sect . What you classify me then

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1238

TR-8R

1239

She means any particular Achurian religious sect, Diana. Are you associated with any particular Achurian religious sect?

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1240

Well … “lay Achur,” I guess, Ms. Shaishi, like most Achura. … I don’t completely know for sure, since my background comes from within a monastic sect, but, I’d guess to the average Achur the sects all kind of blur together and their differences don’t really seem very important?

The very short version of why I have trouble with Ms. Tsukiyo is that she has some monkish training and talks like a monk but doesn’t actually care much about … uh. Anybody. Since Achura’s monks run most of the planet, that’s a problematic quality for a monk to have.

I kind of hope that there isn’t an entire sect of Ms. Tsukiyos, but please don’t worry that my feelings about that might have anything to do with you.

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1241

Negative, unlike my mother.

1242

Well, there you go then.

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1243

There’s a difference?

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1244

There can be.

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1245

Jokes on Claudia, bait isnt figured in…

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1246

So I can bring my drake…

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1247

did i ever say no? I simply said stay 4 jumps ahead of us and dont expect a quick response…

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