2023-10-18: What Now, Hero?
- Log: 2023-10-18-What Now Hero
- Cast: Caruleum Vaull, Em Gelfand
- Where: The Dreisstragger
- Date: October 18, 2023
- Summary: In which the King of Earth visits the Dreisstrager to ask Em Gelfand if they still felt the same about an ethical quandry previously posed.<Summarize!>
<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.
At times, the world is predictable. It turns on and on, the balance of the present tipping here and there in different ways that bring about outcomes both clear and murky. The evaluation of such realities, and what one must do to live with them, dominates the lives of everyone... but it weighs on some more than others. The scales tip from side to side in a way that, although semi-predictable, always has its twists and turns. What was obvious a year or more ago fades steadily from thought and feeling, until the scales are no longer recognizable, and one must once again re-evaluate the world and its standing. And it so happens that someone is waiting, and watching-- for these scales to change, and to change the scales that they are tending in turn.
Dimensions twist upon themselves, and tonight the disturbance is more subtle. Within instrumental margins of error; the intrusion is a small one, and inserts only a single object that rolls across the floor of the room that Em occupies. It is more than distantly familiar. This Haro has been customized more than the others; in particular it has a 'third eye' mark on its forehead, and a white-and-purplish red that is associated with the self-proclaimed King of Earth. It turns in place, taking in the surroundings, before a second dimensional distortion heralds the arrival of the actual visitor.
Caruleum Vaull twitches a finger towards the haro as he appears, prompting it to bounce up into his hand. The purpose of this might have been not to require him to stoop down in the presence of what MIGHT consider him an enemy... though considering how freely he was comfortable with entering the Dreisstrager before, it might be that he simply does not regard it as a threatening place to be. Whether that is naivete or something else remains to be seen-- though at the very least his 'mere' exploratory forces had been a threat to be reckoned with. Even so, his expression has that same genial, comfortable quality that it did before-- a smile simultaneously assured, and genuinely friendly.
"It has been some time," he says, his free hand rising to rub at the top of the Haro he sent through as a 'scout' as if it were a cat he was holding. "And now that events have transpired on a grand scale, and the world around you has changed, I am wondering if your perspective on matters has been unsettled. What do you think of this world that you now inhabit, and what would you do of it? Do you still..."
"... yearn for pragmatic subordination, or has something new been lit within you?" He wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.
Caruleum's Haro finds Em in a graveyard.
A metallic one, anyway, but a graveyard nonetheless. Or maybe a mortuary, if you're more inclined, with the subject robot-corpses laid out on slabs and in stacks. It's adjacent to one of the hangars, partitioned off, and normally used for holding mechs that need long-term TLC or consignment to a salvage heap. The most accessible things in here are definitely on the latter end of the scale, with the useful portions neatly and cleanly removed and moved over to the part of the place festooned with pointy-looking robot arms.
Em's short arms are nearly shoulder-deep in waldo gloves, doing what looks like some kind of large-scale knitting project. Each fiber gleams in the bright, artificial light of the place, and the core of it looks like a mimicry of humanoid musculature wrapped around something roughly bone-like. Mechromancy, perhaps. They'd probably quietly enjoy the appelation of such supernatural force to their weird hobbies.
The haro appears. Em hardly looks over at first, then double-takes once a particularly intricate motion is complete. Their face does something complicated, flickering between alarm, to irritation, to concern, to blank stone in rapid succession. They're still extracting their arms from the long, mounted gloves when Caruleum puts in a personal appearance, which means the Space Lord (Em does not remember his title, but is reasonably certain there is one) does not have any weapons immediately aimed at him.
"Your timing is... enigmatic," Em says, shooting him a slightly baleful glance. "Did you really come out here, now, just to ask a question like that?"
Em is fairly certain they already know the answer.
<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.
"There is no need to be alarmed or cease your activities. It is not time for a test of martial prowess," The horned alien reassures Em, striding around their active project and examining what they are doing with genuine curiosity. Caruleum doesn't really know what to make of it, and puts the haro down to roll around and poke at things instead of using it as an awkward sort of prop. The musculature structure gets a closer, more deliberate look before he straightens back up and turns his eyes back towards Em themselves.
He smiles a little more brightly, gesturing loosely with one hand, "My ability to come and go is unfettered. I choose the timing that suits me, as is my right. Though I hope that the Captain is not unduly troubled by this particular incursion, I suspect that it will be small enough that she will not be aware of my presence for some small while unless you go out of your way to summon her."
"... Which I would not be opposed to," he amends, striding around the far side of the project. "Even if it not my purpose today. It is always a pleasure to speak with the Captain."
'Did you really come out here...'
"As the King of Earth, it is my prerogative and responsibility to inquire into certain matters of its progress. I have others to visit, now that things have taken certain turns. But at this particular moment in time, my thoughts did indeed turn to you, here, and now," he says.
Coming around the other side of the project and back up towards Em, Caruleum regards them with an expression of pleasantly benign interest. "You said that an invader who threatens eschatological and postmortem injury if cooperation is not given ought to be cooperated with until they can be overcome with the benefits they extend as a part of that cooperation."
Gesturing grandly towards one of the walls -- to the 'world at large' -- he asks, "Do you feel the same way now?"
<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.
Despite the assurance, Em does not go back to whatever this project is. It hangs there, suspended like it was stuck in a spider's web of its own making. Some layers of plating common to mobile weapons designed for the Earth Sphere's occasionally-observed mostly-universal standard is nearby, clamped in place in an order that feels deliberate. It could be an arm, but it's a lot of work for something as benign as all that.
Em does, however, watch Caruleum the entire time he walks the chamber. It's rare to get an opportunity like this, even if it's mildly irritating that Em's entire flow got disrupted by it. Such is life aboard this ship, though. Eventually, the desire to answer in nonsense to spite him fades. It's visible on Em's face, as the baleful look dissipates into one of distant concern.
"The Captain doesn't need me waking her up in the middle of the night for something like this. I'm sure she'll hear about it eventually, but she's got enough on her plate." Violence into anarchy into a new kind of order. Maybe a worse kind of order. Mitsuba is probably awake right now, chewing on the state of things. Even still... no. Em takes a step back from the project, keeping it and him in their line of sight. Arms cross, perhaps a little defensive, but Em's posture is otherwise at odds with it. Tense, but not with fear or worry.
"I'm honored to be worth the visit." Their voice is cool, and the comment seems more genuine than sarcastic. Bright-lensed glasses remain centered on him; the eyes behind them slide to one side, as if trying to peek through the hull and out to the world beyond. "Broadly, my philosophy on the matter is unchanged, purely from a strategic-scale perspective. Any invading force with sufficiently-evident superiority is best defeated through cunning rather than attempts at brute strength. Opposition is never free. However..."
Em's head turns. Irritation flashes again. "That supposes a structure worth defending. An order that is worth keeping. I'm not so sure that's the case, anymore."
<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.
"I intend to visit her separately. I assume that you will inform her of this intrusion once I have gone," Caruleum remarks, and it's hard to tell whether or not that is the exact outcome he intends. He presents as a fairly straightforward person, even though he asks complex, and deep questions with no real 'correct' answer. He could be COUNTING on it, and on the other hand it really could just be an observation.
The Quaestor haro rolls around in a wider circle. It might be taking photographs...
He raises a hand to his chin, one finger curling thoughtfully against it. "It is true, though. All who lead are faced with a tumultuous future, and it is their hand that guides the rudder of history. The first that I met was quite rough with his choices. The result of that course has scarred this world, perhaps forever. But it is only natural that some such choices will be undertaken across a civilization's lifetime."
'I'm honored to be worth the visit.'
"All of those who stand near history's rudder are of great interest," he explains, his hand slipping away from his chin and back to his side. "But even besides that, I am quite curious of the people under my dominion. Collectively, your thinking is..."
Caruleum trails away, uncertainly. He shakes his head and paces on, past Em. He turns on his heel a couple of yards away and faces them again, his usual genial expression restored from a momentary lapse. "So the worth of the world has dipped beneath selling your soul to the devil to buy time for it. How fascinating. Or is that a matter you have yet to fully decide on?"
"By the way," he continues, tone lightening substantially, "I have been curious. What sort of food should I try on this planet?"
<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.
"I'm sure she'll appreciate it." Em is not sure she will appreciate it. They give a light one-shouldered shrug. "I'll put in a report. It would be strange if I didn't. And then Lune will drag me to self-defense drills, in case next time it's something less talkative..." Em trails off with the sort of intonation suggesting a familiar course of action, and a future full of friendly bruises.
Em slowly rounds the slab opposite Caruleum, glancing at the haro as it does haro things. The potential security risk with those things is staggering, but given Caruleum can teleport in and out of secure areas basically at-will, it's pointless to complain about a few likely photos. Maybe the King of Earth thinks it's a pretty neat piece of sculpture. "The first ever, or the first this time? Are you older than you look?"
'Collectively, your thinking is...'
"Nonsensical. Scatterbrained. Contradictory, most of all. Humankind will fight, kill and die for the cause of freedom and self-determination, but there's always a huge percentage who just as fiercely demands some singular entity impose its will on them so they don't have to choose. Then they have the gall to complain when that entity chooses 'wrongly.'" Em twitches their head, frowning deeply. "It takes effort to empathize with them, some days."
If Em is at all concerned about this quiet declaration of standing apart, they don't seem it. Instead, they drift back around the project, on the same side of the bouquet of arms and strands as Caruleum. They look up at the tall, horned man, eyes dark. "My soul already belongs to a bombast of devils. They haven't chosen to spend it unwisely just yet; they're too busy celebrating a false victory. The world had been shaped by the existence of the Federation, for good and ill, and the new collective to come out of its collapse is going to cause more ill than good. I haven't decided how much I'm willing to bleed for the gluttonous creature. If I'm willing to bleed again."
Unburdening one's soul to the enemy provides a certain measure of catharsis.
The shift in topic is sudden and nearly causes Em whiplash. They blink rapidly, feeling like a student just chopped in the side of the head by a cryptic sifu. "Um. I like rendang? You can get it in Orb, Most of the pilots around here will swear by curry, though."
<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.
"I would like that," Caruleum says, sincerely. He doesn't sound like he expects it to be the case, either, though. He's provoked Mitsuba to harsh enough words that he knows he has to watch himself if he wants to continue interacting with her in a meaningful way, something that he isn't altogether accustomed to.
'in case next time it's something less talkative...'
"Breaching your defenses like this for the purposes of my experiments does not fit the parameters of the experiments," he reassures them, and although he sounds like he's being truthful, even he knows it's a tough pill to swallow. "I simply wish to interact in a medium that is not solely from the cockpit, at times."
'The first time ever, or the first this time? Are you older than you look?'
Caruleum chuckles, and looks up and down at himself before meeting Em's gaze again. "I wouldn't say so. My species is engineered for exceptional health, but I am not all that old myself. I spoke to the man who dropped Axis, some small while before he did it."
"And empathize... no, I find that quite easy, I think," he admits. It's a curious thing, though, to 'think' that he does. But this man has shown more than a few instances of odd behavior. Perhaps he simply isn't certain that he fully understands what a human being might mean by it. "But that essential defiance of authority, the tendency to assert control too soon, and too blindly... that, certainly, is a troubling characteristic."
There is a tiny flash of surprise in Caruleum's expression, that Em chooses to move closer at all. He might've been under the impression that he was causing discomfort, circling closer previously. He folds his hands behind his back, straightening up a little.
"If not the Federation, then... would you still bleed for the Captain? This ship?" Caruleum asks. The modified haro bumps into the back of his heel, and he glances back towards it. "Yes, yes, we'll be going in a moment..."
His eyes flick back to Em. "Rendang. Curry. I have heard that 'curry' is spicy, and that it is well-enjoyed with something called 'lassi'." Oh boy.
<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.
"You know, you should really just try writing a letter to her sometime. She might appreciate the antiquity of it." Em has no idea if this is the case, either, but those two have something or other going on, so... who knows?
Em makes a noncommittal noise. Teleportation for face-to-face interaction is A Lot. If it's a casual ability, then maybe it isn't for him, which could mean a lot more from the tactical analysis perspective. Fortunately, that isn't Em's job here, strictly speaking, so unless it's getting plugged into a slightly mysterious supercomputer at the heart of the vessel, it isn't really something they've got to spend a lot of mental bandwidth on.
But they absolutely will anyway.
They stop. Em is outside of arm's reach, but within conversational distance, rather than maintaining a certain degree of separation by virtue of the strange project. They have to look up to look Caruleum in the face, and their expression errs on the grim side. "Humanity prefers to advance in leaps and bounds, and its reach will ever exceed its grasp. I think the term 'growing pains' characterizes the entire civilization fairly well in that respect. Maybe empathy isn't the right word, though." Em glances aside.
They look back, eyes over the tops of glasses, expression growing with resolve. "The Captain is a good and decent person," Em says. "The ship is full of people that I would broadly characterize the same. They've earned a little bloodshed from me, mine or otherwise. Sometimes, though, it's best if good and decent people don't need to burden themselves with the asking."
Em half-turns away, as if to inspect the suspended project for a moment. It covers the minute expression that some might assume is connected to suppressed laughter. "It usually is. Consider acquiring currency and visiting a settlement in cognito to try both. That sort of slumming is characteristic of Earth Sphere royalty looking to connect with their subjects, after all."
<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.
"A letter. Hm." Caruleum makes a thoughtful noise. Then, after a long moment of silence, he says, "It does not do to attempt to correspond in such a way that I cannot be answered. But I will take it under consideration." He's completely serious about that. Evidently, Em is right that there is something going on there, though whatever the hell it is might be as mysterious to him as it is to anyone else.
"Intelligent life is quite prone to that sort of aggression and desire of explosive growth. As your civilization is passingly aware..." He's probably alluding to the zentraedi, because what else could he be alluding to? It might be best not to actually think too deeply about that. "But it is rarely the case that a civilization knows what is best for it, or how to ethically engage other societies. I am given to the impression that humanity is rather above-average in that regard." For now, at least. The fact that he came to the Dreisstrager with an ethical challenge at all is probably a cause for alarm with that sort of rhetoric.
The King of Earth smiles. It is a sunnier smile than the genial one he uses in casual interaction, which seems to linger rather easily, and accordingly it has measurably more weight. "Good. That's exactly what is needed here. If ever you think that she has asked you to bleed too much, remember what you have just told me."
"And there is no need for me to go incognito. This is, after all, my own domain. But thank you for the advice, Em Gelfand," he turns away, once again prompting the Quaestor Haro to bounce up into his hand. "Good evening to you..."
Space-time twists and bends, and once again Caruleum Vaull is gone.
<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.
Space-time twists and bends.
Em, left alone, isn't sure how to deal with all of this. Being cryptic and elusive sat easier than the periodic sunny smiles and reasonable comments. And food questions? What kind of Earth-Space Regent has food questions?
Em turns back to the project, shaking their head. They stand there for a good two minutes, hands on the waldo sockets, but their heart isn't really in it. Too much weighs on the mind to allow the hands to move with any surety.
Instead, they sigh, turn, and begin to write up the inevitable -- and slightly redacted -- report.