Kira Nerys (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thenewways) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2016-08-20 09:59 pm
thenewways) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2016-08-20 09:59 pm
Entry tags:
- !mingle,
- - plot: primitive weapons,
- 100: raven reyes,
- asoiaf: margaery tyrell,
- asoiaf: robb stark,
- great library: jess brightwell,
- heathers: veronica sawyer,
- kate kelly: kate kelly,
- losers: cougar alvarez,
- losers: jake jensen,
- martian: mark watney,
- marvel: frank castle,
- marvel: sam wilson,
- ouat: killian jones,
- spn: jo harvelle,
- star trek: kira nerys,
- tvd: kol mikaelson,
- vinland: thorfinn thorsson
keep that fury deep inside you: primitive weapons plot
WHO: Kira Nerys
WHERE: the Inn
WHEN: Saturday,
OPEN TO: All (August Plot, part 2)
WARNINGS: none at present
STATUS: Open
When Nerys heard about the boxes that Jo and Killian Jones had found, she was surprised. When she heard what was in them, that they were all marked with intent, the surprise lessened, and now was turning into sinking overwhelming tunnel vision in her head, her gut. The physical sensation of knowing, knowing that someone had plans for you, and those plans were likely ugly--oh yes, she knows it. Just because it's familiar, though, doesn't make it something she enjoys by any stretch of the imagination.
No, it's the kind of feeling that Nerys had learned at a very young age to transmute into anger. The kind of anger that fed her family, then the kind of anger that blew up Cardassian weapons depots, then the kind of anger that kept her focused on her job and kept her people safe.
She knows that if she's feeling this way, things are just as bad or worse for others. While she hasn't been entirely candid with everyone about her past, though she certainly hasn't lied, she's pretty sure she's seen complexity (let's be frank, darkness) in some of the people she's met, and like fuck did they need a full-scale civil war on their hands here.
It's a good way for them all, in the not-so-long run, to die.
Clearly, they all needed to have a gods damned talk before this boiled over, and as Nerys sees no one else volunteering, she steps up, roaming through the village like an old-fashioned crier. "Hey," she shouts at the people in the field, around the town, using the rather powerful pipes the Prophets had seen fit to give her. "Hey. Meeting at the Inn, fifteen minutes. We need to talk."
She gets to the inn in a few minutes' time, then clambers up onto one of the tables in front of Jo's lists, and sits, cross-legged, to wait. Folks filter in, a few at a time, and Nerys taps her jaw with her fingertips, counting out the seconds (she'd like a chronometer, but that'd be like asking for latinum dust). Once enough time's passed, she clears her throat. It doesn't really do much, so she rolls her eyes, then turns up the volume a little--not aggressive, but enough to catch people's attention. She's accustomed to walking the fine line between too much and too little leadership, because unlike her Starfleet colleagues, she doesn't expect the hierarchy of rank and linked formality of sometimes-grudging respect. Makes it easier to actually talk to people.
"Hey. My name's Nerys, for those of you who I haven't met properly yet. You've probably heard what was found out in the forest," she starts. "I figure we should all sit down and discuss it, because the last thing that's going to be any good for anyone is us starting to distrust each other and get into fights. So...let's hash it out, right?"
If she has to scream the 'this is what they fucking want, they want us to hurt each other, fuck them' message into people's heads, she's willing to do that. Eventually. Hopefully someone else will agree.
WHERE: the Inn
WHEN: Saturday,
OPEN TO: All (August Plot, part 2)
WARNINGS: none at present
STATUS: Open
When Nerys heard about the boxes that Jo and Killian Jones had found, she was surprised. When she heard what was in them, that they were all marked with intent, the surprise lessened, and now was turning into sinking overwhelming tunnel vision in her head, her gut. The physical sensation of knowing, knowing that someone had plans for you, and those plans were likely ugly--oh yes, she knows it. Just because it's familiar, though, doesn't make it something she enjoys by any stretch of the imagination.
No, it's the kind of feeling that Nerys had learned at a very young age to transmute into anger. The kind of anger that fed her family, then the kind of anger that blew up Cardassian weapons depots, then the kind of anger that kept her focused on her job and kept her people safe.
She knows that if she's feeling this way, things are just as bad or worse for others. While she hasn't been entirely candid with everyone about her past, though she certainly hasn't lied, she's pretty sure she's seen complexity (let's be frank, darkness) in some of the people she's met, and like fuck did they need a full-scale civil war on their hands here.
It's a good way for them all, in the not-so-long run, to die.
Clearly, they all needed to have a gods damned talk before this boiled over, and as Nerys sees no one else volunteering, she steps up, roaming through the village like an old-fashioned crier. "Hey," she shouts at the people in the field, around the town, using the rather powerful pipes the Prophets had seen fit to give her. "Hey. Meeting at the Inn, fifteen minutes. We need to talk."
She gets to the inn in a few minutes' time, then clambers up onto one of the tables in front of Jo's lists, and sits, cross-legged, to wait. Folks filter in, a few at a time, and Nerys taps her jaw with her fingertips, counting out the seconds (she'd like a chronometer, but that'd be like asking for latinum dust). Once enough time's passed, she clears her throat. It doesn't really do much, so she rolls her eyes, then turns up the volume a little--not aggressive, but enough to catch people's attention. She's accustomed to walking the fine line between too much and too little leadership, because unlike her Starfleet colleagues, she doesn't expect the hierarchy of rank and linked formality of sometimes-grudging respect. Makes it easier to actually talk to people.
"Hey. My name's Nerys, for those of you who I haven't met properly yet. You've probably heard what was found out in the forest," she starts. "I figure we should all sit down and discuss it, because the last thing that's going to be any good for anyone is us starting to distrust each other and get into fights. So...let's hash it out, right?"
If she has to scream the 'this is what they fucking want, they want us to hurt each other, fuck them' message into people's heads, she's willing to do that. Eventually. Hopefully someone else will agree.
no subject
Raven doesn't know how the world had been one hundred years ago, but she doubts it's changed much. The landscape may be pocketed with craters, contaminated with radiation, and completely spare of anything that had once existed to make the world the thriving, hungry beast it'd been a century before, but she believes human nature never changes.
The Grounders are greedy for land. The Mountain men had been greedy for air. The Ark had been greedy for home.
"Think about it. If you have a collection of bombs, who's going to want to piss you off?" She glances toward the crate she stands beside and taps her hand against it. "I'm thinking these guys have given us the shit weapons. Where's the guns? You can't do much damage with a crossbow, like how someone who wants to threaten to kill the world can't do it without having more than one lousy bomb."
no subject
Who would escalate a conflict when the price for it is a habitable planet?
But then he thinks of Burners and their willingness to sacrifice themselves and everyone around them to make a point. All the same, even burners have limits. They want the freedom to have books in every household, and they can't do that if they bombed said households off the map, poisoning the land to the point people have to fly to the moon to find a place to live.
The idea is enough to make Jess' spine tingle uncomfortably. Imagining leaving behind all of the feats of human ingenuity behind and watching it be destroyed is too sad.
"The Library exists to prevent that very thing from happening. Preserving knowledge comes before everything else. That makes a book worth more than a life, and protecting culture and history more important than a war." His movements slow as gives into the thought and follows it to its conclusion. "It's supposed to be anathema to attack a library--it's been enough to stop battles mid-conflict if the Library feels moved to intervene. I'll be the first to say this sounds impossible, but... the way you describe things makes me think of what the world would be like if the Library wasn't there to arbitrate. If it was left to chaos."
It's eerie, if he's being honest. Raven's hints about her life have always been eerie, but the more he hears, the stronger the impression grows. He sighs.
"We're the chimpanzees and these are our tools," he says finally, looking down at the slim pickings on the tables.
no subject
Perhaps it's easier for a girl who cares very little about the state of books to believe it. If she's gleaned anything about Jess Brightwell, it's that he's afraid of this library. The Library. Like it's some force that'll come and strike him down now, and maybe he's a little afraid by her always talking it down, stripping it away by not being afraid.
She'll easily admit she hasn't taken the time to understand where he comes from. His own inability to understand the world's been decimated for over one hundred years withstanding, it's almost like he refuses to believe the very thing he's afraid of and has been taught is all encompassing and powerful had been wiped out.
Assuming it had. Raven's head's been thumping every time someone opens their mouth and speaks to her about what they know of culture.
Though tempted to look away, she doesn't. Matter-of-factly, she lectures, "A book's only worth more than a life if you let it. And you don't think the world's chaotic? Anyone who's hungry for power and exerts their influence with fear tactics is chaos in the making. Just because it's more tightly controlled and looks pretty on the outside doesn't mean it's not chaotically ugly on the inside."
She folds her arms against her chest and arches her brow challengingly at him. "I'm not anyone's chimpanzee. Are you?"
no subject
The absence of a healthy sense of fear is precisely why he can tell she doesn't fully comprehend what he's talking about. If she'd seen the wasteland the Library had made of France, she'd know why some things are easier said than done. He looks over at her. When he does, what he sees in place of her flatly defiant gaze is how quickly the Library would strike her down for that stance, like it had Wolfe and Thomas for sharing an idea. And Morgan for daring to run. And Prakesh for asking questions. Danton... even his own brother...
So many people crushed and swept aside like insects under the fists of a behemoth. Sealing her death would be easy as scribbling an order in a Codex, and she doesn't see it.
She really is a lucky girl.
"I think you don't have a world like mine. That you remember, anyway, that's my point. Regardless of what the Library is or isn't, that tight control means starting a war of that magnitude would be out of the question without overtaking the Library first. And that doesn't happen. So I'm thinking that's where the difference lies."
But Jess doesn't want to be held responsible for a debate on the Library's philosophy, or global catastrophes that have or haven't happened. Time to get back to what has them all assembled at the inn.
"Never mind that, it's apples and oranges." His gaze dips back to the primitive tools. "I'm definitely not here to play slings and arrows, and neither is anyone else. If they're after something, they'll get the message across somehow."
no subject
She watches him. She knows what he's doing. It's a tactic Finn had used on her several times while growing up. Whenever she ventured too close to something he didn't want her to discover, or he felt she'd push him out of an airlock with her stubborn refusal to let it rest, he'd always change the subject.
Finn was better at it than Jess.
"Look, the crates are useless, and so are those weapons. Unless you know how to use a bow and arrow, the only thing I can contribute here is fixing some of that shit up, and this doesn't really interest me. We've got weapons, we've got crates, and we know those guys who are looking on us are watching."
As far as she knows, this delivery means little to her. It's already sparking so much paranoia she could almost build a brace out of it, and she doesn't want to. Building that sort of contraption means that they're unable to repair themselves, and Raven doesn't have that much of a defeatist attitude anymore.
In fact, she disregards any comfort he may be seeking by changing the subject. Dismissing it, she picks it right up where he drops it, and she refuses to let it go.
"Did you ever think maybe it's the same fruit? I may not have a world like yours, but did you ever think maybe I'm from a world where this Library either took everyone out or someone took the Library out?"
Folding her arms against her chest, she arches her brow, lips curved slightly, and appears stubborn and challenging and as unmovable as any boulder. "So let's talk about those damn apples and oranges and berries. We've got a weapon, and we should use it."
Isn't this Library of his so powerful because of knowledge? It's right in his hands, and he's not even seeing it.
no subject
"All right then, let's talk. You hadn't even heard of the Great Library before I brought it up, and I definitely don't remember nuclear weaponry or travelling in space," he replies for the sake of argument. "Where does that leave us? Time travel? I'm so far back in your time that all of what I know is a distant memory or the future? Or we're not from the same world at all, but alternate worlds that diverged somewhere?"
This is what he'd really meant by apples and oranges. This inescapable difference of perspective. Jess is at a loss for how to resolve it between himself and the other people assembled in town, and over the month he'd begun to think it's an 'all or nothing' choice. Accept everything's possible or nothing. He's still on the fence.
"And that's just us. We have people who believe in magic and other universes that trap people like honeypots. If that's true, our abductors aren't just sending a sign with these crates, they have the ability to bend time and space like it's nothing."
no subject
Stating the year won't make any difference, not when they're so far removed from their own worlds. It's a concept Raven can't quite dive into. Science is the basis of everything for her, but she tries to extend her imagination, let herself fly on it even if she worries she'll fall.
"If it's the same for you, that makes this even more messed up. But we're all focusing on the wrong parts." The conversation at hand has been, if anything, an eye opener for Raven. Always capable of fixing things, she's been looking at everyone in the room like they're a piece of technology or machinery. Everyone here has been brought to be a part of a machine, and she's been trying to piece together who's what part.
It's easier to break it down, look at the individual pieces, learn what they're used for and how durable they are. She's already started with herself, but it's difficult to expand on her own observations without a sounding board.
And that happens to be Jess Brightwell.
She lets out a breath, and drops her gaze to look at the crate he stands before. "Everyone's looking at the pieces that don't fit, and they're rubbing them together to start friction. I fixed a one hundred year old pod and shot myself down to Earth from a space station with no guarantee that I'd survive, and I didn't kick major ass by focusing on the negative differences."
no subject
If 2026 is difficult for some of the others here to contemplate, the twenty second century is off the map. And then some.
Jess looks at her calmly for a long second, expression indecipherable. Then finally, without warning, he cracks the faintest smile. "All right, but consider the evidence: that could be explained away by you being a crazy adrenaline junkie."
A bit of the pot calling the kettle black, but she doesn't have to know that.
no subject
Looking at him, she rolls her eyes, and teases back, "And you being a hundred and twenty three years into the past explains that stick up your ass."
He's all serious and no play, and Raven's seen that in a few of her good friends. It's going to be the end of both Bellamy and Clarke, and Raven's always hoped there'd come a moment, even if it lasts for just a breath, that they'll settle themselves back down on the ground and give someone else the responsibility and burdens they bear.
Or Bellamy does. Raven doesn't know what to make of Clarke anymore.
"You're focusing on the frivolous stuff. Which makes sense, you're a nerd." She shrugs her shoulders, letting the comment slide off of her with a warm kind of note. "But mechanics can't take in all the crap lying around. You find the pieces of something else that work, and you apply them to your project. What doesn't work is you and me focusing on you being old and me being young. You following me, grandpa?"
no subject
Frivolous. Not many people have applied that word to him in his lifetime. His smile turns insular, amused by the inside joke.
"You say that as if I can't do both. We nerds are quite good at multitasking. Our project is escape, but theirs is keeping us right where we are. The more we know about why we were chosen and why our memories don't line up, the better we'll understand who we're dealing with. Besides, aren't you curious?"
About 'other worlds'? What it all means?
no subject
"I am," she admits. "But I have to stay focused. This isn't something you can multitask, even if you're a big nerd." She looks at him pointedly, a joke, if you will, before she shakes her head and sighs. "I'm pretty sure where we're from is important, but there has to be a common link between what we all know. I doubt there's much in common with our worlds. Considering yours thinks a library is important and mine doesn't, I can't see a common denominator yet."
no subject
Them. This place. The scrubs, the boxes... It's all too well-planned. Until he understands the game in motion, he'll keep asking questions. If his friends were here, Jess thinks--no, he knows--they'd help tackle the issue as they'd been doing with the matter of Thomas, and a pang of homesickness constricts his chest at the thought. He'd take their help right about now. Even Dario's. Even Glain's, if just to see her smash a crate and yell at everyone to get back to the matter at hand.
But they're not here. He is. And Raven's right about one thing--the debates raging about the scrub colors and what to do with the weapons are leading them around in circles.
"For now we'll have to wait and see," he says. "Eventually they'll make a move. Then we'll have our chance to learn more."
But he hopes they can make their own move before that happens.
no subject
But it's all they have. With the conversation circling down the drain, evoking paranoia and unhelpful suggestions that seem to be piling up in a corner of being spoken but not quite discussed, it's what needs to happen. Something needs to explode, and Raven's fearful of how far the shrapnel will fly.
Arms against her chest, she leans the elbow of one against the back of her hand and presses her fingers against her chin. "I just hope it's not a big move. There has to be a way to prepare for it."
no subject
"I don't think we'll have to worry about nuclear attack or acid fog just yet." If Raven's expecting the worse, she hides it well.
With the last crate checked, he sets it back in its row alongside the other five. Nothing unusual to speak of there... if one ignored the fact that everything about the crates is unusual. He'd had low expectations about finding evidence leading back to their captors to begin with. They're too efficient to leave behind something obvious like a fingerprint, and too mysterious already to need hidden compartments to add to their mystique.
"As much as I hate to say it, any way we choose to respond now that we have these weapons is playing into their hands. But spears and a new axe only help us. We're better equipped than we were two days ago."
no subject
If she has to believe in anything, it's herself. She's only ever had herself to depend on. When Mom had turned her back on her, Raven had learned to become self-sufficient. She knows where her talents lie, and she knows, despite his tease, if there was a threat of acid fog, there were steps that needed to be taken, and she possessed that knowledge.
A part of her wonders if the best way to plan for a possible attack was to keep their heads screwed on, but she doesn't so much as say it.
Glancing at him, her gaze settles on the box he stands closest to. "They're shit," she says, and glances over her shoulder to look at the weapons that aren't in top shape. The Grounders had better versions than what they'd been provided here, but they were also handmade and stronger for it. "I'll have to fix them."
no subject
Nothing against the efforts of those here, trying to find answers for questions they don't even know how to ask yet. If Jess sounds glib, it's his personal impatience talking--impatience with his own shortcomings and the obtuse motives of those who seem to want him bound and gagged and living domestically in a pioneer village like a good little farm hand.
His eye catches on the sling with the frayed rope. "It's a bit outside your wheelhouse as a mechanic. Do you know how?" Honest curiosity.
no subject
She's not the type to sit around in diplomatic situations and discuss. Raven's often at the end of that particular process, enacting upon the decision. She's not the brains and the mouth of a diplomatic discussion, but she knows she's the hands.
"If I don't, I'll learn," she says, shrugging her shoulder. He may doubt her capabilities, and she may join him in such an action, but she knows she can do anything she sets her mind to. The stakes are high; she doesn't hear anyone else offering to try and fix a fraying rope or find an alternative. "If I can make a bomb out of the wreckage of a dropship, I think I can handle a simple bow and arrow."
She smiles, "Maybe even give it a little boom of an upgrade."
no subject
Raven's response is another bit of information he files away--so that's a no on having had practice with this kind of repair work, then.
"You haven't had enough of bombs yet?" If it involves radiation, he'd prefer to leave that up to his imagination.
no subject
"It's effective, isn't it?" She knows that it leaves behind a footprint, one that'd be dangerous to anyone unfortunate enough not to grow up on a space station or even dance with the stars. Jess wouldn't survive her world. She doesn't know if she envies him just yet.
He must think her to be crazy, or perhaps one of those people who simply doesn't learn. But the people who'd lived one hundred years ago weren't Raven Reyes.
She looks at him, and shrugs her shoulders. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Learn from the past. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Isn't this found in one of your books?"
no subject
He thinks they have enough problems without following Nietzsche's advice, but there's still some truth to the idea that they need to up their game if they hope to ever escape. Explosives are better in their hands than the enemy's.
"Let me know when you bust open the canyon wall and then we'll talk. I wouldn't mind blasting our way out of here."
no subject
Her brow furrows for a second as she mulls it over. Can she really blow a hole in the canyon wall? Will that lead them to somewhere familiar? Perhaps back to Arkadia?
She doesn't look at him. Her gaze is somewhat distant, as though she's somewhere else — and a part of Raven is. "Aren't you lucky you know a girl who's good at making bombs?"
no subject
He hadn't actually meant it. Forgetting the sling entirely, Jess studies her face as she makes a thoughtful expression. How had they gotten from talking about nuclear bombs eradicating her people to thinking about building them?
The gaps in Raven's experience continue to be a surprising learning process. She has got to be the only person he's ever met who can talk seriously about making explosives and not be able to tell a rose from a weed.
"Do they teach that in Earth Skills, too?" Or is that an extracurricular activity?
no subject
"Earth Skills? Pfft." She shakes her head. Earth Skills had given them the very basic of tools, but it hadn't prepared them for a life of war. She hates how the Council hadn't thought of it. How had their ascendents loaded themselves up onto the Ark without providing the strategies of the possibility their own had survived the nuclear apocalypse? It was ignorant and it was stupid, and Raven's not the type to rule any solution out.
"You learn that in Raven Skills. Great class. Not sure you'd make the cut." She pulls back her shoulders, inhaling deeply through her nose, then looks down at the crates that provide her with nothing. "I'm not about to rule out the option." Looking up at him, she arches her brow challengingly, issuing Jess his own test. "Are you?"
no subject
It sounds as though that's something he's missing out on in a big way, like a vaccination skipped in childhood, but Jess frames it as a joke, evident by his amusement and the flicker of a smile. A morbid thing to joke about, but the need for bombs and the idea of sending a group of young people into an environment already annihilated by them is almost too dispiriting to think about without trying to take the sting out of it somehow.
"But I'm always up for a challenge if the choice to audit is available," he continues easily. Tests don't scare him. Maybe Raven should consider signing their captors up for this course of hers and really putting them through their paces.
no subject
It feels nice to not focus on the crates in the room, even though Raven knows her mind will return to them when she's alone in her room upstairs.
"Don't be annoying, challenge number one. Too bad you've already failed that." She glances down at the crates, like she's searching for the terms of the Raven Skills class. "Challenge number two, think outside the box. Guess I have to give you credit for that." She looks up at him. "Were you looking for a note?"
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