100

[buywithme]

Comrades! Consumers! Let us never be disheartened by recent traumas and let us remember that this kind of thing happens all the time here. We lose our identities, and we turn on each other, and we forget who we are, and we vanish into the aether and we... we continue, Comrades. We persist.

I've started to think that when the floods aren't too traumatic, and when we don't fall overboard into ports that want to kill us, and when people aren't trying to kill one another quite so enthusiastically, and when the vampires aren't starving and when there are no bears around...

...

I don't think I hate it here anymore.

Sometimes... sometimes, someone'll say something, or do something, or ask me to do something, and... I'll know that it's wrong. I'll know that there's a regulation against it somewhere, but... I don't remember what it is anymore. I don't remember why I can't do it anymore. I still miss my home. I miss the Factory, but sometimes I don't-- I don't remember what it is I miss about it. The details are fuzzy, I can't pick them out as well anymore.

It scares me, Comrades, but this place is starting to feel like my home.


[Filtered away from people who he knows won't want him to have alcohol]

There is very little I wouldn't do for something to drink, right now.

Private to self

Message Number 100, issued. It seems like such a small number, when I've been here so long.

Comments

PRIVATE

[bythe_books]

Your Factory was the only factory. Pretty easy to be the best when you haven't got any competition.

Prefect, you just called them "obsolete units." It doesn't take much to figure out what happened to them.

1/2 PRIVATE - Loving sigh.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Yes. It was the best.

2/2 PRIVATE

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Maybe they were put into storage. Or... recycled! sent to very low maintenance positions! Like onto the assembly lines! No, not the assembly lines... like... Like putting letters into envelopes.

PRIVATE

[bythe_books]

If that was the case, d'you really think you'd be here right now?

I'm not saying-- it's not that you can't remember your home fondly. And you're not a bad man. But there's more to redemption than just sorta... accepting your lot. You've got to face the reality of what you've done, what the Factory really is. It's work, Prefect, and it's not gonna be easy. Just weathering the shit this place throws at you isn't enough.

PRIVATE

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I don't know, the standards for who's brought here seem a little vague.

Besides, I know what the Factory really is, and... I know it's probably not perfect, Comrade, but what it was trying to achieve, and what it gave to people... that was greater than what it took from them, Brother!

PRIVATE

[bythe_books]

Prefect, if you really... honestly still buy into that hook, line and sinker, then we haven't moved forward at all.

PRIVATE - SULLLLLLK.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Then I guess we haven't moved forward at all.

PRIVATE - CCCC:

[bythe_books]

So, say we all land in the Factory next month. A load of us fall over and become workers. People you've gotten to know here, over a year and a half, working themselves to death.

You think that the Factory would give them something greater than it took out of them?

PRIVATE - Curse you Sam.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

That's not the same. People here have things already, they have their own lives. Without the Factory? The workers would have had nothing worth living for. None of us would.

PRIVATE - Why :c

[bythe_books]

Why? Why can every other world get by without the Factory, Prefect? Why is yours the exception?

PRIVATE - Stop being right :c

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

Because all the other worlds don't know what it's like to have the Factory.

Besides, the- the world outside The Factory is unlivable. No one could have survived it on their own.

PRIVATE - Sam can't help it :c IT'S HIS CURSE

[bythe_books]

Well, there we go then. Problem solved. Show 'em what it's like to have the Factory, and they'll see it's for the best. Which takes me back to my point: how would you feel if people you'd gotten to care about became a part of the workforce?

Why did it have to be the Factory? You saw that world we just left: that place was a bloody nightmare, but the people, they kept on fighting. They knew they could achieve something better.

PRIVATE - HE ENJOYS IT. I CAN TELL.

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

If they were all raised in the Factory? If they'd all always been a part of the workforce? If they knew how important it was?

[long long long long pause.]

I'd be happy for them.


Apart from

I didn't build it. I don't know why it had to be the Factory but it worked! It wasn't just one tyrant cracking the whip over a bunch of slaves, it was everyone giving their all for the greatness of the Factory and the pursuit of products! Maybe the Factory is the better thing that those people achieved! At least everything had a purpose there!

PRIVATE - WELL, DUH, IT'S SAM

[bythe_books]

And what if they just thought they were? You know if we ever visited the Factory here, with the Barge, that's what would happen.

What kind of purpose do you really have when all you do is amass a load of pointless crap, Prefect? Dictatorships work, too, but it doesn't mean they're right. Unless people have a choice, you can't say there's not a tyrant. Maybe there wasn't a literal, physical one, but that doesn't mean there wasn't tyranny in the Factory, Prefect, and you did your part to keep the people ground down in their place.

PRIVATE - WELL, DUH, IT'S SAM

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be the same, Comrade. They'd still have these whole other lives that would still be there, even if they didn't remember them. And-- and it wouldn't be real.

It's good to know your place, Brother.

PRIVATE - I'm sorry Sam's so dramatic :c

[bythe_books]

The people in the Factory had their own lives, too.

No, Prefect, it's good to find your place by going out there and experiencing life for yourself, even if it hurts. Trial and error, making mistakes, getting hurt-- it's how you really know you're alive. When you just do as you're told and don't question anything, and don't even try to find out if what you're doing is really right, what's the point? You're not a person anymore, you're a tool, easily replaced, just like that.

And what you did, Prefect, was help take that fundamental part of being human away from people.

PRIVATE - It's okay, subtlety doesn't work on his inmate :c

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

If you're in the Factory, then the Factory is your life.

I think that just being given your place would result in the same ends, only quicker and more efficiently. I don't think humanity should be defined by having to fail a lot before achieving it's ends!

PRIVATE - SAM RETURNS FROM MY FAILURE

[bythe_books]

Don't you get it, Prefect? Your lot in life is what you make it to be.

PRIVATE - WB SAM c:

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

...

I don't get it.

PRIVATE

[bythe_books]

Self determination. That's what you're here to learn about.

Re: PRIVATE

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I don't think that you're supposed to be compelled into determining yourself.

PRIVATE

[bythe_books]

I know you don't. If you did, things would probably be very different.

PRIVATE

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

[LONG PAUSE WHY ARE YOU SO DIFFICULT PREFECT?]

...

I still don't get it.

PRIVATE

[bythe_books]

It's like-- it's just... Freedom. I don't even know how to begin explaining something like that to you. It's scary at first, but when you start to embrace it, just... the entire world can open up to you.

PRIVATE

[buywithme.livejournal.com]

I don't like the worlds that keep on opening up to us, and I don't think many people from the Factory would either.