Filtered away from Una, Beatty, and Edward Nygma, to avoid upsetting them.

[buywithme]

[Video clicks on. Prefect's sitting beside his comatose inmate in the infirmary, and looking... well... looking tired. He pressed one hand across his eyes, rubbing them, before glancing towards the camera again.]

When Eddie Russet left, he said he was going to try and change things in his world. To go... start a revolution, or join one. To try and change his world, even if he died in the process. Sonmi was the same. I don't know if anyone here got a chance to know her, really, but she was my inmate, before Barron. She was a worker. Born and bred and destined to be a worker, and she fought them. Like my workers fought me.

[He smiles, his gaze dropping from the Camera to stare out into space a little.]

I couldn't help her. I still don't fully understand why she was an inmate here, when she was a much better person than I was. She deserved... I don't know, he deserved to win. And when I think about that, I think, my workers? The people who killed me? They deserve to win too. They deserve a life outside the Factory. [He brings a hand up to scratch at his eyes, frowning now.] But-- but they won't get one, because the Factory is vast. It's vast, and it's powerful and it's omniscient, and it doesn't really need them. And it won't die in it's sleep. So they all lose, and none of them get that other life that they deserve, only I do. It's only me. [He drops his hand down again, staring into space, his expression desolate.]

Sonmi, and then Eddie, and now O'Brien. I guess Beatty too, eventually. I don't know if... if it's about atonement or suicide. Sometimes I think... eventually, I'll go back too. I'll have too, because if I don't actually try to change it, if I don't actually go out there and do something to fix what I did to all those people, then nothing that I've done here actually has any meaning. Nothing that I believe about justice, or freedom, really means anything.

[He finally glances back towards the Camera again.] I hate it though. I hate that they choose that. They just-- what kind of god complex do you have to have to think that your death, that your going back and fighting the good fight and dying will be the thing that changes anything? I'm sorry, Comrades, but Newsflash: This is not actually the end of history! The Factory is not infinite, eventually your totalitarian regime will fall with or without your intervention, and you have been lied too!

[His voice has sped up towards the end of this little speech, and his tone has hardened and he's openly agitated. As he finishes, however, Barron shifts slightly in his coma. It's really just a twitching muscle, but none the less, Prefect's attention is abruptly redirected to fawning over his unconscious form.]

Comments

[Spam]

[gotgreenmagic]

[Shego's kind of....deeply concerned about this tract of utmost nihilism and doesn't know what to do about it, but friendship is being there for your friends even when you don't have a plan and aren't sure you can improve the situation. Isn't it? Whatever, she's there at the infirmary anyway, and she brought coffee so you have to talk to her.]

Hey, Prefect.

[She doesn't tag on her usual 'Comrade' because, well, O'Brien. Yeah maybe she grew some tact at some point.]

[Spam]

[buywithme]

[By the time Shego arrives, Prefect's figured out that Barrons muscle spasming isn't about to wake him up, but he's still kind of blatantly preoccupied with his sleeping inmate. He glances around at the sound of Shego's voice, and offers her a weak smile.]

Hey, Sister.

[Oh, she brought Coffee! He automatically reaches for it, because clearly that is for him.]

Re: [Spam]

[gotgreenmagic]

[It is! You're a genius, Prefect. She drags over another chair and sits down, staring at Barron's comatose-ness for a moment.]

How long's he been...?

[19centconstable]

I don't think anybody thinks their dying will be the thing that changes things, I think they're just willing to allow that it might. They simply care about their cause so much that they would rather it lived on, than they did.

[buywithme]

[Shush with your stupid logic, George.]

How can you talk about that like you're okay with it? People who we know are going to die? Our friends are going to die! He didn't even--

...

I just wish he hadn't left.

[19centconstable]

Because I am. Because we're all going to die some day, and it's terribly brave to die for something you believe in.

I know. I'm sorry.

[Private]

[resultofwar]

[AND LOOK WHO'S BACK FROM HIATUS and commenting on this before announcing he's back to everyone. :V]

It's not about having a god complex.

[Private]

[buywithme]

[Acknowledging Prefect and his issues > Letting people know you exist!]

Maybe if you have some kind of exceptional godlike skills it's not about having a god complex.

[Also, Heero should definitely stay on as a warden ;-; /vote cast]

[Private]

[resultofwar]

[Heero: graduated, but still not even close to being a normal human being. :|]

It's about trying to change things. No one can guarantee they're going to be the one to overthrow the system.

[AND THAT WAS HOW PREFECT/CATH SAVED HEERO.]

hi i'm late :(

[umgekehrt]

I'm... not precisely sure that's the thought process. That these folk have.

[Stildyne is slightly concerned. His mother-hen nerve has been over-sensitized today. Prefect's always struck him as one of nature's innocents (whether that's true or not), and it's very strange seeing him this... destructively upset.]

You are precisely when needed <3

[buywithme]

I--

I know that. I just-- I just wasn't ready for him to leave. After everything he's done here, after everything he had to go through to get here... why would he do this to himself?

[Prefect kind of only has about two or three years of being socially developed enough to be attached to people and feel compassion for them, as such, he still... really doesn't handle loss well at all.]

[umgekehrt]

Well. I imagine he had to.

[Stildyne has about the same amount of time under his belt of taking responsibility and manifesting a moral center. He is a bit sympathetic of O'Brien.

~Best Warden Ever~.]

[Private]

It's-- It doesn't have to be so dramatic. That he's got a thing needs done is understandable. But it doesn't have to be dramatic. It might kill him, but it won't necessarily.

[Wait that's not helpful.]

He said he wasn't a revolutionary. He'll risk death, but he's not courting it. You know he's bright, he'll probably do well.

I went through something similar before I came to the barge. If it helps. I wasn't in so much danger as he is, but there's some. It was just a thing I had to do, because I recognized the responsibility. I didn't go into it intending to die; was going to do everything feasible to make sure I didn't.

If Una could read this thread, her gratitude toward you would be limitless, Stildyne.

[una_persson]

 

[darknessb4me]

Anything you liked about him is dead. What else can he do?

[buywithme]

Why would you think that, Comrade? What exactly do you think that I liked about him?

[timesbureaucrat]

They're simply doing their duty as they understand it. Sometimes one individual at one particular moment makes the difference between a society collapsing or persisting--good and bad societies alike. It might not be them that makes the difference, then again...

[Narvin shrugs nonchalantly, although he's a bit subdued. He still has some guilt for helping cause a civil war on Gallifrey.]

[buywithme]

Or they're running away.

Sometimes-- There's a part of me that thinks that he wasn't ready to graduate. Because this place, it helped him to figure out what he'd done, and to understand why it was wrong, but it didn't give him any vision for a different life. It didn't really give him a second chance.

When people like us first arrive here, we hate it. We can't imagine allowing ourselves to live in a place like this, and we punish ourselves for ever learning to care about anything other than the worlds we left behind. So, we come here, and we grow up, and we get better, and we graduate, but he still couldn't imagine wanting a life that didn't involve dying in the Party?

[timesbureaucrat]

It's a peculiar sort of cowardice that involves running away by risking one's life for others, for the chance of making a better future for your people. At a quick glance, one might almost mistake it for altruism.

But taking your point as true, that the Barge didn't sufficiently sever O'Brien's ties to his society, in that case I can only posit that wanting a life that might involve dying for the sake of others is not something that the Admiral feels must be trained out of a person in order for them to be moral.

[creatingalegacy]

It's better to die trying to set things right than to live a long, peaceful life hiding from what you've done.

[Amanda's always been pretty "die for one's cause"-happy, though, even when her viewpoint was a precise 180° reversal from this.]

[buywithme]

What about being able to put the past behind you? Accept that what you did was wrong, but that you have other things to give to the world? Why does it always have to either be a glorious death or... something that you should be ashamed of?

[creatingalegacy]

Why should you be able to put it behind you and start over when your victims don't get that chance?

It doesn't have to mean death, not for everyone, but even if it does for him, he made the right choice. If everyone takes the stance you wish he had, then NOTHING will ever change. It's like Genovese Syndrome. You know what that is? It's what happens when nobody tries to help because they all fuckin' think the other witnesses will. They think their intervention is unneeded, but you know what? If everybody thought that way the world would be fucked.

[There was a pretty good example of large-group Genovese Syndrome alongside not-giving-a-fuck while filming the murder of someone in a public trap in Saw 3D, actually.]

[truth_is_cold]

Do you know some people on this ship have died and have changed their world for the better? [He's a little disappointed, because he was one of them.] I actually think it's extremely humble to pursue change, even if you know that you may not be a part of it being realized.

[buywithme]

If they're on this ship, then they didn't really die, did they? I mean, technically you could say that because I was a casualty of a revolution, I died for a good cause as well, but I'm not really dead, am I?

[Prefect's pissy face is on because bawwwww O'Brien is maybe dead :ccccc]

[chlorophylliac]

You're suggesting that those seeking change can simply stand back and wait, because it will happen with or without them.

[buywithme]

When you come here, you are removed from your timeline. When you graduate, you... you have options, and there are ways of changing things that don't necessarily have to involve going directly back into a situation that's going to kill you.