Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Four and Five

[snowblindmods]

Characters: red-marked characters and their new friends
Location: ???
Date: Morning 354, Morning and Day 355
Summary: A quiet morning and a confusing morning, or maybe they're both, or maybe they're neither.
Warnings: gore, psychological horror, warn for specifics in the subject lines

Part Four OOC Post
Part Five OOC Post

Comments

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch flinched at that, himself, drawing his hand back and folding it awkwardly with his other by his knees, safely away from the other man. He should have known better than to just touch without asking, in this kind of situation. It may have nothing to do with his markings in truth, but it was the first conclusion Enoch found.]

I- even so, you've been through enough already. I suppose I was hoping to hear it hadn't been so bad. And...I'm sorry that it was. That you've gone from something like that to this place.

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

Well, [ Will began, paused and then his lips twitched into a wry but amused smile. ] At least I can't say I wasn't well prepared for this place?

[warriorscribe]

[Enoch wants to share that humor, he really does.

He thought he'd experienced the worst torture a man can endure, in The Darkness. Kept alive while suffering injuries that should have killed him, but the physical pain was only a safety net. Something to stop him if he wrested control from the demon using his body to fight his friend, something to fall back on if the torment dredged up from the dark depths of his own emotional pain failed to hold his will. It had, several times, while the imperative to stop fighting, to stop hurting the man who had come to save him was present. The ability to separate his actions from Belial's, the ability to fight back and stop himself from causing harm...he had taken that for granted.

He'd always known humanity had limitless potential. Norfinbury was proof of concept, but in the wrong direction. If the cult sickness indeed began with him as he suspected, Robert Miller had surpassed a demon prince in capacity to cause suffering.

When he speaks, it's in response to his own thoughts, because they are as much of a reply as he could ever manage.]

...It could have been so much better, everything that Norfinbury is.

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ It was not hard to identify the moment when Enoch retreated into his own head and his own thoughts for a bit. Will purposefully didn't try to follow him, attempting to ensure the man some measure of privacy in a world that seemed determined to take it from them.

When Enoch spoke, the ex-profiler looked up and considered the words for a long minute before responding. ]

I've found, that even with the best of intentions, removing peoples' free will never has good results.

Because there is always going to be someone, along the line, who is going to find a way to abuse it.

[warriorscribe]

...No. [Enoch shakes his head, and for a moment it seems he'll retreat again. Removing their free will is all Norfinbury is now, but Enoch's sights are on what it was meant to be.] I'm not talking about the removal of free will. I'd never advocate such a thing. That's where it went wrong. It was never necessary, and it never needed to be integral.

These machines in our blood. They could monitor health with perfect accuracy, physical or otherwise. They could determine what medicine is needed and administer it instantly - with express consent from the person they inhabit. Most suffering could have been eliminated. The ability to directly manipulate the brain need not have been created, or could have been heavily protected against if I'm wrong. The same system that prevents us from regaining our suppressed abilities, that requires outside verification, it could protect against abuse by physicians. Could have protected.

Instead...instead consent is implied by a citizenship itself not freely chosen. And we have all of this.

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ Again, Will heard Enoch out and with each word he seemed to grow more and more somber. ]

It always sounds like a good thing, in the beginning. But giving away too much of your personal privacy leads to yielding your personal freedoms. In my world, one of our most closely guarded and regulated areas of privacy are our medical records.

Even with all these nanomachines are capable of, all the good, there was always too much risk of abuse.

[warriorscribe]

You can never be sure of that. If everything was optional, if nothing was given away or watched without one's own permission, is that not privacy?

The technology itself isn't at fault, only the ones who decided to misuse them. All of these mistakes were made by human beings. That means there's always a different outcome. It could always be better. Because we can always be better.

[He tucks himself into a ball. This poor, fallen world, with an absolute wretch its only survivor... He remembers the thirst to destroy those who would wrong him and humanity as a whole under the vileness, an exaggerated expression of real, ugly feelings of resentment.

Vileness brought forth violent rage at Heaven and The Darkness. But never, ever Earth. Enoch's faith in humanity as a whole is absolute and immovable so long as some part of him remains, and Will's challenge prompts him to cling to it as an anchor. He'll fight tooth and nail for humanity's honor- they can get it right. They will. If the quantum theories he's been learning about here mean anything, they eventually must.]

...They lacked someone like you, to shed light on the risks. Caution is how progress is tempered, so we avoid mistakes we won't survive to learn from, like the one that destroyed this world.

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

[ Enoch was killing him here with the talk of his ability to shine light in dark places. Will believed he'd lost that light, but watching Enoch curl on himself and grasp desperately at hope was almost physically painful and Will didn't have it in him to break the man any further.

Darkness or not, he did not crush injured birds. ]

You're right, that the technology is neutral. [ He could give on that point. ] In many ways it is the pure representation of humanity's capacity for curiosity and the desire to improve.

I hope that maybe we can get to the day where our ethics, match our ability to create.

[ Then, because he could only stand to sit in his own hypocrisy for so long, Will began to struggle to get to his feet. ]

You should try to get some rest, Enoch. In case we have to go round two.

[warriorscribe]

We will, so long as we survive.

[And there must be a timeline where they had. If string theory accounts for every possibility, there must be at least one where everything goes right.

But what Will says next sobers his confidence a little. Rest for a potential round two? No. If he hadn't eaten the meal provided last time, could he have possibly caused less damage to the others? Could one of those injuries have been avoidable?]

...I would rather not be rested, if I am to be incited to attack others again. I would rather make myself more easily subdued.

[ex_this_ismydesign36]

I don't expect Miller to give us the option of subduing those of you who are marked. He didn't last time. [ Will said it gently, feeling bad but he didn't want to leave Enoch with the assumption that his physical state now would affect Miller's machinations.

Drugs and perception were funny things. ]

Try to rest.

[warriorscribe]

[He doesn't say anything, but does not provide agreement, either. The unmarked may not have fought back, but surely they must have defended against one another. And surely his ability to inflict harm was dependent on his own body's energy?

Silently, he withdraws into the bathroom again, curled behind the wall and hoping he will mitigate what damage he can. That he still has this much.]