mayfield_rpg | 5th Beat

[Phone]

[Jazz isn't too surprised by the response people had for his previous message.
It was frustrating, but he understood. Still, the fact that they were content to sit under Mayfield rule simply because it meant they would be safe another day was what really worried him. There was. O longer a neutral Cybertronian faction in the war precisely because they had done the same thing, until they had been completely wiped out by the Decepticons. Sitting idly by was not something he felt was an option. It probably hadn't been for a very long time.

He just had to make the rest of them understand.

When he begins his speach this time, he's using the same accented inflection he was last time. Still, there's a certain note of tension in his voice. The message in his words today are carried by something he has never been very comfortable speaking about. But he's never let discomfort stop him from something he knew was important.]

Some of you doubt my ability to fully comprehend the gravity of my words. It's understandable. It's often easier to accept the rule being forced on you then it is to take the risk of endangering yourself to stand up for freedom. If you don't fight back, maybe they'll leave you alone. But how long will you allow them to prove your false sense of security wrong before you finally stand up and oppose them?

Some have even asserted that they tried to rise up and were punished for it. Droned, as it were. They forced you to believe you were happy and content in this prison for a time, and that was so terrible that you submitted, even after you were set back to rights and knew it had been a lie. Surely, I could not have any way of knowing the ordeals you have gone through to try and shake Mayfield's rulers from their throne.

I tell you today, Mayfield, that I do know. We all have memories of our homes. Lands and countries and worlds and planets where we were happy and free. My home, however, is one that has been torn and destroyed by civil war for an entire generation. I've seen entire races slaughtered in the fight between two factions, and I have myself experienced the kind of torture Mayfield threatens you with when they display brutalized bodies and bloodied gurneys. I know that fear, and have been broken by it. Beaten and tormented because of your captor's sick sense of humor until you're unable to even raise a hand to fight back when their back is turned and the weapon of their destruction within your reach. Forced to watch your friends traumatized until they cry for mercy and know that you're next, and that no mercy will be given.

And I've seen what happens if one chooses not to fight back and try and remain peaceful. On my world, there are no peaceful innocents. They've been wiped out of existence because they thought simply obeying the rule of the ones currently in control would mean mercy.

There is no mercy. Not from people like this, Mayfield.

So yes, Mayfield, I am ready for the consequences of my words. I refuse to allow them to murder me while I sit by and play nice. In turn, I ask you; are you ready for the consequences of your inaction? When the time comes that the rulers of Mayfield play their hand and move to wipe us all out, will you be able to accept that in doing nothing, you have allowed them their victory?

[Around Town]

[For the past few weeks, slowly, posters have begun appearing on store windows, walls, and light-posts. They are styled after the propaganda posters of the Earth's 1940AD decade, when the world was at war with itself. All are unabashedly Anti-Mayfield and calling for the prisoners to rise up and fight against Mayfield's control as one.]

[461 Stone Street/Garage]

[After giving the speach over the phones, Jazz settled into the garage, sliding the sofa out of the way and clearing a large area of the concrete floor so that he could train. He's been needing to do this for a long time, anyway. His human body doesn't "remember" how to move the way his real body does, and it makes him clumsy. He needs to remedy that. Which means hours and hours of hard work.

So he's there, wearing a pair of the loose-fitting, comfortable pajama pants, but shirtless, as he goes through the motions if the beginner-level Cybertronian martial arts he's such an expert in in his normal body.

It's frustrating, how much more awkward he feels doing it this way. He's not used to being in absolute control of his body.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Dakki has always been at least a little nosy about her neighbors. It's important to know who's nearby for when things go wrong, after all. So when she sees one of the neighbors that she hasn't had a chance to introduce herself to out having himself a workout, she's delighted. A perfect excuse to say hello and have a chat!]

Hello there! Good day for a workout, hmm?

[She's partway up the driveway, giving a wave and smiling pleasantly. She's also a not-particularly-human shade of purple, and wearing armor on the lower half of her body. The upper half is a short-sleeved summer blouse.]

... Seriously?

You're not the only one who's had to deal with war and oppressive regimes you know. You don't have to be patronizing about it.

Ye really think folk ain't tried that sorta foolish heroics? Folk're watchin' fer somethin' that might actually work.

[Oh, you did not just go there]

For someone with the history you just claimed, you seem to have missed a thing or two about fighting off an oppressive regime that has you outnumbered and outgunned. You can't just go throwing yourself at them blindly. That just ends with a whole lot of dead people. You have to be strategic. Not strike until there's actually an opening.

And you sure as hells don't just go talking about it clear as day on an open line.

Are you an idiot?

Sure, there are people here that can fight. But what are you going to do if the people who brought us here, as easily as they can and have acted, suddenly take the people that cannot fight back. In an instant, you've killed every one of them, if they so chose to go that method.

Inaction does not mean obedience.

......

[You have managed to piss off Ukraine.]

And your solution is to tell us that we have no idea what war and oppression is?

You are an ignorant child. You have no idea what even half of us have gone through in our homes.

Speaking as someone who was in a bloody civil war for years where planets were destroyed and millions of lives were lost. And we were tortured quite a few times and risked our lives even though it might be easier to "give up".

You're acting like an idiot.

Also this is an open phone line.

Edited 2012-08-09 01:59 (UTC)

[Lucas tries to be slightly more diplomatic in his response, knowing what most would think of this pronouncement. He remembers, too, the brief conversation they had before.]

It's not that you're wrong, exactly. On my world... I guess things happened the same way. It wasn't so much that people were wiped out more than they began to think... well, maybe it wasn't so bad. The army didn't kill everyone, so... it was alright to just live with them for a while.

And after that while... maybe the army wasn't really trying to hurt us. All of the things they did; it didn't make our lives that much worse, just... different. And they would give money and food and work to people who joined them, and... it wasn't as if there were any other jobs, either.

By the end, everyone had decided they liked the army. And they hated me.

The thing is, most people here have the same kind of story to tell. Mayfield likes to take people who're different, a little bit. Whether they're heroes or villains or normal people who were forced into doing great things, we're not all completely inexperienced. I know it looks like we haven't done much, but we try, a lot, all the time, and it hurts to hear that someone thinks we're just waiting to be saved. That we haven't done anything useful to help ourselves. We mostly do already know what the wrong thing is to do from a lot of experience; fighting them head-on usually doesn't work out.

I guess the expression they use here is 'preaching to the choir'. You're not wrong, and starting another resistance group isn't a bad idea, but you should probably listen, too, to what people who've been here longer have to say.

[He reminds her of Sora, in the way he speaks really. That's all that makes her listen and even as she curls her hands in her lap when he speaks of oppression, she is still there by the end]

You're right. We all know you're right. You simply...have to understand that it's nothing new. My trials at home pale in comparison to some people I know here. Telling them that they simply aren't trying hard enough isn't inspiring them. It's...belittling them. Saying you know their struggles when they had died death after death. It's...unfair. I've died twice. Others...many more. I--Accepting that this time isn't the right time is a form of strength you know. Waiting when all you want to do is fight is strength. There is a time and a place.

Someone forced me to action, spoke words like this that I believed. She was right. Yet we can't all be the knights in the fairytale. You can't hope to lead a town to fight when you don't listen to them. Speaking over their words, telling them you know better--It's.

[She takes a deep shuddering breath, as if she's losing her nerve] It's patronizing. Speak to people in the town and hear what they've done. Learn more about this place and what it's done to us before you judge...

[AAAND she can't believe she did that]

.......

I like it here.

...Don't speak as if none of us have had similar experiences.

Yeah buddy, no one else's ever fought a war before.

Edited 2012-08-09 02:06 (UTC)

Uh, huh. 'Course none of us here have fought in a war or revolution before.

...What if we'd rather stay?

5th Beat - 2nd Speach

[461 Stone Street/Garage]

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