V. IC CONTACT (RETIRED)

[firstroar]

• Text [ENABLED]
• Voice [ENABLED; automated voice message]
• Video [DISABLED]
• Telepathy [TWO-MILE RANGE REQUIRED]

Comments

[khajidont]

[He accepts the cloth gratefully and wipes off his face with a quiet murmur of:] Ugh. Sorry.

[He doesn't outright request it, but he's certainly hoping Blue won't tell anyone that he cried. He has a feeling that would make more than a few people question his reliability when it comes to getting all of this information out there.

That, and it's a little embarrassing, however little embarrassment matters in this moment. He stares down at his knees up until the point at which Blue's hand rests on his shoulder, glancing up to meet the other's eyes. He nods, slowly.] We had to get our people out.

[They couldn't have brought the clones back like that, not the way they were. He and Aoba had had a tough enough time just trying to contain one.]

It is just one piece, but - it's starting to come together now. [He hadn't been prepared to see what he saw, but he had been right about one thing: he needed to see that. Whether they end up trying to save or erase the clones completely, they are still people. They have a responsibility to at least try to understand them. His voice is still quiet as he adds,] Thank you for showing that to me. You had to see it all again to do that, didn't you?

[firstroar]

[mildly:] It's my nature. I'm more accustomed to such things than you are. [read: don't worry about me.

his hand withdraws from Jaime's shoulder, folding with his other on his lap.]

Moreover, what's important is what's done with this knowledge from here on out.

[khajidont]

Yeah. [Jaime leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His gaze drops back down to the floor once more, more of a thoughtful gesture than one meant to obscure his feelings or his expression.

What do they do from here? Before now, doing the right thing has always seemed so easy. That is no longer the truth, and there are two huge ideas that loom at the forefront of his mind, neither of them particularly palatable.]

What do you think we should do with this?

[firstroar]

Build on it. We don't know enough yet to take action. We don't know how dependent these people are on the systems that have altered them. We don't know if they can even survive without them.

[he pauses, thinking. this is pulling all of his current concerns to the light. things he's reluctant to offer to others, but...must. he knows.]

Our greatest weakness is our lack of knowledge. We need to learn more about our enemy, and not only in this respect.

We don't even know the origin of this system, and not knowing is a terrible problem.

[khajidont]

[Blue's answer is a lot more long-term than what he had been thinking of. His thoughts had simply been on recent events: the clones, the nuke, Exsilium.]

That's what you were getting at before, yeah? When you were asking everyone about what they'd do if they could just pull the plug on the UE's AI.

[firstroar]

[he nods.]

The enemy knows we have the technology to find that point. To change it utterly. It's the finding it that could become one of our greatest tasks.

[khajidont]

We could use trial and error, I guess? Every time we go back, learn a little more, get a little closer to when they decided that they needed something that extreme? Not to mention the why they decided they needed it.

[He still can't wrap his head around it, around Exsilium's past. Even trying to sort out time travel in his head gives him a headache, and the more he thinks about it, the more misgivings about it he's beginning to have.]