[Closed]

[lastofthebog]

WHO: Galla, Riptide, Kaneki, Duo, Futaba, Adachi
WHERE: Galla's Office
WHEN: Late June
WHAT: The completion of an investigation
WARNINGS: None forseen

[ It's been some time since Galla first began poking her nose into the odd vandalism in Maurtia Falls some months ago. She'd learned the OTO had likely been behind it, and her interest grew from a spark into a keenly burning flame. Unfortunately there were limits to how far she could investigate with what she understood of this world and the avenues of research available within it, so she'd been forced to reach out to a few trusted allies for aid.

Now, after several weeks have passed to allow those involved to carry out their own investigation and research, it's time for another meeting to follow up on the information gathered. She has a few reports and notes laid out before her, but there really isn't any way simple notes on a page can compare to actually speaking with investigators. She carefully gathers up the pages and sets them aside, leaving a few blank scraps of paper out for fresh note taking. ]

To begin with, I would like to thank you all for your aid and discretion in this matter. I would not have been able to carry out this investigation myself, and I truly appreciate the help you've each been. I only ask a little more of your time today.

[ She pauses and taps the pages she'd just set aside. ]

I know what my instincts say about this, but I am very curious to hear what the rest of you think of it, if you have much opinion at all.

Comments

[hellrisen02]

What else can be said? Well-intentioned extremism is still extremism. [I should know, Duo thinks, scoffing to himself. His features remain as neutrally, barely amused as ever, leaning one shoulder against a bookcase to the side of the room.]

[Hm. How to put this without straight-up endorsing militant action?]

There's nothing wrong with their political activism in itself, even to this extent; but any form of action which doesn't take into account collateral damage is a dangerous avenue that can't be allowed to continue. Hitting bank accounts and scribbling a little bit of graffiti is one thing, and frankly I don't much care about any of that. But we already know the lengths they'll go to when armed, so the question is how much of this slippery-slope taunting do we tolerate?

...Let's not forget the timing of all of this. Considering what our community currently has in the works to address them.

[lastofthebog]

[ Galla finds herself nodding along with Duo's points. All fair and reasonable, and not very far from what she'd been thinking of herself. ]

I do agree, especially on that last point. I had wondered briefly if they were speaking of our own secrets drowning us for a time, but I think they'd be much more direct in their message if that were the case.

That all said... [ She pauses for a moment to gather her thoughts, brow furrowed. ] I do still feel there is some merit in acknowledging their attempts at communication up until the point in which we actually confront them, an action we all know is coming with our impending trip to Mars. I would call it "knowing our enemy" before I called it tolerating their taunts.

Although I can't say it feels like we've learned much about them from this.

[hellrisen02]

That's the problem, isn't it? [Duo nods, with a wave of his hand.] You can grasp the vague sense of their aim here, sure, but simply wanton anti-corruption can't be their entire meaning with these attacks. Especially given the timing.

It might only be their way of giving us a counter-warning. A threat, now that there's been developing movements towards aggression against them.

...No matter what opinion one might have regarding advancing aggressions on OTO, it'd be awfully naive of them to think the imPort community would stand down based on this. [He says, delicately. As far as his own opinions were concerned, foolish, but stopping imPorts from doing foolish things was a losing battle.] Anyway, we've done this much looking around, but there's got to be something we're missing, if they're in a position to make those threats.

[lastofthebog]

I doubt they expect us to stand down so much as...split our attention. [ She casts another frown at the reports she'd set aside. ] A more hopeful interpretation could be that there is divisions within the OTO, and this is one of them attempting to reach us, but... [ She shakes her head. ]

This all may be worth consideration—after we have finished assessing and dealing with the more obvious threat from the OTO.

[ghoulking]

[ kaneki is reading through the notes he wrote down during the meeting, what others said, and of course his own thoughts. He listens in silence since as much he tries to get things moving, he isn't an expert in most of this and he never really had to face an enemy like this back home. That's not what his strength relies on, he will say.

But he frowns, nonetheless. It just.

Doesn't feel quite right ]

Isn't it weird, though? I mean, OTO.

Worked for DARPA, wanted to pursue insane projects that could destroy this reality, cloned us, built a space-station in Mars and nuked us.

And now they do small vandalism acts with small message to let us know they are against political corruption? Wouldn't they find a better and much more effective way of going about it?

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

[Jacob is leaning over the table, resting his weight on his hands, frowning thoughtfully. He's looking down at a pad with his own notes from conversations with a government liaison.]

Yeah... this doesn't feel right. Not their usual style at all. There's a few things that could mean.

[He looks at each person in the room in turn as he speaks, his eyes intense yet uncertain, theorizing.]

Maybe the OTO is more like us than we thought. Divided, I mean. People with different ideas about how to do things, and not everyone's on board with the nukes.

[He looks down, shoves the pad away from him.]

Or maybe this is all bullshit, and they're laying a trail to try and turn us and the government against each other. Make the people in charge look corrupt to us, and get the police looking at imPorts for these crimes. My contact said that's how the cops are thinking about this so far.

[ghoulking]

They always had different approaches to a lot of things. [ they went from robots to clones to nukes to space station ] But they were never ones to diverge from technology and focus on petty things like this. [ not the corruption, but to target buildings and vandalize them...

why not directly send imPorts a message, like they've done before? ]

It could be that they different factions doing different things. I wouldn't be surprised. [ but trying to get the imPorts to fight the government could also be it. And it's relatively easy, too! Imports don't trust the government after all. ]

I don't think we should tell the others about this information just yet. We don't have much on it, and we don't know exactly what kind of corruption we are looking at here.

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

[Jacob steps back from the table now, leans his weight backwards on one foot, and crosses his arms.]

Doesn't feel right to sit on it. Whatever this is, it could affect all of us.

Maybe getting more people in on this will give us more perspectives. Someone might figure something out that we've missed so far.

[lastofthebog]

[ Galla hums thoughtfully and pulls a sheet of scrap paper over to begin taking notes on. This is a fair point, one worth some more serious consideration and discussion. ]

It is...interesting, I suppose. It was a risk to hide a message in random vandalism, hoping we would notice and consider it important enough to investigate. It may have been a distraction, but even that could have been done in a more direct way, as you said. Why try to hide at this point?

[ghoulking]

... Is it possible someone is using their name, unofficially? [ people know imPorts are after OTO. They know that's their main target.

So there could be people unrelated to OTO who are just using their name to join the fight against imPorts ]

[lastofthebog]

Perhaps it is, but it seems a stretch... Though, I suppose it's no more of a stretch than it would be for the OTO to be behind this. [ A distraction no matter which way she looked at it. ]

It may be that we should remain focused on the efforts to reach Mars instead.

[IN THE SUPPLY CLOSET]

[compostabelle]

[ There's a strange smell coming from a door in the corner. Nothing terrible, mind, but musty and earthy- mildew maybe? Mold? Should anyone wish to investigate, or if they simply need to use the three-hole punch, the door opens to a strange site.

There is a girl in a white sundress sitting on the floor. Hundreds of insects and miriapedes are crawling over every part of her body. Her hair is a pale barely-blonde, and there's something dull yet predatory in her eyes. She stares up, unblinking and unimpressed with this interruption. Her eyes remain fixed on her intruder as she starts quietly hissing. ]

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

[He notices the smell as he opens the door, but thinks nothing of it, obliviously ignorant. Lots of closets smell funny, right?]

Uh.

[Not all of them have a hissing girl covered in bugs in them, though. Jacob freezes for a moment, then edges backward slowly, not breaking eye contact.

He just wanted to use the hole-punch, okay?]

[compostabelle]

[ She doesn't move. She doesn't blink. But her hissing gets louder and lower pitched, and some of the insects seem to be hissing as well. ]

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

[Jacob has no idea what to do here, but his initial impulse to shut the door, walk away, and never open a closet again doesn't seem like it would be constructive. Instead, he holds out a placating hand, palm down, and takes another step back.]

Hey. Hey, I'm not going to hurt you, okay?

[Why do the insects have to be hissing too. Why.]

[sleight_of_hand]

[ Adachi let out a sigh as he listened to the others, absently tapping his pen against his notebook, before flipping back through the notes he had taken while investigating the issue. He let out a sigh after a moment, tossing the notebook onto the table, in Galla's direction. ]

I don't think the issue is the vandalism itself, but rather who would be the first to be blamed for it. People aren't afraid to assume imPorts are the cause of this first, rather than anyone else.

[ He fell quiet a moment, a concerned, almost pained look coming to his face. ]

...I'm worried that even if we do take down the OTO, we're going to be dealing with the hate they've spread for years.

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

[Jacob shrugs, resigned.]

There've always been people who hated us. I remember when the Hornets were blowing up trains to get at us. As long as we can stop the OTO from nuking more cities, we can deal with the rest later.

[He rubs the back of his head.]

My contacts said the police are looking at imPorts for this shit, though. So we do have to think about who gets blamed for this- and how we keep it from being us.

[sleight_of_hand]

That's what my contact said too.

[ Adachi can't help but look a little pessimistic. ]

...maybe this isn't even the OTO at this point?

[darkpants_warmfeeling]

Maybe.

[He frowns.]

It's not like whoever sent those coded messages handed out a business card so we could know it was really them. That's the drawback to all this smoke and mirrors bullshit... it's hard to know who you're really dealing with.

[lastofthebog]

[ Galla sighs heavily and picks up the notebook, setting it more neatly aside. ]

We would deal with the hate with or without the OTO. We are interlopers into this world, disrupting and usurping the natural way of things. There are many who will not and who will never care that we have no say in our time spent here.

That said, if they come after imPorts for this, then we will simply be tasked with proving our own innocence. Easily done when we can be tracked by the nanites.

[sleight_of_hand]

Yeah, but...

[ Adachi frowned, scrunching his face up. ]

I think... even with that, it might not be enough.

[lastofthebog]

Detective... [ There's another sigh. She's not sure how to explain her views on this in a way that he'll understand, but she has to try. ]

I was born to a nation of outcasts. Literally, my people were forced into a land that was believed would lead to our death, and when we thrived there we were called monsters and became the things that haunt children's dreams and fairy tales.

It has always been fierce battle to establish our right to exist outside of that blighted land, and to prove that we are not the monsters people believe us to be. It has taken decades to reach the place we're at now, and it will take decades longer to be seen as true equals in the world, but we are getting closer. Imports will get closer. I wish that it were something we could achieve tomorrow, but to change the minds of an entire population takes time.

[ She finally pauses for a breath, folding her hands atop her desk and frowning down at them for a moment. ]

I...know that the last thing you want to hear is to have patience, but I think it is what you, particularly, need to hear. Continue all of your efforts. Don't fall prey to the belief that it doesn't matter. Even if you cannot see the change you are making easily, it will be felt in a year, or two years, or ten. Each effort we make will chip away at the mountain they have put before us until it is gone.

[knaval]

The amount of crap those people say, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bunch of, uh. What's the phrase-- red fish?

[red herrings.]


It's easy for them to taunt when they've proven they have the means for widescale destruction. Also, that guy had a picture of Megatron? I don't know where he got that. Apparently Megatron's never even been here.

[lastofthebog]

A photo of someone from your world? Fascinating... [ Mostly unsettling, actually. ]

Perhaps they have some connection to Lachesis?

[knaval]

No, if he'd had access to something that powerful we'd know.

[riptide's no tactician, but he feels like it would've been clear if the decepticons were flagrantly breaking the laws of time and physics.

...more so that everyone did during the war.]

Makes me wonder how much the OTO have in regards to the Porter, though.