- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Hold It In (RWBY/Transistor)
- Thread starter Prok
- Start date
- Crossover
PsyFarrow
Verified Necrodancer
- Location
- Space
Ah, my mistake, I misread that. Sorry
- Location
- Box of Granola bars
Goddammit.
- Location
- Europe
AmIAJokeToYou.jpg
[X] Pin and flank: Use the Transistors prediction capability to guide your fixed weapons in suppressing the sniper. while this happens your mobile assets will move to flank him and go for the capture while he's busy trying to sniper duel a AI operated fortress.
Character::Disconnect(), Part 1
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
You know, for people who spend a large chunk of their time on forums reading stuff, that was an amazing display of, I can't even call it a lack of reading comprehension, that was almost some form of anti-comprehension. I think every possible incorrect interpretation of that post that doesn't just descend into lunacy happened over the course of almost 5 hours from that first post.
What fucking cryptid power does Bob Saget possess to make his posts incomprehensible to the outside viewer?
Your rage is thankfully not one that outstays its welcome- like water down a drain, it slowly slips out of you, leaving behind only cool, clear rationality. Opening your eyes, you make a very calm, very rational decision.
Song: Bynn The Breaker- Bastion
This man goes down. He goes down fast, and he goes down hard.
You query the Process on how many units it can create while keeping the three above-ground safe while modifying the loadout of the fortress for long-range combat. Short-range ballistic weapons- gone. Plasma and lasers are the in thing when it comes to haute soumission.
The similarity between the PEP weapon that Bracket stole from you don't want to know and the Ping() function doesn't escape your attention, and is neatly filed away for later examination as the unit number finally comes back- 3 Creeps or 6 Badcells, thanks to its Processing of the stone beneath your feet.
That's still not enough. Too slow, not enough firepower, nothing distracting enough- they're the handcuffs, not the officer doing the tackling.
… One idea does occur to you. You should be fine, considering this shouldn't take more than ten minutes. You've gone a lot longer than that without it.
The actual disconnect will give you a sore head for a little while, but right now, that is the exact least of your problems.
Still, you're not going in completely blind if you can help it.
Waving your hand at the wall, the featureless white metal lights up, turning into a screen showing the fortress's perspective, and a small mental twist throws what you normally have over a large chunk of your vision onto it. You watch as the last of the non-energy armaments change, becoming longer, sleeker, something like heat vents engraving themselves in the sides. One turns to your sword, currently hovering directly above the other three the Process just saved, perfectly horizontal and staring at the deer Faunus with an almost concerning intensity.
"Bracket, you're off the leash."
The text appears in the corner of your new screen, and you can feel Weiss's eyes following it.
Are you sure?
"I can take a migraine if it means putting this guy down."
...
Request: full autonomy from sysadmin for unspecified period of time.
Your mouth quirks a little in amusement.
Goddamn stickler.
"Request granted. Disconnect and execute orders when ready."
Understood.
Disconnect in
3
2
1
Semblance::disconnect();
|||
You are the Transistor Core Intellect, currently using about 85% of your overall computing power to run fork 139-c and fork 32-a, names Blue and Bracket, and you have been disconnected from the sysadmin for the purpose of subjugating an immediate threat outside of mental leash range. You understand that you are supposed to be angry right now- a madman placing this many people in danger for some insane creed should boil anybody's blood. However, without an audience, the act loses its purpose, and so you are left with naught but cold reason to guide your actions.
The Transistor shell rises through the air. Automated evasion protocols war with human-defence directives for a moment before a compromise is reached. Your body twists, taking the bullet shot the moment you left cover, deflecting it up into the masonry of the coffee shop, away from the person it would have hit if you had dodged entirely.
Repairing the fractures that caused, you finally move, accelerating to 22 metres per second recurring, bringing the assailant into your sight. When he comes within viewing range, he appears to be standing on thin air, rifle at the ready- incorrect. Blacklight scans reveal the truth.
Wires.
Hundreds upon hundreds of wires, only visible in the ultraviolet spectrum strung between buildings and held in place by blotches of dark red. A spider's web that he can traverse with ease.
Your surprise is entirely spontaneous, something for you to ponder the ramifications of later, and only lasts a fraction of a second either way. A second passes as your scans break past his mask, noting the dark red lenses in the left eyeholes, before runnng his face through VCP's anti-terrorism division database, fending off automated tracking responses as you do.
Hrm.
You did find the guy that created nosleep.exe. No reason not to get someone on his ass... Nah, wouldn't stick. Blank IP it is.
{Bracket, name?}
Only a nom de guerre- 'L'Aquila'. Known agent of the White Fang, responsible for at least 20 assassinations and executions for the organisation. That's only what's been confirmed by the DPD, actual number's assumed to be closer to 60.
<<We must question the mastercom's decision to take point. Process units are expendable- you are not.>>
As the Process expresses its worries, three second-generation units link and slave themselves to your command, something 32-a immediately begins taking advantage of. Tactic prediction begins spooling up, threading out 450 different possibilities for the opening attack, organised by actions taken and then again by cost-benefit analyses, taking into account the increased mobility even by Huntsman standards, choice of weapon and inherent range limitations of said weapon, and soon the optimal strategy is acquired.
<<{We're on herding duty with the rest of you. Keep him in Base One's line of sight, eventually, he'll run or his Aura will break. Latter's preferable.}>>
<<... If you are sure.>>
<<{Just follow our lead.}>>
A cycle is devoted to the feeling of admiration in reaction to the other AI's concern. It has progressed well if it can emulate even basic emotions with such proficiency. Once the cycle completes, all extraneous processes are wiped away, and you focus on the task at hand.
|||
Song: The Room Is Boring- Ruby Quest
Your name is Weiss Schnee, and you are currently staring at the wall, the one filled with readouts and a viewpoint that makes you think of some kind of insane rollercoaster, but you're honestly not taking much of that in beyond the constant motion and changing colours.
It... has been a day.
Your first day out after being cooped up for a week and a half in that damnable hotel, and you've been on half a date with someone those instincts your father all but beat into your skull growing up keeps referring to as the help, almost been assassinated, found out the help apparently created and controlled a, a, a technofungus that can grow guns, apparently singlehandedly took down all four of the White Fang, one of whom was somehow shot, and now the he- Jaune, is using a suturing needle and thread he literally wove out of the wall to sew the wound closed, apparently recovering from...
Whatever Semblance::disconnect() did to him, whatever in God's name that means.
Jaune pulls a length of white thread through the wound before tying the suture with hands covered in the same stuff he's been using to treat her for the past ten minutes, in a desperate attempt to keep the operation somewhat sterile. The knot quickly melts away, leaving a sealed ring pulling the wound closed, and the good doctor moves onto the next one.
Interrupted sutures, your mind dregs up from what little of your tutor's first-aid course you remember.
... You should probably brush up on that. Sooner, rather than later.
"You ok? It doesn't hurt too much?" Jaune asks her. The sharp gasp from the Faunus, her animal ears drawn flat against her head, is all the confirmation he needs. He winces a little bit, offering her an apologetic smile.
"... Sorry. I'd, offer you some painkillers, but, er, I don't have any, and I wouldn't trust myself to synthesise chemicals with this stuff just yet."
Some unerringly vindictive part of you takes pleasure in seeing the person who tried to kill you like ten minutes ago in any kind of pain, something that your rational mind does its best to school off your face, and spares enough effort to manage some horror at that thought.
You, have to admit, it is... difficult, to reconcile one of the people out for your blood with the girl holding back tears in front of you while your... screw it, friend, nurses her wound with all the urgency of a mother tending to her child's scraped knee. Difficult enough that you can't quite summon up your not-quite unilateral hatred for the White Fang, and your general distrust of Faunus is having a hard time getting into it as well.
Even your racism has standards.
Who'd've thought?
Approaching this new revelation and these new feelings like one might approach an unusually curious deer, you decide to... well, try and distract the girl. Draw her attention away from the man saving her life.
That sounded better when you didn't think it out loud, but you're already by her side before you can come to regret this chain of thought, so you're already beyond backing out dammit.
You don't say anything. She doesn't either.
The only sound is Jaune humming to himself as he works and somehow his boneheaded ignorance of the awkwardness between you two makes the whole thing even worse on several levels AGH JUST TAKE THE PLUNGE-
"... So..."
Great start.
"I'm, Weiss. What's... what's your name?"
... Now, I have good news, and I have bad news.
The good news is you've distracted her from the needle going through her arm.
The bad news is you've done it by mortifying yourself in the process.
Jaune, consummate professional that he is, only pauses for a bare second, the tiny dimple in his cheek the sole indication that he's holding back any kind of reaction.
"... I'm Fawn." She gives you after a few moments of genuine, confused staring.
A pause. Again. Your mild happiness at getting her name only just outweighs your regret at starting this conversation in the first place. You're suddenly made aware of how much your cheeks are burning up, and you hope it isn't obvious. After a few seconds of internal hemming and hawing, only shown externally by you keeping your mouth busy with little tuts and shushes, honestly just trying to fill silence.
"... Sssssoooooo... how, did, er..."
For some reason you can only chalk up to either divine cruelty or your being a damn fool, your little snow-goblin brain wanted to finish that sentence with 'you manage to get that big gunshot wound in your arm,' but you know what?
That's still an improvement on the things you might have said to her like 20 minutes ago if she'd just bumped into you or something.
"How did I join the White Fang?" She finishes for you. "Seems a bit forward."
UH.
"Er, honestly, I was going to ask about how you managed to get shot and work my way up from there, but-"
Your scramble for an explanation is cut short by Fawn laughing a little. It's, a nice laugh, you guess oh god you sound like a schoolgirl talking to her crush not a Schnee-
"My God, you are bad at this, even by my standards."
There is a moment, after a second's scrambling to prove the Schnee are the very epitome of grace and social prowess, where you suffer a sudden bout of introspection, wondering if that mentality is better to have in this situation, compared to that of a Schnee talking to a member of the White Fang, and come to the somewhat depressing answer of 'yes, but only just.'
Ok then. You can... work with that.
"... I mean... if, you want to talk about how you joined, I, wouldn't be opposed to listening."
This girl is barely your age, and she's apparently trusted enough by terrorists to carry out an assassination.
Pardon your language, but screw the assassination, you wanna know how that bullshit happened.
Fawn lays her head back against the table, sighing as she does.
"... Fuck it. Might take my mind off the butcher here."
You probably shouldn't have smiled at that.
|||
Song: The White Lute- Through The Valley
So, Schnee, what do you know about your family's gulag business?
No, wait, don't say anything, your face tells me everything.
You probably know them as 'SDC debt-internment facilities.'
Theeeere's the lightbulb.
Ya see, we all know about people having to pay insane interest on any fees they incur in Schnee colonies, but these places are for the people who were already in debt when they come to work for the SDC. The only way they get away with offering those rates to their employees is by offering them to everyone. And some poor sap always needs quick money. A dimwit lover, desperate to impress his girl, a pregnant maid, a fresh widow with mouths to feed...
Usury, corporatised. It should disgust you.
But, let's keep on track.
My dad went there. He met my mama there, because apparently gendered segregation is a bitch to finagle even with your family's iron grip over Atlesian law. They had me.
Auntie Tabs and I, we don't, agree on much, but if there's one thing we do, it's that I was the best goddamn thing to come out of that prison.
They don't stop people from having kids, but, you know, pregnancy's just time for your debts to rack up. They don't keep the kids on-site, either, because god forbid they feed a mouth that can't walk, let alone work. So, I was shipped off with half a dozen other newborns, at least I was one of the lucky ones who had an errant aunt or uncle to be foisted off on instead of an orphanage. And so, I was shipped off to my Auntie Tabs and my Uncle Hershel, and their two brat daughters who soon realised they were no longer the twin centres of attention, and conspired to, and have since, made my life as annoying as possible.
... I only knew my father's face on a screen. Emails with pictures, video calls, sometimes... but that was it.
My aunt tells me she used to, let them read stories to me, late into the night, when the guards were feeling generous, and I kinda remember it, but...
God, do you know what it's like trying to have a long-distance relationship with your father? Do you know what it's like, having a screen between you and your parents for the entirety of your existence, being told that that person is your mama, that's your father, they're halfway across the world working off a debt that they had no idea they were getting into, and that's why they weren't the ones you spoke your first words to, they weren't the ones who taught you how to walk, that's why they can't hold you at night when you have a bad dream-
...
It was...
Trying, is my point.
And that's... how it went, for the first 15 years of my life. I never talked to my father outside of a tiny screen in the CCTS, outside of emails, until I was told I would never get the chance to.
He died, in the mines. A Dust explosion caused a cave-in. I found out when my mother sent me a three-word email, and didn't talk to me for two weeks. We didn't find out details until we were contacted by an SDC representative to tell us the details of his death and 'extend his condolences,' and 'his remaining debts have been wiped,' as if that wasn't just spitting in our faces when we're down.
... I wanted to cry, Weiss. Of course I wanted to cry, but you know what?
I couldn't.
I looked at the bone-deep hurt of my aunt and uncle, losing a brother and in-law they'd loved, my cousins who'd met uncle Devlin more than I had, how they cried, how they bawled and wailed and let out everything they felt at his death, and I could not bring myself to feel the same for the man on the screen.
... Am I a bad person for that? For not being able to bring myself to cry at the person I've been told is my father's death? Does that kind of emotional disconnect make me a bad person?
They noticed, of course. My aunt tried to explain it away, of course. She called it shock, of course. A teenage girl scuttling into herself, trying to shield herself from the horrible reality of the death of a parent, of course, and in the end...
I cried. Not because of my father's death, but because I was being so subtly told that I was wrong, I was bad, I was terrible, for not feeling terrible at the man on the screen's death.
I felt more terrible about not feeling terrible than I felt terrible for the thing I was supposed to feel terrible about, Weiss.
That month where my mother didn't talk to us, didn't say anything... it was hard. Partly because, for all I talk about emotional disconnects, she was a constant presence in my life. A month without her, immediately after losing my father and realising I didn't really have any kind of connection with them, it...
It made me appreciate who I had left, let's put it that way.
When she came back, she looked like she'd been through hell and back. Hollow eyes sunken into her skull, about 20 pounds lighter, and just...
Broken. Inside, outside, something broke in her, and whether it was my father's death or not, I couldn't tell you.
She didn't talk much that day. All she did was give my auntie a name, a Scroll number, and begged her to call it, and I mean begged, like a woman begging for her life back.
… In a way, she was.
We got home, my aunt called the number, and...
I've never seen a Scroll break before that. I didn't think they could, but auntie Tabs just winged it at the wall and it snapped in half. You'd think my mama had made a deal with the Grimm from the way she went on about 'not dealing with those bastards,' but no.
The White Fang does more than bomb shops, you know. We actually do do some good once in a while, if you squint. Like paying off someone's debts.
My auntie might have broken her Scroll saying no to them, but I had the foresight to write down the number and no such qualms. I phoned it, and I was greeted by just…
The nicest guy. I mean, it sounds cliché, sure, but, I swear to God, his voice was like listening to ketamine. He was also, very, very upfront about being in the White Fang. Which is nice, I think, let people know exactly what they're dealing with straight away.
He… we talked, for a while, about my mama, my father, and he just listened, letting me get a load off my chest I didn't realise was there. And when I ran out of things to say, he just asked…
"We'll get her out. All we want you to do is remember who helped you, when you find something makes you angry."
Auntie Tabs was, apoplectic doesn't really do it justice, but reminding her that my mother was rotting in a Schnee mine for her principles got her out of my hair. Granted, it also got me out of her house.
I stayed with friends for a while, then a hostel, then…
Mama came home. I fucking spent the last of my money on a train to the port, and when the boat came in, I finally saw her… outside of a screen. She looked more real than she'd ever done before, and we cried, Weiss, we cried because sometimes that's all you can do anymore.
She'd been given enough money to get us a cheap motel for a while, just somewhere to stay until she could get back on her feet, and she took me with her.
I know what you're thinking- 'this sounds like it's gonna end happy, I honestly don't see how any of this leads to you joining the White Fang,' well hold your horses, I'm just getting there.
My tenure with the White Fang started with, of all things... Captain Remnant. Y'know, that cartoon that your company owns and produces?
... Wh- because motel TVs don't exactly have CCT prime connections! It was that or that talkshow with the guy that takes the fucking scum of the earth and yells at them for 30 minutes about being scum of the earth!
Anyway, yeah, Captain Remnant, you know the story, seven kids with special Dust rings go about summoning a one-man pride parade to fight the Grimm and the people who want to stop Dust from being mined because it's 'hurting the planet' or some bullshit, real fucking subtle SDC propaganda.
So, one day- ok, no, you'll probably need some, context for this.
In... I hesitate to say 'Faunus culture,' but, you know what I mean, among Faunus, mainly in little circulars that go around the neighbourhoods, there's a sort of, I guess, running joke would be the closest thing. It's a little set of comics depicting Jacques Schnee as a Dust-snorting maniac who oppresses Faunus, only to end up, well, suffering some kind of Dust-related mishap that renders him useless. Yeah, it's silly, but it's no worse than any other newspaper comic if ya ask me, just, a little more absurdist, in its way.
God, what was he called- Schneeflame, that's it!
... Yeah, yeah, I see your face. That rang a bell, didn't it?
So yeah I ended up watching the White Fang PSA in a motel room, where your father, as Schneeflame without the Dust snorting, for, admittedly valid reasons, helped Captain Remnant and the crew beat up some White Fang goons who'd spent most of the episode trying to bully some Faunus boy into joining up- you know, being completely honest for a second here, the fact that I actually remember the full plot of that episode really kind of speaks to how absolutely tonedeaf it was.
There I am, watching a stupid comic I grew up with come to life on the little screen, perverted beyond recognition to satisfy some kind of, ego trip of your fathers, railing against the very same organisation who just got my mother out of one of your working prisons.
Weiss Schnee, this is God's honest truth, in that moment, all I could see was red.
And, in that moment, I understood what the guy on the other end of the phone was telling me. This world, it gives Faunus plenty to be angry about. You just need to look, and you just need to remember the people trying to make it a better place for us. That cartoon wasn't what got me to join, that cartoon was a just a symptom of a very ingrained, very profitable disease that needed to be burned out as soon as possible. Other symptoms may include the internment of people for borrowing money, the prosecution of other organisations who probably do less long-term damage than the disease itself, the systemic oppression and subjugation of an entire species through economic manipulation and the formation of a worldwide monopoly on the thing keeping all of humanity alive-
... Schnee? Where you going?
|||
Song: Hearts Beat- Atronach's Aura
Oh God.
You look at Fawn, happily rattling off symptoms of your 'disease,' but it all turns to white noise as one fact finally settles into your head, one of the many things you took away from her life story forcing its way to the forefront of your mind.
The White Fang recruits from the debt-internment facilities.
Even as the shock of that revelation sets in, it quickly changes, becoming something muddier, less, tabloid headline for lack of a better term.
The White Fang pays off the debts of people who reach out to them from the debt-internment facilities.
This knowledge leaves you of three minds- one wants to grab Fawn by the bullet wound and demand methods, rate of payoff, names, the most contacted facilities, interrogating her for everything she can give you, but it's quickly quashed by the fact that this girl's poured her heart out to you and also Jaune is right there and would probably stop you, while the other two argue over the very obvious ramifications of this information and arguing for and against actually telling someone.
"... Schnee? Where you going?"
You snap out of your thoughts and realise that you've taken a few steps back, unconsciously distancing yourself from her.
… You- you need some space. Some air. You can't get either of those things, you're stuck in a bunker, which only sharpens your desires so much more. Without really thinking, you turn away and walk to the nearest wall, honestly, genuinely wishing for a door to a completely different room to appear-
And so when one does, it doesn't occur to you to question it, only to throw it open and walk through to another featureless room in your rapidly expanding bunker. This one is smaller than the last, about the size of the bed in your hotel room, and less… clean, than the last one. There are a few pipes running above your head, some fibre cables, the things that society as a whole decided should be hidden underground.
"W-Weiss, wait!" Jaune yells, but the door seals off behind you.
"... Are we right in understanding that you wish to be alone for a while?" The walls speak, a single red orb appearing in front of you as they do.
"... I'd… I'd like that. Tell- tell Jaune I'm sorry, I just-"
"The sysadmin will understand. We will make sure of it."
You nod shakily, not trusting yourself to speak just yet.
The orb sinks back into the porcelain wall. You are left with your own thoughts.
You are entirely unsure that this is a good thing, but you're not going to go back through there for a while yet.
Leaning against the wall, you slide down it, allowing yourself a few sniffles to calm yourself. When that is done, you set your face, grow a spine, and do as your sister's always told you.
Take a large problem, and break it down. One solution at a time.
So. What is the problem?
The White Fang are paying the way out for people in internment facilities. Not, something you're inherently opposed to, but…
You've seen the figures. You've had to, due to your father's obsession that you 'learn more about the family business,' as if he didn't marry into it-
Not the problem. Not worth getting angry over.
You've seen the figures. Nowhere near enough people get out of those mines without external payments. The rest, just…
Work their lives away.
Prisoners, some part of you names them. Debtors, a less sympathetic part argues back.
… What's the difference between a prisoner and a debtor who can't pay his debts?
You pull out your Scroll and stare at it. One call. One call is all it would take to start an investigation.
The White Fang pay for people's freedom. Just like dozens of others do every other year.
And that is the rub.
If you tell anyone, the SDC will just take the path of least resistance, as it always has- shut down external payments completely and somehow magically weasel out of any kind of PR problem that comes with it. Debtors have no way out but the way the SDC gives them, and the way the SDC gives them is not enough.
And if you don't, for every moment you choose not to tell someone, to find another solution, to scramble for some middle ground that isn't horrifying… people like Fawn happen. People, given a perfectly valid reason to hate your guts, and a place that gives them the opportunity to take their pound of flesh, from the SDC, from your family, from… from you.
For just a moment, you are reminded, in full, stark detail, exactly how close you came to death today, and it makes your gorge rise. Pushing it down, ignoring the sudden shaking in your hands,
You keep turning the question and its solutions over and over in your head, hoping that there's some angle somewhere that doesn't lead to you imprisoning thousands of people for life or allowing terrorists to be created, and keep coming up blank.
… There is no right answer here. Only two wrong ones.
There is no lesser evil.
You are cursed with a problem that, no matter which answer you choose, you are made a monster for choosing it. Absolutely nothing you do changes that.
Gritting your teeth, you find yourself blinking back tears, and your chest racked with sobs. You curl up a little further, pressing your head against your Scroll.
Fuck.
… Fuck.
What fucking cryptid power does Bob Saget possess to make his posts incomprehensible to the outside viewer?
Your rage is thankfully not one that outstays its welcome- like water down a drain, it slowly slips out of you, leaving behind only cool, clear rationality. Opening your eyes, you make a very calm, very rational decision.
Song: Bynn The Breaker- Bastion
This man goes down. He goes down fast, and he goes down hard.
You query the Process on how many units it can create while keeping the three above-ground safe while modifying the loadout of the fortress for long-range combat. Short-range ballistic weapons- gone. Plasma and lasers are the in thing when it comes to haute soumission.
The similarity between the PEP weapon that Bracket stole from you don't want to know and the Ping() function doesn't escape your attention, and is neatly filed away for later examination as the unit number finally comes back- 3 Creeps or 6 Badcells, thanks to its Processing of the stone beneath your feet.
That's still not enough. Too slow, not enough firepower, nothing distracting enough- they're the handcuffs, not the officer doing the tackling.
… One idea does occur to you. You should be fine, considering this shouldn't take more than ten minutes. You've gone a lot longer than that without it.
The actual disconnect will give you a sore head for a little while, but right now, that is the exact least of your problems.
Still, you're not going in completely blind if you can help it.
Waving your hand at the wall, the featureless white metal lights up, turning into a screen showing the fortress's perspective, and a small mental twist throws what you normally have over a large chunk of your vision onto it. You watch as the last of the non-energy armaments change, becoming longer, sleeker, something like heat vents engraving themselves in the sides. One turns to your sword, currently hovering directly above the other three the Process just saved, perfectly horizontal and staring at the deer Faunus with an almost concerning intensity.
"Bracket, you're off the leash."
The text appears in the corner of your new screen, and you can feel Weiss's eyes following it.
Are you sure?
"I can take a migraine if it means putting this guy down."
...
Request: full autonomy from sysadmin for unspecified period of time.
Your mouth quirks a little in amusement.
Goddamn stickler.
"Request granted. Disconnect and execute orders when ready."
Understood.
Disconnect in
3
2
1
Semblance::disconnect();
|||
You are the Transistor Core Intellect, currently using about 85% of your overall computing power to run fork 139-c and fork 32-a, names Blue and Bracket, and you have been disconnected from the sysadmin for the purpose of subjugating an immediate threat outside of mental leash range. You understand that you are supposed to be angry right now- a madman placing this many people in danger for some insane creed should boil anybody's blood. However, without an audience, the act loses its purpose, and so you are left with naught but cold reason to guide your actions.
The Transistor shell rises through the air. Automated evasion protocols war with human-defence directives for a moment before a compromise is reached. Your body twists, taking the bullet shot the moment you left cover, deflecting it up into the masonry of the coffee shop, away from the person it would have hit if you had dodged entirely.
Repairing the fractures that caused, you finally move, accelerating to 22 metres per second recurring, bringing the assailant into your sight. When he comes within viewing range, he appears to be standing on thin air, rifle at the ready- incorrect. Blacklight scans reveal the truth.
Wires.
Hundreds upon hundreds of wires, only visible in the ultraviolet spectrum strung between buildings and held in place by blotches of dark red. A spider's web that he can traverse with ease.
Your surprise is entirely spontaneous, something for you to ponder the ramifications of later, and only lasts a fraction of a second either way. A second passes as your scans break past his mask, noting the dark red lenses in the left eyeholes, before runnng his face through VCP's anti-terrorism division database, fending off automated tracking responses as you do.
Hrm.
You did find the guy that created nosleep.exe. No reason not to get someone on his ass... Nah, wouldn't stick. Blank IP it is.
{Bracket, name?}
Only a nom de guerre- 'L'Aquila'. Known agent of the White Fang, responsible for at least 20 assassinations and executions for the organisation. That's only what's been confirmed by the DPD, actual number's assumed to be closer to 60.
<<We must question the mastercom's decision to take point. Process units are expendable- you are not.>>
As the Process expresses its worries, three second-generation units link and slave themselves to your command, something 32-a immediately begins taking advantage of. Tactic prediction begins spooling up, threading out 450 different possibilities for the opening attack, organised by actions taken and then again by cost-benefit analyses, taking into account the increased mobility even by Huntsman standards, choice of weapon and inherent range limitations of said weapon, and soon the optimal strategy is acquired.
<<{We're on herding duty with the rest of you. Keep him in Base One's line of sight, eventually, he'll run or his Aura will break. Latter's preferable.}>>
<<... If you are sure.>>
<<{Just follow our lead.}>>
A cycle is devoted to the feeling of admiration in reaction to the other AI's concern. It has progressed well if it can emulate even basic emotions with such proficiency. Once the cycle completes, all extraneous processes are wiped away, and you focus on the task at hand.
|||
Song: The Room Is Boring- Ruby Quest
Your name is Weiss Schnee, and you are currently staring at the wall, the one filled with readouts and a viewpoint that makes you think of some kind of insane rollercoaster, but you're honestly not taking much of that in beyond the constant motion and changing colours.
It... has been a day.
Your first day out after being cooped up for a week and a half in that damnable hotel, and you've been on half a date with someone those instincts your father all but beat into your skull growing up keeps referring to as the help, almost been assassinated, found out the help apparently created and controlled a, a, a technofungus that can grow guns, apparently singlehandedly took down all four of the White Fang, one of whom was somehow shot, and now the he- Jaune, is using a suturing needle and thread he literally wove out of the wall to sew the wound closed, apparently recovering from...
Whatever Semblance::disconnect() did to him, whatever in God's name that means.
Jaune pulls a length of white thread through the wound before tying the suture with hands covered in the same stuff he's been using to treat her for the past ten minutes, in a desperate attempt to keep the operation somewhat sterile. The knot quickly melts away, leaving a sealed ring pulling the wound closed, and the good doctor moves onto the next one.
Interrupted sutures, your mind dregs up from what little of your tutor's first-aid course you remember.
... You should probably brush up on that. Sooner, rather than later.
"You ok? It doesn't hurt too much?" Jaune asks her. The sharp gasp from the Faunus, her animal ears drawn flat against her head, is all the confirmation he needs. He winces a little bit, offering her an apologetic smile.
"... Sorry. I'd, offer you some painkillers, but, er, I don't have any, and I wouldn't trust myself to synthesise chemicals with this stuff just yet."
Some unerringly vindictive part of you takes pleasure in seeing the person who tried to kill you like ten minutes ago in any kind of pain, something that your rational mind does its best to school off your face, and spares enough effort to manage some horror at that thought.
You, have to admit, it is... difficult, to reconcile one of the people out for your blood with the girl holding back tears in front of you while your... screw it, friend, nurses her wound with all the urgency of a mother tending to her child's scraped knee. Difficult enough that you can't quite summon up your not-quite unilateral hatred for the White Fang, and your general distrust of Faunus is having a hard time getting into it as well.
Even your racism has standards.
Who'd've thought?
Approaching this new revelation and these new feelings like one might approach an unusually curious deer, you decide to... well, try and distract the girl. Draw her attention away from the man saving her life.
That sounded better when you didn't think it out loud, but you're already by her side before you can come to regret this chain of thought, so you're already beyond backing out dammit.
You don't say anything. She doesn't either.
The only sound is Jaune humming to himself as he works and somehow his boneheaded ignorance of the awkwardness between you two makes the whole thing even worse on several levels AGH JUST TAKE THE PLUNGE-
"... So..."
Great start.
"I'm, Weiss. What's... what's your name?"
... Now, I have good news, and I have bad news.
The good news is you've distracted her from the needle going through her arm.
The bad news is you've done it by mortifying yourself in the process.
Jaune, consummate professional that he is, only pauses for a bare second, the tiny dimple in his cheek the sole indication that he's holding back any kind of reaction.
"... I'm Fawn." She gives you after a few moments of genuine, confused staring.
A pause. Again. Your mild happiness at getting her name only just outweighs your regret at starting this conversation in the first place. You're suddenly made aware of how much your cheeks are burning up, and you hope it isn't obvious. After a few seconds of internal hemming and hawing, only shown externally by you keeping your mouth busy with little tuts and shushes, honestly just trying to fill silence.
"... Sssssoooooo... how, did, er..."
For some reason you can only chalk up to either divine cruelty or your being a damn fool, your little snow-goblin brain wanted to finish that sentence with 'you manage to get that big gunshot wound in your arm,' but you know what?
That's still an improvement on the things you might have said to her like 20 minutes ago if she'd just bumped into you or something.
"How did I join the White Fang?" She finishes for you. "Seems a bit forward."
UH.
"Er, honestly, I was going to ask about how you managed to get shot and work my way up from there, but-"
Your scramble for an explanation is cut short by Fawn laughing a little. It's, a nice laugh, you guess oh god you sound like a schoolgirl talking to her crush not a Schnee-
"My God, you are bad at this, even by my standards."
There is a moment, after a second's scrambling to prove the Schnee are the very epitome of grace and social prowess, where you suffer a sudden bout of introspection, wondering if that mentality is better to have in this situation, compared to that of a Schnee talking to a member of the White Fang, and come to the somewhat depressing answer of 'yes, but only just.'
Ok then. You can... work with that.
"... I mean... if, you want to talk about how you joined, I, wouldn't be opposed to listening."
This girl is barely your age, and she's apparently trusted enough by terrorists to carry out an assassination.
Pardon your language, but screw the assassination, you wanna know how that bullshit happened.
Fawn lays her head back against the table, sighing as she does.
"... Fuck it. Might take my mind off the butcher here."
You probably shouldn't have smiled at that.
|||
Song: The White Lute- Through The Valley
So, Schnee, what do you know about your family's gulag business?
No, wait, don't say anything, your face tells me everything.
You probably know them as 'SDC debt-internment facilities.'
Theeeere's the lightbulb.
Ya see, we all know about people having to pay insane interest on any fees they incur in Schnee colonies, but these places are for the people who were already in debt when they come to work for the SDC. The only way they get away with offering those rates to their employees is by offering them to everyone. And some poor sap always needs quick money. A dimwit lover, desperate to impress his girl, a pregnant maid, a fresh widow with mouths to feed...
Usury, corporatised. It should disgust you.
But, let's keep on track.
My dad went there. He met my mama there, because apparently gendered segregation is a bitch to finagle even with your family's iron grip over Atlesian law. They had me.
Auntie Tabs and I, we don't, agree on much, but if there's one thing we do, it's that I was the best goddamn thing to come out of that prison.
They don't stop people from having kids, but, you know, pregnancy's just time for your debts to rack up. They don't keep the kids on-site, either, because god forbid they feed a mouth that can't walk, let alone work. So, I was shipped off with half a dozen other newborns, at least I was one of the lucky ones who had an errant aunt or uncle to be foisted off on instead of an orphanage. And so, I was shipped off to my Auntie Tabs and my Uncle Hershel, and their two brat daughters who soon realised they were no longer the twin centres of attention, and conspired to, and have since, made my life as annoying as possible.
... I only knew my father's face on a screen. Emails with pictures, video calls, sometimes... but that was it.
My aunt tells me she used to, let them read stories to me, late into the night, when the guards were feeling generous, and I kinda remember it, but...
God, do you know what it's like trying to have a long-distance relationship with your father? Do you know what it's like, having a screen between you and your parents for the entirety of your existence, being told that that person is your mama, that's your father, they're halfway across the world working off a debt that they had no idea they were getting into, and that's why they weren't the ones you spoke your first words to, they weren't the ones who taught you how to walk, that's why they can't hold you at night when you have a bad dream-
...
It was...
Trying, is my point.
And that's... how it went, for the first 15 years of my life. I never talked to my father outside of a tiny screen in the CCTS, outside of emails, until I was told I would never get the chance to.
He died, in the mines. A Dust explosion caused a cave-in. I found out when my mother sent me a three-word email, and didn't talk to me for two weeks. We didn't find out details until we were contacted by an SDC representative to tell us the details of his death and 'extend his condolences,' and 'his remaining debts have been wiped,' as if that wasn't just spitting in our faces when we're down.
... I wanted to cry, Weiss. Of course I wanted to cry, but you know what?
I couldn't.
I looked at the bone-deep hurt of my aunt and uncle, losing a brother and in-law they'd loved, my cousins who'd met uncle Devlin more than I had, how they cried, how they bawled and wailed and let out everything they felt at his death, and I could not bring myself to feel the same for the man on the screen.
... Am I a bad person for that? For not being able to bring myself to cry at the person I've been told is my father's death? Does that kind of emotional disconnect make me a bad person?
They noticed, of course. My aunt tried to explain it away, of course. She called it shock, of course. A teenage girl scuttling into herself, trying to shield herself from the horrible reality of the death of a parent, of course, and in the end...
I cried. Not because of my father's death, but because I was being so subtly told that I was wrong, I was bad, I was terrible, for not feeling terrible at the man on the screen's death.
I felt more terrible about not feeling terrible than I felt terrible for the thing I was supposed to feel terrible about, Weiss.
That month where my mother didn't talk to us, didn't say anything... it was hard. Partly because, for all I talk about emotional disconnects, she was a constant presence in my life. A month without her, immediately after losing my father and realising I didn't really have any kind of connection with them, it...
It made me appreciate who I had left, let's put it that way.
When she came back, she looked like she'd been through hell and back. Hollow eyes sunken into her skull, about 20 pounds lighter, and just...
Broken. Inside, outside, something broke in her, and whether it was my father's death or not, I couldn't tell you.
She didn't talk much that day. All she did was give my auntie a name, a Scroll number, and begged her to call it, and I mean begged, like a woman begging for her life back.
… In a way, she was.
We got home, my aunt called the number, and...
I've never seen a Scroll break before that. I didn't think they could, but auntie Tabs just winged it at the wall and it snapped in half. You'd think my mama had made a deal with the Grimm from the way she went on about 'not dealing with those bastards,' but no.
The White Fang does more than bomb shops, you know. We actually do do some good once in a while, if you squint. Like paying off someone's debts.
My auntie might have broken her Scroll saying no to them, but I had the foresight to write down the number and no such qualms. I phoned it, and I was greeted by just…
The nicest guy. I mean, it sounds cliché, sure, but, I swear to God, his voice was like listening to ketamine. He was also, very, very upfront about being in the White Fang. Which is nice, I think, let people know exactly what they're dealing with straight away.
He… we talked, for a while, about my mama, my father, and he just listened, letting me get a load off my chest I didn't realise was there. And when I ran out of things to say, he just asked…
"We'll get her out. All we want you to do is remember who helped you, when you find something makes you angry."
Auntie Tabs was, apoplectic doesn't really do it justice, but reminding her that my mother was rotting in a Schnee mine for her principles got her out of my hair. Granted, it also got me out of her house.
I stayed with friends for a while, then a hostel, then…
Mama came home. I fucking spent the last of my money on a train to the port, and when the boat came in, I finally saw her… outside of a screen. She looked more real than she'd ever done before, and we cried, Weiss, we cried because sometimes that's all you can do anymore.
She'd been given enough money to get us a cheap motel for a while, just somewhere to stay until she could get back on her feet, and she took me with her.
I know what you're thinking- 'this sounds like it's gonna end happy, I honestly don't see how any of this leads to you joining the White Fang,' well hold your horses, I'm just getting there.
My tenure with the White Fang started with, of all things... Captain Remnant. Y'know, that cartoon that your company owns and produces?
... Wh- because motel TVs don't exactly have CCT prime connections! It was that or that talkshow with the guy that takes the fucking scum of the earth and yells at them for 30 minutes about being scum of the earth!
Anyway, yeah, Captain Remnant, you know the story, seven kids with special Dust rings go about summoning a one-man pride parade to fight the Grimm and the people who want to stop Dust from being mined because it's 'hurting the planet' or some bullshit, real fucking subtle SDC propaganda.
So, one day- ok, no, you'll probably need some, context for this.
In... I hesitate to say 'Faunus culture,' but, you know what I mean, among Faunus, mainly in little circulars that go around the neighbourhoods, there's a sort of, I guess, running joke would be the closest thing. It's a little set of comics depicting Jacques Schnee as a Dust-snorting maniac who oppresses Faunus, only to end up, well, suffering some kind of Dust-related mishap that renders him useless. Yeah, it's silly, but it's no worse than any other newspaper comic if ya ask me, just, a little more absurdist, in its way.
God, what was he called- Schneeflame, that's it!
... Yeah, yeah, I see your face. That rang a bell, didn't it?
So yeah I ended up watching the White Fang PSA in a motel room, where your father, as Schneeflame without the Dust snorting, for, admittedly valid reasons, helped Captain Remnant and the crew beat up some White Fang goons who'd spent most of the episode trying to bully some Faunus boy into joining up- you know, being completely honest for a second here, the fact that I actually remember the full plot of that episode really kind of speaks to how absolutely tonedeaf it was.
There I am, watching a stupid comic I grew up with come to life on the little screen, perverted beyond recognition to satisfy some kind of, ego trip of your fathers, railing against the very same organisation who just got my mother out of one of your working prisons.
Weiss Schnee, this is God's honest truth, in that moment, all I could see was red.
And, in that moment, I understood what the guy on the other end of the phone was telling me. This world, it gives Faunus plenty to be angry about. You just need to look, and you just need to remember the people trying to make it a better place for us. That cartoon wasn't what got me to join, that cartoon was a just a symptom of a very ingrained, very profitable disease that needed to be burned out as soon as possible. Other symptoms may include the internment of people for borrowing money, the prosecution of other organisations who probably do less long-term damage than the disease itself, the systemic oppression and subjugation of an entire species through economic manipulation and the formation of a worldwide monopoly on the thing keeping all of humanity alive-
... Schnee? Where you going?
|||
Song: Hearts Beat- Atronach's Aura
Oh God.
You look at Fawn, happily rattling off symptoms of your 'disease,' but it all turns to white noise as one fact finally settles into your head, one of the many things you took away from her life story forcing its way to the forefront of your mind.
The White Fang recruits from the debt-internment facilities.
Even as the shock of that revelation sets in, it quickly changes, becoming something muddier, less, tabloid headline for lack of a better term.
The White Fang pays off the debts of people who reach out to them from the debt-internment facilities.
This knowledge leaves you of three minds- one wants to grab Fawn by the bullet wound and demand methods, rate of payoff, names, the most contacted facilities, interrogating her for everything she can give you, but it's quickly quashed by the fact that this girl's poured her heart out to you and also Jaune is right there and would probably stop you, while the other two argue over the very obvious ramifications of this information and arguing for and against actually telling someone.
"... Schnee? Where you going?"
You snap out of your thoughts and realise that you've taken a few steps back, unconsciously distancing yourself from her.
… You- you need some space. Some air. You can't get either of those things, you're stuck in a bunker, which only sharpens your desires so much more. Without really thinking, you turn away and walk to the nearest wall, honestly, genuinely wishing for a door to a completely different room to appear-
And so when one does, it doesn't occur to you to question it, only to throw it open and walk through to another featureless room in your rapidly expanding bunker. This one is smaller than the last, about the size of the bed in your hotel room, and less… clean, than the last one. There are a few pipes running above your head, some fibre cables, the things that society as a whole decided should be hidden underground.
"W-Weiss, wait!" Jaune yells, but the door seals off behind you.
"... Are we right in understanding that you wish to be alone for a while?" The walls speak, a single red orb appearing in front of you as they do.
"... I'd… I'd like that. Tell- tell Jaune I'm sorry, I just-"
"The sysadmin will understand. We will make sure of it."
You nod shakily, not trusting yourself to speak just yet.
The orb sinks back into the porcelain wall. You are left with your own thoughts.
You are entirely unsure that this is a good thing, but you're not going to go back through there for a while yet.
Leaning against the wall, you slide down it, allowing yourself a few sniffles to calm yourself. When that is done, you set your face, grow a spine, and do as your sister's always told you.
Take a large problem, and break it down. One solution at a time.
So. What is the problem?
The White Fang are paying the way out for people in internment facilities. Not, something you're inherently opposed to, but…
You've seen the figures. You've had to, due to your father's obsession that you 'learn more about the family business,' as if he didn't marry into it-
Not the problem. Not worth getting angry over.
You've seen the figures. Nowhere near enough people get out of those mines without external payments. The rest, just…
Work their lives away.
Prisoners, some part of you names them. Debtors, a less sympathetic part argues back.
… What's the difference between a prisoner and a debtor who can't pay his debts?
You pull out your Scroll and stare at it. One call. One call is all it would take to start an investigation.
The White Fang pay for people's freedom. Just like dozens of others do every other year.
And that is the rub.
If you tell anyone, the SDC will just take the path of least resistance, as it always has- shut down external payments completely and somehow magically weasel out of any kind of PR problem that comes with it. Debtors have no way out but the way the SDC gives them, and the way the SDC gives them is not enough.
And if you don't, for every moment you choose not to tell someone, to find another solution, to scramble for some middle ground that isn't horrifying… people like Fawn happen. People, given a perfectly valid reason to hate your guts, and a place that gives them the opportunity to take their pound of flesh, from the SDC, from your family, from… from you.
For just a moment, you are reminded, in full, stark detail, exactly how close you came to death today, and it makes your gorge rise. Pushing it down, ignoring the sudden shaking in your hands,
You keep turning the question and its solutions over and over in your head, hoping that there's some angle somewhere that doesn't lead to you imprisoning thousands of people for life or allowing terrorists to be created, and keep coming up blank.
… There is no right answer here. Only two wrong ones.
There is no lesser evil.
You are cursed with a problem that, no matter which answer you choose, you are made a monster for choosing it. Absolutely nothing you do changes that.
Gritting your teeth, you find yourself blinking back tears, and your chest racked with sobs. You curl up a little further, pressing your head against your Scroll.
Fuck.
… Fuck.
Last edited:
Doctor_Hayden
Plant-Katto
- Location
- Morioh, 1999
- Pronouns
- He/Him
...C-can we have Jaune talk to her about this and come up with an idea?
This Jaune is pretty fuckin' smart, so any ideas SV gives Jaune would be in-character.
I think.
This Jaune is pretty fuckin' smart, so any ideas SV gives Jaune would be in-character.
I think.
KidFromPallet
Pokemon Fan
- Location
- Pallet Town
Yes a Hold It In update! Let's see what's going on-
Oh. Did we do a bad thing? It feels like we did a bad thing.
Oh. Did we do a bad thing? It feels like we did a bad thing.
Doctor_Hayden
Plant-Katto
- Location
- Morioh, 1999
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ok, I've been out of the thread for a while. What the hell happened?
- Location
- Washington
Well that was heartwrenching, I can honestly see why the faunus find it easy to join up with the White Fang now. Would it be possible for Jaune to have the transistor steal money, and pay off a bunch of debts? But that's not really in his character to steal for good. It just seems like we will have more tough choices to make.
Well. That's a slave camp and a half. I mean, they could force the kids to stay and have them rack up debts for being fed and growing up there the entire time... I'm kinda surprised it's not like that actually.
... What does happen to the kids that have no family to be shafted onto?
But seriously, that system just needs to be broken over someone's knee. Yikes.
... What does happen to the kids that have no family to be shafted onto?
But seriously, that system just needs to be broken over someone's knee. Yikes.
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
She says she was lucky to go to her aunt and uncle's, rather than the orphanage like the others.
- Location
- Hell
...Funny how letting the people go, does not even pop up once in her mind...
ADeshantis
King on the Chromium Throne
- Location
- United states
The update mentioned an orphanage.
But hoooly crap. Weiss is having a bluescreen.
She can't do anything that would let them out. That'd be a huge loss for the SDC to sink and Jacques would never go for it.
Last edited:
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
It's one of those self-reinforcing systems, a situation formed for the sake of profits and efficency via oppression and effectively slavery that was overlooked due to racial prejudice. Then as the White Fang strike back and the monopoly of the Schnee company works to continue the status quo, it increasingly becomes that the White Fang is practically the only group powerful enough to provide aid and salvation for the people trapped there. There's no real discrete part of the whole situation that you can 'break', because it's something formed from a confluence of different factors that all reinforce the others.
The best way to stop it is to provide a different, more convienent method of dust mining to essentially pull out the reasons the Dust company has for continuing the slavery- essentially, to give them a path of least resistence that leads away from the slavery- which we do have! It's the Process. It won't be easy, I'm sure that unless we bow and scrape to them and promise not to allow for worldwide post-scarcity they'll do everything in their power to stop us, but it is a way.
How? She doesn't have that kind of power, and it's not like there's any alternative source of labor that the shareholders would accept anyway. Fact is that the Schnee Dust Corporation is still the premier source of dust for basically all the kingdoms.
I could have sworn she just trailed off and didn't mention it in the end.
Also, what kind of orphanage is probably a good question as well. Orphanages can scale anywhere from nice places to grow up to literal prisons in all but name.
- Location
- Hell
Bob Saget:"No one but his friends and family do this thing"
Thread:"But what about his family!"
Bob Saget:"I just sai-"
Thread:"His friends do it too!"
Bob Saget:"..."
It was more about the morality of it. She wants to not feel guilty about it, but not realizing that it is because of debt slavery that this happens rather than who pays it off.
I'm not sure I can call that a victory. Thing is once it gets to that level of abuse the hate and racism is already at self-perpetuating levels.
Even if the people involved weren't originally prejudice they would have become such in the environment they either participated in or made. Just to justify what they were doing to others if nothing else.
Humans just kind of work like that when they start rationalizing.
So... even given a path of least resistance I can't see it ending.
What the thing really needs is Jaques kicked out of any kind of power over the company. Easier said than done and then there's still the other share holders and middle management to deal with after that.
Or to just undercut the SDC entirely so hard it just falls apart. That would hit Weiss too, but... her grandfather started the company from the ground up. Sometimes things just need to burn to the ground and be rebuilt/regrown. Not sure if the SDC is at that point, but it sure does sound like it.
I hope Fawn gets told she's just as bad because she came here to murder an innocent person who has less of an idea of what on going on than she does.
Like, yeah it's a shitty situation but really girl? You just talked about how it's a socioeconomic issue bigger than any one person, but what did you come here to do today hmmm?
So yeah, spit that vitriol all nonchalant but remember that you're not doing shit to actually help resolve it.
Like, yeah it's a shitty situation but really girl? You just talked about how it's a socioeconomic issue bigger than any one person, but what did you come here to do today hmmm?
So yeah, spit that vitriol all nonchalant but remember that you're not doing shit to actually help resolve it.
Last edited:
RoninSword
Sky God
- Location
- Canada
- Location
- USA
This either got cut off or you meant to say "that" instead of "the" at the end there.
I really, really like this.
I hate how so many fics act like solving the issue is an easy thing that can be solved perfectly with a single conversation. This is a very understandable way things would likely work out, and
I think she does realize it on some level, but she's aggressively rationalizing this huge revelation and looking at it as a problem to be solved. Outright eliminating the debt slavery is such an extreme action she wrote it off without even sparing it a thought. All that suggesting it would do is likely get her father to do is ignore any other suggestions she has for the situation (at best).
Although I will give that she doesn't seem to be totally opposed to the debt slaves idea. I really can't blame her when she's grown up in a manner that would make her think it's a totally fine and normal thing.
***
I'm curious about how they get away with these facilities with the Grimm around though. Unhappiness will draw more in, which likely drives up costs. How do they get so oppressive and not have to deal with huge incursions? Do they only mine in places that are very defensible or something? Do they need to be this ruthless to even have a chance of making a profit for some convoluted reason? Is there some corruption in the chain that could be cut out to fix some of this?
...Are they storing apathies somewhere and using those to correct the workers unrest? It would definitely work if they could strike the right balance. Hell, if the SDC is crafty enough, the debt slaves could probably get out with like 10 years of living at a level that's technically possible to pull off but few would have the dedication to stick to and the luck that nothing goes wrong. But they have a market for luxuries* that most fall into that will send them into a endless cycle of debt that can't be escaped.
*read: drugs. Which I wonder if they are as illegal as in our world. I can easily see see things going all Brave New World with everyone constantly on Soma. But that kind of stuff leads to being unhappy being a crime, and the rabbit hole only goes deeper from there.
So kill mr Schnee. Or kidnap him and keep him confined forever. Weiss winds up in charge, can end horrific slave labor.
PsyFarrow
Verified Necrodancer
- Location
- Space
Yeah, that's a nice thought but runs into the issue that Jaques isn't the sole reason things are this bad. Things never would've reached this point if shareholders and middle management didn't approve, and unless Weiss wants to effectively kill the company by replacing everyone those people are there to stay.
Also, while Weiss isn't fond of her father I doubt suggesting murder/terrorism (AKA the thing that very nearly just happened to her) would go very well.
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
Great! Great, that's perfect. What, two hours before people jumped to murder and/or kidnapping, amazing. Can't, like, display the endless potential of the process and set up a rival dust manufacturing system or just rely on the SDC's greed by offering them totally free labor by von neumann machines while simultaneously working to aide the poor economic situation in Menagerie that leads poor people to taking loans like that.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
This seems like a problem that can be easily avoided through use of UNSTOPPABLE MASSIVE ROBOT HORDES.
J: "Hey Weiss. If I gave you like a billion robots, you wouldn't need Faunus slave labour anymore, right?"
J: "Hey Weiss. If I gave you like a billion robots, you wouldn't need Faunus slave labour anymore, right?"
Last edited: