Any resemblance to actual arguments or posts is purely coincidental. I used impressions of the thread as a whole as inspiration, not specific votes or discussion.
The War Room
The room below me was pure chaos. A massive map-covered table was surrounded by people, dozens and dozens of them. They were of all shapes and sizes, and dressed everything from military uniforms, generals, admirals and air force marshals, to the blue and charcoal suits of politicians and negotiators, to the stereotypical catsuits of spies, to futuristic powered armor, to old-fashioned fantasy garb like swords, leathers and wizard robes. The most strange thing about the crowd, however, was that no one had a face. Instead, a blurry nothingness covered each face, and you had to identify each person by their nametag, often an unintelligible jumble of letters and symbols.
This gathering was currently embroiled in the mother of all arguments. Every person, from the generals to the politicians to the warriors, was gesturing, talking, and shouting. The subject of greatest contention appeared to be a large projected screen that dominated one wall, and the map table in the room's center. A list of bullet points titled "Update: The Seer's Predictions" was currently projected. In the corner of the projection, a second window was open, apparently listing "Current Votes". The second window flickered and blurred frequently, obscuring the vote totals much of the time.
One side wall was dominated by a dark glass window. Inscrutable shapes shifted beyond the near-opague glass. The label read 'Lurker Viewing Window'. Every so often, the door at the side of the window would open and another faceless figure would join the crowd, although they almost invariably did so by shouting loudly at everyone. Those departing were much quieter, almost as if they faded into nothingness as they passed through the door.
On the back wall, several digital clocks displayed nonsensical times. One counted down from three days, one from about a month, and another from twenty-four hours. A different set counted up. One was labelled Timestop, and several more unlabeled. Finally, there was a set that told the time of day, although it was stuck and only moved when the big screen changed, and even then not all the time.
There were only two other decorations. The first was a simple poster that read "IT HAS PROUDLY BEEN 2 UPDATES SINCE THE LAST FUCK-UP", although several of the faceless figures were standing by arguing about whether they should restart the count or allow it to stand. The second was a complex diagram of a human brain, with several parts x-ed out in red marker. Curiously, no one debated this at all, and all those who passed it simply nodded sagely.
Every so often, the one of the faceless figures would turn to the screen and make some indecipherable arcane gesture, causing the counter in the corner to update. It reminded me of the floor of a stock exchange during peak trading. The text on the counter explaining each option, however, remained frustratingly small and difficult to read, and with each gestured modification only grew smaller and more inscrutable.
Laid out on the massive tableau was a blown-up printout from Google Maps, depicting a section of the Japanese coast. Care had been taken to select the right region, but expanding the map to fit the meters-wide table had blurred and pixellated its features, rending it unreadable. In addition, several areas had been outlined and labelled in crayon, adding imaginary cities and territories to the terrain. But due to some disagreement, they had been crossed out, redrawn, and relabeled in scented marker. The entire thing had been hastily pinned to the top of the wooden table, the corners curling up slightly.
If that had been all, the casual viewer might have mistaken the gathering for a military crisis. Indeed, the gathering of generals, admirals, warriors, and politicians shouting for attack, defense, negotiation, tactics, intel, or gathering allies was definitely to be expected for an emergency council of war. But a closer look at the map table revealed that the crisis was of a different nature.
Near the center of the map, dozens of figurines and other objects were scattered across several cities in small groups. The exquisitely crafted blue and silver costumed magical girl figurine was obviously the most important piece. Surrounding her were her friends and allies, although no other piece even approached her care and detail. Indeed, using a model grandfather clock for Timestop-chan was downright dehumanizing, and the severed figurine head for Issues-sempai was obviously a failed attempt at black humor. At least the toy robot for the Seer's bodyguard made sense. Everyone knows robots have the coolest personalities, after all.
The figurines for the other characters had obviously been thrown together from whatever junk that could be scraped together: a paper clip, a coin, a stick of gum, leftover Halloween candy, a packaged band-aid for the healer, and a glass marble that kept rolling away any time anyone tried to place it somewhere on the map. Various figures from other shows and comics completed the collection.
Every twenty seconds or so one of the faceless figures would snatch up a handful of figurines and reposition them, gesticulating madly while explaining their new strategy, or their new inferences about the positions of the other groups. Inevitably, someone else would disagree, and the figurines would be repositioned slightly differently. Sometimes this was accompanied by fearful gestures into a shadowed corner of the room that all the faceless people shied away from. This despite that dark corner being very obviously empty.
Shoved to the side of the room farthest from the observation glass were several smaller tables, lining one the wall and piled with folders, printed reports, and assorted clutter. The titles included such subjects as "Long Term Plans", "SCIENCE", and "How to Not Lie to Your Friends". They had obviously been pushed aside due to the crisis occupying the main table, and would likely be forgotten entirely.
Next to the reports were two crates filed with cartoon bombs. The smaller bombs were stamped with the face of a skeleton, while the larger ones had the leering grin of a black-hatted, wart-nosed witch. Beside the table, two faceless figures, one in a suit and the other in a soldier's uniform, were playing hot potato with a bomb with a lit fuse. As the tossed the witch-faced bomb back and forth, they shouted at each other. "This is all your fault!" "Well if you hadn't told her we only wanted her power!" "And just who led us off topic when that vote went through?". Gathered around them were a crowd of bystanders, muttering such phrases as "oh dear", "oh no", and "someone should do something". A much shorter figure stood between the bomb jugglers, holding a full bucket of water in one hand and desperately jumping up and down trying to catch the bomb and douse it. But the arguing figures and the crowd paid him no heed. Slowly, the water sloshed out of the bucket, until there was no longer enough to douse anything.
"YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE," a voice said through an unseen loudspeaker, "BEHAVIOR DISRUPTIVE TO DISCUSSION WILL BE WARNED AND PUNISHED. PLEASE FOLLOW THE RULES AND DO NOT MAKE US AWARD YOU A VACATION. THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE DAY."
I wondered why, exactly, were vacations punishment? Certainly, several of the participants below seemed rather stressed. For that matter, the whole spectacle seemed disruptive to discussion. Those rules sure must be strange, to allow this. My musing was interrupted again, however.
"Everyone, look! Ugo and Mura are fighting again!", someone cried.
"Hey! You can't fight in here. This is the War R---", someone else said, before getting cut off by a stampede of people vying for front row seats to the fight.
Sure enough, next to the map a red blur and a blue blur were exchanging fisticuffs, their fight kicking up cartoon clouds of dust complete with cartoon stars and Biff! and Pow! text effects. The more amazing thing was, as they fought, their voices continued calmly arguing at, or perhaps past each other, with such statements as "...and if we go in without more information, we won't know what to do when we get there, and besides we're in timestop, so we can take as long as..." "...and if her predictions keep changing because of what we ask her, then waiting around is useless, and since we're going to intervene anyway..."
The crowd of bystanders surrounding the brawlers were even more animated in their frequent sign language gestures to update the vote counter than most.
Another one? Geez, they're making their way here more and more often.
"Amazing, isn't it?" said a gentle female voice, from right beside me.
"Amazing? It's a disaster. They're going to go in headfirst, and no matter if they fight or just heal the war will come to them. And there's no plan or even any ideas on how to get the other groups to back down. It'll end up threatening soul gems all over again. And that's not even mentioning that Homura is about to lose her patience, Oriko already has, and Mami is wondering if we're ever going to take a single thing she says seriously," I said.
She laughed at me.
"Not that," she said, chiding me softly. "The whole spectacle. Isn't it amazing what you achieve, despite everything? Or perhaps, because of everything?"
"It's pretty amazing we manage to get anything done at all," I said, agreeing.
"See? You do understand! Would you rather not participate?"
"I couldn't do that! They'd... they'd forget so many things. I need to convince them..."
"Exactly! As long as you don't give up, there's still hope." As long as I believe in my wish...
I nodded firmly.
"So what are you still doing up here?" she asked. "Get back in there!"
There was a firm shove on my back, and I stumbled forward...
I stood in the middle of the War Room. I... did I drift off? Frantically, I glanced up at the vote counter. Phew. Haven't missed this one yet. The current options seemed clear enough, but I wasn't ready to commit one way or another. That's right. I had another job to do.
Pushing through the crowd towards the table, I grabbed a figurine from another user and scolded them,
"Hey! No! What are you doing? If we do that, Mami will..."