@jughead.jones

[drivein]

[ Jughead's neural implant will never be as good as his typewriter, but for now it's enough to say what he wants to say. true to form, it comes out a lot longer than not: ]

Hey, I'm Jughead. Yeah, that's my real name. I'm not taking questions on that. I've got a few things I want to talk about. Consider it long overdue, so buckle up.

Back home, I was a journalist. The place I come from is a small town called Riverdale, also ironically known as "the town with pep." On the outside it looked like a regular place with regular people going about their days, thinking that they're safe. Maybe it is, in a sense. I keep hearing stories of magic powers, traveling through dimensions and fighting in outer space. The kind of stuff that would put Tolkien to shame. In comparison, Riverdale is just a normal town with a few dark secrets: Drug rings, gangs, a serial killer run rampant, and a mob boss settling himself in like Dracula in London. It's that kind of corruption that put us on the underground map. So, when people needed to know the truth of what was happening, I exposed it--I printed it. I did what I could to get the word out.

I found a job doing the same thing here. Once a journalist, always a journalist. During the UNA kidnappings--or, attack, really--I took pictures, and I wrote a story going along with it. Then, I fought to get it published, not just for us--the people stuck here--but for New Amsterdam. They need to know what's happening to them in their own city. Anyone can take a good guess at what happened after that: My boss turned me down without a good reason why. There was a lot of "I need to keep my head down" and "it's good, but too bold" excuses that came down more as thinly veiled warnings. That can only mean one thing, and that was that a negative article about the UN was making people nervous. It's not surprising in a world where the Orwellian rule has already gotten their foothold that deep censorship is the consequence. The worst part of it all is that everyone seemed to know it and had already given up. The fight wasn't worth it to them.

I want to figure out the details as much as anyone else; I want to go home. Even though I've got a lot to go back to, we can't ignore what's going on here.

So, hear me out.

We've kept our heads down all this time, trying to stay beneath the radar. (Trying being stressed, here.) I want us to think about taking a different approach--like taking a step forward to say that we're here. It doesn't have to be everything about us, but maybe just a few things. Before everyone gets up and arms and thinks about the wild and crazy consequences that could happen, think about the other side of it: If this was happening in the world you come from, wouldn't you want to know? We've been detaching from Morningstar, we're making strides to make things our own, and we need people to help us. Yeah, we're going to get people who hate us, but we might be able to get a lot that will help us, too. We've all seen the shrines. It might be nice to be ruled by something that isn't fear.

[ he can't put a final tap on a key, but he can sit back where he's sitting with a huff and a hand through his hair. ]

Comments

@ojiro.juniper

[deicider]

I've been thinking about this a lot my self lately. I think you're right that stepping forward has the potential to impact this world for the better.
Obviously we're pretty far off being in a position to do that right now. The safehouse issue still needs to get handled, and we don't even have a plan for what to do if someone's identity is compromised, or for anything else that might go wrong. We don't even really know what resources we have between ourselves.
But it's a good idea to start the conversation about it. Whether we like it or not, these shrines mean people are already paying attention to what we do.

@rey.nolo

[forcevisions]

If we're going to reveal ourselves, why don't we start with the people who built those shrines? We could try to find them. Make allies first.

@prom.argentum

[mercurio]

sucks that you worked hard on your piece for it to not be accepted

but what you're saying makes sense
whatever we do, we shouldn't give everything away at first

@keith.kogane

[secondnature]

Back home, there's a thing called the Voltron Coalition. It didn't start out that way. Voltron was just five pilots, Princess Allura and Coran. And Allura's mice, I guess. [Here is where Keith began to type "I wasn't any good at it, but it was apparent we needed to start making alliances." He backspaces it, pauses, and reconsiders how to frame the sentence.]

Before long, it became clear that just taking down one big bad wouldn't help the universe. It had been under 10,000 years of control. Dictatorship. Princess Allura spearheaded a coalition. The beginning part of it was a group not very different from Morningstar. From there, we started freeing civilizations and taking down the bases of our enemies.

I took a break from the team [which is another thing that involved him rewriting the sentence several times over] and during that time, they did a lot of shows. Propaganda. It got everyone interested in doing good and being a part of the coalition. It strengthened the Voltron coalition, and it got people interested in seeing it succeed.

Now that coalition works all over the universe. The entire universe.

My point is

You have a good idea here. We just need to start small.

@kate.bishop

[fledges]

i understand what you're saying, and i agree, but sometimes people let their fear get the better of them. an unknown like us is a big blow. even just our powers are huge, without even touching the multiverse thing. we need to be careful about it, and really plan this out.

@markus.manfred

[saviorexe]

As a hypothetical, have you given thought to exactly what that "step forward" might involve? Logistically speaking.

@thomas.maximoff

[mutriarchy]

as somebody who does come from a world with superhumans and has seen and read how this kind of thing can play out, it could be a really bad idea. discrimination is a thing and the only reason it stopped and my people stopped getting killed was because my grandfather overthrew established systems to make it happen
nobody should reveal they have powers or aren't from here until we're totally sure we can protect them from backlash

@ignis.scientia

[cheffeur]

[This is certainly useful, given his recent conversations with Fitz. They were discussing finding a patsy to loudly go public, after all.]

Jughead: I believe you have some very good ideas here.

In addition to your idea of giving the populace here something of an idea about facing up to the control and censorship, it could also be used to gain contact or information about those who brought us here. From what I understand, they take great pains to cover up any and all trace of their involvement.

Going indisputably public could draw them to the table, so to speak.

Of course we can't all do it- those of us with positions that are more subtle, who are trying to gain information from within the government or corporations, for example. But presenting yourself as another group and being clear about your situation could, potentially, get people asking questions and talking.