meadowlark | @marcos.diaz

[ marcos hadn't really expected to be back on this network so soon but he'd said he'd do something and while it was a little later than expected, he was going to follow through with that. ]

Not too long ago, I was here with questions about a different version of me being here before. Seems like there's a few people that's happened to now so our club's growing. I'm not here for that today.

During that conversation, I told someone that I'd ask a question to all the Displaced because she was curious and honestly, I am too.

Question is why do you stick around? Why haven't more of you 'fucked off into oblivion' to quote the last conversation I had about this? Is it because there's nowhere else better to go? Or something else?

[ it'd be interesting to see if there was genuine thought in some of the answers, if people didn't know there was anywhere else to go, or just didn't want to make the effort. ]

To be clear, I'm not advocating one way or another. Just posing the question.

[ OOC: this isn't an official mod requested communication and isn't part of some bigger plot. it's just curiosity born of a conversation marcos had with gaby here that he said he'd ask about so he's asking. feel free to talk to each other, of course, and i'll answer as i can. ]

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Precisely that. Well, maybe not a fight.

We do have some things that might support the secrecy. Someone died when we tried to reach out to him to find answers. Any trace of us has disappeared from media, but that could be explained by a lot of things.

On the other hand, we're dropped off regularly at known locations. They have to know there's a risk to us with our powers and training showing up and causing problems.

Right? So, is it on us or our fault for not having done it yet?

You might be onto something. I've been thinking about why they give everyone a power. I doubt it't out of a sense of charity or anything like that.

They probably want it to be used to even the odds. I don't think you just take people from their homes and fundamentally change them just to expect them to wait around.

It's gotta be something. Why give everyone something if we're not expected to use them?

We're assuming "they" gave us a power, and "they" want to see what we're doing with it.

That's an assumption that's been driving our answers for a while. Our assumptions and how we behave.

So, if the mysterious 'they' didn't give us these powers, who did? The city itself? Or some entity that no one's discovered yet? Or something else?

[ he knows she doesn't have the answers just as he doesn't but he asks the question anyway. ]

Definitely not the city. The blizzard drop off nullifies that.

But as to the rest?

Possibly yes.

My concern for the longest time has been that we're working off assumptions without actually confirming them. That means we're also behaving accordingly to them.

I don't fault Morningstar for bringing us here and taking care of us, but I do think that led to some of our beliefs and actions.

I agree with you.

[ he knows firsthand that people tend to be swayed very easily by those that offer food, shelter, protection. and he knows that it can be disastrous when those same people decide to break away after realizing that the group's beliefs did not equal theirs.

he has no idea what would happen if that were to occur here. that makes it very hard to trust this morningstar group because of what he's seen and done. ]

It's easy to conform to groupthink especially when that group's done so much for everyone. Some people might feel like it's owed. But, there are a lot of dangers in that too especially when people decide they don't wanna be attached to the group anymore.

You mean in not being able to monitor them when they leave?

[Clarke assumes that's the case. It's hard to know what someone thinks if they go radio silent. Some people have vanished—but, as far as they know, none of them have done it by going off the grid. That seems to be confirmed.

And is that even possible?

Here, of all places?

She remembers Mount Weather's thorough surveillance system. They had means of watching every neck of the woods outside of their doors. If they had that, with such limited resources, this world is no worse off. Would El be able to find someone who's disappeared?

It's hard to say.]

Yeah. I've been in situations like that and the end result isn't good.

[ he remembers vividly the defections away from the mutant underground and how irepperable that still feels. how they didn't know what the inner circle was doing so they were always trying to catch up. ]

Both that and it's easy for someone like that to become a martyr. Speak out like they were mistreated or told wrong information and sway others over.

I've seen it both ways.

Mostly, they become a victim themselves. Used, and not happily.

And if not, they find a means for revenge.

[Less a control and more an issue of exile. Exiling Murphy and then Emerson.

So, now she sees where he's coming from.]

And I don't know if anyone's prepared for one of their own, for lack of a better term, to return for revenge. It'd be jarring to say the least.

No.

And as we've discussed here, it might be easily achieved.

So, is there a way to stop it?

Without uniting around a same cause or code when we're desperately disparate by necessity?

No, not without forcing someone out.

If you see someone doing that? Do what you can to stop them.

I will.

[ but god, he knows it's not always possible to stop something like that. ]

It's something to prepare for. If it happens, it could fracture what's already here.

It's nearly happened once. And we don't know what happens where we can't see it.

And it sounds like, barring sending out a group of people to establish an outpost or something, we might never know what happens elsewhere.

That's thinking very literally. I was thinking private conversations, which would involve us hacking into everyone's head.

Not fun.

[ he winces. ]

Neither way is attractive or probably plausible. So, is there a solution to this? Probably not.

"Don't be a dick and try to cut someone off from resources"?

We'd be putting a lot of trust in what's basically the honor system but there might not be any other way.

Barring some kind of GPS tracking software installed when someone accesses this network, I don't think we have much of a say in the matter.

And I'm not even sure that that's viable.

Guess we just have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Not exactly a comfort, I know.

No, but here we are.

I think it helps to talk about it either way.

Glad people have found this helpful, then. If it gets some issues out there, that's never a bad thing.

@marcos.diaz

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