text;

[redwinekindofgirl]

[She's had her angry outburst at the actual machine, and after a couple of days of thinking about it, now she's just irritated. Naturally, the slightly hypocritical angle of her annoyance given what happened between her and R doesn't occur to her while she's squinting at the rest of Hadriel.

Julie, of all people, should understand that one individual in a horde can make all the difference.]

Are any of you actually trusting this Null that was so conveniently left here? Seriously, anyone believing a word it says must have hit their head. For all we know it's just tricking us so it can send its location back to the others and they can find us again.

Should just set the fucking thing on fire, bury it in a hole and forget about it.

Comments

text;

[aroundthecoroner]

That's not exactly fair, you know.
We get pissed off at the Null for wanting to kill the gods for what they are, and now we're going to pull the same damn thing?
It's not with the others. It's damaged and alone.
Why would it lie about that? It'd be smarter to just give away our location and not talk to us.
It's basically just in the same boat we are now.

[Someone is uhhhh very attached.]

text;

[redwinekindofgirl]

It's broken. So it tricks people into fixing it then it tells all its buddies where we are.

I don't give a shit what the Null does to these things calling themselves gods while they fuck around with our heads to give themselves something to feed off. It's us that get caught in the crossfire.

text.

[odinbolt]

( It's hard to deny that Julie's arguments make a certain amount of sense. They don't know for sure if this is all a ploy to trick them. )

Well, sometimes things are just what they say they are, even if what they say they are sounds impossible.

( Like hunters who travel through time to find her and drag her away with them. )

text.

[redwinekindofgirl]

That's the hill you're gonna die on?

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[evocation]

yeah, because the null were so good at being sneaky and tricking us before instead of sounding like emotionless psychopaths

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[redwinekindofgirl]

Okay, but are you really willing to take the risk on this not being some kind of trick.

Has everyone already forgotten they were all trying to kill us a couple of months ago or something.

text

[kingforboth]

It doesn't matter if it is here on purpose or by mistake. It is too great a threat.

There is a time and a place for mercy, but it can't be at the expense of others lives and the safety of the city.

[It took Kelson the deaths of others to learn that mercy isn't always the right course of action. And he hopes that isn't what it takes here.]

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[redwinekindofgirl]

That's what I'm trying to say. I don't get how it can be worth the risk to anyone.

text; private

[hardwearing]

[ Okay.... he's taking a risk here, as he knows the Null is reading and has no idea if it could hack in somehow and see private messages, too, but. The arguments are escalating and he hasn't seen anyone else on the network realize what's been going through his head. ]

Calm down. If it were capable of sending a message, we'd already be under attack. Either physical damage or fear is stopping it, and if it's the latter we can't afford to scare it out of the city.

text; private

[redwinekindofgirl]

First off, don't tell me to calm down. Fuck calming down.

Secondly, we don't know what it's going to do if some of these god damn bleeding hearts actually decide they want to find it and fix it.

[text]

[hot_mes]

[sorry Julie, more logic for you]

the dangerous one was the one we killed out in the desert.

Fear moved us several months ago. if it had any way to contact the null we would already be dead.

as someone fully aware of the danger of the situation, I still believe it wiser to let it live. it has nothing to do with compassion.

[text]

[redwinekindofgirl]

[No logic here, but at least he's not telling her she's stupid. +1 point for Law.]

Then explain it to me.
If it's not compassion, what is it?

Because I really can't understand how something that could potentially call those things to us could be worth saving.

text;

[radiopalkiller]

Don't be rude to our new mechanical overlords. Praise the machines.

text;

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Yeah okay that's kinda funny.]

I think you're in too deep already.

[Video]

[lingeringfear]

[Like he's had to be so much recently, Fear is deadly serious when he shows up on camera, pointed and direct. Someone has to deal with this- and with Sorrow dead and Hope recovering, he supposes that it still has to be him. His voice is terse when he speaks, jaw tight with tension.]

And here I thought I was clear when I said 'get every last one of them out of the city'. Looks like you missed one.

[Which is- upsetting, because now he's going through the same doubts as the rest of them, but with maybe a little more feeling to it. He's seen how this can go and he doesn't like it at all.]

Find it- any of you, I don't care who. Bring it to my temple and I'll show it proper fear. I can interrogate it and afterward you can all strip it for parts and feed it to the damn monsters outside the city.

[Video]

[puzzlingly]

「Damn, he knew it, he knew talking about Name out in the network would bring these guys out, good going.」

Is that how you deal with a fallen foe who has surrendered?

By the way, monsters don't eat scrap metal.

「Dude.」

video;

[demonsional]

[Hayden flinches like has has personally just been slapped. Seriously, he already looks like he could cry.]

Sometimes you just don't belong with the rest of your kind. It's scary.

video; OH NO.

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Look, there's a reason she didn't do this on video to begin with - because she's already flushed and angry and not looking her best and really, this whole thing isn't even half of what she's really mad about, but it's sure a convenient outlet.

She doesn't... exactly... answer Hayden. What she does instead is take one look at his face, then flips her phone right out of her hand and onto the floor.

What he gets then is a nice view of the ceiling.]

[video]

[imhisaunt]

Are you alright, Julie?

[video]

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Her phone is on the floor by now, and the video is little more than a view of the ceiling. It's a pleasant enough ceiling - eggshell white with a small, thin crack running through the paint from one of the corners of the room.

Julie's voice comes from somewhere offside. For all the anger in her written words, she's quite quiet.]

No.

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[ghostlocked]

did u really expect this argument to get ppl on ur side?
riling everyone up is just going to get a civil war goin and thatd be worse than anything that null can do.

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[redwinekindofgirl]

I don't have a 'side'.

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[weedbgon]

ahhh ive trusted weirder guys on less. if you never take a chance you never get the payoff!

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[redwinekindofgirl]

[Wow, she's... actually not sure of how to take this one. She squints at the message for a while before she answers, but by this point she's lost a lot of the fire of the first responses.]

Okay, this is starting to get a bit nuts. The bad side of this is that we all die. What kind of a risk is that to accept???

[64th]

Well, now you're just being rude.

[redwinekindofgirl]

Wouldn't be the first time.

Text

[paragonbrosca]

Damn right. Fuck trusting it on any level, I haven't banged my head enough to agree with that shit. Believing it's NOT a hill I plan to die on.

Text

[redwinekindofgirl]

Ugh thanks.

I mean I get it's useful, maybe? Not my issue. My issue is the people making nice. It's nuts.

[Private Audio]

[whistlewhilstyouwork]

It's ok to hate the thing, y'know.

[Private Audio]

[redwinekindofgirl]

Yeah, I got that one down.

[text]

[lifetothefullest]

[He's taken some time to follow the other conversations and getting a better idea of how to approach this subject with her, rather than just being another dissenting opinion. So his reply comes late, but not so late that it wouldn't be easy to write off as him simply not paying attention to the network at the moment.]

You could be entirely right about it being a trick, and you're definitely right that it's a risk. But if this Null really is telling the truth, then it's not a threat; if that's the case, then killing it would not only be unnecessary but wrong. I'd rather be sure of the situation before doing something so drastic.

[text]

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Ughhhhhhh, come on, Lance... Just shelve the psyche degree for this one.]

I'm sure enough that if there's the smallest risk this thing could call the horde down on us it's not worth helping.

video

[so_dark_a_road]

We did do our best to kill every Null in the city before Fear moved us to this planet. I can't figure out how we managed to miss one.

I think it is highly possible that this is a trick. I never believed that the Null are incapable of deception. They used to be organics, and the ability to deceive is an organic/human characteristic. Why delete such a useful skill from the Null server? -- I'll bet they didn't. They're a pragmatic bunch. Except for being fundamentally suicidal.

But that said, what if this is not a trick?

video

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Julie huffs out a sharp, annoyed-sounding sigh.]

I don't know how many times I've said this, but is it worth our lives - all our lives - to think it might not be? I get it, okay? People want to look at this like some amazing chance to learn more about them, to maybe have one of them on our side.

That one of them might be different.

[Yeah, she really gets that, okay?]

But I can't get my head around anyone thinking that risk is worth taking.