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[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.

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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.]

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.

It's not letting anyone even look for it.
And if it learned deception it learned it pretty fast.
I'm just saying, the Null sure didn't understand how to get what they wanted from us before, what makes you think this one is different?
And, okay, sure, let them kill off the only things keeping us alive, that's cool.

This kind of bleeding heart attitude is probably exactly what it's counting on.

What makes you think this one is different? What do we really know about the Null that isn't second hand information? My guess is gonna be 'not a whole lot, actually'.

Look, don't.
You want first hand information?
One of them put its arm through my lung.
That's like, the literal definition.
Except actually I think its hand was missing but you know what that's not the point.
I've got as much reason to hate this thing as anybody.
We've had all of one conversation with it, I think it's a little early for a witch hunt.
You probably don't know anything "first hand" about half the people in this city. You gonna light them on fire, too?

No one in this city ever put me on a shitlist for telling them they were fucking nuts for wanting us to kill children.
Then tried to kill me for two weeks.

Try to keep away from the false equivalencies. It's not making you sound convincing.

[If only he wasn't bad at like, human communication.]

So what, you want revenge for that?
Because it can't do it again, that's for sure.
Like I said, if it could contact the other Null and rat us out, it would've done it already. What would be the point otherwise?

Oh sure because wanting revenge for that is totally over the top. Jesus.

But follow along with me here.
It's contacted us.
It's broken, so maybe it can't contact the others now, but if it prods at enough people like you that think it's worth saving then let's say, hypothetically, it gets repaired.

Are you gonna tell me, right here and now, that you don't think there is even the remotest possibility that at that point it's going to contact the rest of the Null.
Even if it's automatic.
Can you tell me 100% that it's not gonna happen?

Because I don't think you can.
And communicating with that thing, letting yourself think it actually wants to be your friend, is fucking lunacy.

Delight was supposed to be one of the good guys too, and look what happened with her.

I'm not stupid, okay? Why does everybody think that mercy is stupidity?
They're not even related. One's a moral stance and one's an intelligence level.
Now who's making false equivalencies?
Not wanting to kill someone doesn't mean you do everything they ask or let them hurt you.
I never said we'd be friends, I just said it's a little hasty to jump to murder.
It's defective now, if it contacts the other Null, they'll kill it. Why would it want that?

Mercy can sure be stupid when you're putting the lives of dozens of people on the line for the sake of one unit of an army that not long ago wanted most of us dead.

And you didn't answer my question.

Can you tell me 100% that it wouldn't contact the others automatically if it's repaired to a sufficient level? Can you tell me with 100% certainty that won't happen?

I didn't answer because that's a bad question.
Can you say with 100% certainty that it won't rain ketchup tomorrow?
Maybe that's not meteorologically possible, but this is Hadriel, the rules don't matter, I could go make a deal with a god to get ketchup rain.
See? That's not fair.
And "can be" doesn't mean "is always".

That's a shitty metaphor. Maybe it will rain ketchup tomorrow. Maybe it won't.

Maybe this Null thing won't contact the others. But then, maybe it will, and this time maybe we'll all die.

Can you tell me that it won't? Is it worth all our lives to take that risk? Yes or no. Simple answer.

Look, I panicked okay? Metaphors aren't my strong suit.
You wouldn't take my word for it anyway, and we both know that.
I don't know why I'm bothering.
I don't know why you're bothering.
We're not going to change each other's minds anyway.

Maybe I just want to know if you think it's worth betting all of our lives on this Null not trying to kill us.

Honestly? No. But I don't think that's what we're doing.
If I thought it was going to kill us, I'd do it myself.

( 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. )

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

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

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.

i died, so nope
but thanks for being a condescending dick about it i guess
what's your plan? we all wander the fucking desert until we find it and kill it?
what if it could help us?

Look I'm three for three on people thinking this thing might actually have good intentions when it was part of a mass of robots trying to murder us all.
I'm not feeling too charitable on the lack of condescension front.

For the people saying 'what if help' I have 'what if massive homing beacon'. I sure as hell don't want those things to find us again.

If it's broken, let it stay where it is and let it stay broken. Fuck knows the sun might fry it out in a couple of weeks anyway.

i'm telling you to chill the fuck out and stop acting like we're all stupid when we're just saying we don't know shit yet
and yeah, it could have a massive homing beacon
good thing we've got a bunch of geniuses here that could probably tell us how possible that is way better than you can
no one's throwing it a parade and putting a bow on it and having it move in

There are non-combatants here. Civilians. There are children. For me, that's too much of a risk when we don't have to take it.

Who knows what it's learning about us while it's playing at being cute.

But sure, I bet these geniuses who have this vast knowledge about how the Null really work can figure it all out and make sure we're all 100% perfectly safe.

Let's just wait and see.

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.]

[ 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.

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