✨ XIMILIA TOWN HALL MEETING ✨ ( video/audio/action )

[farr]

[ some morning in the middle of the week, during their return to the station, an invitation will be taped on the door of every orber. though the calligraphy would suggest this must have been typed on a computer and printer, each invitation is actually very carefully hand-written and reads as follows: ]

[ the idea is for everyone to meet in the mess hall at the intended time, but if some choose not to attend, the meeting can still be accessed by the earpieces, allowing all orbers to watch or listen in and contribute however they wish, no matter where they are.

however, for those who do decide to attend, the mess hall features a full display of bagels and donuts, along with plenty of fresh coffee, all to help everyone wake up and feel refreshed for the meeting that's about to take place.

a makeshift little stage, arranged by stacking together a few metal boxes is at the center of the room, atop of it being the one and only rita farr herself, with a bright optimistic smile. when she sees enough people present and settled, she speaks up, loud and clear: ]

Hello, everyone! Welcome to our first Annual — or monthly, or however we decide to do it — Town Hall meeting! Thank you all for coming and please enjoy the food to your heart's content. For those who don't know me, I'm Rita Farr. Now— though my name does appear on the invitation, this is hardly about me. This is about all of us.

After our ... last mission, it became quite clear that our group could use a bit of improvement with how we approach our next missions moving forward. And I thought the best way to plan for that is to allow all of us an opportunity to discuss how we all feel about what we've done well and what we could do better. After all, everyone deserves a say in this, right?

[ she points behind her where a giant board is on display on an easel, once again, hand-written with careful and precise calligraphy in giant letters: ]


Here, I've written some sample questions we can all try to offer answers to, but the floor will also be open for any other questions and suggestions that anyone might have. Remember, there are no wrong answers! We're all here for an open forum discussion. But before that!

[ she reaches over to the board, pulling it off to reveal another one behind it. this one reads as follows: ]


Please consider the "Keys to Success", not only on our missions, but as we talk together in this room right now. We'll go ahead and take turns either stepping up here on the stage or speaking out from wherever you are. There are no microphones but the earpieces should get your voices out to everyone. Now, who would like to start?


( this post is open to all! the idea is that everyone is taking turns in each thread to speak out to the entire group (whether from within the room or from elsewhere), but thread-jacking and hopping around for discussion is the key here! feel free to run wild with ic suggestions or questions regarding mission layouts or planning or whatever floats your boat (ic complaining/protest is always an option too). though rita is organizing it, it's open to whatever people are inclined to discuss. )

Comments

[bindsthedead]

That's a reasonable approach, if the orb is unclaimed, as it was in Viveca's world.

But if someone has it... We can ask them to hand it over, but often, those who have it have some goal they're desperate to achieve, and won't hand it over until they've accomplished it. 'Staying out of it' and 'Recovering the orb as soon as possible' would be contradictory goals.

And the one time we tried to steal an orb in a bargain... it was a disaster.

[callada]

Yes, and so working with them to achieve their goal still counts as getting the orb quickly and leaving. My point is that getting involved when it isn't necessary is a poor use of our time, and places us as well as the people on those worlds at additional risk.

On the last world, there was no need to side with the Fables and help them in their revolution except that people felt it was the right thing to do. We could have stayed out of it entirely once we had a lead suggesting the orb was under water.

And before anyone gets the wrong idea, I was in favor of staying and helping them remove their world's poisons, too. I still want to believe it was worth the effort, in the end, but it showed clearly that we probably shouldn't be doing that everywhere we go.

[legalcy]

"Everywhere?" Would you say that this level of involvement lead to a positive outcome in the past?

[He hadn't been able to get opinions about prior missions, only facts, so this is one of the first opportunities to get a feel for subject measures of success.]

[callada]

We haven't tried to be involved to this level before. There were those who took sides on Giva for their own reasons, and I won't suggest everyone needs to clamp down on their emotions and lock up their sympathies. But we still had people on either side focused on finding the orb, too.

Never before has most of the group apparently decided they wanted to work with one political faction to topple another when doing so wasn't related to getting the orb, and we certainly never stuck around for weeks afterward before. I don't think we even considered that a realistic option. I had asked Viveca about it before and she said once we had the orb, we would have to be immediately retrieved.

[legalcy]

I assumed that allying with the Fables was our best option for getting the orb. We would have the numbers on our side to distract the guards while a team investigated the lake. It would be difficult to bring everyone with the power to purify the water or to enter the contamination zone via guard disguises.

[It felt like the obvious solution. Minimus does consider the obligation to join the rebels considering that it is the home planet of the ship's leader.]

I was also under the impression that taking the orb would bring us back to the ship. What changed this time?

[callada]

It was an option. I'm not convinced it was the best one, but maybe there's information I'm missing, and I should take back my comments about everyone keeping us all well-informed.

[He gives a wry little smile at this. It's true, after all, that he still has mostly no idea what happened outside the first couple of circles during everything that went down, but he doesn't blame the people out there for not speaking up over the network, since his impression is they were trying not to die.]

As for how we stayed, I don't know. I haven't seen an explanation for that. Viveca could probably shed some light on it better than I can.

[bindsthedead]

True. In that case, it might be better to agree ahead of time that it's acceptable to tell anyone who has an orb what their true nature and start negotiating as soon as we identify them, rather than putting it to a vote each time, often weeks after we've learned who has it. More often than not, we've had to deal with the orb being claimed, rather than unclaimed, and so far most of them have been willing to hand it over once their problems are solved.

As for last mission- I think you're ignoring the difficulties of getting enough people in and removing the orb without the government stopping us- could you imagine what might have happened, if they'd interrupted us halfway through and taken the orb for themselves?

Besides, I do not think we could have gone into that camp and ignored what was happening.

[callada]

No arguments from me over starting negotiations quickly. It seems to work in our favor once we open up and discuss with people.

As for the last mission and the government, we had options. Send people in who can teleport or make themselves invisible. Joining a revolution was pretty damn risky, in my book. A good way to get most of our team imprisoned or killed, if it had failed, and then how would we get the orb? We'd instead be here lamenting we hadn't gone straight for it and mourning our losses. We got lucky.

[bindsthedead]

Agreed. Lets put it to a vote before the next mission, and see if enough people feel the same.

As for sending in people who could teleport- didn't people try that in another camp and get captured? Every choice carries a risk of failure. Not that there weren't other options- we could have tried infiltrating the camp independent of the Fables, passing ourselves off as guards and prisoners.

But there would still be the risk of discovery, and there's no way we could have ignored the suffering of the prisoners. And to be honest, the Fables understood more of the world and had a better plan for handling the camps than we would have if we'd just gone in and reacted to what we saw.

[callada]

Always risks, no matter what we do. Maybe it's just that I was surprised by how quickly people seemed to personally want to join them, and not just for the sake of the orb. Our efforts could have been focused a little tighter.

[But, shrug. It's the nature of gathering together a bunch of untrained, disorganized people who keep coming and going and trying to get them to do something unified. There's a lot they need to work on and talk about here today on how to improve all of that.]

Have you or anyone else asked Viveca why we were able to stay so long this time? I thought once we had the orb in hand we'd be brought back no matter what.

[bindsthedead]

Many of us have seen suffering and injustice, and worked against it in our worlds. Expecting people to just sit by and watch while a group was trying to help stop that was bound to lead to disorganization.

As far as I understand? Because we recovered it without touching it, and hid it away somewhere others couldn't reach it, until we decided to leave. Physical contact seems to be what sets off the teleportation, so we found and exploited a loophole.

[Sabriel had been at the reservoir during the initial recovery effort, using an air bubble spell to help the orbers involve minimize contact with the water.]

[callada]

[Oh, he's well aware of the long fight against injustice and suffering. It's been his life's work, after all. So again, he sympathizes, but more and more he's seeing how focusing on the orbs themselves is itself an important fight against suffering. The quicker they collect them, the less damage they do

Still, he's not going to argue, and just nods along with her explanation. He does understand. He did want to help, too, when they agreed to stay so that those with the right expertise could try to fix the atmosphere. Staying may not have been ultimately for the best, but he doesn't regret his vote completely, and they learned from it, didn't they?]

I see. I knew that was the plan, but hadn't heard for sure that it was achieved. Well... I'm glad to know that we have the option, even if it's one we probably shouldn't exercise in the future outside of extreme circumstances.

[bindsthedead]

True. It's... probably not a path we should take again, unless we're in a situation where there are multiple orbs, so we don't need to try to arrange to get all of them at the same time.

We should probably trust that people in a world have the ability to handle their own problems, as long as the orb is taken away.

[callada]

Yeah. I'm sure if we set firm rules we'll find exceptions, but I think most places will be better off if we move on quickly. Besides, we know the orbs can do a lot of damage in a short time. Might be best for the places upcoming if we don't make Viveca have to wait on us.

[bindsthedead]

True. I think many people worry about the long term consequences, especially if we actively intervene, but... I think we'll just have to trust that the people in that world know what to do.

[coordination]

Unfortunately we didn't know about the orb's location until well into the mission. [ Yzak frowns a little. ] We were originally told it was in the First Circle, so I put my focus there - tch, it sort of feels like a waste now, since it was nowhere close. Not that my position didn't come in handy in a couple of pinches, but at least the Fables were a good place to gather information. Some of the team were already well involved with them by the time we got the correct information, it might not have been easy or safe to disengage by that point. And ultimately, our connections with the Fables did prove useful toward the end.

But you are right, we shouldn't always put in that extra effort. There will be exceptions for sure, and it's a shame that this wasn't one because moving forward when we actually come across that exception, others have been soured by this. But I want to believe, too, that our staying, ultimately uncomfortable for all parties involved, was worth it.

[callada]

No matter what we do on any mission, we'll second-guess some aspects of it. And I know not all of us share opinions - our variety of viewpoints is, I'm sure, part of what makes us effective.

Just surprised me how quickly so many of our own were ready to jump to helping to stage a revolution for reasons that didn't seem like they had much to do with the orb, that's all, considering what we're here for. I'm glad it ended up working out.