Action | Thursday 8/4

[singlelogbridge]

[On Thursday August fourth, anyone who wanders into the mess hall will find a large platter filled with thin deep fried pastries on one of the tables. The pastries consist of oil, flour, sugar and honey, and have been carefully molded into very simplified flower shapes. There are several dozen stacked on the large platter and they’re accompanied by a handwritten note with the following:]

Once a very long time ago, there was a boy named Niulang, a simple mortal cowherd, and a weaver girl named Zhinhu who was the daughter of a powerful immortal goddess. Uncaring of their differences, Zhinhu and Niulang fell in love. Zhinhu and Niulang married and had children together, and they lived happily until Zhinhu’s goddess mother found out that her daughter had married a mere mortal.

When Zhinhu’s mother found out, she took Zhinhu back to the heavens with her and cast a river of stars into the sky to separate the heavens and earth to keep the lovers apart. Unknown to Zhinhu’s mother though, the magpies had seen the love between Zhinhu and Niulang and they took pity on the lovers, using their own bodies to form a bridge across the river to allow them to cross.

After seeing what the magpies had done for them, even Zhinhu’s mother was moved by their love, and so Zhinhu and Niulang were allowed to meet on that bridge. Since that day, the lovers have met on that magpie bridge once every year on this day.

It’s said that eating qiaoguo brings luck to the couple and helps them to reunite, so please enjoy these and think of Zhinhu and Niulang.

[The note is not signed, but the contents of the message can certainly only be from a handful of people. Anyone who had spent any amount of time in the kitchen the day before will have seen Wei Wuxian, Itachi, and Gwen in there for hours, mixing dough, carefully pushing it into various shapes, and pulling things in and out of the oven. A select few might even recognize the traditional Qixi pastry and know what it’s all about without being told. Anyone is welcome to help themselves!

Wei Wuxian will be coming and going from the mess hall all day, peeking in to see if people are enjoying the pastries, but also feel free to threadjack or mingle over pastries!]

Comments

[callada]

I know there must be a lot of political details on each side considering the duration of the war, but is it possible to summarize in brief? Why did the war start in the first place?

[Surely, there must be general broad aims. Otherwise, why keep at it for so long?]

[legalcy]

It started with the Decepticon uprising that overthrew the Senate. I do not denounce them for that - it was an inevitable conclusion with their restrictions and upholding of distriminatory laws. The first fights were done by miners and gladiators, and others joined their ranks.

The Autobots were the security force for the Senate. Now, their first reaction was to quell violence, but they were not so popular. Unfortunately, after the initial revolution, the disagreements on how to move forward propelled a planet-wide division between the two factions. It quickly devolved into maintaining control and destroying the other faction, with ruling Cybertron as a secondary issue.

[And that's a summary of only the very early history.]

Everything spiraled out of control for the next four million years.

[callada]

[Damn. But this is the problem with revolutions, isn't it? Or one of them, anyway. There are ways to fix governments without violence. Peaceful opposition might mean slower change, and he's sympathetic to those who are left in a bad situation in the meantime when the change doesn't happen quickly enough to help them. But the chaos and violence when things spiral out of control never help anyone - and four million years of that is an extreme example. How many lives lost, cities destroyed, civilizations set back and opportunities wasted because of an unending war? It hardly matters who started off right or wrong; by the end of it, both were plenty guilty of moral crimes against their people whether they realized it or not.

He contemplates this quietly for a moment. It's hard to know what to say.]

And the end result? How do things stand now?

[legalcy]

The war has been over for centuries. We've assimilated to a civilian life as best as we could - though not without infighting and outside threats in the meantime.

[It's almost easy to call himself a noncombatant instead of a soldier. It's taken many, many years to acclimate to a life without fearing for his life every day, but it's happening. It's a process.]

We've grown tired of fighting, or at least most of us have. It's finding a place where we feel fulfilled that's the difficult part of life.

[callada]

I've heard of that happening to people who chose to leave military life for one reason or another. That finding a new way to move forward can be difficult. But that's a challenge for an individual, and it sounds like your people have that challenge as a civilization.

[Four million years. He can't get it out of his head. How much would it take for a people with four million years of war to try and make something new and peaceful for themselves?]

[legalcy]

It's never-ending challenge, but we are managing. I am managing.

[With his new purpose, with coming to terms to the people he lost. It's a blessing that Cybertronians live long enough to work on just about every personal demon they're facing.]

I have an important job now, overseeing the newest generation of Cybertronians. They've never experienced a society centered on war, and we hope it remains that way.

[callada]

Good. That's important. And under-valued back home sometimes, I've found.

[He speaks with firm conviction. This is what he does - maybe not in the same way, but the goal is the same. Protect settlements that don't even realize they need protecting, keep them peaceful. Bring normal lives to people who deserve to live them, and maintain normality where it already exists. And he knows from experience that it's a far more difficult job than it sounds like.]

We have a number of islands back home that have been through war, some civil and some between each other. They come out the other end with a lot of challenges. It's harder to rebuild than to tear it down in the first place.

[legalcy]

That certainly is the truth of the universe. [He folds his arm, but keeps one hand tucked under this chin.] It's easy to destroy a society during the process of rebuilding, usually through politics.

[That is why he spent the first several years out traveling and networking instead of dealing with the situation that led to Starscream being elected leader of Cybertron. The headache of trying to understand the new rules and laws of their home planet would have been too great for the order-obsessed Minimus to stay behind.]

I take it you are from one of said islands that recently went through a conflict?

[callada]

Not recently, no. But I see a lot of it in my work, as a Marine. It's a constant effort to try and keep the peace, and since my generation's the unlucky one to have been in what they call a "golden age of piracy" since birth, well... pirates don't make that job any easier.

[He doesn't bother keeping the frustration out of his voice as he says it. The World Government has always had a lot on its plate, whether that was intervening in island conflicts or trying to protect its member kingdoms from their rivals, he knows history well enough to know that. But the world is now more chaotic now than it ever was, surely.]

[legalcy]

You're a lawman?

[Minimus wasn't a member of the old Autobot Guard, only the rebranded military group, and his position as Tyrest's enforcer wasn't the same thing as Prowl the police detective. But the similarities are there.]

Pirates. [A scoff.] Murderers and smugglers, the lot of them. It's horrid what they've done to neutral planets.

[callada]

["A lawman" - it's funny, maybe it's just the translation, but it reminds him of the terminology they had used in Scorpion's Bend when he had assisted the sheriff and his deputy. It isn't what he'd call himself exactly, but it's close enough, and so he nods. Better to leave it at that then have to go into - or fabricate - details.]

Oh, so you know the type. They're a plague no matter where they go. People have enough to worry about already without adding piracy to their list of troubles. Guess I'm not surprised your worlds have them too, though. The end of a war must give vultures a lot of opportunity.

[legalcy]

It's not just post-war. There were plenty of former soldiers that decided to take advantage of their resources to split off from the army. Much of those I arrested were such deserters, not to mention those that were able to amass their own army and enough money to start their own experiments.

[A heavy sigh.] Fortunately, they've quieted in the centuries since. There is no longer a need for...what I used to be.

[callada]

[He nods slowly, plenty familiar with the type. Marines who abandon their duties to turn pirate aren't a foreign concept to him at all, unfortunately. It isn't common, or if it is, he doesn't hear about it, but it does happen from time to time. And when they're caught, the government is quick to make an example of some of them. Worse than a villager turning pirate is someone breaking from the ranks of their fellow Marines to pursue crime and injustice.]

I'm glad that times are changing for the better in your world. I'm sure it's a slow process, but every moment of it counts.

[legalcy]

Slow to us, unchanging to the species that live shorter lives. Our reputation as a violent species has yet to disappear.

[But it's starting to do so. The Galactic Council, at least, is pleased with bots like Windblade, Prowl, and Ultra Magnus; their sentence of Megatron to life of solitary confinement has made billions happy.]

...I suppose I should celebrate the fact that we are not hated above any other alien species in this multiverse.

[callada]

[He gives a dry chuckle. Yeah, not being hated is always something to be proud of.]

It's hard to erase old grudges when they're passed on through generations. But it can be done.

[He looks at what remains of his little holiday pastry, then decides to finally just eat the rest and get it over with. Means he can free up his hands to light a cigarette.]

[legalcy]

[Minimus's own Transformer-friendly pastries have congealed, which means it's time to scrape them out of the pot and pour it into molds. It's a good time as any to celebrate a crew reunion.]

Careful with the smoke. There will be complaints about the smell if you don't stand near a vent.

[Just a quick farewell disguised as concern.]

[callada]

Probably shouldn't make everything in here smell like smoke, hm?

[He smiles a little around the cigarette as he pockets his lighter, then raises a hand in farewell.]

See you around.