NIETZSCHE; DEAD PHILOSOPHERS' INBOX

[explosivecombat]

[TEXT; LOCKED TO doitrockapella]

The offer for conversation is always open, should you desire to take me up on it; I can't guarantee that I'll respond immediately, nor will it necessarily be the response you want, but I'll always respond in some way.

In the name of enlightened discourse.

Comments

[explosivecombat]

It is, yes.

[doitrockapella]

...I think you must've cared about Major Armstrong, too, didn't you?

[explosivecombat]

I don't know if "cared about" is the right term - either way, why do you ask?

[doitrockapella]

You tried to help him. So he wasn't court-martialed, I think it was?

[explosivecombat]

Ah, that.

I wouldn't say that was done through caring; more through respect for the strength of his convictions.

[doitrockapella]

And concern, for what might happen to him if you didn't...help?

[explosivecombat]

Not particularly.

[doitrockapella]

I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

[explosivecombat]

Go on.

I want to hear what you're thinking.

[doitrockapella]

He was supposed to kill someone, had a crisis of faith, and you did it to cover for him. Something like that?

[explosivecombat]

It wasn't a matter of hesitation or simply being unable to carry out the task he was given; Major Armstrong deliberately acted in a way that would both aid and ensure the escape of those that we were assigned to destroy. It was an act of insubordination so brazen that I couldn't help but respect it; had anyone else seen it, it would have been an immediate court-martial.

However, while the act was a noble one, noble actions aren't often rewarded by this world. As such, I killed the individuals that he had assisted, but out of respect for the conviction it took to assist in the first place, I kept my silence regarding what I had seen.

[doitrockapella]

I don't know if I can reconcile my admiration for your sense of honor and my horror at your actions. I care about what happens — or what might've happened — to Major Armstrong. I'm glad he wasn't court-martialed. But at the expense of those people's lives...

But you'd said your orders were to clear the area. If it hadn't been you, it would've been someone else. It was war, and what happened to those people wasn't anything different than what would've happened to them anyway — what Major Armstrong tried to do would've made them better off than they would've been, but what you did didn't make them any worse.

I don't like that I'm even thinking about it like this in the first place.

[explosivecombat]

You understand what I was showing him far better than he did.

[doitrockapella]

I can voice the argument. Beyond that, I don't know what I think.

[explosivecombat]

It was a job, as far as I was concerned. It became something else after those red stones became involved, but at that point it was simply work.

[doitrockapella]

That's why you're the soldier and I'm not.

[explosivecombat]

It makes you unsuited to be a soldier, certainly, but it also means you're far better at being a human being than I am.

[doitrockapella]

But is being a human being something you want? I mean that in honest sincerity.

[explosivecombat]

You know, you're one of the first people to ask me that.

[doitrockapella]

And thus I've understood you a little more?

[explosivecombat]

My superior officer just deflects statements like that with replies such as "Of course, but you're different," in that way that implies he wishes I weren't; he found the way I am to be horribly creepy at the beginning, as I've heard him say as much, though I get the impression that by this point he just finds it somewhat sad. My significant other tends to say similar things - "you're different" - but in his case it seems more that he's accepted it. He seems a bit resigned, maybe, but not pitying.

The others have all either pitied me and wanted to "fix" it, or they've decided that I'm enough of a monster to not want to bother. It's interesting to see what people do with it; there's only been one other person who's asked - one of the Sage's sons. I was closer to him than the rest; we discussed things like this sometimes.

[doitrockapella]

Is that the one you had the falling-out with? The one who asked?

[explosivecombat]

No. That was someone else entirely; there were six sons total. I got on well with one of them. I answered directly to the second; he usually gave me my orders. Two were too stupid to really be worth my time; I never met the fifth. The sixth was the one I had the falling-out with.

[doitrockapella]

And the last was the daughter, who I look like.

I'm still working out what I think of the way you are, you know, but it's changed over the course of our relationship. For what that's worth.

[explosivecombat]

Is that so?

You can't just say something like that and not elaborate, you know.