= 5 =
[VOICE] [NOT ACTION I AM A LOSER SOMETIMES]
[For the record, Nina's voice here is younger sounding than most people who've met her will recognize because as opposed to her adult twenty-something year old form, she's in a teenage sixteen-ish year old form. The voice is still recognizable, just less matured]
So, this is where new people arrive, is it?
[Something taps on a wood table, and her own mood is mercurial, so after a pause, she begins a story] Once upon a time, there was an Organization which thought that they could monitor people and push them towards a better existence. This organization did so without others knowing about it, building massive stations in orbit - that's high up in the sky, for you terrestrial types - so that they could monitor everything about the ones they were looking after. If they wanted, this Organization could change the weather or the land; they could put in plagues or ensure a fertile crop for the people who unwittingly lived their lives below them. They had lofty statements here and there about how their goal was to ensure that things worked out for their charges, or making society better, but in the end, they were looking at them as experiments to be spied on, or maybe a reality show on some extranet.
[A pause as she laughs. Oh, it's funny to remember those times]
But this Organization was not without enemies, was it? There were black demons who besieged the edges of the territory that they controlled. It wasn't that they wanted to free the unwitting captives of that Organization - no - they were in it for themselves. Really, in an ideal world they would have killed or enslaved everyone, ensuring that they got the fight and the resources they were looking for. [Another pause, and the sound of her opening a bottle. She takes a sip of something off-camera before pressing on with a satisfied sigh] I say ideal, but who really wants to side with the monsters, right? They're the villains in every story. The Organization sure thought so - they fought tooth and nail to protect the ones they were watching over this whole time, even though they were just an experiment. Maybe they thought of them like children who needed to be looked after... or maybe they just were too fond of watching them and didn't want to give them up. I don't pretend to get it.
[Another little sigh, sip, and then a short chuckle] The demons and the Organization fought for a long, long time. So long that after a while, the Organization's warriors stopped thinking about why they were fighting - sure the experiment still mattered to some scientists here and there, but to most of them they just wanted to kill the demons any way they could know how. The demons, in turn, were prideful the way all powerful beings are. They didn't want to back down, even when they suffered alarming losses. So what if a thousand died here and there, those thousand were weaklings for having died. [Though most of this paragraph is sarcastic, the last statement is said with a sort of agreement. It's a sentiment she shares, to some extent]
You know, I can't really remember how this story ends. Anyone want to finish it for me?
[For the record, Nina's voice here is younger sounding than most people who've met her will recognize because as opposed to her adult twenty-something year old form, she's in a teenage sixteen-ish year old form. The voice is still recognizable, just less matured]
So, this is where new people arrive, is it?
[Something taps on a wood table, and her own mood is mercurial, so after a pause, she begins a story] Once upon a time, there was an Organization which thought that they could monitor people and push them towards a better existence. This organization did so without others knowing about it, building massive stations in orbit - that's high up in the sky, for you terrestrial types - so that they could monitor everything about the ones they were looking after. If they wanted, this Organization could change the weather or the land; they could put in plagues or ensure a fertile crop for the people who unwittingly lived their lives below them. They had lofty statements here and there about how their goal was to ensure that things worked out for their charges, or making society better, but in the end, they were looking at them as experiments to be spied on, or maybe a reality show on some extranet.
[A pause as she laughs. Oh, it's funny to remember those times]
But this Organization was not without enemies, was it? There were black demons who besieged the edges of the territory that they controlled. It wasn't that they wanted to free the unwitting captives of that Organization - no - they were in it for themselves. Really, in an ideal world they would have killed or enslaved everyone, ensuring that they got the fight and the resources they were looking for. [Another pause, and the sound of her opening a bottle. She takes a sip of something off-camera before pressing on with a satisfied sigh] I say ideal, but who really wants to side with the monsters, right? They're the villains in every story. The Organization sure thought so - they fought tooth and nail to protect the ones they were watching over this whole time, even though they were just an experiment. Maybe they thought of them like children who needed to be looked after... or maybe they just were too fond of watching them and didn't want to give them up. I don't pretend to get it.
[Another little sigh, sip, and then a short chuckle] The demons and the Organization fought for a long, long time. So long that after a while, the Organization's warriors stopped thinking about why they were fighting - sure the experiment still mattered to some scientists here and there, but to most of them they just wanted to kill the demons any way they could know how. The demons, in turn, were prideful the way all powerful beings are. They didn't want to back down, even when they suffered alarming losses. So what if a thousand died here and there, those thousand were weaklings for having died. [Though most of this paragraph is sarcastic, the last statement is said with a sort of agreement. It's a sentiment she shares, to some extent]
You know, I can't really remember how this story ends. Anyone want to finish it for me?