opnet [OpNet] The Blue and the Gray.

[Wakinyan]

It doesn't take my visions to tell me we are heading somewhere violent. I might have slept through most of history class but I recall enough to know that trouble is brewing. When people scream at each other long enough someone will do something and it all goes to hell.

I see Novas split over what we are, should be, are becoming.

Sides are going to be taken and blood will be spilled. I see it happening already. What can be done?

[Walker]

Just a few thoughts here.

Consider that Novas general grow more powerful over time. Would it perhaps be better then to provoke conflict sooner rather than later? Would there perhaps be less damage that way? Or would an early conflict simply lay the seeds for more bitter fighting later on?

[kestrel404]

Oh now here's a cheerful topic. Yes, there is violence in our future. Heck, there's violence in our present. There's never been a time in human history WITHOUT violence of some form or another.

Baselines and novas will survive. There will be bitterness, and anger, and hatred. Life will go on, perhaps with some borders changed, perhaps with a few new countries.

There are a few possibilities that I can see that would be really bad.

If the conflict becomes so violent, bloody, and viscious that humanity and novadom attempt to wipe each other out, then both species will die. Some novas might survive, but we breed so slowly and live so violently that as a species we won't survive without them (especially after the heavy losses of a war).

Or, the conflict instills a complete and total mutual hatred, enough to force us off the planet. We're the first people that can be marched right off the planet by hostile neighbors. Humanity will most likely survive. I'm not so sure about novas. But I feel both will be diminished without the other.

[Jager]

This that this is more analogous to a classroom full of teenagers with Submachineguns. Imagine there are multiple antfarms in that room that the class has some association with (nurturing, hating, or studying them). Imagine most of those kids drinking way too many sugar-filled, caffinated drinks.

(Yes, I feel that much of who we are still goes back to high school. A few of us outgrow it, but most of us do not.)

Walker, the fight will come when a sizeable enough minority of us no longe care what happens to the baseline majority of the planet. A few novas want to take the fight to the baselines right now. They would be crushed.

Put it this way; how many novas who don't give a crap one way or another about humanity still spend money, go to clubs, and like living large off the world?

How any of them are going to be righteously pissed when someone upsets their party?

They are not going to care what your politics are. They are going to care that no one is picking up the trash in front of their homes and that their bath water is either non-existant, or cold.

[Wakinyan]

I hate to say this but the war I see coming leaves humanity for the most part as the helpless victim. Sure they will try and fight but unless they come up with some Quantum Dampening Fields and Node destroying viruses they really don't have much of a chance.

The issue is how we as a race will split. Some think that humanity has ensalved Novakind. So they view their actions as efforts for freedom. Others think they owe something to humanity or are still among it. So the war is not going to be Human vs Nova. It will be Nova vs. Nova.

I don't relish the thought of the day when I have to decide on which side of the battlefield I will stand. But I know neither side will just let me stay out of it. Most likely because of the way I look my lot has already been decided.

[Jager]

Totem, if it was that simple.

Will you try to save your tribe from extermination?

Will you protect taint-ridden novas who aren't as combat-capable as you?

Who will you risk yourself to protect, or avenge?

Who will support you, and for how long?

Wait! Am I just being paranoid again?

[Dreamer]

Well, to know the horrors of mankind can do. I Envy all of you. You weren't alive to truely know how small we all are. You have only heard stories,and seen shadows of the past. You were not there,to see what desperate people will do in desperate times.

[Jager]

Dreamer, exactly what horrors have you born witness to? Please enlighten us.

[Dreamer]

Well, I spent my first five years of life in Eastern Europe the midst of the war to end all wars. I spent six years being a nurse with English in the War. I think that should be enough to tell you that I have seen,more than enough.

[Long]

Dreamer you forget that there is a fair number of elites on this forum, and many have walked through the fires of battle.

[Dreamer]

Long, tell yourself that you have seen war in the same light,and the same scale.

[billy Horrorshow]

"My war wound is bigger than your war wound". Very mature.

Umm. Totem? You're scaring me man.

[Wakinyan]

It's scaring me too.

Keep in mind this isn't something I want. But I don't see cooler heads prevailing in the end.

[billy Horrorshow]

Dude, I blame the tree. You're going all Myopic on us.

Edit (since no one read the old papers): Myopsia, 2nd Nova to commit suicide. Apparently something to do with seeing the future. A bit morbid but applicable.

[Sakurako Hino]

This is far too complex for just a simple "North vs South" analogy. There are so many interests that pull Nova society that it's suprising we haven't flew apart completely. If there is any threat, it's to ourselves.

If Novakind ever united. No one could ignore us.

But, what agenda would a unified Nova society champion? Bah... all theoreticals.

[Wakinyan]

Maybe I am over simplifing. But it all comes down to the one core arguement I have seen time and again on here. I never see anyone relenting or compromising on it.

I don't want to even bother trying to look forward to see if I am right, I don't want to be. It just seems obvious as things stand now.

[Edward]

I find the idea of a war very frightening. I would hope we would be able to get together and agree on how to run things without needing a war to do it. Yes, many will have to die if they won't change their ways but that really isn't a war. It's just good sense.

[Jager]

Cull, I find the amount of planetary devastation resulting from a nova battle to be very frightening.

I agree that many have to die, but just how much of the flora and fauna buying it that it takes to make both sides happy is still up for debate.

Cull, how about this? For every life you take, a bio-diverse acre of the globe is flash-fried. Before long, there won't be any baselines left to assail your sensibilities, which is good because there won't be any place left for them to live either. Sounds really stupid, but we all have to make our stands somewhere, right?

[Edward]

I don't underwstand. Why would an acre be flash-fried? I know that when I kill people there is very little disturbence. Usually not even many screams.

[Wakinyan]

Because the people you kill don't fire Gamma Radiation Beams or Inifinity Justifiers etc, etc at you as they try to defend themselves.

[Edward]

Oh. Novas.

Why would I kill a nova?

I never have killed a nova. I have never even fought a nova.

I just kill people.

[Count Janos Rakozi]

Eh? What does this do?

[Jager]

Let me put it this way to you, Cull.

Your actions may bring about rather irrational responses in others. The meaning being that if you do this bad thing over here (kill a person), they will do something you don't like over there (destroy a section of uninhabited land). Tit for tat, so that all the world is blind.

You place a high value on environmental health and a low value on sentiant life. Different people have the opposite viewpoint.

[Edward]

That is disgusting. Because I protect the planet other people may attack it more?

I do not know. That is unpleasant.

[Jager]

Some novas devote themselves to protecting baselines. I imagine they find your actions pretty disgusting.

Other novas simply don't like you trying to change their worlds and are willing to take it out on something you hold valuable.

When you resort to violence to get your way, expect violence in response.

If you try to train a dog, expect it to offend someone, somewhere.

[billy Horrorshow]

Hell, Cull's motivated me to litter more that usual.

And while Cull eats people for the environment, keep in mind he also does it for their money and their condos as previously posted by him. That I respect or at least understand. Everything else he says just gets a McChicken Sandwich wrapper thrown out my car window by me.

[Cody]

Won't have no truck with thieves. Can't stand the type.

[Neil Preston]

I think the ultimate justice for Cull is that he attempts to eat an unerupted nova, who forever after takes the cannibalistic attempt very personally.

[Vox Via]

Neil, you would call that Justice? You would call the death and scaring of another nova Justice?

You forget that killing the one behind the actions that damaged your world will not put all the pieces back into their places. Killing Cull will not bring anyone back from the dead.

[Gerald Haney]

Okay, can I ask a question?

Why so many crazy folks show up here? There were a bunch back in the day and now I'm seeing a new batch of crazies.

There some kinda nut magnet here?

[billy Horrorshow]

Gerald I only came here about 6 months ago and even I know the answer to that one.

Quote:

Originally posted by Gerald Haney:

There some kinda nut magnet here?

Yes.

[Cody]

Give a body a place he say anything at all and he most likely is going to do it.

[Edward]

I am not a thief.

[kestrel404]

Cull, if you kill someone and then take their property, then you are a thief (not to mention a murderer).

[Jager]

Cull isn't a thief if you are willing to accept that no one owns anything.

[Walker]

All property is theft, Karl Marx I believe, or was it Groucho.

Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor. Well obviously you steal from the rich because they're the only ones with things worth nickin'. Makes sense to give some money to the poor because you're relying on them to shield you from the authorities.

Remember it's only theft if you intend to deprive someone of something for ever. Therefore I am not a thief either because they know where their whaling ship is and they're welcome to go pick it up.

[Proteus]

Wait. That was you?

If you're talking about the moon thing, for what it's worth I think they did pick that up. Or something to the effect. Office talk is sketchy sometimes.

If you're who I think you are you have some interesting people very interested in you.

[Walker]

Quote:

Originally posted by Proteus:
Wait. That was you?

Yeah I was trying for some nice tabloid headlines without going over the top by leaving people on it, which would have got entirely the wrong sort of headlines.

I tried to tip off some English tabloids but they couldn't run the story due to it being contrary to Section 5, Subsection 2a of the Nova Terrorism Emergency Powers Act, reporting restrictions, 2014 (Thank you very much Prime Minister Coward) so it didn't work out quite as well as I planned.

[Jager]

What was the point you were trying to make?

Have you ever considered the reason behind the NTEPA, and why is applies to you?

[Walker]

Jager The point was, I think, that harpooning stuff and running 200,000 volts up it's arse isn't very scientific. Wasn't why I was doing it. But it was the point.

My mention of the usual draconian UK legislation as it concerns Novas was me just moaning because...

[begin rant]

1: I'd forgotten that the Neo-Torys had

got in under please call me Martin, Coward. Yeah I know I shouldn't haven't forgotten something like that.

2: That they had rammed the Bill past the House of Lords while they were sleeping via the Parliament Act 1949.

3: I used to like living there.

It applies to me because the British Government don't like the fact that Novas who engage in activities that fall outside of the law are still 'hero worshipped' by the tabloids.

It is also fair to say that His/Hers Majesty's Government are alarmed by the fact that when the previous administration passed a law requiring Novas to unmask in public, if requested to do so by a member of the local constabulary or other recognised authority of the Crown, a fair percentage of the 'underclass' reacted my wearing masks in public even when they weren't a Nova.

Was this anything to do with the fact that THE SUN had a Page 3 model that was a (reported) Nova, had enormous tits (well obviously) and wore a mask...

Hey, didn't some pip-squeek Royal erupt?

[End rant]

Yeah, wish I'd researched it proper before I did it. Yes I do. Consider myself proper contrite. so I do sir.

Unfortunately I only 'researched' that I was gonna get away with it and that no one was gonna get killed.

Oh well, must try better next time