(no subject)

[condemns_to_live]

The key to power...is patience.

Comments

[ss_buttcrack]

What are you, a fortune cookie?

[condemns_to_live]

How...concise. Such a pity, Crichton, that you never actually applied your intelligence to said patience. Your ideals could have been imprinted on the galaxy.

[ss_buttcrack]

Sure, with your loving guidance, eh Grasshopper?

[condemns_to_live]

[The sigh is that of a teacher put upon, yet again, by a particularly recalcitrant pupil.]

I have no inclination towards such things, John. I believe you know this, underneath your justifications for refusing to aid in my efforts to eliminate the threat to our universe.

[ss_buttcrack]

[Keep that energy, Scorpy, the dunce hat ain't coming off this boy's head anytime soon.]

Our? Nuh-uh. This is your pet revenge project.

[condemns_to_live]

It was. But the moment you gained wormhole knowledge, you became inextricably entangled in it.

Do you think, so long as there is a single Scarran left alive, that you will ever know rest?

[ss_buttcrack]

Why is it that they know about me in the first place? HM? Oh, right, because of you!

[nouskaiananki]

A lesson well learned.

[condemns_to_live]

And one all too infrequently taught.

[nouskaiananki]

Is it? My entire galaxy learned this, a plan at least two hundred years in the making, come to fruition.

[condemns_to_live]

[At that, there is a slight smile.]

I doubt that, very much. I doubt your galaxy learned anything about that plan.

If, as you say, this was the culmination of two hundred years worth of patience - I very much doubt the master hand behind it would want there to be any trace of their movements left behind.

It would prevent...replication.

[nouskaiananki]

The masters behind it? No. The Sith now running their Republic? Yes they are aware.




Or of one of us anyway.

[condemns_to_live]

[Ah.]

The one whose strings are still being pulled, I take it?

[frellme]

As long as you're willing to wait quietly.

[condemns_to_live]

A talent that I have been forced to cultivate.

[He breaths in between his teeth, the sound hissing just a tiny bit.]

A talent that you, in your way, have learned as well.

[frellme]

Fortunately for me, I'm not looking for power.

[ She doesn't play those games, and she is far too aware of his methods to engage. ]

So what is it you're hoping to accomplish?

[condemns_to_live]

The new status quo. One in which the Scarran threat is contained, forever.

Trillions, saved from conflict and slaughter.

[A pause.]

And do you know? You would have made a fine Admiral. I believe the term is 'fire-eater' - bold, decisive, cunning.

[frellme]

Your appraisal of my abilities is accurate and meaningless. The Peacekeepers discarded me like dren for contact with what they determined to be lesser species.

So your opinion of me, and of what you think you can do to bring peace, means nothing. You have done nothing but push for more death and more killing, and made people like me believe it was right.

I don't know what the solution is, but I know that no one vision of it without others can never be true.

[condemns_to_live]

An error that, I admit, is far too long gone to be corrected. A pity.

If there were any alternative paths, too, I would have taken them - but, as with your discarding, history is...unkind in its consequences.

And the errors compounded, and here we are - a choice of Peacekeeper or Scarran futures.

[the_cupbearer]

Well, you're not....entirely wrong.

[condemns_to_live]

Of that much, I am quite aware.

[the_cupbearer]

You're also not entirely right, and I'm not sure you are entirely aware of that part.

[condemns_to_live]

Then do explain. I have a moment.

[the_cupbearer]

Part of keeping power is patience, you are correct. But the vast majority of gaining it and exercising it is dependency. Power, practically speaking, is a function of having others dependent on you, in whatever form that happens.

Titles, offices, and even to some extent military prowess, are all only as powerful as the strength of dependency others place on their exercising. I can give you a piece of paper that says you are the god-emperor of all humanity, and it means nothing unless a fairly large chunk of that humanity is entirely dependent on you to provide for them.

[condemns_to_live]

Part of gaining it, as well. Maintaining it an entirely different proposition.

[He regards the other, carefully. Smarter than average, perhaps. Certainly more than can be seen on the surface.]

But how...enlightening.

[He'd already known that, of course. He'd never held an official title, always existed outside and beside the Peacekeeper hierarchy. Which had by itself been quite the blessing - even those with more authority than him weren't sure of their position.]