They're people. Not bargaining chips. Tactical advantage or not, we should not be using their lives to further the conflict. Not when they don't have a choice on the matter themselves.
[He's not fazed by Dimitri's anger; if anything, he knows him well enough to have expected it.]
The Zenith Shardbearers are people, too. I won't pretend most of them are innocent, but I don't want to fight them unless I have to. If Yima's power to influence them comes from giving them their loved ones back, there might come a time where the best option to avoid bloodshed is to take that power away from her.
Of course, there are plenty of Meridians I wouldn't trust with hostages like that, so this is all just a hypothetical.
Taking hostages, though... Claude, that sort of thing only works if they believe you are capable or willing to do harm. Is that what you would do? Convince them that you're ruthless enough to hurt the people they care about?
[ That doesn't sit well with him. ]
...Hayame, at least, thinks the shards they have are merely a trick. Fakes. That isn't something I want to risk being wrong about, though.
Come on, Dimitri, it doesn't have to involve threats. Just something that will bring them to the negotiating table when they otherwise might not, if they think you have enough integrity to keep to your word.
Of course, it has the potential to backfire, so it's the kind of thing you'd need to deploy strategically, but I wouldn't turn down an opportunity like that if it presented itself.
[And... hm.] If you're worried about Hayame going around smashing shards, I'll talk to her. Fake or not, the fact remains they have value, and she'd be squandering it by disposing of them.
It simply isn't something I want to do. Or that I'm comfortable with being party to. Strategic or not, kidnapping or utilizing innocents for such purposes... it isn't right. If they only negotiate because they believe we are threatening someone they care about... what good is that? It's a poisoned chalice. Lasting peace could not come from such a thing.
[ He pauses. ]
I... do worry about her. I think she is a skilled warrior. I simply cannot see eye to eye with her on this.
I'm not recommending for you to do it, or that it's moral, I'm just saying it has merits as a strategy. I'm personally not that desperate, though.
[But if it could save lives or prevent fighting, perhaps... He's sensing this will just turn into a circular argument, though, so he pivots away from it.]
As for Hayame, I don't see eye to eye with her on a lot of things, honestly, but if you reason with her from a pragmatic viewpoint, she'll come around. Just leave it to me.
I might've mentioned it in passing, but that was a whole other mess in a whole other world called Horos. A lot of us go all the way back from then.
That was pretty much all-out war between the two sides, though. That's why I try to play nice with the Zenites -- we might have opposing goals, but I don't want things to get as bad as they did on Horos.
Yeah. We'd be talking a full-scale invasion of Highstorm for things to get that bad here. Right now, the Oracle stuff is kind of a war by proxy.
Of course, someone like Set wants things to get that bad here. It's his nature. If he knows you'd oppose him over something like shards, he might target them deliberately, just to provoke a reaction out of you.
...I want to like Set. We had a conversation early enduring my time here, where he talked about being despised. About how people hated him because of what he represented. I told him then - and I still believe now - that war is sometimes necessary, although never something to be sought out. But he certainly seems to thrive on chaos...
It would be one thing if he represented war, but it wasn't his true nature. Yet all the evidence I've seen so far is that he wants to instigate conflict, and he treats people like playthings... I can't abide a god like that.
I know you're a softy, Dimitri, but don't let the pity party fool you. All the mortals who suffer in war are worth a thousand times more of your compassion than him.
Well, I stopped believing in gods when I was a little kid. When you only have yourself to rely on, you figure out pretty quick what it is you want, and how to get there.
I still don't know much about your childhood, admittedly. But I understand not wanting to share. My own path was rather set, yes. Although at the time I didn't much mind...
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leicesters) wrote2022-12-06 08:26 pm
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[ There's a bit of a firm, almost angry snap. ]
They're people. Not bargaining chips. Tactical advantage or not, we should not be using their lives to further the conflict. Not when they don't have a choice on the matter themselves.
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The Zenith Shardbearers are people, too. I won't pretend most of them are innocent, but I don't want to fight them unless I have to. If Yima's power to influence them comes from giving them their loved ones back, there might come a time where the best option to avoid bloodshed is to take that power away from her.
Of course, there are plenty of Meridians I wouldn't trust with hostages like that, so this is all just a hypothetical.
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[ That doesn't sit well with him. ]
...Hayame, at least, thinks the shards they have are merely a trick. Fakes. That isn't something I want to risk being wrong about, though.
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Of course, it has the potential to backfire, so it's the kind of thing you'd need to deploy strategically, but I wouldn't turn down an opportunity like that if it presented itself.
[And... hm.] If you're worried about Hayame going around smashing shards, I'll talk to her. Fake or not, the fact remains they have value, and she'd be squandering it by disposing of them.
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[ He pauses. ]
I... do worry about her. I think she is a skilled warrior. I simply cannot see eye to eye with her on this.
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[But if it could save lives or prevent fighting, perhaps... He's sensing this will just turn into a circular argument, though, so he pivots away from it.]
As for Hayame, I don't see eye to eye with her on a lot of things, honestly, but if you reason with her from a pragmatic viewpoint, she'll come around. Just leave it to me.
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[ He has to be honest about that. ]
You seem to know her better than I do.
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Yeah. We met in the war before this one, so I'd say I have a good idea of how she ticks by now.
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[ He's mostly just a touch amazed by that. ]
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That was pretty much all-out war between the two sides, though. That's why I try to play nice with the Zenites -- we might have opposing goals, but I don't want things to get as bad as they did on Horos.
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Of course, someone like Set wants things to get that bad here. It's his nature. If he knows you'd oppose him over something like shards, he might target them deliberately, just to provoke a reaction out of you.
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I know you're a softy, Dimitri, but don't let the pity party fool you. All the mortals who suffer in war are worth a thousand times more of your compassion than him.
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[ He is a softie. He'll be the first to admit that. But he doesn't think that's necessarily wrong of him. ]
War is terrible... and I have no wish to see it happen again while I can prevent it.
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[ There's the impression of a smile. ]
I know who I am now. And I know what path I must walk.
[ You know, after all of that horrible stuff. ]
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Yeah. Gods exist to give people a path to walk, but if you have your own, you don't need to worry about being lead astray.
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[ He laughs - or it's the impression of amusement. ]
Faerghus is tied tightly to the Church. Things were... different.
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