un: oland | text | war relief

[toten_sie]

War is complicated. It's hard to decide what to do, where to point your gun, if you should.

But war relief is not complicated. And even now, we should think about what will come after, what will happen to people this fight are going to hurt.

I'm not very smart. And I don't know much. But there seems to be a lot of smart people here who were saved by the Natha just like me. I don't know how many of them know what it's like to be in a war, or know what happens after a war, but that part is almost worse. So I'd like to ask if we can start planning for that. I'll help, as much as I can.

Comments

text; un: spanglethesestars

[ukase]

War ain't complicated for soldiers; you follow orders and do whatever you can to win the combat situation in the favour of your faction.

And war relief is only useful to look to when you know the outcome. You can prepare for people being hurt, property damaged and lives ruined, but stability won't come without a surrender or victory.

[toten_sie]

Wars are decided by people who never have to face another person dying on their blade or from a bullet they fired and fought by the ones who do.

And all soldiers are still people.

Soldiers are still mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and brothers and sisters. And people join the military for many reasons, not always because they want to fight.

[ukase]

No. Wars are decided by the men and women on the ground slogging through the mud, dragging their equipment and their wounded. Battles are decided by tacticians, but it takes the soldier to do the leg work.

I know why people join, pal. Soldier might be people, but they are a small part to a whole, a cohesive, destructive whole. Their ain't no actual winners in war, just victims.

[toten_sie]

We're saying the same thing, I think.

And I'm worried about the victims now. Because once everything is done, we won't have time to plan. We'll have to start doing things.

[ukase]

That war sucks but it's an inevitability?

You should be more worried about preventing more victims from happening. People need to survive and then pick up the pieces with what resources are left. We won't know that until the fight is over.

[toten_sie]

No, that the people who suffer the most are the ones on the battlefield.

And I am worried about that. But I don't know how to fix that. I don't think anyone does. No one I've talked to does.

They want to do things but they don't know what to do that won't make it worse.

[ukase]

I disagree. The ones who suffer the most are those caught between two raging armies with no where to go.

You fix it by ending the war as fast as possible. It limits the suffering to a shorter period of time.

[toten_sie]

We don't disagree, though. Those people are still on the battlefield.

And how can you be so sure that that's the best way?

[ukase]

Those people are huddling in what they call what's left of their homes. To them, it ain't a battlefield. It's their home.

Because if I wasn't sure, I'd be making planning posts like this one before the battle is even done and that's not productive. Pick your battle, fight, win and then recover when it's over.

[toten_sie]

One doesn't mean the other isn't true. When your home becomes a battlefield, it changes the reality of what home means.

To ignore that is to ignore the truth of their experience.

And you think fighting is always productive? You think the only way to make things better is to kill more people?

[ukase]

You speaking from experience or watching kids starve?

I'm not a complete savage. I understand where fighting does little good to a cause, and there is a time and a place for politics. Besides, not all war is about killing.

[toten_sie]

Both.

I don't think you're a savage. I'm not asking because I think you're wrong. I've never found an answer that felt totally right.

Everyone's justice is different.

But war kills people.

[ukase]

[Okay, he might respect you just a little.]

There is no totally right answer. We all just seem to do the best we can surviving from one battle to the next in our own way, playing on our strengths.

War kills lots of people. War brings out the best and the worst of humanity.

[toten_sie]

War makes things more. More suffering. More desperation. People respond to the extremes. And afterwards, they're different.

A lot of people never really leave the battlefield.

[ He certainly hasn't. Even though he's been trying to for what feels like forever. ]

Right now, a lot of people are fighting. And they can't focus on anything else. But I know there are a lot of people who aren't fighting. And the people who aren't fighting, who are trying not to fight, they could try and start working on it.

I don't want to fight if there's something better I can do to help people.

[ That he would is unspoken, but clear enough. ]

[ukase]

A lot of people walk away from the battlefield determined to make the world a better place. If they have the strength of self, they might even go somewhere.

Some people revel in war. It's the only place they feel alive.

There are also people who aren't fighting because they don't want to choose a side in a battle they aren't personally committed to. They just have to stand back and watch and not be in the way of those that choose to fight.

Nothing will change. There will be another battle soon enough. Our worlds were consumed by the Storm and instead of taking that brush with death as a need to be better and live better, there's just more fighting. Maybe the Storm was right to consume everything.

cw for mentions of immolation

[toten_sie]

I know.

[ 'The only place they feel alive' rings inside of him a little painfully, thoughts of Hans, of that blank glass helmet and rumpled suit, the almost innocent way he spoke, the desperation, as he burned people alive to feel some warmth in his unnaturally numbed and decaying body. ]

Whether things will change, whether there'll be another battle is too big for me. I'm just a soldier.

But the suffering don't have a side. Or they shouldn't. If people here don't want to choose a side or pick up a weapon, they can pick up a blanket or start setting up a soup tent. That's what my message was about.

[ukase]

You have to want something more than the next battle. Even a soldier can want that.

You are quite the optimist in your own way. Let me know how that works out for you and your pledge for humanitarian assistance.

[toten_sie]

It's hard to see something outside the next battle sometimes.

And I will.

[ A pause, then- ]

My name's Randel. I'm in Olympia.

Good luck.

[ukase]

Then you need to work on that. Be more than a soldier sometimes.

I go by Frag. I don't need luck; I've got skill.

[That's just his codename for the network. He knows better than to give out his real name.]

[toten_sie]

I'm working on that.

And sometimes it's nice to have something you don't necessarily need.

[ukase]

Everyone needs life goals.

text; un: armstrong

[wallofbriggs]

War isn't complicated. Perhaps the reasons for it may be, but not the actual war itself.

[toten_sie]

Anything that involves lots of people is complicated.

[toten_sie]

I have a few of them.

Do you have any?

[ukase]

I did when I was on my home world. Still working on it here.

[toten_sie]

That sounds like something to work on then.

[wallofbriggs]

That is your complication. People. Not war.

War is easy. Pick a side and stick to it. Concern yourself with those people only, not those on the other side.

[toten_sie]

That just means you don't want to deal with the complication.

Not that it isn't there.

text; un: null

[cassus]

True.

People can carry scars from anything: A broken heart, cut ties or losing someone close. It's normal to call those things 'complicated'.

And yet some people exist who believe war is an exception.

[ Dazai doesn't elaborate on how he knows any of this. ]

Split second decisions and choices made in the heat of the moment are easy.

Living with what you've done and slowly moving forward is always more difficult. Surviving that is harder than rebuilding fallen cities or broken homes.

If you want to do something important after, then help someone do that.

[toten_sie]

I don't know how to do that.

How to help someone like that. How to move off the battlfield inside your head.

I wish I did.

If someone knows, I would help them with everything I have.

text - un: maxwell

[braidedwonder]

Well well look who it is again. You like to think a lot, don't ya?

You're smart enough to sit and actually think before firing on someone, so that's plenty damn smart for most people.

So far as this potential war? Until anyone starts threatening me or anyone I know with life or death? It ain't mine. I was a soldier once and I don't intend to get taken in for some grey side using half truths again. Honestly, we don't owe either side a damn thing, not even loyalty because we're barely allowed to live under their jurisdictions. Seen too many people in Wyver almost carted off to be turned in to charcoal to think any different.

Even if it means I've gotta go live in the jungle.

[toten_sie]

Everything in life is a decision. And if you don't think, you make bad ones.

I'm up in Olympia, which is

Not doing very good either. And people that I know and work with are being hurt, are living scared.

I won't fight anyone either, not for the war, but if I see people who need help, people who just want to live, and I don't do anything when I could, that's a kind of violence too. That's a choice.

[braidedwonder]

Yeah, I heard. If you ever run in to a small fish girl, red in color, help her out a little.

I have a feeling she can kick ass if she wants but she's mostly really... I don't know. Strikes me as a little... sheltered in a way.

That's fair. I've helped people I know and .. sometimes people I didn't but. I don't think even I could swallow watching someone burn up in a pyre like that. The smell of... burning in general isn't something that's easy to forget, either. If I could never smell it again I wouldn't.

[toten_sie]

Will do.

Pyres?

[braidedwonder]

Yeah.

Essentially threatening to burn people alive as a 'sacrifice'. It's.. more savage than even I was prepared for.

[wallofbriggs]

That's above my paygrade.

[toten_sie]

That's fine.

But don't deny it's there.

[toten_sie]

[ He doesn't know what else to say. ]

I'm sorry.

[braidedwonder]

It’s life. Not pleasant but what’s the other choice?

[toten_sie]

It's not a choice anyone should have to make.

[braidedwonder]

Fair. But you're talking about a bunch of people who probably don't know actual civilization yet, honestly.

Is what it is. Just teaches us to be more careful as a whole.

[toten_sie]

They have civilization.

They have rules and laws and culture. They have justice.

I don't understand their justice, but they have it.

I just wish I knew how to understand it. Or how to make it better. How to do something.

[braidedwonder]

That's the thing about 'justice' - what's good rule of law to one person may be terrible to another.

Like I said - too much thinking. Sometimes it's better to just roll with things for the time being.

[toten_sie]

What does 'rolling' with it mean?

Letting it happen?

Watching?

[braidedwonder]

As much as you can stand to.

Probably got a target on my back now cause I can't keep my mouth shut sometimes but it is what it is.

[toten_sie]

I'd rather it be on my back than anyone elses.

Or do you mean somewhere else than here?