station72 | [open] we could strike the chord

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[open] we could strike the chord

CHARACTERS: Anyone who wanted to go to the vigil!
WHERE: Royal Street Gaming Parlor.
WHEN: DAY :031
SUMMARY: Concordia honors the dead. Hosts honor the dead, or maybe just do a little 007ing. As in snooping, not macking on hot ladies. ~~We hope.~~
WARNINGS: TBA.

This is here for any and all of your mingling needs. Start your own top-levels, harass each other, etc etc.

Here is what we know is happening, courtesy of our fearless mods:

The hosts will be few in a throng of relatively peaceful people. Most people in attendance are younger (30s and below) and a proportionally large number of them have some kind of physical modification, though most are relatively low-profile mods. There's also a small contingent of androids in attendance.

A low platform has been erected in front of the Royal Street Gaming Parlor and the speakers for the vigil either stand on it or, as is the case with some more high profile appearances, they speak across an extranet connection via a holoscreen projected onto the Parlor itself. For the most part the speakers are small time: a few workers from a small local chapter of Mind Life (accompanied by a few skittish looking androids), a beta block councilwoman, a Mother and Sister from a nearby Church of Lirinity. Most of them have nothing more than words of support and condolence.

Somewhere close to the middle of the vigil, Seong-Hye Ngazi, the Public Security Commissioner for Concordia, speaks via extranet connection. She seems somber, competent, but also confident, and speaks about condolences for the losses, regret for the circumstances of the attack, and Public Security's dedication to finding the party responsible for the attack.

Otherwise: it's your fairly standard memorial gathering. Poems are read, some tears are shed, there are some people with signs and a small contingent of rabble rousers on the fringe of the gathering that quickly get chased off by Public Security, etc. You're welcome to create and interact with your own NPCs if you feel so inclined!

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i. we don't need no revolution
[ You'd hope nobody would be crass enough to mess with a remembrance for the dead.

You'd hope, but Sam is completely unsurprised to see the people with signs hanging at the edge of the gathering. There are all the kinds of slogans he'd expect: HUMANS FOR HUMANS, YOU WOULDN'T CRY FOR YOUR MICROWAVE, and whatnot - but there are a couple he's not quite sure how to parse, and he squints at them, frowning.

To the eyes of anyone around, he looks like he's simply disapproving - which he is - but there's also a very important question to be answered here. ]

( So, is "krutz" like the Concordian equivalent of the f-bomb? )

[ Priorities. ]

ii. i see your lips moving but all i hear is bullshit
[ The speeches are actually the biggest reason Sam thought it was worth coming, even if he does also agree with what's happening on a purely emotional level. Honoring the dead is good. But figuring out how to keep Concordia from having to honor more of them? Even better.

So while the absolute sincerity of most of the speakers is a good thing, objectively, it's also kind of a letdown, from the perspective of "important people usually run their mouths at these things and maybe some of them are just trying to talk the talk and divert suspicion." Which might have been kind of a long shot anyway, but if you throw enough things at the wall, eventually one of them has got to stick, and Sam's still trying to come up with more things to throw.

He's been paying attention through all of it - much better attention than you'd expect a fifteen-year-old boy to have for this kind of thing - but it's wearing on him, and by the time Seong-Hye Ngazi is speaking, his posture's starting to slouch and it takes him active effort to keep his eyes on the screen -

- until halfway through her speech, he tenses up, and practically snaps back to attention.

He's got a feeling about this one. ]

[Mara has refused to let herself do anything but hit the ground flat footed. There are some serious questions she wants answered, but she doubts anything will go her way if she doesn't prove herself useful to this organization. As soon as she's arrived, she's been furiously researching the planet, its people, their culture. All of that has lead her to this memorial.]

[She feels something twitch in the crowd, and realizes belatedly that it's not the Force, but this new alternate, the mental invasion. But it goes both ways. It can be useful.]

[In the crowd, Mara is fairly camouflaged, dressed conservatively in muted colors. But to the Nest, she may stand out like a livewire, burning brightly with her own anger and frustration. She's noticed the boy she's apparently connected to, and uses the connection to redirect her frustration into an arrow pointing at her. Notice me.]

[She looks toward him and cocks her head to the side, slightly raising her eyebrow.]

[ He feels it before he sees her - and there's just a tinge of relief when he does, because Sam's control is horrible and he's been feeling at least a little self-conscious about radiating angry, frustrated teenage angst all over the Nest. But if someone else is doing it, then hey - makes him look a little better right?

Or at least a little less bad.

A moment later, he's able to pick her out, and...well, maybe that's a subtle signal to break off so they can talk and maybe it isn't, but he's glad for any excuse to get out of the crowd anyway, because Seong-Hye Ngazi's speech is giving him that same weird seasick feeling that he's been coming to realize means his bullshit detector is kicking into high gear.

(B-movies and comic books never warned him that the weird alien slug in your head might make you want to puke every time someone around you lies. He would really have liked to know about that part up front.)

So he starts picking his way through, muttering a few apologies under his breath when he steps on people's toes, ducking under tall people's arms, until he's at the edge of the crowd. ]

[Good, the kid's subtle. If these are to be her allies through this... whatever this is supposed to be, at least they're not all complete incompetents. Mara follows after waiting a few seconds, intending to make their exit a little less obvious.]

[She sends a quick message through the mental link, though it's like stretching a muscle she doesn't like having. Just similar enough to the Force to confuse her senses and make her training worthless. So the message she sends is scrambled and messy, sending a spike of her annoyance, and her approval of Sam's tactics.]

( By that awful green gazebo. )

[He'll find her waiting there, pretending to check a datapad.]

[ Some of the spectators at the Royal Street Gaming Parlor had been there only to see her. It is a strange position to find herself in. She does not quite mourn them, that emotion is a thing of her distant past. She has seen too many die, and far more gruesomely. Indeed, when the explosion had first rung her loose, when the awareness of Anakin's death had been there viscerally but not quite understood... she had been disappointed not to die. She has been waiting for that fiery ending all of her life. With her wounds tended to and her mind better at ease, she has shaken off that fatalism.

But while she has recovered, she has a certain understanding that the people of Concordia will not have. That is why the act was meaningful, and if she is to carry on pretending to be one of them, she knows she will have to express some kind despair for them.

As she prepares to go to the vigil, she spends a long time staring at herself in the mirror. It is an unusual experience, she had spent most of her life with no concept or care for her looks beyond the fact that she was told she was beautiful. Here she spends time on the farce of it all, brushing hair hair into a fountain of silk, darkening her lips and lashes, pulling on another of her white dresses. Her awareness of the manipulativeness of her pretty face and her pretty voice is strong. Fascinating in its power, repugnant in its falseness.

She goes to the vigil, and even without trying shows a somber expression. Though if any of these people knew her well, they would that she carries her tired sadness with her always. She answers with meaningless platitudes when asked about her views on the bombing, gives her condolences to the families. She has grown very good at saying nothing at all in her time amongst the Concordians, truly only furthering her belief that they are a petty, shallow breed.

She cannot wait to be away from her. She dreams of the circle gardens back on the Station.

Finally, when asked to give a short tribute to the dead, she is... unsurprisingly prepared. She knows just such a tune, and she sings it softly into a microphone, ]

My cruel friend is a funeral bell...

[ Somewhere in the middle she realizes she is genuinely moved. It rushes up on her like a wave, her cheeks flushing with the emotion. It looks good to the journalists, who hear it in her voice and snap their pictures. When it is done she hurries away from the crowd to be alone. Quite a performance, though she wishes it were only that. ]

Edited 2016-08-26 03:03 (UTC)

[ Subtle is usually the last word most people would apply to Sam, but he's not incapable of it even if he much prefers the direct and flashy approach. Being undercover for a few weeks, he's already about ready to burst at the seams with the desire to just go out into space and shoot at something instead of all this cloak and dagger stuff.

But if he's learned anything in his short life, it's that nobody really gives a crap about what you want. ]

( "Awful" is too good a word for that. )

[ Not the most distasteful thing he's found here, but man, it's up there.

He meanders over like he's just looking for a place to chill out - which isn't entirely inaccurate, really, because somewhere to sit that isn't listening to the Public Security Commission droning on is sounding pretty good right now - and backs up to the gazebo, grabbing the railing and hoisting himself up to sit on it. ]

Wow. Ugly and uncomfortable.

[Mara grins. If you have nothing nice to say, come sit by her.] Concordians are known for many things, [she says airily,] and architecture is none of them.

[Which marks them as people from out of town, not offworlders. Neat enough.]

I don't think we've met. I'm new in town.

I haven't been around too long myself.

[ Just about three weeks now, was it? Not that any of them have been around all that long.

It seems like they've gotten a lot of new arrivals lately, though. Like they're hatching overtime to make up for the two weeks of nothing after Sam woke up. ]

I'm Sam.

[Mara commits it to memory, and wonders idly if he told her his real name or the alias he was given. Regardless, she's not about to share her name and potentially break her cover. Yes, it's unlikely anyone who knows her alias is within hearing distance, but she's not taking any chances. It only takes one slip before she has to start all over again from the ground up.]

[So, naturally, she gives her alias.] I'm Frey. [She gestures to the crowd.] What do you think of all this?

[ Honestly, Sam's still not sure what to make of this mission. If he had to pick a side, yeah, hands down he'd be in favor of AI rights. Even after everything with Vision and Rhodes - well, Sam still thinks of the guy as a friend. More importantly, he thinks of the guy as a guy. As human as you can be when you're an AI put in a body made by another, more murderous AI along with a super genius and a Norse god.

Sometimes Sam misses the days where that didn't make sense to him.

But that's not the point. The point is that Sam doesn't know why they're here on some planet he hadn't even known existed, interfering with politics and whatever the hell else. It doesn't seem so much trying to stop this ultimate evil enemy as acting on someone's agenda, and Sam's had more than enough of other people's agendas.

And yet he's here anyway, out of respect for Skywalker and what his loss meant to his brood, to the rest of them - and because he knows at least a couple of his own broodmates will be here.

Sam can admit that he's maybe a little bit protective.

So he's keeping an eye out, both for them, and for any sign of something out of place. ]

( The perpetrators are always supposed to go back to the scene and show up at memorials, aren't they? See anyone that looks suspicious? )

[ the relative feeling amongst them wasn't just something that was produced because of the tragedy. there was a name that hung in the air that giorno didn't know (anakin) that was whispered in the connections he has amongst them. he catches strains of private anger and sadness.

giorno himself is not a praying man, and had never seen the use of it ever since he was a child, but he'd like to hope that a repeat of this wouldn't be necessary.

he is scanning the crowd in muted fascination, blue eyes eyeing them quietly as he follows the lights and listens to the low buzz coming from the modifications in the crowd. he sees a few familiar faces but keeps his distance for the most part, preferring to observe in silence. when he sees sam snap in attention at the sight of the public security commission, he frowns in thought. ]

( Are you alright? )

Edited 2016-08-27 02:39 (UTC)

( Sometimes. But something this big can be easily made impersonal, for any mercenary.

On the other hand, it is also an occasion to observe the ones who were willing to go in the first place. )

[ it is awkward to be in a vigil where neither of the politics made sense to him, but a life lost is a life lost, no matter what; and there have been plenty of them lost in the crossfire here. he feels a righteous, helpless sort of anger surge into him that he caps ruthlessly and squashes to the back of his mind. this is not his war, he has to remind himself. he cannot save everyone. ]

[ she is more popular than he expected. he keeps his distance from her as she talks to the press and gives her well-wishes to anyone who seems to need it; though he remembers what she'd said about concordia and its people back in the station. giorno's face is rather somber as he watches the crowd, and watches her sing. her voice is pretty good. ]

( That was lovely. ) [ he reaches out to her when she is done and she is mostly left alone by the press or some of the ones in the crowd who are familiar with her name. ] ( For a place you certainly don't care much for, you carry yourself well in a crowd. )

[Memorials are such feeble affairs. Pale gestures made to satisfy the living, not the dead. In the early years of the New Republic he'd attended more than a handful at his mother's side, another disconnected spectator that— like nearly everyone else in attendance— couldn't truly relate to the solemn sorrow sweeping through a select, sorry few.

In spite everything that he's lost, this feels no different.

Too many pay placid respects, scraping up some stored amount of empathy as electronic slivers of glass are lit, gifts left beside them while public figureheads put a voice to the tragedy. It's unsatisfying, to say the least. If not for the fact that he feels the weight of foreign eyes on him (less now than there were before), he'd likely keep to the fringe and hunt for a viable mental thread amongst the crowds. A glimpse of something malignant needing his attention before it festers, as it had during the finals. Instead, he's forced to seek some semblance of anonymity within the herd— a feat that's less than easy when Ren's well over six feet tall with a scar that runs across almost the entirety of his ~~gigantic, dumb~~ face.

Anakin's saber is kept at his hip throughout. Secured with a clip and gripped tightly by his right hand as insurance against either curiosity or greed. It lives with him now, and he doesn't so much as lie down to find sleep without ensuring that it still remains in his possession.

Unlike its twin, the double left to Ahsoka after Anakin's death, this one feels right. The more time spent in its company, the more certain he is of it. Of everything.]

[ She does not turn to look at him, but her back does straighten slightly as she feels the touch of his thoughts. Her emotions scramble to compose themselves, to rebuild the careful wall of removal she keeps. ]

( It is not difficult. They like that I do not give much away. It gives them something to talk about. )

[ Now that the youngest of their Sams has explained something of the celebrity and tabloid culture to her, she sees that particularly clearly. ]

( The less I expose the more intrigued they are, and all I must do to assure them I am who I claim to be is sing for them. )

[ Sam picked a spot right in the middle of things - right in the middle of the crowd, with a good view of the speakers. And for a while, that works out just fine, even if he hasn't really heard anything worth worrying about. A lot of condolences and a lot of talk about how to honor the memory of the dead and a lot of stuff that runs together after a while, and all of it sincere.

All of it until the Public Safety Commission speaks, at least.

Even the first part of that doesn't really stick out in his mind, but when she starts talking about the investigation, he feels that weird tinge of nausea that he's really starting to hate, the one that he's pieced together means there's something rotten in the state of Denmark.

And try as he might to keep listening, get as much as he can out of it - he also doesn't really want to lose his lunch on the person in front of him, so he starts weaving between the people blocking his way to the edge of the crowd. Maybe he shouldn't have planted himself so close to the middle.

Maybe he shouldn't have been trying to look at the screen even while he makes his retreat, because that might've kept him from running smack into Kylo Ren facefirst. (Which puts his face somewhere in the vicinity of Ren's chest. Sam is not a tall kid.) ]

[He's not sure what's going on here. Being tossed into this whole thing blind, he hasn't had much of a chance to figure out where is where and what is what. Something dire happened at this place. Death -- because what else would a vigil be for?]

[Information is mostly why he's here. There was an attack -- he's gathered that. But why? How come there are so many robots here? Those... he's not sure what to make of those. The only robots he'd ever run across were the Gladiator in the castle, Pidge's late Rover, and, well... half the Galra sentries. Needless to say, they put him a little on edge.]

[So he keeps his distance. Hanging on the fringes of the crowd, and just watching. Quietly. Trying to blend into the background by virtue of sticking with black clothing. Once you had a motif to go with, it was sort of hard to break.]

[Of course, being on the edges means when said rabble rousers show up, they're going to inevitably jostle him.]

[One hopes matters are sorted before Public Security arrives.]

[Bruce had told Sam that he would be attending the vigil, and anyone who casts a cursory glance over the gathered crowd would spot him easily enough. He's spent a majority of the time people-watching, occasionally putting on a courteous face for conversation towards anyone who may approach; but reliably, Bruce's seriousness seems proper for such a somber occasion. A vigil, he thinks, at times feels an awful lot like a funeral, and the grief wrought from many of the attendee's expressions makes empathy churn in the pit of his stomach.

The fact that they had lost one of their own as well made it impossible to completely detach himself from the pull of ambient sorrow, but he doesn't try to. He uses it to propel him forward, as further motivation to see if there's any information to be gleaned here -- and if not, then at least he's paid his respects.

When Seong-Hye Ngazi is making her speech, he feels a twinge of something, and his focus is pulled from the screen to the crowd. He catches a familiar face, and how Sam's body language drastically changes is clearly noticed.

Bruce pauses only briefly, then tugs at the thread of their connection. Though, he lacks subtlety -- it's more of a jolt trying to get the young man's attention, rather than a polite knock. If Sam glances over, Bruce will be a bit in the back, arms crossed against his chest. His creased brow should betray his question well enough. Basically, What is it?]

Edited 2016-08-28 03:02 (UTC)

[It can't be helped. Even with the advantage of foresight, within the thickest portion of the crowd, there's nowhere for Ren to go: Sam flees, Ren stays— and the two meet with a resounding thud.]

Watch it. [Is the helpful, brotherly advice that comes out, gritted through set teeth in response to his aching ribs (he presses a hand to his side to check - but the wound Rey had burned into his chest has long since healed enough not to reopen without a more direct impact). Satisfied, Ren's attention then drifts from himself to Sam, voice softening by little more than degrees as he registers discomfort hanging thick in the air between them.]

—What is it? What do you feel? [Aside from sick to your vertically challenged stomach, that is.]

[ Katie has mostly the same feeling about these proceedings as Sam does. She feels sorry for the people that were apparently lost when someone decided to set off a bomb, but this still isn't her planet. She does want to help, though. Aside from being a purely practical matter, she was (is) a paladin because helping people is something she finds important. This is all brand new to her, though, so she doesn't quite pick up on some of the more interesting facts and differences. It's her first time mingling. Give her a break.

She still picks up on his emotional change from halfway across the crowd. She turns to scan in his general direction, frowning. Pidge doesn't want this in her head. That doesn't mean she won't react to it. ]

( What's wrong? )

Edited 2016-08-28 02:15 (UTC)

[ Oh.

Well, that could've been worse. Maybe not by all that much, but it could've been worse. There's a lot less to explain to Ren than there would be to most people.

(And honestly, Sam would feel less guilty about puking on him than on most people, too.) ]

She's full of it.

[ Under his breath, through gritted teeth - it's quiet enough that nobody around them is likely to hear, but what's not there in volume is made up for by the mental link. There is definitely something fishy about the Public Safety Commissioner, even if he can't pin it down any more precisely than that. ]

[ If pressed, Sam would justify using his real name with the fact that if they're so far out of his corner of the galaxy that nobody's even heard of the Nova Corps, there's definitely no way anyone's heard of Sam Alexander, so as long as the name doesn't sound weird to local ears, it'll blend in just fine.

But really, Sam just hates the cloak and dagger stuff. Going undercover with a different name is just one more thing for him to forget and mess up. ]

They did a nice job putting this together? Everyone seems really genuine.

[ But he follows that up on the mental link, trying to keep it clear and concise, since her messages seem...rough, somehow. ]

( Except the Public Safety Commissioner. Something's weird about her. )

[ God, that was probably more obvious than he should've been, wasn't it? Or is that only within the Nest? Maybe he wasn't...too abrupt, for someone who couldn't feel the mental snap and could only go by his posture.

He hazards a quick glance in either direction, and is relieved to find that none of the locals seem to have noticed his sudden discomfort, or if they have, they don't seem to care. ]

( Yeah, I just... )

[ Too bad this power doesn't come with an instruction manual. Or Cliff Notes, for everyone else. ]

( Something's off. With what she's saying. )

[ That gets another twitch, another shot of tension, and Sam's head snaps around to look -

...ah. Bruce really blends in, doesn't he? The implied question is obvious, but he doesn't look out of place at all. He's subtle.

Subtle. Really not Sam's strong point.

He shifts his gaze forward, back to the screen, and tries to ignore the churning in his stomach. Be cool. You're just another sad person who's eating up everything she's saying. (As if.) ]

( She's lying. )

( Sorry. Not too good at, uh. Not thinking loud? )

[ Even with Angel having shown him her tricks for turning down the mental volume, he hasn't gotten too good at keeping it there when he's not really focused on it. ]

( But something's fishy. )

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[open] we could strike the chord

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man is kind of generous don't you think

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Rude tbh

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