ataraxion | [text, anonymous]

One's memories of home begin to fade. One remembers certain things: the sound of the ocean, and the nighttime city, and a sky that isn't formed from sheet metal. One remembers, perhaps, the path one took to get home. One might remember the tune of one's favorite song. But the finer details slip away. You know this place far better. The ship may be a mystery; it may shift without logic or reason; yet by this point is easier to grasp than our homes. We know the number of paces to get to side of the room to the other. We know the feeling of waking up from the Jump. We can't even hear the engines any longer because we know the sound too well. We can't remember the faces of our parents or our siblings, but we can summon the taste of those protein packs without any effort. Is that why we continue on? Do we want to get back there? Do we want to see the sky again, walk the rooms of the homes we chose instead of the home we were forced to? Some might say yes, but there will be no real pleasure to it; when we wake up, if we wake up, it will be like any other day. Do we want to return to the good works we left behind? That's a fallacy, though, because there's evidence enough that everything continued on without us, uninterrupted. Time either froze, or time never missed us at all. Things progress as though we were there. When I go back, I will turn into someone despicable. I've learned that from others. I'll forget everything I learned here, and I will bloody my hands. I will become a wretched man. And as soon as I arrive there, as soon as we're freed, that's where my life will begin again. I've spent a long time trying to determine what unites us all. Perhaps it's a single, defining character trait: we're all brought here because we are irrational survivors. Because in spite of the fact that there is nothing for us here save dreary suffering, and in spite of the fact that whether we return home or not all things will be the same, we continue on. Against reason, against logic, we continue to struggle - for the sake of the memories slipping away from us, or for the sake of some absurd misplaced sense of duty, or for the sake of simple habit. So. Why do you keep on?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Because there's no point in fighting crime in so cowardly a fashion. One must stand forth as oneself. One must be courageous, and ask for courage from others. One must show that one is unafraid to show one's face. Crime is defeated when everyone is willing to stand up to it. When no one accepts it. Because crime is done because criminals wish to have power over others. They must be deprived of power. And that is not done by acting furtively.

You're an idealist, aren't you. That sounds so very good when you put it like that, but it's not how it works. And I say that after years of dealing with the problem, and watching others deal with it. Any which way you do it, protecting people while letting them have freedom, making that protection worth it, is a reactive endeavor. There'll be new villains who'll look at what others have done before them, and try to come up with new ways to grab for power, new ways to break even the best thought-out system. There'll always be corruption and secrets, eating away the system from the inside. The furtive fight is for the times when the usual measures aren't enough. Alien invasions. Murderous lunatics with way too great an access to resources. People who live for hundreds of years and generally can't be killed, amassing great amounts of money and power, no matter how you try to counter them. It'd be so easy, if what you're saying were enough. But it's not.

Right. Because a single person in an idiotic mask hiding their identity can stand up to alien invasions, monstrously powerful people, and immortals.

Sometimes, they can. Sometimes, they don't wear a mask. Sometimes, they work together. But, yes, sometimes a single person in an idiotic mask can stand up to all that needs standing up to.

[text, anonymous]

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