(no subject)

[initiates]

Date: June 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports arrive and are shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings. Now with 200% more People-Seeking lists!
Warnings: None.

You've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities. Now and then around you you might spot paper fluttering in the faint wind from somewhere relatively dry. It looks like a list.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium.

Comments

open, action or prose

[unkindness]

[This was hardly the homecoming Seven expected, and hardly the Earth she'd been told so many stories of, the homeworld she couldn't quite remember herself. She couldn't quite concieve of such broken-down ruins being allowed to exist on Earth in her time, her universe.

Of course, this was a thousand years in the future. Perhaps the Federation had devolved into this over time, she couldn't be sure. The briefing of this world's history hadn't gone into so much detail, but considering they were still here and not out in space made her nearly completely certain that it was indeed completely separate.

Why fight for a dying world when you can just leave it, after all? Surely humanity would not have lost warp capability within a thousand years.

Seven makes for cover, completely ignoring the merchants and their stands in favor of getting out of the rain. Her first priority is to ascertain whether she was the only member of Voyager's crew to be transported. After that...she would adapt to her surroundings. It seemed she had little choice in the matter.

She ignores the tablet she'd been given in favor of tapping the commbadge fixed to the front of her suit, to nothing but silence. She won't be doing this the easy way, then.]

[quisling]

[ Technology in his world is pretty advanced too but commbadges aren't something anyone's really thought to develop where Suzaku comes from. Wandering through the area to see if there are any other new arrivals that he would recognize Suzaku does stop when he sees the woman tapping on the pin on her suit and has to wonder what that's all about.

To an outsider like him it sure does look like odd behavior, but he still tries to be helpful. ]

Are you alright?

[unkindness]

[Seven considers various responses at differing levels of helpfulness and indifference. (At least one is snark. She discards that one almost immediately, as she tends not to let her rather dark and sarcastic sense of humor out to play with people she doesn't know.)]

I am alright.

[Physically, anyway, which is all she really wants to get into at the moment. No need to get into a discussion of her feelings with someone she doesn't know.]

[quisling]

[ He reaches up to brush some of the water out of his hair now that he's under cover and the constant rain won't make it completely pointless now. ]

Really?

[ Offering her a smile then. ]

I'm glad to hear it, though... You wouldn't happen to be one of the new Transports, would you?

[ Since she looks a little out of place at the moment. ]

[unkindness]

[not that she hardly ever looks in place. Seven inclines her head, acknowledging that yeah, she probably does look kind of lost.]

Yes, I am. My name is Seven of Nine.

[Strange name to go with a strange woman. Who also isn't very good at holding conversations, sorry Suzaku.]

[quisling]

[ She might not good be good at holding a conversation, but she's still answering his questions so that's good enough for him. Numbers like that hold a pretty big significance in his world, but he's never heard them used in a name before so that's definitely interesting if nothing else... He refrains from making any comments on it though. ]

Suzaku Kururugi. It's nice to meet you.

[ A half a seconds pause, before adding in- ]

I don't know how much the Initiative already told you, but if you have any questions about this world I can try to answer them.

[unkindness]

[For now! Just don't annoy her.

Her name's really pretty loaded back in her world too, but anyone could tell she was Borg from her implants alone. Her name would just confirm it.]

Likewise.

[It's easier for her to deal with social niceties now, but there are times she just...doesn't really want to deal with them, and being abducted through time and space ranks fairly high on that list of times. Still, she's learned the hard way it's better to be polite than to alienate people.]

I appreciate the offer. I admit, I am not as concerned about the world, as the people who brought us here.

[She can adapt to Earth, ruined as this particular example of it is. She'd rather get the dirt on the Initiative. All of it that she can.]

[quisling]

[ He'll do his best not to!

And he also can't blame her for not feeling all that sociable at the moment. It's not exactly a situation most people would be overwhelmed to find themselves in. Shoved into another world and told to fight some war that isn't there own? Definitely not gonna go over well with the majority.

The smile drops and he's looking a hell of a lot more serious now. ]

I don't know how much I can tell you about them, unfortunately. I don't think most of the people they've brought here really know that much about them in the first place.

[unkindness]

[Worth points at least.

She's never sociable. But at least here there's something in common--brought to a world not of their own, or of their choosing, against their will. Told that they were caught up in a war not their own. Nope, she's not fond of this at all.]

And yet they expect us to fight for them.

[Said with a tone of 'haha fuck that.' At least a slight one.]

[quisling]

[ Yeah, he definitely understands that feeling, but at the same time... ]

It's not a great situation, and I can't in good conscience tell you to fight with the Initiative, but I can say with some confidence the United Earth does need to be stopped. They've already invaded one world unrelated to this one, and massacred the people there. So yeah, the Initiative expects people to fight for them, and the way they bring people to this world isn't right, but I can understand the pressing need...

[unkindness]

[She has a lot of other ideas that she thinks would be more expedient--and more moral--for the Initiative to try. But they're pointless to discuss, because obviously they're not going that route.]

I suppose they are used to us refusing to fight.

[If they're not, they're gonna have to be, 'cause she's not going to.]

Whether or not I lend my assistance in other ways remains to be decided.

[quisling]

[ A frown as he tries to figure out the best way to word this one. ]

I don't think they've tried to force anyone to fight exactly, but there have been people forced to go on missions before. I'm not sure what methods they actually use to coerce people into it though, I never really had the chance to ask.

oh god so much fail I'm sorry

[unkindness]

That is close enough.

[Forcing people to intervene might have been a better phrasing on her part, for what it's worth.]

It would be a more efficient use of resources to concentrate on leaving Earth entirely, if the situation is so unfortunate, rather than using those resources to abduct and maintain a population of unwilling conscripts.

[Wow that sure is a roundabout and complicated way of saying 'this is stupid bullshit', Seven.]

No worries at all!

[quisling]

[ He sighs and shakes his head. She's not wrong to think that, but... ]

The situation isn't that easy. The United Earth isn't just targeting the people of Exsilium, they're targeting other worlds as well.

Yay <3

[unkindness]

[Seven tilts her head, going into Explaining Shit mode.]

I meant to indicate space travel, not alternate realities. It's common in my own--Earth attained the status of a warp civilization over a thousand years ago, compared to this time frame. There are Terran colonies and orbital stations throughout this region of space.

[Seriously, an alcoholic skirt-chaser invented Earth's version of the warp drive, in the anarchy that followed World War III. Seven is pretty sure the Initiative should be able to manage it.]

If nearby star systems in this reality are analogous to those in my own, and the United Earth attacks a Romulan, Klingon, or Cardassian ship, the problem would take care of itself.

[Cold, but they'd be far more advanced, especially since they'd have a thousand years headstart on Federation technology. Seven's pretty sure even the Ferengi could bust them up.]

[quisling]

[ He's not sure who the Romulan, Klingon, or Cardassians are, but he does understand what she's trying to say with this. ]

The people here don't have that kind of technology. It was only recently they got their hands on a ship that could make it into space in the first place, and considering how it crashed into the island I'm not sure how long it'll take them to have that operating like it's meant to again.

[ A pause. ]

And even then I'm not sure how far it would be able to travel.

[unkindness]

[They crashed a spaceship. Seven looks thoroughly unimpressed. Not exactly inspiring, that.]

...that certainly inspires confidence.

It would not need to go far. There are thousands of uninhabited M-class planets and moons in the Alpha Quadrant.

[quisling]

[ While Suzaku isn't that familiar with space travel, he is pretty certain her idea of far, and the idea of far for the Initiative are two entirely different things. ]

To be honest with you, I think we'll be lucky just to get to our own moon.

[100hearts]

[Law, leaving the Transporter in a much more casual sort of way, walked out towards the courtyard after taking his sword back. It was a surprise that the people there will willing to return such a dangerous thing to him, but then he was never really concerned with the behavior of others unless it could benefit him. He warped, creating his 'room' in the entire armory before vanishing, reappearing in the courtyard itself.

Standing in the middle of it, he began to approach the streets, his sword leaned over his shoulder and his gait lazy enough to be just below brisk. Really, he thought just to wander. There was nothing in the world for him, anyway. As far as he knew, it was the last living city resisting another bigger one.]

And here we have a pain in the ass of a vacation home. [He spoke to himself, briefly glancing in the way of Seven. He hardly noticed her. Everything, at the moment, was just background noise.]

[unkindness]

[Seven has stopped trying to use her own commbadge and is now experimenting with the tablet in her hands. She glances up as he speaks, able to clearly hear as a result of her enhanced senses. The comment doesn't seem directed at anyone in particular, but she's curious enough--and annoyed enough--to comment back.]

This hardly seems like a vacation.

[...not that Seven ever took them, she doesn't know what they're like.]

[100hearts]

My idea of a vacation will differ from yours.

[He answered somberly, turning his shoulders and looking directly at Seven for a moment. He had bags under his eyes, as if he never got any sleep. In his free hand, he turns on the tablet and begins to scroll through texts. He's seen computers in use at Caesar's laboratory. He's seen them used at Government meetings and by other leading scientists and doctors. Though Law had no taste for them, it seemed like this one was a freebie.]

I'm by no means normal.

[unkindness]

[Her eyebrow arches--drawing attention to the metallic implant circling it.]

Neither am I.

[She would be concerned for him--the obvious physical signs of lack of sleep, and so on--but to be quite honest...she didn't really care. Most of her attention goes back to the tablet in her hands.]

Indeed, if this 'Initiative' has any control over the targets of their abduction, it is in their best interest to take as many unique individuals as possible.

[100hearts]

It's a subjective sort of term. Clearly, whatever you 'enjoy' should become a vacation when you set time aside for it.

[In that regard, Law stretched his shoulders out a little and set his sword up against a wall as he reached up to unzip his cloak halfway down his chest. It was warm enough that he could have afforded a little more breathing room.]