(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

[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.