[psl] post-mortem; closed to @destinymaker

[eschatological]

[ This office has always been quiet, but now the silence is unnaturally absolute. The usual ambient sounds have all vanished — the muted rumble of feet and serious voices beyond the door, the hum and crackle of electronics, the omnipresent pulse of Aprilius’s environmental support systems. But, then again, there’s no reason for the environmental support systems when the familiar noises of breath and heartbeat have ceased as well.

Two armies of chess pieces lie toppled and abandoned on the floor, leaving the low table bare save for the empty board. Rau sits languidly on one of the two wide sofas with his chin in a gloved hand. Even though he’s corporeal now (or as corporeal as anything in this scene, which is to say, gentlemen of the jury, ambiguously), the dim light and the white of his mask and uniform combine to give him an uncanny, still-ghostly appearance. He shows no interest in the scattered chess pieces. Instead, he is waiting very patiently, intently, for.... ]

Comments

[destinymaker]

[ They're dead and nothing matters. It is unfortunately entertaining.

Gil pulls his hand back as though nothing happened. ]

It's the disadvantage of living on artificial ground. The Earth will always contain room for population to hide away in, but space is not so forgiving. We fled this far, but it only put us into a new kind of peril.

[eschatological]

People who live in glass hourglasses shouldn't throw stones.

[ A lesson that Rau will not take to heart, but resorting to acerbic aphorisms is easier than processing thoughts on headpats. And then, a little more distantly: ]

With infinite time and infinite paths -- wouldn't it be extraordinary if, after everything, this was the only path that lead to something other than annihilation?

[ Could have fired on the Archangel despite Lacus, could have not baited Mwu and the Archangel into surviving JOSH-A, could have withheld the N-Jammer data, and PLANT would have stirred up more hatred from the Earth than anything Break The World managed.

He's going to be so annoyed if he accidentally saved the world if it would have destroyed itself without him. ]

[destinymaker]

[ That does make Gil fall quiet for a moment. It's a hypothetical that hits him as well, if he extends it just a little. What an idea it is. All other paths leading to destruction, his utopia forever out of reach.... and yet, through such failure the world can thrive. Or at least survive.

He doesn't know how to feel about that, so he suspects Rau doesn't either. ]

"Part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good."

[ this quote is so much catchier in german... ]

You'd make a good Mephisto, if this were the case.

[eschatological]

And you, the striving scholar led astray? That's dramatically self-aggrandizing or dramatically self-deprecating.

[ Not complaining about being cast as a devil is also dramatic, but, well, Rau was semi-complaining about not frying the planet six comments up. To the broader topic: ]

Humans and devils alike, we move toward a future we cannot see.

[ Though even accounting for non-omniscience, it really is absurd to try for mutual annihilation and end with mutual relative forbearance, when there are so many ways humanity could have shot itself in the foot! ]

[destinymaker]

[ Gil hardly sees himself as a Faustian figure, but he can't deny that he thought some surface level parallels were strangely appropriate. A scientist, a lost lady love... and a devil for a friend, brought to him by the unsatisfiable human thirst for knowledge and progress.

In the end, he just shrugs at Rau's accusation and decides to focus on the second half. ]

It was hard work to stabilize the PLANTs after all that happened. Without the Clynes, the Zalas, or even you... Well, it made switching into politics full time an easy task. Everyone was desperate for a calm voice and reassuring words.

Maybe I ought to apologize to you for stepping in instead of letting the post-war chaos run its course. Or maybe Lacus Clyne would have returned much earlier had I not done as much?

[ It is a little funny that Rau had been such a large motivator for Gil to take a position in the government and work towards a better future. Whatever Rau himself thinks and believes, he makes the world around him want to try harder. ]

[eschatological]

[ Tigers also make the world around them try harder ... at running away really fast. ]

I can't begrudge you picking up the pieces when I was done.

[ Rau waves a hand airily in the general direction of the ignored chess set. ]

But I doubt that the young lady would have returned home without provocation. The PLANTs killed her father, after all. And people can be so sentimental about those things, [ says a guy who burned down a mansion with the closest thing to his father inside, smiling benignly.

And whose genetic twin killed his father figure? Shoot, another accidental point for biological determinism. Sorry, Gil. ]

[destinymaker]

[ Gil's own parents are presumably alive somewhere, a little estranged but present... He now briefly thinks of them and the fact that they had to outlive him. Oops. ]

Zala killed her father. With him gone, she'd have had a perfect chance to change the country that made that tragedy occur in the first place.

[ Maybe that's why her absence has always frustrated him. A convenient power vacuum for him to take advantage of, yes, but also an entirely unrelatable course of action. Gilbert Durandal is a man incapable of stepping away. ]

The PLANTs are far from ideal, but letting that fester does nobody any good.

[ "My eugenicist government broke my heart? Clearly the eugenics weren't working good enough yet. We need more of them." ]

[eschatological]

But good and humble people like the young lady only ever rule by necessity, only ever to avoid being ruled by someone worse than themselves.

[ Yes, yes, he's being facetious. And after wrangling Athrun, Yzak, Dearka, and Nicol's very big feelings about everything, it's tempting to make a quip about teenagers not being particularly farsighted -- but Lacus Clyne ended up being more farsighted than most adults. ]

[destinymaker]

[ Rau had to live every day on the Vesalius inside a soap opera, huh... Tragic. (This is why Gil left the Minerva to Talia.) ]

Only ever standing against something without offering an alternative is not a sustainable position. Sooner or later, someone will ask more of her.

[ cue ominous movie teasers ]

[eschatological]

[ Minerva group chat must have been on fiiiiiiiiiire. ]

A gadfly's wings can't bear the weight of responsibility, the inertia of bureaucracy, the strain of compromise.

[ He glances over the fallen chess pieces, leans to pick up the white queen, and tosses it to Gil. ]

What a shame that you want her to succeed. Or, at least, that you want her world rather than mine.

[ But there's no rancor in the words or gesture. Not toward Gil, anyway. ]

[destinymaker]

[ Gil catches the queen piece with ease, momentarily pleased to note that the general collapse of the chess set doesn't seem to have damaged it.... until he remembers that he's dead and none of these are real items. Ah, well.

It still reflects the light from the equally fake fluorescents quite nicely as he turns it in his hands. ]

Your world would be quite spectacular... for a moment, at least.

[ He'd like to watch Rau's smile as he beholds the nuclear explosions. Which is an awful thought to have, and he's not saying it out loud. ]

But you're right, I just can't warm up to the idea. Malicious glee does not delight me often.

[eschatological]

[ Explosions are warm though. And it only takes a tiiiiiiiny spark of malice to for a fire to catch. ]

How magnanimous that you're merely smug [ ... he said, smugly. ]

[destinymaker]

I prefer the term 'self-assured'.

[ Said with his brightest and kindest politician smile. ]

[eschatological]

[ Amusing. Rau rests his chin in a gloved hand again. ]

With all that self-assurance and magnanimity -- if you could advise Lacus Clyne, now, what would you tell her about the world she has inherited?

[destinymaker]

Mhm... I'd tell her that there are reasons to obscure the truth that go beyond pure greed and malice.

[ Not that Gil thinks anything he did was done out of malice either - he just expects the pink princess would disagree with that assessment. ]

Pointing out every detail and grey area does not make for productive policy. It just ensures that the government will be holed up in meetings day after day while there is no material change that the populace can notice.

The world is complicated... no, let's say 'convoluted' instead. Leaders are elected to break it down and simplify it for those with different talents. This makes it necessary to omit details from time to time.

The more she tries to imbue nuance into the public conversation, the more she will divide the public's opinion on herself and her ideals. Unless she is willing to bend her principles, her dreams will grind to a halt over these issues.

[eschatological]

Smugness is simply self-assurance, lies are simply obfuscation. My, a soldier's life is so simple by comparison.

[ He pinches his fingers around the queen's head, as though holding a hand over a person's eyes or mouth or ears. ]

And how many times can a person lie to the world before that person starts to believe the lie?

[destinymaker]

That will depend on the person.

[ It's hard not to think of Meer Campbell here, who so readily threw away all that she used to be in order to step into the skin of Lacus Clyne. Had Gil's assassination attempt not failed, he expects Meer would have abandoned her old name completely sooner rather than later.

It's also easier to think of Meer, than to think of himself. Rau's gaze is the only that Gil always threatens to crumble under. Helplessly bound by him just as the queen piece they're holding onto.]

I'd like to think I'm quite adept at basing my 'lies' in true circumstance.

[eschatological]

[ Feel better, Gil, you're talking to a guy who wears a mask and goes by Awesome McFakename; Rau really has no basis to be talking shit on this subject. ]

That makes it harder to detect, certainly. If a person takes "I sharpen the sword because an attack is conceivable" and says instead "I sharpen the sword because an attack is possible," no one will really call him a liar -- not even himself. And no one will argue the next day when "possible" becomes "probable," or the day after that when "probable" becomes "likely," or the day after that when "likely" becomes "imminent." And by the time he has struck the first blow in "self-defense," who wants to remember that conflict was not always inevitable?

I would, because it's fascinating. [ A smile here, people are just the best at being the worst. ] Perhaps you would, to be self-assured about creating a new and useful truth.

[ Rau withdraws his fingers from the chess piece. ]

I suspect Lacus Clyne would remember; she spent a rather long time playing at being ornamental without forgetting the power she held. But for the rest... [ Another small wave of the hand at the various chess pieces. ] It's very tempting to believe a comfortable lie.

[destinymaker]

Precisely. That's why the likes of us are suited for leadership, however troublesome one may find that aptitude.

[ God knows Lacus Clyne has tried to run and hide from it, but it seems her destiny has caught up with her. Gil thinks he's allowed to find that funny. He'd been trying to relieve her of it, too. Steal that destiny for himself, through the means of his little puppet singer. If Lacus had graciously accepted the stage exit he'd prepared for her, then she would have been able to escape it all.

Not anymore.

The Destiny Plan had been meant as liberation for humanity, as a relief for all. But if it instead wraps around to being a personal prison for just one woman, one opponent Gil could not beat... Well, he's not going to complain too much. ]

Maybe in time she'll wish that I had created that self-evident world after all.

[eschatological]

For her own happiness, perhaps. What a shame that she's put the world ahead of her own wishes.

[ Lacus Clyne, one of those pesky self-sacrificing oddities that keeps staring down superweapons. Tsk tsk. ]

[destinymaker]

[ Gil pauses for a moment. He looks the queen piece in its glassy miniature eyes before setting it down on the table, the only piece upright in the whole room now. ]

A bit more greed would suit her nicely. Alas.

[ If it had been Lacus in Gil's shoes, maybe Rau would not have gotten to ever scheme as long as he did. What an unpleasant thought. ]

[eschatological]

[ Well yeah Lacus probably would not have made medicine for a guy who openly wanted to provoke mutual destruction. Back to that ridiculous idea that almost any other course of events would have lead to one side almost wiping the other out, and this particular course of events is one of the few that brought them to a comparatively peaceable stalemate. Destiny! Wild. ]

Kira Yamato will have to be selfish enough for the both of them. Whether as the dream of humanity or simply as his father's son... when he realizes that the "tomorrow" he's chasing is a mirage, never any closer than the day before, what will he do to make the mirage a reality?

[ Mostly amused speculation, with a tiny bit of condescending self-satisfaction, because, again, the kid did run a beam saber through Providence. ]

[destinymaker]

I wonder...

[ For someone who had a hand in killing the both of them, Kira Yamato still strikes Gil as a rather passive person with a frankly laughable insistence on being ordinary. Yet that very insistence seems to have gotten through to Rey... Ah, children. Always defying their parents' best advice. ]

We'll have prime seats to watch it unfold, if nothing else. You'll have to teach me the ropes of being a ghost though.

[eschatological]

Who knows? Perhaps you only heard me because of Rey. Or only because you wanted to.

[ Truly, someone please explain, was this like the Zeta harem showing up to help Kamille or??? ]

[destinymaker]

How romantic. Again.

[ The teasing comes almost automatically though and Gil trails of into a thoughtful moment of silence. ]

... I wasn't certain I was hearing you at all.

[ Maybe now that the opposite is confirmed, he can admit this. That he thought he might be going insane. A Rau only for him, conjured from his mind - half memory and half wish. ]