thelegion | [Video, post-plots]

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[Video, post-plots]

Morning, culture lovers.

[Someone's in a chipper mood. Might have something to do with the fact that she's in the sim room, sitting alongside an oversized motorcycle that is in no way compensating for anything.]

So, I've been talking things over with the techs and Brainiac 5, and I've decided to simply open up Anywhere Machine access to my timeline for all Legion members. I just ask that you keep it to training purposes. If you try to nose into my private life, well. I don't really have one. You'll get bored. Sorry.

[She makes an adjustment and holo displays pop up around her. Dates, times, locations, what looks like an options list. Sharp-eyed viewers will see that the dates seem to be color coded.]

Using some algorithms that Brainiac 5 set up for me to account for Legion training standards, along with my own estimations, I've sectioned off portions of my life that I feel would be... instructive. Either to hone investigative skills, practice medicine, brush up on your rescue skills, enhance your understanding of stealth, or simply enhance your understanding of conflict. I've also encoded a number of these events with content warnings. I've handled nearly every form of crime you care to mention and consoled a number of victims. Some of you just aren't prepared for that, so please keep in mind your own limitations and read through the warnings before you engage.

[More adjustments are made. Holograms of her, her pistol, and the motorcycle pop up.]

If you should attempt a sim scenario, you'll get three options. One is to simply follow in my steps and see how things were handled. You'll have the option to pause and get context for anything you have questions for, rewind, or use any filters you'd like. Another is to go through it as a Judge, temporarily refusing to acknowledge your powers in favor of the full experience. [For some people, to put their money where their mouths are and show her a better way to handle things with her limitations.] If you decide to go this route, I would strongly suggest reading Dredd's Comportment first. The things you learn there might make things much easier for you. You'll be given the tools of a Judge, such as the lie detector, the Lawmaster motorcycle, the Lawgiver Mk II, and the helmet, especially valuable for its vision modes. When you arrest someone, you will be expected to sentence them on the spot, so I've compiled a common list of offenses and their usual sentences. At your discretion, of course, but if you're going that far you might as well get into the spirit of the thing.

[She filters through a few, laying them over the camera to display herself in each mode. Ultrasound. Infrared. Night vision. Killshot percentages. Disabling shot suggestions.]

Finally, you get the option to simply go in as yourself. Since you're still taking 'my' place, you won't be immediately targeted for illegal vigilante activities, and your powers will be treated as something usual. Brainiac 5 wished me to stress that he created the sim rooms and they're able to function with almost any powerset, including the psychic ones.

We talked about incentives and came to an agreement that passing out stickers for participation would likely be the most acceptable way to go about things.

[She grins again and holds up a roll of stickers covered in gold stars.]

Never say I don't keep you in mind.

In closing, I'll be happy to discuss any questions or concerns you might have about this. I haven't made the decision lightly, but I do believe that it could offer some... 'real world' incentives that other scenarios might not. Everything you will see is as raw and true as it can be, and everyone you will see was, or is, a real person, so keep those things in mind. This isn't one of the programmed sims where we rescue crash test dummies.

[She cuts out, but the links to The Comportment of a Judge, by J. Dredd and the list of dates remain up. Skimming through them, some scenarios are only minutes long, others hours or days. There's very few 'off' times, with only about four days coming up if someone skims back five years. In the past two years, a number of 'Council Meetings' take up chunks of her days during various weeks, but every other time slice is split into investigation, travel, interrogation, combat, escort, and chase sections. Three stretches of time are unusual. One is marked 'Chaos Day and Recovery', with the lead up to it being nearly entirely 'investigation' and the days surrounding it marked entirely as 'combat' or 'rescue'. Another is marked 'Block Judge Duty' and seems to be split into investigation, combat, and 'court duties'. The final one is marked 'Tour of Duty' and lasts for months on end, with 'training' making up the vast majority of her time.

Only fifteen minutes is relegated for sleep every day. An hour or two for meals. That remains standard over the past eight or nine years, at which point it suddenly switches to a more structured thing. Life at the Academy of Law. Much of the time is listed as 'training' for various things, except full nights of sleep, and it reaches back eleven years until she's five years old. She's stopped accounting for her time at that point.]

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No.

[Well, it could be a worse opener. That he's not participating isn't a shocker. She got the picture he couldn't stand her.]

I don't have a life. I take an hour or so of personal time once every few weeks, but it's not like I get to hang out with friends on their mopad, go shopping, or rewatch Hardy Dix's performance in the '24 World Sex Championships. I don't have a family or friends who aren't Judges. Every minute of my day is spent doing my job. The worst someone can do is spy on me in the shower, and I don't get any fun in there, either.

If someone can go through my experiences and learn how to enter rooms with unknown occupants, handle hostile crowds in enclosed spaces, patch up a gunshot, or deliver a baby, if anyone can go through and learn anything to save their own life or someone else's, then I've got no problem with being an example.

[ It could be worse, but he felt bad for her. He thought he knew what it was like, to be the dedicated to an unhealthy life for what Robbie considered to be the best purpose - the only purpose worth having, really. Doing What's Right.

Only America's never said what she's done to deserve having to do it to the point of "an hour or so of personal time every couple of weeks." Even Robbie gets more of a life than that, lately.

So it's just... sad in a dull, aching sort of way that makes him want to go hug every last person who has hung out with him in the last few years. And then ask them how the hell you get someone to transition from existing to living. He wants to say that she deserves more than that, but it's not like he listened to that. ]

The World Sex Championships? Titillating.

[ Old habits die hard. ]

So fun exists in your universe? Grossly personal activities turned into world championships don't count. Mopeds and shopping and coffee shops and other people - those are around, and you don't bother?

[She snorts.]

Hey, people like to watch it. And it's highly choreographed. Honestly, from what I've seen of the fandom here, no one's got the imagination to make it far in anything except the singles.

[Citizen Dix retired ages ago, however. From what she remembers, chronic impotence. Shame. She's not sure how Mega-City One will do in the Olympics without his skilled touch.]

A Judge can't bother. Our entire life is devoted to our job. Anything else is a distraction. [She shrugs at the screen.] You once mocked me for saying that I was the Law. But there's nothing else for me.

[She glances off-screen, flipping through the pages of that book. Dredd's Comportment, she'd called it. She holds it up to the camera for him to read, tapping one specific line.

"A Judge must totally devote himself to justice and the rule of the Law. A Judge has no life of his own. He does not indulge in social contact. He has no income and no personal property beyond that required to carry out his normal duty."]

I am the Law, Mr. Baldwin. And I'll never have anything else until the day I hit Resyk or take the Long Walk into the Cursed Earth.

[Even the reforms she hopes to bring can't change everything in her lifetime.]

[ Robbie holds his hands up at her further explanation. ]

I'm not saying consenting adults can't watch consenting adults. I wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't asking about that. I figure it's better to start with less complicated interaction.

[ Because, here they are again. Back at Judge America is dead, now it's time for the Law. When someone pokes at your programming, dig your heels in and sound twice as zealous. ]

Yeeah, I'm still going to call you America, and I'm still going to get all social contact up in your helmet, not to mention pointing out the U.P. laws are the only ones that count here. But can I borrow that book?

[ And burn it. No, but it would be tempting. If he hated the rest of the book half as much as he hates that paragraph, he'd have to forcibly not vaporize it in a waste disposal unit... but maybe giving someone else a copy, someone better at reaching out. That would be good. ]

I somehow figured you weren't too interested in the wild world of sports.

[It's always best to keep people slightly off-balance, though.]

I've already agreed to stay within the Legion's jurisdiction. I think I've said that before. [It's already getting old to her. How many times does she need to explain to these people that she understands she can't just shoot someone for resisting arrest?] If you're going to downplay the title I've earned that much, you can call me Beeny. [Definitely not on first-name basis if he can't respect her rank as much as, say, Nova Prime.]

As for the book? I mean, you can. But this is just a hologram. I didn't come with the book or the bike, I'm just sitting in the sim room. I've already added it to the Legion's library, though, so you could just call it up on your omnicomm at any point. If you can get past the parts that bother you politically, you might find something of use to you.

I like sports. Grab some snacks, fill a room with friends, watch a game. Go team! I don't like competitions with - ha - judges, and no, nothing to do with you. I just like it better when winning and losing isn't due to someone's opinion. Anybody can tell when someone makes a basket. A game with a score and clear rules, like baseball or rugby, that's a sport.

[ He blabs too much about sports because it's easy. It doesn't push either of their buttons, and sometimes Robbie, too, is tired of beating his head against the wall. He is hoping that, if they talk enough about sports, maybe she'll get some sort of sports-watching bug and spend an entire week watching alien sports. ]

Look, I didn't mean you were outside any jurisdiction. I meant that the no-fun rule doesn't apply here, so there's no harm in getting wild and crazy. You could have vanilla ice cream instead of a protein shake. Scandalous.

And I'll call you Beeny on one condition: you call me Rob or Robbie. I like Baldwin about as much as you'd like getting called Merry, and Mr. Baldwin's my dad.

[ Robbie smiles, because he thinks it's a fair trade and he didn't have to explain that Baldwin's what he gets called when he's screwed up. ]

I'll read it so you didn't go to all that trouble for nothing.

Next you'll be telling me that taxidermy and staring contests shouldn't be Olympic events.

[Shame on, you.]

Ah. [That was unlikely. Too much to catch up on. Political situations, scientific advancements, alien anatomies...] Sugar's bad for you. [No ice cream here.] It's addictive and damages your health. It's been banned for decades in Mega-City One. [She's just. Not rocking the boat since there are so many addicts, even in the chain of command.]

Robert, then. [Diminutives are for friends. Which, y'know. Nice that he's extending that olive branch and she'll meet him partway, but there's a lot of burnt bridges between them.]

I just had the computer scan it, that's all. Even so, I hope you'll find something useful.

Whatever happened to badminton and curling? Curling's worth watching just for the pants. The real staring contest is trying to watch a match without being distracted by Norway's legs.

[ Jeez, is there anything she likes? Anything anyone's allowed to like? Ever? ]

When I say "you're not in Mega-City One", do you even hear me? Sugar's not banned here, and it's probably not addictive anymore. They don't have meat, they don't have real cheese, I don't want to know what my coffee's doused with, what makes you think the sugar is real?

[ ... she's doing this to irritate him now. He knows it. She just wants to see him squirm like he just stuck bubblegum in Susie Lawson's ponytail. ]

Robbie. You're not my third grade teacher. If I call you the name of your choosing, you call me mine. I'd rather you do Speedball than Robert. It's so... old.

[ It is, but he's not eighty and somebody's great uncle. ]

I'm not ready for cardigans and butterscotches. Nobody calls me Robert until I've got a pocketful of Werthers.

Edited 2017-04-17 01:12 (UTC)

Those are still around, but no one cares about them unless someone replaces the birdie with a grenade.

[No. If a Judge has time for a hobby, that's time they could be spending on the streets.]

I'm going to turn this around a bit. To help you understand my position. Do they have, say, cocaine and heroin when you're from? Anyway, any other addictive substance from your time. What if they had it here? And it was legal? And it may or may not be synthetic, but for all intents and purposes it may as well be the real thing? Would you use it if everyone else was cool with it, or would you stay away like you would the real deal back home?

[Assuming he's not an addict. He doesn't seem like a heroin addict, though. Caffeine? Sugar? Possibly anti-depressants? She'd have to see his medical records to be sure, but if she had to search his room that's what she'd expect to find. Then again, with that codename...

Maybe she should talk to the Legion administration about the benefits of a Crime Swoop.]

That's fine, then.

[Keeps her from thinking of her old butler, she supposes.]

Does that happen?

[ He's seriously asking, because her world sounds that depraved and bleak. ]

They have cocaine and heroin, and they are 100% illegal. Or... maybe 99.9% illegal. I think cocaine can be used in a hospital, something about bleeding. I don't know that much about them, except I'd rather point people at rehab than the cops for it.

[ He holds up a finger immediately and ticks it to the side. ]

Unless they're dealing it. They go to the police station.

[ It's a very important distinction to make, and maybe he's hoping that, for once, he can get a little credit in the middle of what he's sure is the Wrong Answer for America. ]

If it was the same thing for all intents and purposes, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I don't want an escape. And I'd still try to steer people to rehab. Nobody turns desperate measures to afford a sugar habit, but those drugs wreck people's lives way more than a piece of cake on your birthday. It's not the same thing.

[ A cup of coffee is nice in the morning, and plooberry ice cream is growing on him. He doesn't consider sugar a habit and tries to eat well enough - it was impressed on him as a teenager that you have to make an effort to look good in tights.

A sweep of his room would turn up a prescription and piles of catnip toys for Niels. ]

It's illegal, so of course it happens for one reason or another. Some people are just that bored, or that desperate for money.

[She waits politely for him to stop with the tangents. Of course she disapproves of keeping the people who buy from the cops, they can detox in custody as well as they could while free and there needs to be some punishment for breaking the law. Even then, the cubes have trained medical personnel who know how to handle withdrawal symptoms and can help alleviate them.

But finally he accepts the theoreticals of her scenario rather than explaining to her what she already knows.]

There's the difference, you see. Where I'm from, sugar is recognized as a highly addictive substance on the same levels as cocaine, marijuana, zziz, crystal meth, and comic books. It's harmful overall to the human body and, while there are some benefits, they don't balance out what sugar can do to you. I'm in as much of a rush to expose myself to that as you are to find a razor blade and a mirror.

[Besides, sugar tastes disgusting. So overwhelmingly sweet.]

It's minor to you, but it's serious to me.

It's badminton. Like people could put a bomb inside a baseball, but no one does! Maybe it's happened once - we get a lot of crazy stuff going on, but it's not something that's been repeated.

[ Of course she would. Her world is cruel and intensely regulated, and she exists to make people color in the lines and nowhere else. He almost sees her point, and he jerks into a more upright position after the suggestion of a razor blade and a mirror. He knows what she means, though. But...]

… comic books?

A lot of things in your world are somewhat... smaller and tamer, it seems. Citizens are stupid, bored, and desperate for anything to fill their time with. They have a capacity to be good, but it's so much easier for them to turn on one another instead.

[That was an interesting reaction. He didn't show the signs of a drug user. Shaving accident, maybe? Something else? If she were at home, she'd look at his medical records, but here... Well. It might not be that important.

...She files the reaction away, in any case.]

Often too thrilling. Gives the cits ideas. That's not really that bad, considering what pops up in movies or television, but they often go too far. What's worse is that comic book pushers will start the juves off cheap. A free comic book day at first, then charging a few creds for the next issue and the next, but once the victims are hooked they start increasing the prices and adding in crossover events, forcing them to buy up other mags as well to learn the backstories and figure out what's going on.

Kids can't afford that. Soon their allowances end up going dry and they inevitably end up turning to crime in order to buy their comic books. Soon, a good pusher has an entire army of young men and women who are jumping to rob, cheat, or assault other citizens in order to afford the next part of the story.

Comic book distributors are leeches on society.

I guess this is probably a really bad time to point out that in our universe they not only have comic books, but they make comics about real superheroes. There's this company called Marvel.

I almost got one, but they decided to run with one about a cartoon mouse instead.

Ugh.

Legitimate question, and I'm not judging here. I don't know your world. All I know is you've made it clear it's pretty rough.

But has anyone back in your world considered that maybe kids wouldn't resort to petty crime over stories, if they had something worthwhile to do?

It sounds to me like those kids just need direction. They're probably looking for stories that have meaning, right? Same reason those comics exist back home in my world -- entertainment, sure, but it's a mix of people trying to make sense of living in a world as weird as ours, and them liking stories about heroism and altruism and all that good stuff because it's...it's just something that's worthwhile.

Has anyone in your world considered taking those kids and having them do stuff that might help people? So they can feel like they're doing things as good as in those stories?

What, like the Scouts? We've got those, and other youth programs besides. They're mostly good programs, for the ones who can afford it and get the support that they need from their parents.

It's the support from their parents that's the problem. So many juves end up looking for a support network and their parents fail to provide proper guidance, so they end up hooking up with juve gangs. It's especially a problem in blocks where gang membership is practically tradition, with juves being in the junior gangs while the 'dults carry on in the main.

What else is there to do, though? In your world? What is there to do that's...not tv and watching the sex olympics? What ways are there to build things or explore new things or fix things? That all those people can do instead? It sounds likes you've got a whole "opiate of the masses" thing going on. Lots of distractions.

But do you still have underwater exploration? Space travel? People trying to understand particle physics just for the hell understanding it?

Art? Like real art. Like the kind that makes people stand there for a half hour just taking it in?

[His tone is searching, not condemnatory or judgmental. He's trying to find out more about her world, about the alternatives people have.]

Edited 2017-04-21 02:03 (UTC)

[It's the tone that keeps her from snapping at him. What sort of society functions without those things? But at least he's asking.]

Almost any traditional form of entertainment is legal, within reason. Football, baseball, basketball, the old sports and the new ones. Eating competitions are popular. We've got books, movies, television, and, yes, art. Within the bounds of good taste. Religion is big. We encourage what hobbies are safe.

These are valuable sources of entertainment and employment. We'd have to be mad to ignore them entirely.

As for space travel, we have many colonies beyond our solar system. There was a bit of a war recently, but the Zhind have been beaten back and the rebelling 'free' colonies were... dealt with by the SJS.

[And boy, didn't that leave a taste in her mouth. Especially when she read how close they came to crippling Earth's entire civilization to make a statement.]

Nix on the underwater exploration, however. The oceans are too polluted for most. The Atom War, as well as the various nuclear missiles that have exploded in the Black Atlantic since then.

[She's mentioned leisure, yes, but not work.]

What kind of jobs do people get to have? Is it like where everyone gets it assigned or do they get to choose what line of work they get into?

[If he sounds like someone trying to trouble-shoot a civilization like someone would troubleshoot a broken PC, he is a little bit. It's not the first time he's prodded his nose in and asked about a world that's rebuilding itself after catastrophe.]

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I don't know if it's smaller and tamer. Things get crazy all the time - I just don't talk about it. Like "people who can balance a skyscraper sideways on top of two other skyscrapers and that's one of the good guys" crazy. When you're in that world… comics and sugar consumption kind fall off the map.

[ They don't sweat the small stuff, in other words, but Robbie thinks twice about saying that. Eventually, when it gets to a genetic level, suddenly everyone starts sweating the microscopic world. There's definitely a much larger gap where the consensus is "enh, it's not hurting anyone." Reality tv, Mountain Dew Code Red, graphic novels, reruns of 227… they all fall into this abyss of whatever tickles your pickle. ]

Like Rich said, we have comic books based on real heroes. If it's titillating, so's the nightly news. There's no new ideas that they're giving people. I don't think it's inciting anything. There's no Comic Book Bandits holding up bodegas to afford the latest Captain America. If your allowance doesn't cover it, you see if the neighbors'll give you a buck for taking out the trash every week or mowing their lawn.

[ The closest they probably get to the Comic Book Bandits is the Yancey Street Gang, but they're just… weird, as far as Robbie can tell. ]

I don't think you're giving them enough credit. The citizens, not the comic books. Okay, the comic books too, 'cause there's a lot of kids who won't read anything else for fun. But I meant the people. If you don't let them have an outlet for their energy, they're going to find one anyway. Take it from the kid who used to sneak out of the house and commute to New York City to fight crime: if you don't let a person do something relatively harmless, they're going to find a way to do it anyway.

And it's going to be ten times bigger and crazier because they feel trapped in their boring old life. I wouldn't be in the army of pulp afictionados, but you make it sound like its that, the Pornolympics, or the worst game of badminton ever.

I guess I just don't know what everyone else can do.

[ That Beeny herself can't do anything sort of hangs in the air. ]

Edited 2017-04-21 02:32 (UTC)

We do allow them outlets. Art. Education. Sports, within reason. Hobbies, so long as they remain legal. Games. Things like that. But they get out of control.

[She waves her hand, thinking, then nods.]

Sometimes a fad will sweep through the city. We call them crazes. Some of them are harmless, such as the Pacne craze. Intelligent zits that acted like some ancient video game on your face or back. Or 'Bottomless' pants, which, well. Lost its seating when the original designer decided 'frontless' pants would be the next evolution.

And then you get crazes like personal weather machines, which started floods and caused tornadoes when you had fifty thousand citizens amplifying one another's weather alterations. Or bat-gliding, which ended in citizens crowding the skies and falling into traffic before we started regulating things.

[But she could go on forever about those things.]

Boredom, I could understand. But so many of them are stupid, almost willfully so, or have criminal tendencies and use these crazes to cover their crimes. There are outlets, it's just that the citizens take them to the absurd when they get the chance. We regulate things so harshly because we've seen the citizens take something innocent and cause disasters.

[ Robbie sticks two fingers in his mouth and whistles, and then he's insistently tapping the palm of one hand to the finger tips of the other, making a T. ]

Timeout, timeout, Beeny. We can come back to the hobbies and art and games, because that's cool and all, and maybe we'll circle back around to why you're saying your citizens are basically an entire population of gimmicky super villains, but I really need to zoom in on one little thing in all that, or I'm going to lose sight of it in the mess.

[ In all of that, he has heard one thing, just glanced over so casually that he wants to add style points. ]

You made a pun. I heard it, it's on video, and I will treasure it forever. I'll put it in a flower pot and water it daily, and it will blossom into impatiens of humor.

[ He wipes a tear that isn't there. ]

I'm so proud.

I guess we're just going to forget all the times I've punned at you and you've called me out on that?

[She does it. A lot. Usually when he's angry at her, though, so that might be something.]

I never claimed I was humorless.

It's either that or we can continue being shitty and not appreciating anything the other person says. Your call.

[ When he's genuinely upset, it's very hard to be take 5 to give some love for a sense of humor - especially since he just expects people to have a sense of humor. ]

No, but - no offense - it's not what I'd call a defining trait.

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