Charlie Nelson (charlie_chester) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2013-02-05 19:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | charlie, day eleven, evan, grace, group scene, wren, wu |
It's A Start
Characters: Charlie, Grace, Wren, Evan and Wu
Setting: The courtyard, 1 P.M.
Forethought definitely let Wu make it all look easy; it had only taken a bit of planning and a wilful redirection of his thoughts to keep himself on task and timely, and in the end? He’d laden the picnic table in the courtyard with two generous bowls of food, four empty bowls to eat from and utensils to do so, and even a serving platter with mugs and a tea pot.
He’d learned a great deal over the course of his life, so even if lessons of etiquette and presentation had come later? They had still been retained, and were definitely observed now. Unreadable in his expression, Wu seemed at ease as he spread the empty bowls and utensils between four seats, laying cutlery by three of them and a pair of chopsticks by his own. He was hopeful for a lack of conflict from Charlie, and had even taken pains to prepare a vegetarian stir fry and rice, two dishes that seemed unlikely to cause offence. But the boy was wilful, and if today saw him continue to be so? Wu would just have to play a very gracious host, and let the fallout fall where it would.
Wren had gone back to her room to shower and change, feeling a little tired, but she knew she'd get past it. After voting, she looked at the clock and headed for the courtyard, silently hoping that Chester wasn't going to be confrontational today. She truly hoped to be able to rein him in if needs be, though she wasn't sure how she might do that. So, she was very much thinking if he could maintain civility, that would be best.
Smoothing the skirt of her dress slightly as she started toward the picnic table, smiling as she saw Wu's preparations. She also smiled at the man. "Good afternoon." she greeted, warmth in her tone.
“Wren,” Wu greeted in kind as she approached, offering a slight nod of his head. It was as close to a formal bow as he got with most people, and some extra emphasis was there in his movements, however minimal, that made it seem more than cursory. “Please sit,” he offered with an extended hand, “I am fortunate, the tea steeped finely. This is the last of my chrysanthemum petals, I will have to request more. But enjoy.”
Grace certainly bore no ill will toward anyone that was meeting today. Of course, she was a bit older than the strong headed Charlie, and knew just how much people really more appreciated order rather than freedom, even if they would never admit to such a thing out loud. It was why she was glad to get a person in charge of this place, even if it wasn't technically her. Truthfully, she'd rather it not be her, for her own reasons.
After showering and getting dressed, she made her way out to the courtyard, smiling when she spotted Wu and the set up he had made. She had been beaten out here by Wren as well, but that didn't bother her. Sometimes it was nice to make an entrance rather than being the first to arrive. "Good afternoon, everyone," she said as she walked out.
And even if he had yet to properly meet Grace, it wasn’t hard to guess just who she was. Not when his guest list was three names long. “Grace, it is a pleasure,” Wu greeted almost warmly, offering another nod of his head before gesturing for her to sit at his side of the picnic table. Wren was familiar with Charlie, no doubt he would want to be at her side when he showed up.
Wren nodded back to Wu in greeting, a mirror of his own movements. When he mentioned that he was using the last of his own tea supply, she smiled. "Thank you for sharing," she started. "I have never had it, so I look forward to the opportunity. Thank you." she told Wu genuinely. "Grace." Wren greeted the other woman. She hadn't met her yet either. So, she gave her a smile, and she noted as well the seating arrangement. Which she thought was a good idea as well.
Charlie realised he was one of the last to arrive as soon as he walked in. He wasn’t late though - not enough to cause offence at least. Maybe a minute or two, at best. “Hi,” he said, looking around at everyone. The only person he really knew there was Wren and he made a direct line for her, giving her a small additional smile.
Grace was more than fine with sitting next to Wu. "Pleasure to meet the two of you as well," she said with a slight bow of her head. She sat down, waiting for their final person to arrive. When Charlie showed up, she gave him a smile and a slight nod as well. "You must be Charlie, I presume?" she asked. "Pleasure to meet you."
With just a hint of a smile at Charlie’s arrival, and a moment to turn the expression to both Wren and Grace, Wu leaned across the table to turn over the mugs he’d brought before claiming the teapot. “It is a good opportunity, yes,” he agreed with a nod to Grace, starting to fill each mug, “There are many of us here now, it seems. So many that I do not recognize all of the names. It makes our task of community a more difficult one when there is so much space to distance ourselves.”
An arrest record like his didn’t lend itself well to the idea of etiquette, but Wu definitely had it as he filled each mug, then set the pot aside and sat. “Still, if we are to come together, if we are to embrace the roles we will be given by each other? I would know the others who contend for governor, whether they have withdrawn or not,” he explained, raising his mug in a small salute before sipping it lightly. “Whichever of us is chosen would do well to embrace the counsel of the others.”
"Thank you." Wren said to Wu for the mug of tea. Then she spoke, looking to everyone else. "I agree that more than one voice needs to have sway here. It's partially why I have put in for a position in the facility, even if it is not for the governor position. Nothing should come down to a single viewpoint."
Evan arrived slightly late, or it seemed as such, anyhow. He didn't actually think it was that late. Maybe everyone else was a little early. Either way, he was thinking he was the last to show, as he approached the table and the group seated there. Nodding to everyone, he noted he didn't know any of them. Which he guessed meant at least now he'd know four more people here, and he could get a read on the situation at the very least.
Charlie took a mug and subtly sniffed at it, not making a show of doing so. He just knew better after his years in various places than to drink something without checking what it was first. In the end, he simply cradled the mug in his hands. “I’d be more comfortable, knowing that there was some kind of counsel, or people were consulting,” he agreed. He would never lose his mistrust of people in power, he knew that, but checks and balances helped. It was as he had told Wren the other night - just because you knew you couldn’t fix things, didn’t mean you shouldn’t even try.
"I like the idea of a counsel as well," Grace said, taking a sip of her tea. She had a personal preference to cold sweet tea, being southern and all, but this was good, and she certainly knew better than to turn her nose up at what Wu had graciously offered. "Possibly even occasionally putting things to a vote from the entire facility, when necessary." She gave a nod to Evan as he arrived, shooting him a quick smile as well.
Sipping his tea again as the others settled in and spoke, Wu was curious and attentive with them each in turn, but particularly Grace and Evan. He already had a good read on Wren, and Charlie had held back little in journal postings, but these other two? Grace seemed as if she may have run similarly to Wu himself, and Evan... he had a grimness that was apparent in his very being. If Wu had commented on it, he might’ve said the younger man smelled of blood.
But he said nothing, setting his mug aside before he started to dish up bowls of food; covering steamed rice with the stir-fried vegetables and passing each bowl around the table. “It is good to welcome differing perspective, of course. Each of us has insight the others do not, and using popular vote when needed allows the will of the group to be acknowledged,” he agreed as he served, “But there must also be decisive moments, and a certainty of action. There will be times when consulting only allows damage to spread like wildfire. And I wonder, as well, about how any of you would handle infractions among the house. I know my own methods, and they would not be welcomed.”
Charlie frowned a little at that. “Well, reading what they’ve put up about things, there’s a daily jury for deciding how to handle infractions,” he pointed out, purposefully keeping his tone light and conversational, rather than in any way confrontational. He could play politics when he had to. “And a law enforcement team to work out who the jury needs to address.”
"Depends on the offense." Evan said, putting his two cents in. "If there's a jury on hand, then that. Though, I would say that I think everything should be done as quickly as possible. If we've got a justice system forming here, we need to make it actually work. Not let everything sit, coming back to it later. I haven't seen what their idea of 'detention' is, but this place isn't that big. And I'm not sure long term it's going to work. So, we'd have to have something else in play than slapping someone in detention. Community service, for lack of a better term, at least on some level. But I think before we start figuring out what to do with people if they step out of line, the lines need to get laid down." He glanced at everyone. "The laundry room got fucked up. There was someone burning books the other day. When the black out happened, I saw someone got their door painted, someone had shit thrown at their door. Now there's the note up about a rape. So, what's an infraction? I think we can all agree that rape sure as hell is. But...public property damage? What if people are drunk and get in a fight? Do they get pulled up for assault? How long do people get nailed for? We definitely can't go saying people have to be locked up for years or some shit. Do we get an exile button, where we can hit it and boot whoever doesn't fit in with the rest of the class? If that rapist gets caught, do we lock him up? Rip his fingernails out? There's a lot to consider. There's a hell of a lot more to it than just 'how do we handle infractions'. I think there's a lot to weigh in, and more than I'd be able to lay down in a single lunch. It's an absolutely valid question--just not one with a simple answer."
Grace doubted that her own methods would be appreciated around here, either. She had a bit of a temper when people 'failed' her, after all. Of course, she was more apt to rash decisions than simply pulling out fingernails or other tortures. More often than not, she just shot people in the head. Luckily, she usually had a tight control of her temper.
Grace gave a slight smile to Evan. "I like this idea of 'getting things set up," she said. "For whichever of you is actually selected, rules and what happens when you break them needs to be set up, especially in light of last night's...escapades." Her smile turned to a frown when Evan mentioned that there had been a rape as well. She might be a drug dealer and a murderer, but she'd happily gut anyone who raped another. "It seems that the administrators will remove a person if they want, so maybe we can get an 'exile' button." She didn't normally torture, but she wouldn't mind having a few nails ripped out of this rapist's fingers and toes. It was more simply than Evan might think as far as what to do with a rapist.
“Of course,” Wu agreed after listening intently. Evan had some salient points, though they weren’t shockingly new on a lot of counts, and Grace’s agreement further cemented Wu’s as well, drawing a slight nod. “I did not mean that it should be a trivial matter, or one with simple answers. There are none in this place, I find, but if all gathered here agree that a system must be established to work with the jury? Whichever of us is chosen will have a great deal of input, I am sure. And I do not doubt there will be many moments that cannot be prepared for, but must simply be dealt with as they happen.” Like the rape, which Wu knew he couldn’t be as direct with if he were chosen as governor. It’d make his suspicions into questionable things with people looking for personal motives, and that would hamper whatever justice he was pursuing. “The first step, it seems, would be as Evan says: establish what is an offense, then what the scale of punishment must range along. I do not expect many here would wish for cruel methods of punishment, but if there is no fear of consequence, there is no reason for any here to control themselves.”
"So the first goal is to establish a set of rules." Wren said, following along what was being presented. She still wasn't certain what to say about how to deal with 'infractions' herself, but she also knew that Evan was likely correct--things were not so easy to say. She wanted to be able to look at things by circumstance. And Charlie was right as well--the jury should heavily influence it all, though she was mildly fuzzy on who made sentence decisions in a courtroom. It seemed sometimes it was a jury and sometimes it was a judge. But they needed to start at the beginning, which was the rules.
“Agreed,” Charlie said. “People should know what the rules are, and what the penalty is for breaching those rules. And it’s clear that feeling run strong with some people about what is and what isn’t an acceptable punishment. The episode with the stocks made that very clear,” he added, looking around the room at each person in turn. “What works in the outside world may not be either relevant or practical in here.”
"Maybe we should put to some sort of vote what everyone thinks an appropriate punishment would be for offenses," Grace suggested. "It will be harder for everyone to argue against a punishment if they voted for it." She smiled slightly as she took a sip of her tea. "Well, some might still argue, because some always will, but it's harder to protest when you and your peers voted." She did hope that the administrators would allow for them to have people removed that were repeat offenders or offenders of the worst variety. "Also, I believe that a jury can recommend a sentence in a regular courtroom, but I don't believe that a judge is necessarily obliged to follow it. We could always set that as a rule, though, to allow for the jury to come up with the punishment." It was an idea at any rate.
This was becoming bothersome for Wu, not because he disagreed, but because he rarely sought out this much input from others. And now they were all agreeing, even him for pretense’s sake, to seek more input from the others here? He had to still his annoyance with a mouthful of food once all the bowls had been filled, plucking up his chopsticks and eating a few bites. “The jury here is obligated to decide punishment,” he pointed out once his flash of ire had settled a bit, “Though guidelines would be helpful for them, I am sure. Many do not wish to inflict any punishment, no matter how humane, but this is a task all of us must share if chosen for the day’s jury. Open discussion on the journals, where any interested may join in, this would be the best venue to approach the matter and begin forming a structure.”
"Putting everything to a vote just means you're going to get too many different opinions. It'd be herding cats." Evan said, not really on board with the idea of the free democracy of weirdos they had amassed here. "If you guys want to play it that way, go for it. But I think it'll wind up being a whole lot of frustrating in the end. Why bother having elected officials at all if everything would just be put to a majority rules vote anyhow? I say test the waters first on that. Try seeing what people come up with over something small, before they're handed any large decision. It'd give a temperature test to see where people are at, too. If people are going to take shit seriously, if they're going to give a shit at all, if they're going to deliberately try and fuck shit up, the list goes on.”
“Generally when you get laws, they’re made by majority rule. Anything else is a dictatorship. The job of the executive is to decide what needs to be put to the vote. Decide the direction of things. Prioritise what’s important and focus minds on that,” Charlie pointed out. Not that he thought that democracies were perfect, far from it in fact. He still thought that politicians were generally corrupt. But he had seen what happened when you handed one person absolute power, left it to one person to make all the rules. Given the choice, he’d take democracy. “Isn’t the whole point here to build a community? If we’re going to just roll over and be good with whoever is appointed governor making all the decisions on their own... I don’t see the difference between that and the administration just telling us how things are going to go.” He paused, rotating his cup in his hands, but still not drinking. “Just because something may be difficult, doesn’t mean it’s not right. Usually the right thing to do is the most difficult.”
Grace thought on what people had said for a moment. "Well, while letting people vote on smaller things first isn't exactly a bad idea, people do respond better if they believe they have control over their lives, no matter how small that control might be." She sipped at her tea again. "People here have already been angry because they feel as if they have no control over themselves. Of course, we're still all technically prisoners, but we're apparently here to be rehabilitated, which means that we all need to learn how to control ourselves and our lives, even if it's bit by bit." She smiled. "Just because we have been elected to any sort of position doesn't mean that we get to make decisions without any sort of input from the general population." She did understand that at least some people here shouldn't likely be in control of what they eat every day, much less any sort of real decision making, but she hoped that, at least overall, there would be smart decisions made. "Then again, a sort of 'checks and balances' process wouldn't be a terrible idea, either."
“Ultimately it is not their say,” Wu pointed out with some heavier note of finality in his voice, fingers tight on his utensils as he watched Charlie. He understood the ideas being shared, could see why Grace might feel the way she did, but his own feelings? They ran closer to Evan’s, and actually more extreme. “Whichever of us it is will have priority in being heard for new suggestions to policy here, and whichever of us are chosen for jury each day will have their way with punishment. To suggest that every decision be left to the majority is to mire us in the process of decision, and to leave us to the mercy of that majority,” he said somewhat sharply. “All that must be worked towards is the chance for others to make themselves heard, not to guarantee that every decision is welcomed by every member. A leader must make unpopular decisions, and a jury must be willing to embrace the true meaning of consequence, or the guilty will have no fear.”
Wren listened to everyone, feeling the tension springing up. She took a sip of her tea, and put it down lightly before she addressed the group. "We need structure. There will always be growing pains inside a structure, especially when it is first being formed. What I believe all of you need to take a moment and understand is that we're discussing things, yes. We're accepting input from each other, yes. But none of us is going to come up with a perfect system, right off the bat, with no changes. What we'll require is a system we can grow into. That all of us can grow into. And accept that if things wind up not working--it doesn't mean we'll beat our heads against the wall and do the same things over and over. We'll adapt. We'll all adapt. The ability to adjust is one of human nature's biggest assets. Right now, we are in an environment that none of us has full understanding of, nor expertise in. There will be issues. And they'll get dealt with as they come. If a system doesn't work how it gets set up initially, people will be vocal about it. And we will roll with the punches. For now, we still have to see who will be elected in the first place. Until then, the idea sharing is very good. Very positive to hear all the differing points of view. But until they let us know who is to take on the roles, it's all speculation. I do hope we all keep in touch even if not elected, the vastly different viewpoints will be helpful. Even if it's just to understand another point of view. But we'll need to go with things as they come, and see what tomorrow brings first, before we bicker about the ins and outs."
Wren, as usual in Charlie’s opinion, was the voice of reason - measured and sensible. “I agree,” he said, backing her up like he had promised she would. “And agree that we need to wait and see who is actually elected before we get too far into this. Maybe it would be good just to get on with lunch, and get to know each other a little better,” he suggested, looking towards the food. At least if they knew each other socially it would give them something to build on.