1-800-BUGGELOO | video | un: rin

[offinventory]

[ Green = Midoriya | Blue = Murderbot | None = Locals ]

Beasts can be people. I had to see if there was a person in there. That's why I used a Moon Drop on the Bugge.

Waste of a Moon Drop... Just kill it like we all do, Deku. [ The voice comes from a grizzled Hunter with their hand on their hilt. ]

[ Midoriya isn't filming this. He and a group of farmers are the subject of this onlooker's stream. A few Hunters are interspersed with them, identifiable by the badges that match Midoriya's own. They know him by his Hero name, Deku. His green Hero gear is lightly stained with his own warmblood. He's bruised and exhausted, but anyone familiar with him knows that he'd be much more injured if he actually came off worse in a fight. ]

If there's a chance I can save someone without killing, I have to try.

These are my crops! The blood of the Bugge enriches them, don't you understand? I have to feed my children! [ A farmer brandishes their harvesting sickle. ]

I--I'm sorry. If you need help, I--Please, let me help. There has to be another way. There are other ways to make the soil better, just--we can figure this out together--

[ Several people in the crowd push forward, and Midoriya flinches with a step back in time with them. He can feel several stabs of alarm in his head. It evokes multiple memories of a group of people ganging up on him, and he's not good at using words to defend himself. He wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around his head and not look at them, but these are people he wants to protect. He has to face them. ]

Congratulations, you are being streamed live to DeerNet. Don't do anything you'd regret.

[ The voice is flat and even, near emotionless but with a slight edge to it. If anyone looks at their relic, it is streaming with a one second delay. ]

[ OOC: replies will come from Murderbot and Midoriya ]

Comments

[offinventory]

Okay, going to make this slightly hypothetical:

1. You seek vengeance on Person A.
2. You kill Person B on accident.
3. Person B decides to seek vengeance on you.
4. Person B blows up your house.
5. Your brother is home, not you. He dies. (Person B didn't know this).

How do you handle that?

[survivalthroughhate]

Knowing myself, murder Person A, B, C, and D and burn their houses down as well before someone is able to calm me down or talk me out of killing even more people.

[Never let it be said that Maul doesn't do things by halves. When he's on a rampage, he goes all in.]

[offinventory]

And how many times do you have to get killed before you calm down without killing so many fucking people.

You get it right? You're killing someone's 'your brother'? You keep doing it and doing it and doing it and oh no what it keeps happening????????? You keep pointing people at yourself while standing right next to your brother.

You are getting your brother killed. So rampage at yourself.

[survivalthroughhate]

Knowing myself as I do? Never. I am never going to take the death or harm of my loved ones well. That is something I simply cannot get over or be able to let go of.

[Sorry, he's never going to learn better on this. Maul's digging in his heels and has no desire to learn to be better.]

Last time I was able to redirect my vengeance from the person who killed him to the person who was really responsible. I have at least learned that sometimes you can't always blame the person that hurts you. You have to blame the person who is in the background manipulating everyone for their own gain.

[offinventory]

There's not taking it well/getting over it and there's murdering a bunch of people. I'm not saying 'when won't you murder the person who is responsible.' I'm saying 'when won't you murder the people who are not responsible.'

So long as you do collateral damage, you are the person in the background causing innocent people (again, including your brother) to die.

Suspend your disbelief for this: pretend every time you killed an innocent party (by your definition of innocent), your brother died. Would you change your ways?

[survivalthroughhate]

It's called revenge for a reason. It's not rational or sane or what good people do. But I have a deep need for vengeance within me that is not satisfied until I have a trail of bodies behind me.

[He's not sure Eden will get this but he won't be too annoyed if she doesn't. Most people don't quite understand that part of Maul's mindset, even friends he has had for a long time.

The hypothetical she proposes does give Maul pause. He's never had anyone put his revenge rampages in such terms before and it makes him think hard, especially given the parallels that had happened in his own galaxy. He'd killed Satine Kryze to hurt Obi-Wan and shortly thereafter Savage had been murdered by his master, almost as if committing one act had caused the other to happen.]

I suppose if that was the case I would because the cost would be too high. But if what you are suggesting is learning to care about other people, save your breath. Caring about everyone else in the world is too exhausting for me to consider. Caring about the people I do is hard enough as it is.

[offinventory]

I'm not trying to get you to care about people you don't care about. That hypothetical situation? It may not be true 100% of the time you rampage, but it's definitely true sometimes. It's more like...

There's a gun to your brother's head. It's loaded with at least one bullet, potentially all the bullets. Every time you kill an innocent party, the trigger gets pulled. It could be empty (your brother is fine). It could be loaded (your brother is killed).

That's the situation you're in. You have to decide what frequency of you killing your brother you can accept.

[survivalthroughhate]

[That comparison strikes a nerve with Maul but probably not in the way Eden intended it to.]

Life itself has already proven that equation to me well-enough. I can do nothing wrong and still my brother will be taken from me! So for me it matters very little whether "innocent people" fit into what I do or not. Everyone's a victim to someone else.

[offinventory]

Yeah, that can happen. [ Some anger behind its words, but it's not at Maul. ]

If it's not worth lowering the number of times he dies, well, you two can talk that one out. I just know I'd do a lot more than not kill people I don't give a fuck about to keep safe the people I want to keep alive.

[survivalthroughhate]

I don't expect you to understand it. Most people don't. But most of them also weren't fueled by the need for revenge and survived off of it for almost fifteen years.

[offinventory]

Survived off of what—revenge? Their revenge? Someone else's? You lost me.

[survivalthroughhate]

I had a burning desire for revenge against the one I felt had wronged me. It allowed me to survive when I otherwise should have perished and so I lived long enough to see it done.

[offinventory]

I have plenty of anger, but it wasn't revenge that allowed me to survive. Had to remember to think, not only see red.

[survivalthroughhate]

I wouldn't know how that feels. As a Sith Lord, I was taught to keep my anger close at all times to help fuel my powers.

[offinventory]

Seeing red is magic, huh?

Different circumstances, different tools.

[survivalthroughhate]

No. Not magic. It is the Force.

[offinventory]

What is the Force? I'm guessing it's not physics.

[survivalthroughhate]

An energy field generated by all living things. Plants, people, monsters, animals: everything. Those who are sensitive to it can manipulate it for their own ends and tend to fall on either the Light Side or the Dark Side of the Force. Those sides are not the same as good and evil despite what others might think. The Force makes you feel connected to everything around you. It's like having another sense in addition to the ones you already possess.

[His standard explanation for what the Force is given he's been giving one for over two years now to Sleepers.]

[offinventory]

Right. [ It's not exactly skepticism. Blood magic is real here. The Force is hokey sounding. ]

You don't sound particularly connected to the people around you.

[survivalthroughhate]

Jedi believe in being connected to people and helping them. Sith believe in using that connection to get what we want.

[offinventory]

What do you want—here in Trench? (Besides your brother alive)

[survivalthroughhate]

[There's a long pause from Maul as he tries to figure out how to answer that.]

....I'm still figuring that out. I covet power but there is only so many ways to gain more here. I would like for those I care about not to be hurt but that is an impossibility in this place.

[offinventory]

What's the point of power in the end?

I've yet to see any place people don't get hurt at all. Preservation was close, but you mix in one group of murderous people, and well, that's that. Trench is like that amplified.

[survivalthroughhate]

If you have enough power, you have control. You can make things happen or prevent them from occurring.

[That's the lie the Dark Side whispers to Maul. He still clings to this delusion at his core.]

[offinventory]

[ The one second delay saves Murderbot from scoffing loudly at this statement. ]

Even Pthumerians don't have complete control over what happens.