10th Rise of the Phoenix ஜ Action/Voice
[Filtered from Selphie | You can probably hack this by just sneezing]How many of you have gone to school? I don't mean studying about something specific like magic to be a sorcerer or however that's done. I mean a general school, with several classes and a lot of hours sitting on a desk doing nothing but listening to the teacher. Do that type of
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[Robert pauses slightly, before adding:] Ah, but it was rarely sitting there and listening to a teacher. Rather, classes were far more immersive and intuitive than that.
Does your world lack an educational system? [It's a sincere question, though it probably comes off as pedantic.]
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[Honestly all he knows from school is from when he was at the orphanage and how they imparted lessons there. Oh, and the times in which Guilty wasn't beating the crap out of him and leaving him almost dead. But those lessons were more exciting if only for the issue of Ikki getting them after another beat down -though not as bad as to almost kill him-.]
Not really, I know there are schools and all. I've received basic education on the alphabet and numbers, but ever since I was little I was picked up to be trained for a specific job. So I never had to attend to school or learn anything else than what I needed to know to fulfil my given duty.
[Ikki doesn't care if the question came off as pedantic or not. If he cared about people judging him for this he wouldn't have bothered to ask.]
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[In short, it's a totally different setting than the orphanage would likely have provided - something that tried to capitalize on the individual strengths of each student, that tried to nurture their own learning patterns, and in general was simply much more flexible than most systems Ikki would likely be familiar with.]
... That sounds like a great shame, if I may say so. Not to be offensive towards your world's schooling, but being exposed to a wide variety of subjects and improving one's own knowledge is always a wonderful thing; only by being educated can one truly appreciate the diversity of the universe.
[Robert kind of sounds like an infomercial but he doesn't realize it.]I myself have learned much from even being in Luceti. It is a veritable treasure trove of ( ... )
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No, the whole world wasn't like that. We were just exceptions per say, I think that normally children in my world just went to those schools. Anyway we weren't supposed to "appreciate the diversity of the universe" so educating us like that was a waste of time. Most of the kids I knew didn't even survive their trainings so it wouldn't have served them for anything.
[He thinks Saori was educated like that, though he can't imagine her going to a school, no matter how high class and refined it may be. But he doesn't think she changed from being a selfish annoying bitch to a bipolar whimsical princess in a natural manner.]
You almost sound like someone who would spend his life in a school if possible.
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Your government simply allowed these atrocities to occur?
[He trails off before answering the last bit.]
... I suppose I almost would. I have always loved learning, and relish the process tremendously... but there are ways that one can learn other than a direct scholastic setting.
[Not that Robert puts anywhere near as much stock in them, but hey.]
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[Or even acquired a Cloth, though that counts as part of the training after all.]
I don't even know if any of the governments are truly aware of our existence. Though I doubt they could say much about it, if anything all they could have do something about was against the man who gathered us and sent us to those trainings without even asking for our opinion. But he was one of the richest men in the world and we were just a bunch of orphans that no one wanted.
[Not to mention how they probably were orphans because he had wanted it that way since the mothers would have gotten in the way of sending them to train. Or that no one ever tried to adopt them for the same reason. Ikki's pretty sure that Mitsumasa Kido literally controlled even the tiniest detail of their situation until they were sent to train.]That explains a lot. I've never really been interested in learning, I found it stupid and had other things to worry about. ( ... )
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... Orphans nobody wanted? [Robert blinks at this, almost confused.] Most Terran children are adopted; I myself was... but... I am not so certain that it is the same thing, and certainly it is nothing like that. To be sequestered like so much chattel...
[And the last part just fills Robert with a profound sense of sadness. Feeling like learning was stupid and pointless... ... but with a life like that, maybe it explained why.]
... Do you still feel that way?
And... if you do, would you be receptive to... considering the alternatives?
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[Chattel?]
We aren't slaves. We have been given many chances to leave after the end of our training.
[But it's not as if they have much else to do or anywhere else to go. Ikki doesn't mind that, he could still leave, but to do so without his brother. Without his brothers, his pride wouldn't allow it.]
Would you bother to ask about something you consider stupid and pointless? Honestly right now I don't care, until not long ago I had assumed I was too old for school already and had no use for it.
But as someone I know said, one can't train the whole day.
[Aka: he's bored enough to be considering peeking at the school. But he's not entirely convinced either.]
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But Robert isn't trained to recognize any of that as war, and so he remains oblivious.]
... I should hope not. Something of that sort would be reported to the authorities immediately.
If you were given chances to leave, was there any reason that prevented you from doing so? Or... did you prefer it? [Uncomfortable tone, here. Robert is... barely beginning to comprehend that some people actually enjoy fighting, or at least are so used to it that they can't understand anything else (like Giles). That mindset terrifies him, but he's trying to respect the fact it exists.]Admittedly, much of what I heard here in my first month or so in Luceti, I considered absolutely inane. Like magic... paranormal phenomena do not exist in my world, as far as anybody can tell with reasonable accuracy; but here it is scientifically provable and ( ... )
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Of course there were reasons for it. Only a suicidal idiot would keep living this life without any reason, and no one would prefer it to peace. But those are fights that must be fought if we want someone in the world to be able to live in peace to begin with, someone has to do it and even if we may not have wanted to do it when we were forced into it, we don't have reasons to back off either. A peaceful live is meaningless when you know that somewhere else there's a war going on, one that decides the destiny of humanity and the whole planet, one in which you could fight to help and protect people.
[There are other more personal reasons but those are no one's business except his and maybe Athena's and the Pope if he was still alive. ( ... )
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[And the second thing just... takes him by surprise.] Gods and goddesses... well, I have heard from others here that their worlds have gods that are real. But I have yet to meet one myself.
[And his own world doesn't have any.]
At any rate, I do recommend you at least... consider it, but of course, in the end it is solely your decision to make.
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They have been doing it since ancient times, so I don't see why they would suddenly decide to stop now.
[That doesn't surprise him, not many get to meet a god or a goddess in person... Or in any other way.]
You aren't really missing anything great. Except for her power she is basically like any other child out there. She's the Goddess of War but hates it and always tries to avoid us from fighting even at the cost of her life and even if we decided to fight anyway.
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...
I do hope eventually it does end, though.
No planet should have war forever... ideally not at all. But... but at least not forever.
[A goddess of war that... hates war? Huh.]
... Truly? How would that come about, something personifying war and yet despising it?
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[It doesn't really matter anyway, it all comes down to them trying to destroy humanity so it's the same difference for him.]
Because while she is the Goddess of War she's also the Goddess of Wisdom, so the war she represents it's one that would be fought with words and wisdom, not with weapons, blood and suffering. The God that represents that war is another one, Ares if I recall correctly. Athena only fights when there's no other solution, she only raises her hand against the opponent when reason and words have failed.
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[That... that is disturbing. Disturbingly like how pre-Terran humans treated the planet.
And the next part completely floors Robert. The idea of a war being fought in any way other than with weapons is... brain-shatteringly new.]
...
That... that can be called "war"...?
... Why would it be war, then? Nobody would be... being hurt, would they? There is no violence that way.
Athena sounds like my partner. [A pacifist who only fights for self-defense.]
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[Or something like that, Ikki has never particularly cared about what the Gods wanted and why. Usually he stopped caring at the part where it was clear that humanity and Athena were in danger.]
A war is a conflict, and a conflict is nothing but at least two people being in disagreement. The way the conflict is handled differs, it can be done with them fighting with punches or weapons, but it can also be handled with them talking about it until one point is accepted by both of them. The accepted point may be a balance of both ideas or just one of them, but at the end it's something that has been reached through a conflict, in other words a war. Even if no one supposedly gets hurt.
Her character isn't unique for her, thankfully. But there aren't still enough people like her.
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