Discussion of E-mails to and from the Cabal

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

Two things that bother me about her reply to you, Wacky.

First of all, she seems to be implying that their "making it up" to Joan consists of messing with her mind. At least, that's what I got from her pointing out that Joan seems to want to believe that her patient wasn't a fictional character. What are they going to do, fake a letter from him or something? Whatever the intentions here, they seem to be doing to her the exact same thing, in miniature, that they DON'T want us to do for them, and I call hypocrisy.

Second, I notice she explains why an apology to Joan wouldn't be quite the thing. But she hasn't even suggested apologizing to Joe. I mean, sure, saying sorry doesn't cut it, but it would be a START. A fairly OBVIOUS start, too.
The fact that she doesn't convinces me more that any indication from her of their good intentions is a sham.

[WackyMeetsPractical]

Two things that bother me about her reply to you, Wacky.

First of all, she seems to be implying that their "making it up" to Joan consists of messing with her mind. At least, that's what I got from her pointing out that Joan seems to want to believe that her patient wasn't a fictional character. What are they going to do, fake a letter from him or something? Whatever the intentions here, they seem to be doing to her the exact same thing, in miniature, that they DON'T want us to do for them, and I call hypocrisy.

Second, I notice she explains why an apology to Joan wouldn't be quite the thing. But she hasn't even suggested apologizing to Joe. I mean, sure, saying sorry doesn't cut it, but it would be a START. A fairly OBVIOUS start, too.
The fact that she doesn't convinces me more that any indication from her of their good intentions is a sham.

I'm afraid you have misunderstood Morgan's message in the first point. She never said anything about messing with her mind, nor did I ever get that impression, even after rereading it now. She uses the wanting her to believe Sweeney was just a normal patient as an excuse not to issue an open apology, not as an indication of what their plans are. As it is currently, Joan seems to believe that Todd was just a crazy person who somehow managed to leave a room without anyone noticing. The Cabal don't really need to do anything to convince her of that, so I really think it's something else.

As for your second point, I agree whole heartedly. Any normal human being would've been able to come up with something. The fact that they had not already done anything to fix things up with Joe is a strong indication to me that they have not really changed, nor wish to do so. And I planned to tell her just that in my next correspondence to her.

[EdwardTheAwesome]

And how would you propose they go about apologizing to Joe? "Sorry you got so scared that you had to move?"

I don't think an apology would cut it, and I'm willing to guess that they know that too. So maybe we start...suggesting things. It seems like they want to make amends, and go about it the right way. Let's at least give them the chance to do it.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

Wow, Wacky. Limes on the awesome impassioned email.

And speaking of limes, lots of them to the guy who got Erik's and Juan's emails! I'm not sure what I, for one, want to say to Juan just yet (though I certainly have a few ideas percolating...), but I've already jotted off an email to Erik, which I copied to the Cabal Contact thread. With a translation, since most of it was in French. I'm just thoughtful like that. ^_^

[JRPictures]

Wow, Wacky. Limes on the awesome impassioned email.

And speaking of limes, lots of them to the guy who got Erik's and Juan's emails! I'm not sure what I, for one, want to say to Juan just yet (though I certainly have a few ideas percolating...), but I've already jotted off an email to Erik, which I copied to the Cabal Contact thread. With a translation, since most of it was in French. I'm just thoughtful like that. ^_^

Yeah. All the limes to that guy.

I'm not even sure if i should email any of them. I'm not truly sure what to say. But it might come to me. we'll see.

[Scarab]

And how would you propose they go about apologizing to Joe? "Sorry you got so scared that you had to move?"

I don't think an apology would cut it, and I'm willing to guess that they know that too. So maybe we start...suggesting things. It seems like they want to make amends, and go about it the right way. Let's at least give them the chance to do it.

If you think that's right, we can always visit a try. Morgan has at the very least spent an awful lot of time replying to us and engaging with us (if only they had done that in the FIRST place so much stress could've been avoided... but I can see why mistakes have been made.)

The problem I'm sure you see now, Ed, is that we are seriously running the risk of Base Breaking here. This troubles me greatly. The whole forum could start fighting over whether or not to send the Cabal back, and I don't think splitting our efforts like that will help anyone.

What do you think as to the idea of using the 'get a third metaguard sponsored party to hold the wall pieces' idea? At the very least then WE'D have the pieces, the Cabal wouldn't have to worry about Mister A getting them, and Mister A wouldn't have to worry about the Cabal getting them. Morgan seems open to it, though she doubts Mister A will be so lenient. I am inclined to agree with her there but still... might it be possible?

[Pixelmage]

Unfortunately that's not possible. Removing the pieces from Mr. A's guard makes them snap back to the wall. It means that right now Mr. A is the one keeping the wall open in the first place so that we can send the characters back. So, there is no way to seize the pieces for ourselves.

Here's the relevant tweet.

[Scarab]

Unfortunately that's not possible. Removing the pieces from Mr. A's guard makes them snap back to the wall. It means that right now Mr. A is the one keeping the wall open in the first place so that we can send the characters back. So, there is no way to seize the pieces for ourselves.

Here's the relevant tweet.

Well bugger , I wish I'd realised that before I messaged Morgan back We're surethere's no way the pieces could be transferred to a third party?

...He's being quite rational and calm in that particular twitter, anyways. Maybe the experiment is still the only option? We can judge a lot by how they act. Anyway this is what I sent Morgan back.

Morgan,
Thank you for getting back to me I can see that you’ve received no shortage of emails from us and we really appreciate your responding to all of us (I’m sure you’ve been asked the same questions several times at this point, feel free to copy-paste answers if you have to).
You mentioned Wales on the forum. I’ve never been per se, but I have passed through, and you’ll be happy to know some parts of it are still just as beautiful as they were in your time. Maybe you should visit.

I can understand you having made such an error with Joe. It’s truly a shame that we couldn’t all have started out on different footing. We may have still considered sending you back, as you feared, even if you had approached Joe more civilly, but perhaps less of your time would have been wasted in conflict.
In fairness, I think we made similar mistakes in our treatment of you. The ideas of heroes and villains have so long been engrained in our heads that even now, we struggle with shades of grey.

I agree that Mister Administrator does not appear to be open to the idea of anything that could be deemed negotiation but, in the interests of finding a better solution to all of this, we shall ask him. Whatever has happened, he brought us all together in an endeavour to protect our world and that garners our loyalty. He does seem quite determined to send you all back and if it’s not to save the world, then I can’t see his reasoning. Again this is another situation where I wish our communication problems could be sorted out...
We’re kind of a messed up species really, aren’t we?
Mister Administrator’s response might be informative, and we would quite like explanations from him. I’m not convinced we’re going to get them, but if the risk to our world remains...

Sincerely

PS: Sorry to throw this at you, but I do have one more question. It’s a bit of an odd one, and I didn’t think of it again until just now. When Sherlock Holmes previously approached a wall piece, he experienced great discomfort just from being in its proximity. We presume this is due to how the pieces have been shielded. But in the shard featuring you all, Moriarty is seem holding the piece in his hand. How was he able to hold it without feeling the same effects Holmes did?

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

Also, just throwing out a thought that occurred to me in relation to Morgan's response to Tohr (I think) about Pan's lawyer being out of their control:

Mr. A has been known to terminate both instantiations of himself whose behaviour is erratic, and business relationships with real-world agents such as Ace whose work he deems to be substandard. Both these types of termination are executed smoothly, swiftly, and with finality, and he makes a point of doing damage control right away to clean up whatever mess the terminated instantiation was terminated for.

But apparently the Cabal never bothered to check up on the mental stability of the lawyer they decided to work with, and when they realized their mistake, they just dropped him, without any attempt at cleanup.

So... whom am I more inclined to trust?

[Scarab]

Also, just throwing out a thought that occurred to me in relation to Morgan's response to Tohr (I think) about Pan's lawyer being out of their control:

Mr. A has been known to terminate both instantiations of himself whose behaviour is erratic, and business relationships with real-world agents such as Ace whose work he deems to be substandard. Both these types of termination are executed smoothly, swiftly, and with finality, and he makes a point of doing damage control right away to clean up whatever mess the terminated instantiation was terminated for.

But apparently the Cabal never bothered to check up on the mental stability of the lawyer they decided to work with, and when they realized their mistake, they just dropped him, without any attempt at cleanup.

So... whom am I more inclined to trust?

Indeed that was certainly a HUGE error on their part at the very least. (Although I don't think the swiftness of Mister A's terminations makes it in any way better, not if termination means what I think it does. The Cabal screwed Peter over but, in this instance at least, they didn't try to KILL the guy. Actually some of them seem quite adverse to killing.)

Wait, Ace is terminated? I hope you don't mean... THAT kind of terminated.

[H22]

Also, just throwing out a thought that occurred to me in relation to Morgan's response to Tohr (I think) about Pan's lawyer being out of their control:

Mr. A has been known to terminate both instantiations of himself whose behaviour is erratic, and business relationships with real-world agents such as Ace whose work he deems to be substandard. Both these types of termination are executed smoothly, swiftly, and with finality, and he makes a point of doing damage control right away to clean up whatever mess the terminated instantiation was terminated for.

But apparently the Cabal never bothered to check up on the mental stability of the lawyer they decided to work with, and when they realized their mistake, they just dropped him, without any attempt at cleanup.

So... whom am I more inclined to trust?

I know I'm fairly Hobbesian, but...
Well. Personally, I tend not to trust people who 'smoothly, swiftly and with finality' kill other people, as they could theoretically kill any of us. Obviously, the Cabal SHOULD have cleared up, but termination is massively extreme. I would not have trusted Joseph Stalin, and I see no reason to trust people who behave in the same way.

Also, it is not the normal Mr. As we deal with every day who terminate instantiations; it is Prime himself. Thus we have no more grounds to trust Mr. A than anyone else. I note that if the Cabal had been taking steps to neutralise fellow beings for their own interest, like Prime does, you would have been the first to object, and quite right too.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

Guys, allow me to clarify before we derail this thread further.

A has already answered us about instantiation termination-- terminated instantiations are "reincorporated into Prime".
Remember that A is not human. All instantiations are essentially an aspect of Prime, so there is functionally no difference between any instantiation we generally deal with, and Prime, except for a matter of personal taste. And terminating instantiations is not the same thing as killing a sentient being, because they're all part of a hivemind-- it's more like clipping jagged fingernails, for want of a better analogy. Card explains it better in Ender's Game.

And another clarification-- He did not kill Ace. He terminated their business relationship-- that is, fired him. He did so smoothly, swiftly, and with finality, then followed up to clean up any problems caused by Ace during his time of employment by A. If the Cabal had done the same with Peter's prosecutor, I would be far more inclined to trust them than I am now.

[H22]

That doesn't stop the fact he is not above neutralisation. It is also illegal to fire someone with no explanation.

Rerail.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

He provided explanation. Ace's methods were questionable, and his writing sub-par.

Back on-topic, Sicon's and Morgana's walls of text were certainly both entertaining and informative.
And something she mentioned made me remember something I should bring up to her, at the risk of derailing my conversation with her with a book review. It may help with stage two, or possibly three, of my plan. (But I'll need to get out of class before I have the time to draft my next letter.)

[EdwardTheAwesome]

I would like to point out that emailing her super long letters just means she's not going to get back to us as quickly. Maybe try to be more concise, she's probably got like forty of these in her inbox, each like eight pages long. (I exaggerate, of course, but still). Stop sending her essays. She seems to be trying to respond to all of us individually to do us our due, and lets not make that hard for her.

[S_o_S]

I would like to point out that emailing her super long letters just means she's not going to get back to us as quickly. Maybe try to be more concise, she's probably got like forty of these in her inbox, each like eight pages long. (I exaggerate, of course, but still). Stop sending her essays. She seems to be trying to respond to all of us individually to do us our due, and lets not make that hard for her.

That's difficult though, especially if there's a lot you want to articulate.

... *flees*

[EdwardTheAwesome]

I would like to point out that emailing her super long letters just means she's not going to get back to us as quickly. Maybe try to be more concise, she's probably got like forty of these in her inbox, each like eight pages long. (I exaggerate, of course, but still). Stop sending her essays. She seems to be trying to respond to all of us individually to do us our due, and lets not make that hard for her.

That's difficult though, especially if there's a lot you want to articulate.

... *flees*

You can still do it in less that 4 paragraphs. Especially if she feels you guys are not actually listening, she might become jaded on the whole process and just start sending us form emails.

Dear [insert name here],
I'm sorry, your question is not one of the 10 I have written a response too. Can you please ask another?
Thanks,
Morgan

[Dryunya]

Second, I notice she explains why an apology to Joan wouldn't be quite the thing. But she hasn't even suggested apologizing to Joe. I mean, sure, saying sorry doesn't cut it, but it would be a START. A fairly OBVIOUS start, too.
The fact that she doesn't convinces me more that any indication from her of their good intentions is a sham.

First of all, THIS. Morgana can berate me all she wants, but no one of them tried to apologize to him, which would be the most obvious step toward making amends to everyone.

And how would you propose they go about apologizing to Joe? "Sorry you got so scared that you had to move?"

"Sorry you got so scared that you had to move. As you're aware now, our nature is too different, and explaining our motives would only draw more attention to us, which we didn't want at the time. We know that our act was immature and illegal, and we apologize. You are in no danger, and you can come back home now. We're sorry about that. If there's anything we can do to make up for it, we're listening."

There. Took me 2 minutes. It took them MONTHS to make a single effort to communicate, and even after that, they didn't make that obvious step everyone asked for.
What they're doing now is nothing more than polishing the slate. If they are going to stay here (and they assume the reality won't implode), of course they aren't going to enjoy their new lives in jail. If I were a villain, I'd be making amends right now, too. It's only logical.

Ed. You're not really trying to support your friend here. Not cool.
If I say anything else, Adell and Qara will murder me for breaking the base, so just know what I think about that.

[Scarab]

Morgan, got back to me, I stuck it here with the rest: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=740&p=28581#p28578

Can't argue with her point about the wall still being open, of course, to make any move towards the pieces ourselves will INSTANTLY put Mister A against us, even if we ARE just doing it to experiment and see what happens. That would immediately cause a schism with him that I do not like.

If I can just say, get the distinct feeling we're being forced to Break the Base here and I do not like it.

[JLocke]

You know, we could use a change in perspective. We don't lose anything (except for the metaverse ) if we try to advance the Cabal's plotline. So I say we should at least try to get a piece and see where it leads us. If the Broken Base was intended, it will happen anyway.

I'll go compose an email. I have an hour or so, I think.

[S_o_S]

Morgan responded to me, but requested I not post her response, just in case anyone is wondering.

[Victin]

Morgan responded to me, but requested I not post her response, just in case anyone is wondering.

Tell to us through PMs or Chatroom. Qara did so.

[S_o_S]

I don't particularly wish to violate her trust at this junction.

[WackyMeetsPractical]

So reading Morganna's words about the way she lives through multiple retellings of her stories, I can't help but feel partially justified for my stance on the way character's live their lives despite multiple people here telling me how foolish such thinking was, and called me outright wrong despite very little evidence to back that up. So *smug face*

But I'm also sort of bothered by the differences between Morganna's recollection of her former life and the way the other fictionals have portrayed themselves. I think ultimately we have to accept that there isn't going to be any consistency here. That every fictional is different. Each of these fictionals have their own unique pasts and different ways of viewing them.

[Sicon112]

So reading Morganna's words about the way she lives through multiple retellings of her stories, I can't help but feel partially justified for my stance on the way character's live their lives despite multiple people here telling me how foolish such thinking was, and called me outright wrong despite very little evidence to back that up. So *smug face*

But I'm also sort of bothered by the differences between Morganna's recollection of her former life and the way the other fictionals have portrayed themselves. I think ultimately we have to accept that there isn't going to be any consistency here. That every fictional is different. Each of these fictionals have their own unique pasts and different ways of viewing them.

Morgan is not claiming that she lives her story every time it is read, she is claiming she is aware of all AU versions of herself, which is strange, but not what you were talking about before.