For now, it's enough for you to accept that about me. That I haven't committed to changing if it comes to that end, because it's how I see things.
I will give myself some leeway. For your sake ... and mine. I guess mine is more important.
[Clarke is better about shaping herself to be what she feels other people need.
In this case, she knows Markus is telling her to be what she needs to be for herself. It's hard. Not impossible, just hard.]
I am open to other outcomes. I like contingencies in the case that the worst comes to pass, but I want to try. I want to believe, and hope. That's where I started with all of this.
Then I suggest that you hold onto that hope. And know that you’re not bound to only one path, especially when we currently can’t see the forest for the trees.
[There’s something sad about the kind of resignation that blots out all hope, that turns winding paths into steel, unyielding corridors that only allow one to walk in a straight line. He would never wish that on anyone — especially on a friend like Clarke.]
Promise me that, and I’ll answer any questions you have about my home. If you still have them.
[Hope. It was a word out of her mouth a lot when she first touched the ground. Yes, she was rigid and on task, but she believed in it. Her father had given her that example.
The concept feels like it's so separate from who she is these days.]
I will. I'll do my best.
[In true Clarke nature, she wants to plunge forward and begin to ask questions, but she won't. Let these words sit on their own.]
[It’s simultaneously a question with a complex answer and a simple one. Markus opts first for a simple reply first, because he knows that this conversation will simply spiderweb out into more questions, more explanations.]
The conflict is that androids are not treated as people. They’re treated as objects, as mindless machines, made to take orders from humans and nothing more. But the reality is that we’re coming into their own self-awareness, wanting to employ our own free will. Wanting to be recognized as people.
A movement I want to spearhead for my city, Detroit. And maybe set an example for the rest of the world. But historically, mankind is resistant to change — this is no different.
I've seen that first hand myself. I've been in the position where I've been desperate to do anything I can to save people from themselves because they can't come to accept that fact.
[Because of course she's been. Why would it be any different now?]
It's hard to help people overcome that. Even examples don't always do the trick. I'm sure you've heard as much.
And I'm sure you've seen examples that tell you it's futile. Despite that, you normally push against it. But that day, when you were sick, you didn't have the will to do so.
[It's worth asking. Clarke thinks it's potentially futile, but she also knows that she doesn't intend to leave this world for as long as she can manage. Take revenge on who did this—but stay. It's selfish as hell, but if there's a way out and she can take it later, can't she do that?]
My plan for home is to fight for freedom, without stumbling into the pitfall of 'the end justifies the means'.
So in a way, yes. My intent is the same for us here.
[Funny, how the definition of 'his people' has shifted. From androids fighting to freedom, to a ragtag group of humans originating throughout the spread of the multiverse, each person's circumstance wildly different from the other.]
I would still wish you good fortune for when you return home, too, Clarke. A friend always deserves that much.
[As for the rest... That is a dangerous question, isn't it? But perhaps not a difficult one to answer, given the state of the world and how AI life had been stamped out so thoroughly in history past.]
I'll tell you what I told someone else. Despite my obvious feelings on the war that transpired in this world, my main objectives are unwavering: to return home, and to keep those from home safe in order to do so.
[Even if that only includes one other android for now.]
Standing on my soapbox as an unknown, in the face of an entire world that hates AIs, when there are no longer any AIs to fight for? There's a line drawn between being boldly idealistic and being reckless, and that might be crossing it.
["Markus, I'm going home to be alone and unhappy." It's not an easy thing to tell anyone.
So, she doesn't.]
Honestly, it may be the only move you can take. Standing down.
What if it turns out that you were turned human for a reason? Not just as a whim, but for some unknown reason that hasn't shown itself?
I'm not saying fate, or anything like that. I've been told a number of times that I was meant to do this or that, but it's always turned out to be circumstances and choice.
[She looks at her words. Clarke recognizes that this is based on hypotheticals. Her own goals don't align with the goals of this world. Who she's helped has been her people or people like her people.]
I guess it's hard to ask you what you'd do when we don't even know the cause.
I know I'm not here to change this world. I've done enough of that for my own.
Would there be a reason... important enough to make losing my old body acceptable?
[He lets that message hang for a little bit, a rhetorical thing. They both know that the answer is 'no'. That the dysphoric adjustment period alone was nothing short of cruety, that no one should have to make that decision for them. Whatever the reasoning, he wants his android body back. He wants and needs to return home with it, even if a second transfer from bodies would be... jarring in ways he didn't expect, knowing what he'd lose as a human.
Best not to think on that, for now.]
I would want to know it, of course. I still want to know how it's possible, and the effects it might have on mind and body whenever I revert back to being android.
[When, not if. He has to make this a reality.]
If you want to tell me more about your role back home, I wouldn't be against hearing it.
I never did say it'd be a good reason. I'd assume bad intent no matter what. But if there is a reason, it would reflect upon the state of AIs in this world.
[It's hard for Clarke to fully work off hypotheticals. As much as she's an artist, as much as she can play diplomatic games, she's not particularly good at going on large, mental tangents to get to a completely shocking place. That doesn't tend to be how she processes information.
It's why she can't carry this theorizing out to a natural conclusion.]
As for my role in my world, I don't mind. You know already that I decided that I couldn't let my people live in the City of Light without their emotions, and I even pleaded with ALIE to let them have it back. So that they could live and be safe. I might have handed them over, but she couldn't lie.
[People needed pain to live. They needed those hard memories. Seeing Lexa not long before she met ALIE and Becca for the first time really sent that home for her.]
But before I was there, I was a teenager trying to keep a hundred kids alive. We were sent down to see if the Earth was survivable. Not only that, though. Oxygen was depleted on the Ark where we grew up. We were expendable. There was no way of knowing if we would live through the experience, and ... well.
Since we did live once we got down, what do you think a bunch of kids did once they no longer had their parents watching them? Things on the Ark were strict. And the only reason we had lived up to that point was because we were under the age of eighteen.
[He’s committed to memory the things that Clarke has told him, that day they visited the skypark and exchanged stories emblazoned in his mind. One of the first instances of someone reaching out to him, of offering a small mote of trust in exchange for his own. A conversation and an experience not so easily forgotten, couched in cool breeze and sunlight.
Every detail more she elaborates on, she fills it a bit more about where she’s from, like a painting slowly forming on canvas. All of it suggests a world less than viable; that, or it illuminates upon the state of humanity as a whole. Teenagers as “expendable”.]
Were you delegated the role of the leader? Or did you take that mantle up for yourself?
I'd say there were three options for leadership. Myself, Bellamy, and Wells, my best friend.
Bellamy led the teenagers into a furor. He had a reason for doing it. He wanted to make it so that they could forget their lives before. He had everything he needed on the ground: himself and his sister (he's the only one with a sibling who grew up on the Ark, which was illegal and got his mother killed). He told them to "do whatever the hell they wanted," and ... being young, they gave in. It wasn't very practical. But as much as this makes him sound bad, he had his reasons. We all make mistakes, and I understand why he was doing this there.
Wells ... He was the son of the very man who sent us down. I know, his own father. He wanted to go down to be with me. But as you can expect, no one wanted to listen to Wells. And he and I weren't getting along, so we couldn't be a unified front when I didn't trust him. [Clarke has no intention of explaining everything here with Wells. That he posed as the one who got her father killed, that he made it so that Clarke's relationship with her mother wouldn't be tarnished. She'll tell Markus a lot, but not that.
Perhaps in the end, it's because the only person that Markus reminds her more of than Bellamy is Wells.]
I knew what to do. Where to go. How to get us there. It was natural. I wasn't elected or asked to be leader. I just did it.
Honestly, I assumed you ended up in that position in a similar way. Doing what you felt was necessary for your people.
"Do whatever the hell they wanted." Bellamy doesn't seem like that kind of person, but I don't know him that well. We've only spoken once or twice before.
[But he seemed calm, cool-headed. Controlled. Do whatever the hell you want feels like too hot of a spark to come from that kind of person, but first impressions are barely even skin deep.]
You're right, it was the same for me. We're similar in that way, too, Clarke.
[A brief pause between messages, just a flicker of a thing.]
When I found the other androids, ones that had awoken to their own sense of agency, like myself, they were content to live and hide in shadow. Fearful of mankind, fearful of going out and living. I had to lead them away from that, I had to show them that wasn't the only option left for them. That they deserved to be happy just as much as the humans, and it was something worth fighting for.
I just did what needed to be done. I didn't ask to lead.
It's not who he is, but it suited what he felt and thought needed to be done at the time. Like I said, he had his reasons. It's a little funny to look back on it all now.
[Clarke is, in fact, smiling at the memory. Bellamy is so grounded now. He's no less prone to fits of emotion, being swept away in what he feels needs to be done without any point of hesitation. But he's no longer reckless, willing to put a hundred lives in danger to avoid consequences. To keep people from hurting his sister. He was always that good, and Clarke was fortunate to see it.]
When it comes to leadership, I've heard a lot that sometimes it's how someone is born. But having the courage to step up and do what you feel needs to be done. Not everyone has that.
It's hard to believe it of myself, but I can see it in other people. I see it in you especially.
I'm not even sure that bravery is the right word for it. Being idle and doing nothing never feels right. According to some people I knew back home, that was leadership.
[Duly noted about Bellamy, shaping his personality a little more than before. Maybe if he gets a chance to know the man better, this same shape will come into full view; for now, he takes Clarke's word for it.]
Less how someone is born, and maybe more how they are raised. How much idealism they're allowed to let foster within themselves, how much they care about the people dear to them and the world around them.
[And how willing that person is to sacrifice themselves for a cause, no matter what it happens to be. Markus doesn't say that much, but perhaps it's implied.]
I wasn't born; I was made for one specific purpose, after all, one that I obviously don't follow any longer.
[I see it in you especially. Flattering, but making something melancholy ring out in his chest all the same.]
We're always our own worst critics, Clarke. I have no doubt you're as much of a leader in reality as you are in my mind. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm made for the part, either, but we do what needs to be done.
I wasn't born to be among the people who would find out that Earth was survivable. My generation was supposed to raise and prepare the generation that would do that. We don't always do what we're intended to do.
We just do what we have to.
[It feels like a pretty good summary for everything they've spoken about up to this point. Their lives before, and who they are now. Whether they believe that of themselves, though it's always easier for others to believe it of them. Clarke is used to that much.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
For now, it's enough for you to accept that about me. That I haven't committed to changing if it comes to that end, because it's how I see things.
I will give myself some leeway. For your sake ... and mine. I guess mine is more important.
[Clarke is better about shaping herself to be what she feels other people need.
In this case, she knows Markus is telling her to be what she needs to be for herself. It's hard. Not impossible, just hard.]
I am open to other outcomes. I like contingencies in the case that the worst comes to pass, but I want to try. I want to believe, and hope. That's where I started with all of this.
no subject
[There’s something sad about the kind of resignation that blots out all hope, that turns winding paths into steel, unyielding corridors that only allow one to walk in a straight line. He would never wish that on anyone — especially on a friend like Clarke.]
Promise me that, and I’ll answer any questions you have about my home. If you still have them.
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The concept feels like it's so separate from who she is these days.]
I will. I'll do my best.
[In true Clarke nature, she wants to plunge forward and begin to ask questions, but she won't. Let these words sit on their own.]
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Then that’s all I need to know for now.
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Can you tell me about the conflict between androids and humans in your world?
[Because it seems that there may be a conflict. If it's a misunderstanding, she'll find out.
With ALIE, there was a conflict, but it was a one and done deal, evolved past that point so that things would be different.]
no subject
The conflict is that androids are not treated as people. They’re treated as objects, as mindless machines, made to take orders from humans and nothing more. But the reality is that we’re coming into their own self-awareness, wanting to employ our own free will. Wanting to be recognized as people.
A movement I want to spearhead for my city, Detroit. And maybe set an example for the rest of the world. But historically, mankind is resistant to change — this is no different.
no subject
[Because of course she's been. Why would it be any different now?]
It's hard to help people overcome that. Even examples don't always do the trick. I'm sure you've heard as much.
And I'm sure you've seen examples that tell you it's futile. Despite that, you normally push against it. But that day, when you were sick, you didn't have the will to do so.
Am I understanding correctly?
no subject
So yes, you’re correct.
[It’s really no simpler than that.]
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Do you intend to pursue it here, as well?
[It's worth asking. Clarke thinks it's potentially futile, but she also knows that she doesn't intend to leave this world for as long as she can manage. Take revenge on who did this—but stay. It's selfish as hell, but if there's a way out and she can take it later, can't she do that?]
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So in a way, yes. My intent is the same for us here.
[Funny, how the definition of 'his people' has shifted. From androids fighting to freedom, to a ragtag group of humans originating throughout the spread of the multiverse, each person's circumstance wildly different from the other.]
no subject
But I suppose I meant—do you intend to counter the opinions of AI here? To change them?
[A dangerous question, perhaps? But she asks it just the same.]
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[As for the rest... That is a dangerous question, isn't it? But perhaps not a difficult one to answer, given the state of the world and how AI life had been stamped out so thoroughly in history past.]
I'll tell you what I told someone else. Despite my obvious feelings on the war that transpired in this world, my main objectives are unwavering: to return home, and to keep those from home safe in order to do so.
[Even if that only includes one other android for now.]
Standing on my soapbox as an unknown, in the face of an entire world that hates AIs, when there are no longer any AIs to fight for? There's a line drawn between being boldly idealistic and being reckless, and that might be crossing it.
no subject
So, she doesn't.]
Honestly, it may be the only move you can take. Standing down.
What if it turns out that you were turned human for a reason? Not just as a whim, but for some unknown reason that hasn't shown itself?
I'm not saying fate, or anything like that. I've been told a number of times that I was meant to do this or that, but it's always turned out to be circumstances and choice.
[She looks at her words. Clarke recognizes that this is based on hypotheticals. Her own goals don't align with the goals of this world. Who she's helped has been her people or people like her people.]
I guess it's hard to ask you what you'd do when we don't even know the cause.
I know I'm not here to change this world. I've done enough of that for my own.
[For better or worse.]
no subject
[He lets that message hang for a little bit, a rhetorical thing. They both know that the answer is 'no'. That the dysphoric adjustment period alone was nothing short of cruety, that no one should have to make that decision for them. Whatever the reasoning, he wants his android body back. He wants and needs to return home with it, even if a second transfer from bodies would be... jarring in ways he didn't expect, knowing what he'd lose as a human.
Best not to think on that, for now.]
I would want to know it, of course. I still want to know how it's possible, and the effects it might have on mind and body whenever I revert back to being android.
[When, not if. He has to make this a reality.]
If you want to tell me more about your role back home, I wouldn't be against hearing it.
no subject
[It's hard for Clarke to fully work off hypotheticals. As much as she's an artist, as much as she can play diplomatic games, she's not particularly good at going on large, mental tangents to get to a completely shocking place. That doesn't tend to be how she processes information.
It's why she can't carry this theorizing out to a natural conclusion.]
As for my role in my world, I don't mind. You know already that I decided that I couldn't let my people live in the City of Light without their emotions, and I even pleaded with ALIE to let them have it back. So that they could live and be safe. I might have handed them over, but she couldn't lie.
[People needed pain to live. They needed those hard memories. Seeing Lexa not long before she met ALIE and Becca for the first time really sent that home for her.]
But before I was there, I was a teenager trying to keep a hundred kids alive. We were sent down to see if the Earth was survivable. Not only that, though. Oxygen was depleted on the Ark where we grew up. We were expendable. There was no way of knowing if we would live through the experience, and ... well.
Since we did live once we got down, what do you think a bunch of kids did once they no longer had their parents watching them? Things on the Ark were strict. And the only reason we had lived up to that point was because we were under the age of eighteen.
[No rules would lead to anarchy. As it did.
Bellamy helped encourage it.]
no subject
Every detail more she elaborates on, she fills it a bit more about where she’s from, like a painting slowly forming on canvas. All of it suggests a world less than viable; that, or it illuminates upon the state of humanity as a whole. Teenagers as “expendable”.]
Were you delegated the role of the leader? Or did you take that mantle up for yourself?
no subject
Bellamy led the teenagers into a furor. He had a reason for doing it. He wanted to make it so that they could forget their lives before. He had everything he needed on the ground: himself and his sister (he's the only one with a sibling who grew up on the Ark, which was illegal and got his mother killed). He told them to "do whatever the hell they wanted," and ... being young, they gave in. It wasn't very practical. But as much as this makes him sound bad, he had his reasons. We all make mistakes, and I understand why he was doing this there.
Wells ... He was the son of the very man who sent us down. I know, his own father. He wanted to go down to be with me. But as you can expect, no one wanted to listen to Wells. And he and I weren't getting along, so we couldn't be a unified front when I didn't trust him. [Clarke has no intention of explaining everything here with Wells. That he posed as the one who got her father killed, that he made it so that Clarke's relationship with her mother wouldn't be tarnished. She'll tell Markus a lot, but not that.
Perhaps in the end, it's because the only person that Markus reminds her more of than Bellamy is Wells.]
I knew what to do. Where to go. How to get us there. It was natural. I wasn't elected or asked to be leader. I just did it.
Honestly, I assumed you ended up in that position in a similar way. Doing what you felt was necessary for your people.
no subject
[But he seemed calm, cool-headed. Controlled. Do whatever the hell you want feels like too hot of a spark to come from that kind of person, but first impressions are barely even skin deep.]
You're right, it was the same for me. We're similar in that way, too, Clarke.
[A brief pause between messages, just a flicker of a thing.]
When I found the other androids, ones that had awoken to their own sense of agency, like myself, they were content to live and hide in shadow. Fearful of mankind, fearful of going out and living. I had to lead them away from that, I had to show them that wasn't the only option left for them. That they deserved to be happy just as much as the humans, and it was something worth fighting for.
I just did what needed to be done. I didn't ask to lead.
no subject
[Clarke is, in fact, smiling at the memory. Bellamy is so grounded now. He's no less prone to fits of emotion, being swept away in what he feels needs to be done without any point of hesitation. But he's no longer reckless, willing to put a hundred lives in danger to avoid consequences. To keep people from hurting his sister. He was always that good, and Clarke was fortunate to see it.]
When it comes to leadership, I've heard a lot that sometimes it's how someone is born. But having the courage to step up and do what you feel needs to be done. Not everyone has that.
It's hard to believe it of myself, but I can see it in other people. I see it in you especially.
I'm not even sure that bravery is the right word for it. Being idle and doing nothing never feels right. According to some people I knew back home, that was leadership.
no subject
Less how someone is born, and maybe more how they are raised. How much idealism they're allowed to let foster within themselves, how much they care about the people dear to them and the world around them.
[And how willing that person is to sacrifice themselves for a cause, no matter what it happens to be. Markus doesn't say that much, but perhaps it's implied.]
I wasn't born; I was made for one specific purpose, after all, one that I obviously don't follow any longer.
[I see it in you especially. Flattering, but making something melancholy ring out in his chest all the same.]
We're always our own worst critics, Clarke. I have no doubt you're as much of a leader in reality as you are in my mind. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm made for the part, either, but we do what needs to be done.
no subject
We just do what we have to.
[It feels like a pretty good summary for everything they've spoken about up to this point. Their lives before, and who they are now. Whether they believe that of themselves, though it's always easier for others to believe it of them. Clarke is used to that much.]