bythe_books | Private to Prefect

Yes Comrade?

Elle Bishop. I don't want you trading with her or associating with her. She'll try to use anything you give her to harm somebody else, no matter how harmless a request it may seem.

I know you wouldn't want to lose business by turning away a customer, so here's the deal: she comes to you for anything, don't trade with her. Don't give her a single thing. Do not make a sale, trade, barter, etc.

Tell me you denied a sale, and I'll buy something from you of equal or greater value instead. You don't even have to tell me what she asked for or mention her name. It can be as confidential as possible.

Edited 2009-01-16 00:12 (UTC)

Comrade, it's not that I don't see the logic and good business sense in your suggestion, but I can't do that. The Factory must be completely non discriminatory, and untainted by fragile illusions such as protection of the masses, or the desires of an indevidual.

If she asks me? I can't not sell to her.

Fine. I understand you have your code, but I have mine, too.

If I find out you've sold her anything-- if I even get a whiff of you talking to her, you're losing everything. All of your stock. That's a promise. I'm not going to allow anybody to get hurt by something I had the power to stop.

And what if it works the other way around too? What if she ends up getting hurt because I do what you want me to and don't makeany deals with her? You know how her warden is with the vampires - If you had an advocate for your rights, and someone continuously made that advocates life difficult, then for some reason you were in a position where you got to hunt down a group of people including the person causing trouble for your advocate, who would you try to kill first?

Elle hasn't approached me for anything, ever. She might be a terrible person, but she's never used me or anything I've provided to do it. So there.

All of the precedents are stacked against her. The woman tried to use toothpicks to harm an innocent person, for god's sake! So right now, I couldn't give a toss what happens to her on account of you not selling. She gets hurt because you didn't sell, it's her and her Warden's business, not yours. ~~And if I could even trust your judgement at all, I wouldn't have to set restrictions like this.~~

'So there'? THIS IS WHAT'S KNOWN AS A PREVENTATIVE MEASURE, PREFECT. The point of it being? TO STOP IT BEFORE IT HAPPENS. I don't care if she tried to get anything from you in the past; I'm talking about the future. And what I said still stands: you associate with her, you lose everything. You even do your business with her through another person, you lose everything.

Edited 2009-01-17 17:01 (UTC)

So you're asking me to punish her by witholding my services for something that she hasn't actually done yet, because it's a "preventative measure"? Comrade, what if she needs something?

And why is it my job to respond to what someone else does? And why is it okay IF I let her suffer through inaction but not if I accidentally let somone else suffer through action and hypothetically? What if I was friends with her? What if you decide that someone who maybe I like interacting with is a bad person, will you just stop me from talking to them on pain of losing everything I have and being locked in my room again?

...how can I make this very, very plain to you?

Withholding your services from somebody who has an established precedent of using every item she has requested from others FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSES OF HURTING OR KILLING SOMEBODY ELSE, isn't punishing them. Not allowing a violent criminal access to potential weapons: NOT A PUNISHMENT. And it's not like I'm pretending to be a fucking mind reader here: this is something she's done TIME AND TIME AGAIN-- even if it's not to YOU-- not something "she hasn't actually done yet."

If I could trust you to use just a little bit of judgement, a little bit of common sense in which requests you choose to fulfill, I wouldn't be making these threats. But I can't. If she asked you for a knife, you'd give it to her, and would you care at all if she used it to hurt somebody? Would it prevent you from making the very same trade again in the future? Be honest here.

As long as your profits take priority over the safety of yourself and others, I am going to be a right pain in your arse, and you're going to have to deal with it.

Edited 2009-01-18 19:55 (UTC)

I... I do know that. It's just hard to come up with reasons to defend why still wanting to sell dangerous things to anyone who wants them is the right thing to do. I just still think it is. It's what everything was built on, not restricting anyone, not letting your own preferences or fears or knowledge about someone get in the way of what it is you do, of the function you exist to fulfil.

It's not that I don't care, I just have an obligation to be professional. It's not even that I'm not upset about the prospect of you taking everything away from me, It just doesn't make any difference. No matter how it effects me or her or anyone else, I am an alpha plus, and I am a servant of the Factory, and I must function in accordance with the Factory regulations and uphold the codes of impartiality and universally constant consumerism.

Even if sometimes it seems like a bad idea.

If you can't come up with the reasons, then maybe there aren't any. Maybe you don't really think it's the right thing to do, but can't bring yourself to admit it because it goes against everything you were raised to believe.

~~But sometimes what you were raised to believe is wrong.~~

Prefect, there isn't any Factory here. You're going to have to get used to that. It doesn't mean that you have to abandon your purpose, it just means that you'll have to change, adapt.

You have competition here now, for example, where you didn't before. A rival seller. Do your Factory regulations even begin to tell you how to adapt your techniques to that?

Things change. It's human not to like it, but what makes us great is our ability to overcome hardships, to change in reaction to them, to become stronger.

No, it is the right thing to do! The Factory-- it might not be a great driving force on the barge, but lots of things on the barge aren't right! And if you knew it, if you understood...

The Factory is the great monument that stands at the end of all history, the entirety of human development and achievement and understanding and commerce ends with it, It is the mother and father of generations of enlightened workers and consumers and it works perfectly. It's huge and endless and it provides everything that we ever want or need and all we have to do is work, and buy, and there's never anything else because there is nothing else that's needed. Comrade, Consumer, there is nothing greater or purer than this, it is what everything was built from and it is the force that sustains it and the Factory is the greatest and purest form of this greatest and purest action. So we work. So we function. So we don't change the rules just because we don't understand them, because they were made by something better than we are.

I have changed since I came here Comrade, I've not had a whole lot of choice about it, but I've changed. I'm just trying not to change too much.

Private to Prefect

no subject

Private - Sam's trying to be PROACTIVE!

Private - Prefects skewed morality might prevent this...

Private - Well, see, this is when Sam will have to go the route he was trying to avoid :C

Private - Prefect says, "THAT'S OKAY, IT'S NOT THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE TORTURED ME!"

Private - Sam says, "CRY MORE, DRAMA QUEEN." (and strikes aren't readable at allllll)

Private - Prefect is overthinking the ramifications of this...

Private - Prefect needs to shut his pie hole >(

Private - FINE.

Private - .....I still love you, Prefect :c

Private - Then maybe you should give him a hug? He'd like that. Honest.