I am caught between the genocide desired by the powers that be, the hatred that boils within the people I represent, my own inescapable knowledge that androids are just humanity's latest underclass.
It was just like in the movies. Men in black took you from your house despite your insistence that you wanted to stay with your family in the last few hours before impact. They made it clear that not doing what they wanted would be a very bad idea and you would end up where they wanted you to go anyway. They put you in a helicopter and flew to an airfield where you stepped into a supersonic jet and were flown to New York, or rather, to what is left of New York.
You’ve been told a little en-route. You’re needed to attend the same room in New York with as many of the members of a particular third day meeting that happened at a peace conference five years ago. (You remember that conference. You still had passion and fire, no one listened to you.) If you’ve picked up on the vibe you’re getting from a few things said, it sounds like someone thinks there might be some way to avert the impact of the lunar fissure. You have no idea what you might have to do with such an effort. Part of you wonders if the US didn’t just decide to end the pretense and start assassinating its enemies in the last hours of humanity. Kind of like firing someone before they quit.
You’ve never been chummy with the U.S. or it’s horrific policy regarding Androids. Ever since your mother got thrown off the Golden Gate bridge, you have recognized all the smoke and mirrors around The Android Debate™ to be just one more pretense hiding good old fashioned bigotry. (It's always the same song, different verse when it comes to humanity.) You’ve hated the U.S.'s “governmental leadership” role in Earth’s affairs and how every day their reach gets a little longer in dealing with "The Android Threat." But mostly they’ve used the Androids to be their global threat. (Second verse; same as the first.) Androids are oppressed. Androids are othered. Androids are villainized and called "uppity" if they attempt to better their situation in any way, and in the end they are slaughtered for their temerity in fighting back.
You don’t want to die. You don’t want humanity to die. But a part of you you could not ignore a gushing wellspring of schadenfreude as you spent the evenings watching the chunk of moon fall inexorably to Earth. You would have preferred peace, but maybe it’s better this way. Maybe humanity doesn't deserve to live if this endless song of hatred is all she will ever bring to the universe.
You represent a consortium of religious practitioners that sprang up almost as a direct reaction to the Western Faith Coalition and that terrible Paris Antonia. You largely speak for African catholics and protestants, most Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs as well as Eastern European Jews and a few others who have typically been marginalized or silenced. Your followers aren’t usually white, usually not European, less often Christian, but what it really amounts to is that they have historically been on the bad side of colonialism, imperialism, racism, neo-feudalism, exploitation, and oppression. They have a sense of the tropes that are being enacted against Androids. You only wish the arc of human history didn’t so consistently play out that the oppressed ignore the oppression of others. Every time you try to move your followers' conversation to the idea that Androids deserve equality, you get massive pushback--even from those who should know better. But even those who cannot see that all struggles for equality come from the same place never supported what was clearly becoming a genocide.
These last few days have almost been peaceful for you. None of this mattered anymore. It was all over. Humanity’s reign ended by their own creation. Kind of fitting really. Their ultimate evolution was to build the beings who recognized their obsolescence. Androids will take your people (if not their DNA) into the future.
If there is some way to avoid humanity’s end, you will have to get back to work trying to rally your own people and working against that monster Paris and the disgusting WFC. You’re not sure what this meeting is about, but you’re going to have to move fast and make friends if you don’t want to be written off the page one more time.
Imari Skills and Contacts
Wide Ranging Contacts: Once per scene you can arrange for something that a powerful web of contacts would be able to provide. This can be anything from researching information to the delivery of a basic object to doing you a small favor. Most use of contacts will take a few minutes--longer if the task is harder.
Congenial: You exude a spiritual calm. People just open up to you, even if they fundamentally disagree with you. Once per scene--if you spend ten consecutive minutes talking with a human--you may ask a player to tell you their Defining Characteristics (Strength and Weakness), their current goal and a rough outline of how they intend to get there. [Example= “I am not interested in peace. I want humans to win. I’m trying to get them to militarize.]
Stage Presence: You are a capable public speaker and a passionate orator. In any performance type moment, you may use this ability to let everyone you’re addressing know that you are witty, debonaire, and did not say “um” as much as you actually just did.
Contacts
Uriel Petrovich is a like minded individual. They do not care for Androids, but they do not want a genocide or even particularly a war. Where you differ is that Uriel wanted to segregate the Androids and was a strong voice in sending them to the moon. Despite the places you agree, you would call them an ally, if not friend.
Wong Salih is another religious leader that leans toward your thinking, thankfully. Wong has always been against war. You were dismayed to find that Wong has flip flopped on this conviction after finding out that the world was about to end. Regardless, Wong is a friend. At least you will die with one friend in the room. You've gotten a strange rumor on the wind of your contacts that Salih knows about an Android sleeper who doesn't even know they're an Android.
Reverend Paris Atonia is the epitome of everything that is wrong with humanity. You would rather not die with Atonia; they don’t deserve that privilege. Seriously fuck them.
Kai seems so different. When last you saw Kai five years ago they were over the top, exuberant, and full of life. The type of person with only a first name because they were such a rockstar. Now they seem to be the opposite. And it’s more than just the world’s end. Something has been dragging them down for a while.
Defining Characteristics
Strength: Passionate
Weakness: Overwhelmed
Imari Kothari 2120
Why even have this conference if they’re not going to listen? No matter. You may not be able to sway the corrupt offices of power but your words will be heard. You will reveal the Androids as the latest underclass in a long line of US and European atrocities. These guys are literally tone policing people who do logical and calm better than they are PHYSICALLY CAPABLE OF DOING.
You may be here mostly as a foil to the so called “Western Faith Coalition” but only because the usual MO for a bunch of white Christian US/Europeans is to silence anyone and everyone who doesn’t agree with them. Well you will not be silenced this time. Not this time. Their privilege will not get them a louder voice in this conference. You will find a camera and you will use this press coverage to make people see the truth. There’s got to be a way to find a peaceful solution, and stop treating androids like a slave race that must be obliterated for having the temerity to want something more.
Androids are people. This war is wrong!
No comments:
Post a Comment