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Crane's Heart
[ You wake up to the smell of cherry blossoms surrounding you - billowing in the wind, piling in your face.
Where are you? Well, that's a question you'll have to answer for yourself. ]
( please pop in #craneiotomy! )
Where are you? Well, that's a question you'll have to answer for yourself. ]
( please pop in #craneiotomy! )
Re: the class trial.
Re: the class trial.
However, you can see now that there's a tablet in front of you, attached to the podium. For now, it's powered off.
Suddenly a familiar voice sounds out. ]
"Upupupu...did you think I'd been defeated? That was just the beginning!"
"But shooting you guys again...well, that would just be repetitive, wouldn't it?"
"So...instead, we're going to determine the proper punishment for a filthy murderer!"
[ As he says that, the curtain on the stage rises...to reveal Crane, handcuffed and tied to a chair. Above her looms a blade - a makeshift guillotine. ]
"So...go ahead, write anything you want! The crazier the better!"
[ The tablet on the podium in front of you turns on, allowing you to write in your response. ]
Re: the class trial.
Re: the class trial.
Re: the class trial.
I presume you represent despair, then?
Re: the class trial.
"I have no idea what you mean."
"NOW GET TO WRITING!"
Re: the class trial.
[Writing in the tablet:
Buried in smooshables. Also, you heading to the previous room.
...Well, it could work, right?]
Re: the class trial.
"Is this the best you can come up with? Where's the excitement, the passion?"
"Oh, I see...you won't be fully on board unless you get to be judge, jury, and executioner...well, we'll just have to hold a trial on whether or not she's guilty, so you can understand just how serious the crime is!"
"Can't you feel the excitement in the air?"
rules.
bullets.
round 1.
"First off...let's establish that she's the kind of person who could kill someone."
"You can't deny that killing someone is in her nature."
"I mean, is she even capable of feeling human emotion?"
"A robot like her could kill without any remorse!"
Re: round 1.
"Killing someone is in her nature" is your claim, correct? However, her reason for taking up the sword is something purer than that. I won't allow you to corrupt that. Her reasons for wielding a sword are to protect, not to kill. "Cutting those who should be cut" does not in any way mean killing them, even if a sword is being used.
[capable of feeling human emotion >> killing a would-be assassin, refute]
Next, you think she's incapable of human emotion? Of course she is. Even after killing someone she was perfectly justified in killing, someone who was fully intent on killing someone important to her, she still felt terrible about killing them. I know I wouldn't, so she's clearly more capable of feeling human emotion than I am.
[a robot like her >> an admission of guilt, refute]
And finally... A robot? Really? I think this situation is proof enough here. To put things in context, you'll recall that Sparrow specifically made a big deal about making sure she was the one chosen to die. Nonetheless, Crane felt responsible for it. If she were a robot, there would be no need for built over it: After all, it's what Sparrow wanted, after all. Sparrow was quite clear about that. In essence, she had no reason to feel responsible for it, so if she were a robot, she wouldn't feel responsibility for it. If anyone had responsibility there, it was Sparrow.
round 2.
"Secondly...let's address possible motives for murder."
"While she's undoubtedly the needlessly violent sort..."
"...it's also clear that she's willing to kill whenever she deems it necessary."
"And what does necessary mean to her? Protecting that boy, that's what."
"As long as he's alive, we don't need to debate what the motive was!"
Re: round 2.
Needlessly violent? Really? We've already brought this up. With this very evidence, even. Her reason for taking up the sword is to protect people. This is an important point, actually, because the first thing you get taught when you take up a sword to protect is that violence is a last resort. In other words, Her fighting style and reason for taking up the style expects, no, demands that she can't be the "needlessly violent" sort you're referring to her as.
[protecting that boy >> if one is to protect a single thing, support]
Indeed, she herself has said that "in order to protect a single thing, must be prepared to discard everything"... It's a foolish statement, to be honest. It robs the one they're protecting of agency, while simultaneously devaluing yourself. It's a wholly unhealthy philosophy that she needs to work through, or else the two will always be on different footing. Takshaka's nature probably doesn't help with that at all, either.
[we don't need to debate what the motive was >> not very good at her job, refute]
I think it's too early to decide that. I'm fairly certain that the very person she wants to protect would do his best to stop her from murder. In essence, as long as he's involved, he is also in a position to stop her from doing anything. We can see that clearly enough in this piece of evidence, too: If there's one thing this memory's clear on, it's that both of them care enough about each other to keep themselves in check.
round 3.
"And lastly...did she do it?"
"Well, we know she's committed at least one murder."
"And the memories make it pretty clear that she killed a classmate in cold blood as well."
"Plus, she's even helped kill people here in Kyriakos..."
"Is there even a time where she didn't kill someone?"
Re: round 3.
You're referring to the time she killed an assassin, correct? Technically speaking, that doesn't count as a murder. If someone wanders through your home in the middle of the night with a knife, that's pretty clear intent that they're going to try to hurt someone. It would thus class as self-defense, realistically. Murder may involve killing, but killing does not necessarily mean murder.
[helped kill people >> an admission of guilt, refute]
You're manipulating the context here. It was never a question of helping to kill someone, that assumes that there was some way to save both of us. The question was never who to kill, but who to save. If nobody voted at all or there was a tie, we both would have died, that's an undeniable fact. Rather than saying she "helped kill people", it's more accurate to say that she helped save people, and blamed herself for the people she couldn't save. That was absolutely not helping to kill people. That was helping to save people, and I won't let you say it's anything else.
verdict.
"All righty! The votes are in, and all tallied up they say..."
[ A drumroll plays from somewhere unseen, before the words flash up on your podium's tablet: NOT GUILTY. ]
"W-what? How is this even possible? SHE'S CLEARLY GUILTY!"
[ The bear starts sparking with rage - or a critical hardware failure, as the mechanical beast seems to stop moving a few moments later.
The bars trapping you in the podium descend again, freeing you to leave. The ties binding Crane to her position on the stage also disappear, allowing her to hop off just as the guillotine and curtain fall.
A few moments later, the stage curtain lifts again to show a new scene - this time, a passageway into the next room. ]
Re: verdict.
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