fh_trips | Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Morning & Afternoon | Sunday

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spring break 2011: hawaii

Kohala Coast, Hawaii | Morning & Afternoon | Sunday | February 20

As the group from Fandom arrived, they would immediately be met by the bright, warm sunshine of the Big Island. Sparkling blue waters could be seen off in the distance surrounded by the white sands of the beautiful beaches of Hawaii.

The Fairmont Orchid loomed close by, big and bright against the perfect blue sky. The accommodations for the group were spectacular as always. Palms trees decorated the front of the gorgeous hotel, giving it that authentic Hawaiian feel. Maybe there was a lei or two in the future of some of those in the Fandom group? You never know!

The staff of the hotel was there to greet the group, making sure everyone felt welcomed and attended to during their stay. Once the rooms were discovered and the bags were stowed, it was time to start Spring Break!

Have fun everyone!

[OCD is up! Guest Quarters | Resort Activities | Spa Without Walls | Beach Activities | Mo'okini Heiau Excursion | OOC | An evening post will be coming later on! This is up early for maximum slowplay fun!]

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"Leaving everything they know and love behind, in exchange for their own Territories, just because Graff fears what he has wrought. No, not entirely fair, I'd said," Karla said idly, sipping her drink again. And not giving Ender any meaningful looks, either. "What does Peter have to do with anything?"

Hey, it wasn't her fault he skipped his turn!

"Graff's thrown his lot in with Peter," Ender said, putting down the blue drink to pick up the pink. Look, he was trying to be sporting and follow Karla in her affectations, for once. "If I didn't know any better, I'd accuse him of wanting to turn my family into a ruling dynasty across the universe."

Karla almost asked 'Which him?' but the answer was kind of obvious, wasn't it?

"Well, isn't that all sorts of interesting," she said instead, since 'interesting' was a better word than either 'unsettling' or 'creepifying.' "I don't really see you signing up for that. If nothing else, from what I've read, empires require you to have many, many children. That seems more like Bean's plans than yours and I can say right now that if you let Bean's children inherit an empire, I will never forgive you. How are they, by the way?"

"Still hunting their stolen embryos across the Earth," Ender said, "but the first one was born a while ago. They named him Ender, which they insist is just a take off a legitimate Catholic saint's name."

He took a sip of his pink drink. It was starting to grow on him. "But Graff is pretty much just clearing the board for Peter to take over now."

Peter Wiggin, dictator-for-life of the Earth. Now that wasn't a recipe for disaster, or anything. (It wasn't, surprisingly enough, but it'd be a few decades before anyone - like Ender - would be able to come to that conclusion.)

Edited 2011-02-20 08:27 (UTC)

Karla was rethinking her refusal to use 'creepifying' before.

"But surely Alai and Han Tzu aren't going to just let Peter waltz in and make that kind of power play!" Karla objected. "Backed by Graff or not--Hell's fire, probably especially not backed by Graff!"

She went silent then, letting some of the pieces fall into place. "Or are they just going to play a waiting game, until China and the Muslim League wear each other down and then sweep in? It probably won't even need to be violent. With the two of them at war, the other countries will probably flock to Peter, who, as always, is playing Locke."

"Alai's position has been unstable for a while. He's had to engage in two purges among his first circle just to get control over his forces," Ender said, fidgeting with the umbrella in the blue drink. "And he's just married Virlomi, the self-styled 'Goddess of India'. His muslim supporters aren't going to be too happy about that. The whole region's a powderkeg."

He finished off the pink drink. "Alai and Han Tzu were both also offered a colony," he said.

Karla shuddered at the idea of purges. She wasn't entirely sure what they entailed and she was all the happier for it.

"Do you think they'll take it?" she asked quietly. For most people, offered a chance to get out before it all exploded...

But then, she wouldn't. Not unless she thought leaving would make things better for the people she had sworn to rule and protect.

"I think Alai might wind up the target of an assassination attempt by his own people at the rate he's going," Ender said, with a sigh. "He wouldn't have too many options. I don't know about Hot Soup, but I do know he never planned to be where he is. It's possible. I don't know."

He pulled the umbrella out of the blue drink, and stared at the sharp wooden end. "The thing is that Peter isn't like your Hobart or Ben's Jacen," he said. "He's actually clever. He's not in the least bit idealistic, he's not being nice because he's nice. He's playing the peacemaker because he believes it's the only way he can actually keep the world together, and the thing is that he's right."

He twirled the umbrella again. "The thing is that I don't even know if this is a bad thing for the planet," he said, softer, "but I'm incredibly happy that it's not my problem anymore."

Edited 2011-02-20 08:47 (UTC)

"Becoming the leader of an entire country at our age...it's a heavy thing," Karla said quietly. "And a country at war is even worse."

Not that she had any personal reasons for thinking that, oh no, of course.

"Maybe they'll use this as a chance to get out while they can. Not that governing a colony may be much better, but at least it's a choice. Of a sorts. Even if it isn't much of one."

She listened to Ender talk about Peter, really listened, instead of just scoffing and dismissing the idea of Peter as a good ruler out of hand.

"Of course he's clever," she replied. "He's your brother. But is he worried about the world, or is he worried about keeping his hands on the reins of power? Only an idiot thinks wars are actually a good long-term goal."

"He did use to say he wanted to 'save the world from self-destruction'... He's Peter. What he wants is control," Ender said, placing the umbrella down on the table. "But he's willing to do it by playing the long game, and making sure the world is at peace. It's that old question: what do we think of someone who does the right thing for the wrong reasons?"

In Peter's case, Karla was happy to keep on thinking he was a gutter slumbitch, but that was her.

...And had a moment of very intense sorrow when she realized that future generations would know Ender because he'd brought death to millions and would know Peter because he brought peace to the world. That seemed vastly unfair.

And fairness, as everyone knew, was a major concern of the universe at large.

"As long as he continues to do the right thing, then it probably doesn't much matter why or what we think. It's only when the right thing and the wrong thing come into conflict for him that people will need to worry," she said with a sigh. "But as you said, it isn't your problem anymore."

Edited 2011-02-20 09:03 (UTC)

Ender reached for the blue glass again. You and Val understand about needing control, Peter had said, and he did-- but he also didn't see the value of having it for control's sake, he realised. What use was having control if it didn't make everyone better than what they had been?

"Can an evil man become good if he simply pretends to be for long enough?" he wondered. "Now there's a moral dilemma for Ben's Jedi philosophy to dive into."

Edited 2011-02-20 09:11 (UTC)

"At what point does it become impossible to separate someone from their deeds?" Karla asked back, finishing her own blue drink. Just as she did, the waiter from the bar came over, carrying a tray with a bright yellow drink on it, garnished with a thick chunk of pineapple and set it down next to Karla. He cocked his head at Ender to see if he'd like his next drink now, too.

"I should complain about having to think while on vacation," she teased. "Protest and all that."

She wasn't going to, though. She enjoyed her talks with Ender. And asking him to turn off his brain was like asking Karla to gracefully hand over her Sapphire.

"But is it the deed, or the motive that matters?" Ender asked. Then he flashed her a light smile. "Sorry," he said, "I'll try to tone it down. Maybe talk about all the people you're planning to deflower in the near future."

He gave the waiter a nod. Might as well; he was about one sip away from finishing the blue drink.

Edited 2011-02-20 09:17 (UTC)

"Don't," Karla said, nearly brushing her fingers against his. "I can cackle about deflowering people water. I like talking this stuff with you. Even on vacation."

She took a sip of the yellow drink and smiled. It tasted like oranges and sunshine. Almost clean, after the sweeter pink and tangy blue drinks. "I guess I'd say that deeds outweigh motives, though motives still matter. Not just because it's Peter we're talking about. After all, in matters of law and legality, motive is taken into account when weighing one's deeds, doesn't it? If I hurt someone, the fact remains that I hurt them and the law says that's wrong. Motive can mitigate the punishment given, but it can't make the deed go away. If that's true when the actions are bad, shouldn't the same hold true when they're good? Unless you wanted to argue that good is the inverse and so motive matters more?"

Well, at least that meant he didn't have to use his spare conversational segue of pointing out he was pretty sure Ben was at least moderately infatuated with a sarcastic Dutchman...

"I think the motive is as important as the deed, if not more," Ender said, after a moment. "Because while deeds are cold hard fact, they don't actually explain anything. They don't tell you why someone did something, or whether they will do it again. They don't explain the whole of a human being the way their motives do. I think you can only ever make a full moral judgement of another person if you understand their hearts, if you know that people can make mistakes and still be generous, or kind, or at least in possession of no ill will. You can't weigh sins and virtues against each other, they're not currency, and hardly the measure of any human soul."

"But even the best of motives can lead people down very dark roads," Karla countered. "Can you truly ignore--or even simply mitigate--something heinous someone does because his intentions were good?"

If that were the case, Karla privately thought Ender should be further down the path of forgiveness.

"Motives are a tricky thing, because they can't be so easily separated out from other things. Even goodly motives may have roots in hatred and ignorance and evil. Take Titus's actions at the end of Titus Andronicus. He kills his daughter--but he is motivated out of pity and to end his daughter's disgrace and shame. But even that motivation comes from the idea that a female's worth lies in her chastity and the view that without that worth, she is nothing."

Ender thought the whole thing really damned him further, because he'd marched into the whole enterprise fully under the understanding he'd have to wipe out the Formics one day. That he'd been tricked into it didn't mitigate his moral complicity. He'd dedicated his life to killing the buggers.

"I don't think you can ever ignore anything heinous anyone has done, and I'm not advocating that," he said, "but I think that if you work hard to figure out someone who's done such horrible things, you might find something that redeems them morally. Even if it's only a little bit. The background from which Titus came influenced how he thought about the world, and how the world would react to what his daughter had been through. Her death was not a good thing - I'm certainly also not saying that - but however misguided his motivations were, he also intended them as a kindness, and that matters, too."

"At what price, redemption?" Karla asked, thinking that sounded very profound and therefore probably wasn't. "Let's say we look at Hobart and find some motives, some reason for what he's done. Something beyond ambition and pride and...whatever else he's got driving him. Then what? What does that prove? That he wasn't entirely heinous? Does that actually matter--or does it make things worse, considering what he could have done but didn't? And who are we judging for? The person or the people and works they leave behind?"

"It matters," Ender said, quietly, "to everyone else. You can't hate someone you understand. You can find a place for someone you understand, something truthful. I don't think real monsters exist, but we make too many of them, just because it's easier, and more convenient, than accepting that it's just people being people."

Edited 2011-02-20 13:09 (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure I can still hate the Briarwood uncles, regardless of how much I understand them," Karla muttered. But then, she'd always been good at grudges. "I suppose, if nothing else, humanizing the monster is good for their victims as well. A monster can get you no matter where or what. Turning him into a human--someone understandable and relatable--robs him of a lot of the fear and power he held over them."

"Yes," Ender said, and finally took a sip of his new drink.

It really wasn't bad.

"I don't know, Karla," he said, "I just think a lot of our problems would be lessened if only we managed to put ourselves in a frame of mind where everyone involved is a human being, and not a monster, or a saint."

"I don't actually disagree with you," Karla said, sipping at her yellow drink. "Especially since people have a hard time thinking of even regular people as human, sometimes. 'I am of my tribe, you are not of my tribe, we are human, ergo, you are not.' And that kind of thinking is dangerous. At the same time...I don't know. I guess sometimes, when people turn themselves into monsters, it's hard not to oblige them, I guess."

"That's human nature, too, I think," Ender said, giving her an encouraging little smile. "To have it take work to push beyond our own perspective."

"I like my own perspective," Karla teased. "It's where I always know I'm right."

As opposed to that pesky 'objective reality' that seemed to have it out for her.

"Speaking of...all that talk about paying attention to my mistakes instead of beating my breast seems to have paid off, at least in the very short-term," she added casually.

She wasn't going to mention it to Warren because it felt to much like bragging, too much like 'look what I did!' But Ender...Ender was different.

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