driftfleet_ooc | SUMMER TEST DRIVE

Entry tags:

SUMMER TEST DRIVE

THE SUMMER TEST DRIVE MEME
(Or Winter Test Drive for you Southern Hemisphere folks!)

Got someone you want to try out before you app? Well this is the post for it! Feel free to use anything that fits in the setting of Drift Fleet! Want to play bumper shuttles? Want to go wild in a med bay? Play around with the current plot? Have at it!

Threads from the Test-Drive may be made game "canon" but DO NOT count toward AC!

FOR NEW PLAYERS: You DO NOT NEED an invite to participate in the TEST DRIVE! If you decide to APP into the game, ONLY THEN will you need an invite from a current player!

Helpful Info for Ideas!:

June/July's Star System

Game Details

Test drives are posted SEASONALLY, so the next one will be in late September!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

... I know.

When-- when I get out of here, when I go back home... I want to be a different kind of Force user. If we can't redefine what it means to be a Jedi, then... we can be something else, instead. Something new and different.

I want to do what we always should have done from the beginning-- I want to help the people who need it most, who are suffering the worst in this war. The overcrowded refugee camps, the farmers suffering from bandits who never get policed because local and galactic governments are stretched too thin.

... You should come with me. We could... we could do a lot of good.

[She conveniently doesn't mention her plans to help Anakin assassinate and/or capture Chancellor Palpatine. That part is too difficult to explain. And too upsetting. And not what Barriss needs right now.]

Edited 2016-06-28 06:23 (UTC)

I don't know how to be anything but a Jedi.

[ it's a sad, confused, but incredibly honest statement, from someone usually so censored and guarded, keeping her words carefully crafted. barriss looks down at her hands as she splays her fingers again, then finally drops them as she looks back to ahsoka. ]

The rest of the Jedi- I don't think they can see how they've fallen. We don't need to redefine what it is to be a Jedi, we have to remind them what their real duties are to the galaxy. We'd do the most good that way, not on our own.

["I don't know how to be anything but a Jedi." It's a sentiment Ahsoka understands deeply. When she'd first walked away, when she walked down those Temple steps... she'd felt the same way. Not just on that particular day, either. For weeks, even months after. But through her time here, she's slowly learning how. It doesn't happen overnight. It happens with time, and patience.

Ahsoka shakes her head.]

The current problems within the Order don't just stem from forgetting our true purpose. Though... that is a part of it. But they also come from the way the Order is structured now. Our rules and regulations, our dogma. We say that only the Sith deal in absolutes, but isn't that an absolute in and of itself? Our thinking is too black and white. Too dogmatic. Nobody listens. We should be flexible, but instead we're brittle. There's no room for change, or understanding, or evolution.

[This is something Ahsoka has thought on a long time. It isn't a conclusion she's come to overnight. It's something she initially rejected, an opinion she actively fought against. But many hours of arguing, of defending the Order's way of doing things with so many people-- with Luke, with Vima and Nomi Sunrider-- have highlighted the real problem.]

Even if you remind the Order where their real duties lie [and Ahsoka already knows that Barriss's methods won't] the deeper problem will still remain. You're right that the Order needs to change, but not in the way that you think.

So we need to make room for change, for that flexibility. Ahsoka, you just said everything that needs to be said about the state of the Order.

[ ahsoka makes sense. it's the first time someone trained as a jedi has made sense on this topic, as far as barriss is concerned. and it fills her with relief, with appreciation for ahsoka's way of thinking, and maybe just a twinge of hope. someone else sees what's going wrong here, so it's not just her. ]

Denouncing the Order may allow you to change yourself, but that won't help things on a larger scale. If we're going to make anyone listen, change needs to come from inside the Temple itself.

[Ahsoka looks down.]

... Maybe. ... But I'm not ready to go back yet, either. As things are right now... I don't have any confidence that things wouldn't be exactly the same as how I left them.

[ letting out a breath, barriss steps closer to ahsoka, reaching out to settle a hand on her shoulder. it would be a meaningful gesture from barriss toward most people, but it's how comfortable she's been with ahsoka for a long time now. and despite the emotional turmoil they've just shared with one another, some part of barriss is still just grateful to see her friend after too many weeks out of contact.

even if it's here. even if she's not sure ahsoka can forgive her for whatever she hasn't done yet. ]

If you don't believe things can change, they never will, Ahsoka. You must know that.

[Ahsoka's eyes snap up, but they look far from comforted. The unintentional hypocrisy laden in that statement means that Barriss's words have far from their intended effect.

Yeah, well they don't change by blowing people up, either, she thinks unkindly.]

I never said that I believed things couldn't change. I know that they can. I just said I'm not ready for it right now.

[ lips pressed into a thin line, barriss watches ahsoka for a long moment in silence, before her hand slips from the togruta's shoulder, fingers brushing bare arm briefly before they fall to barriss's side. there's a moment there that ahsoka's emotions feel louder to her, but she doesn't think much of it. they're hardly emotions she wants to get herself lost in. or to think about too much, knowing already that there's hurt and betrayal there, at the base of everything. ]

Well... I am. I can't give up on the Jedi, on what we're meant to be. The Order is all I have.

[Ahsoka regards her for a minute. Barriss's sentiments sound well-intentioned, but... Ahsoka can see now how easily they can go astray, too.]

... And if it can't be done? If the time comes... are you be prepared to let the Order go?

[Or will you cling on desperately to the idea that you can change them, and fall into the pit of the dark side?

It's a cruel catch-22, and Ahsoka knows it. She was faced with the same dilemma that day, faced with Anakin on the Temple steps. To be unable to let go of the Order and want to remain a Jedi despite it clearly being an unhealthy environment for her would in fact be the choice that would make her less of a Jedi, in her eyes. But to have the strength to let go of everything she knew and had, to let go of that which made her a Jedi in the strictest sense, because it was time... ironically, that was the Jedi way. She didn't understand why Anakin and Barriss couldn't see that.

Then again, that conclusion was something she wrestled with, and only come to after months in this place. So maybe she can cut them some slack.

Perhaps she wasn't a Jedi, as the current order would define it. But given the current state of the Order... she was okay with that. She was okay with being something else. Something Luke would be proud of.]

[ barriss hates ahsoka's phrasing. it's not often that word choice gets to her, but it does now, filling her with such a surge of annoyance, indignity, that it actually takes her a few seconds to calm herself down and give a real answer. ]

The Order isn't some... some relationship to be attached to! [ so maybe not as calm as she wants to be, here.

her upset with the order has been years coming, by now, whispering in the back of her mind since the first time she had to kill another sentient being. luminara had hugged her (much later, when barriss finally brought it up) and told barriss that so long as she never took another life lightly, she would find her own way to cope with the darker necessities of their peacekeeping. barriss looked for ways to cope, tried them all. but the answer has never been to leave, it has always been to find something to fix. she doesn't want to fight, she wants to heal. that's all this has ever been about, really. ]

It is an important, symbolic entity, a vessel for good and peace and a galaxy that refuses to have any of those. But it can fixed. The Order can be fixed, Ahsoka. I'll find a way- alone, if I have to!

I'm not saying I don't think it can be. And I'm not saying I won't help you. I will. If I can.

What I'm saying is that I'm worried about you, Barriss. You're so-- so caught up in this all-or-nothing point of view. [She thinks she understands, now, how it came that Barriss never told her anything of her plans. And it wasn't because Ahsoka wasn't a good enough friend.] Nothing is constant, Barriss, you know that. Not even the Order. It's as impermanent as anything else in the galaxy. If there's any other option, obviously I want to save it.

But if there isn't, I'm not going to cling to it like a faulty escape pod and let it drag me down with it, either.

But the Order should be a constant. It may need to shift as the galaxy does, yes, but when it's strayed this far, it needs to find its course again. It's not just an escape pod, it's a whole ship, and it's going to crash if no one does anything to stop it.

[ some part of ahsoka's words are getting through to barriss, making her understand her friend's point of view, at least. maybe ahsoka is just more flexible than she is, but barriss can't imagine letting go the way she's talking about. ]

And... honestly, I might as well go down with it, if I can't stop it.

If the Order can reform, I believe that it will. Maybe that's something we can affect, maybe not.

If it can't... I also believe that something else will rise to take it's place. Maybe it won't be for years. Maybe decades.

All I know is... whatever happens, regardless... I'd prefer a version of a future where we aren't estranged.

Edited 2016-07-02 12:31 (UTC)

[ that has her pausing for a long moment, looking out at the water but well aware of ahsoka's expression. she's no less riled up about the order, no less determined to make some sort of stand for how it should be, even if it's the hill she dies on, but she can't ignore what ahsoka means to her. ]

And in order to do that, you have to stop me from doing whatever I'll do to hurt you.

[As far as Ahsoka's concerned, it's more important to her to save those innocent lives, and to save Barriss from falling to the Dark Side, than saving her own personal feelings. But she can't say any of that to Barriss.]

... Let's just say that I think a future in my timeline where we hug and make-up is unlikely.

Then I guess it all depends on what happens when the Atroma are done with us. Maybe my timeline will be different.

[ maybe ahsoka can stop her here, she means, but that would make her sound like a villain. ]

... Maybe.

[It occurs to Ahsoka then, that if Barriss never blows up the Temple, then Ahsoka will never leave the Order.

And if Ahsoka never leaves the Order, won't she and Barriss die when Chancellor Palpatine stages his takeover? Unless she warns Barriss ahead of time what's going to happen, and tells her to get out. But she doesn't want to do that, either. That's a terrible conversation to have. Even worse than the one they're having. Learning that the entire war was a farce and that all the soldiers under her command that died on the battlefield died for nothing felt like it almost broke her. Ahsoka has passed so many days here wishing she'd never found out. Can she knowingly do that to another person?

She isn't sure. Her face and emotions read loud and clear-- uncertainty and confusion.]

... Anyway. I think... maybe we should agree not to talk about home-stuff for a few days, at least. You should... settle in first.

[ barriss takes a moment to study ahsoka's face again before she acquiesces, giving a nod so slow and deliberate it almost matches her curtseys. this is all for now, she won't press. it's going to eat away at her inside, her mind refusing to let possibilities and arguments going in circles go... but she can keep it from ahsoka, at least. ]

I was thinking about exploring some of the planet, if I could. As I said before, Ahsoka, I'll leave how much of my company you're subjected to up to you.

[She seems to think on that a moment before nodding.]

... All right. Travel safe, Barriss. ... I'll see you again soon.

I hope so. May the Force be with you.

[ another nod, a small, slightly strained style, and then barriss is skirting ahsoka once more to head down the beach. she's walking until it runs out, at this point, because she needs all the fresh air she can get. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

SUMMER TEST DRIVE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject