fandomhigh | Revolutions: Week 12, Period 5

Back in the classroom this week, Aly waited until the majority of students were present before breaking off her conversation with a dark-haired man sporting a large eyepatch that covered his left eye and most of that side of his face. She smiled at the class, eyes checking off who was there, then took a seat on her desk to speak.

"Afternoon, everybody. First thing, I'll remind all of you that your exam is in two weeks. No, you aren't going to have to overthrow a country to pass." She grinned. "At least probably not."

"For the rest of the class, you'll not be actively revolting - I hope-" she threw a wink at Mustang. "But General Roy Mustang has agreed to speak to this class today. He has quite a bit of experience in little matters like working within the system - and military - to change it. Two things that I'm less than familiar with," Aly added with a wry smile.

Recognising his cue Mustang stepped forward. "As Miss Aly has already indicated," he paused for a moment and looked down at his blue uniform, "and you quite possibly might have guessed from my uniform, I am a military officer. Even if she had my rank wrong and I am merely an enlisted man, not a General. My country, Amestris, used to be under martial law. Our Fuhrer, King Bradley, was both head of the state and the military. I am certain that you are all aware of the possible consequences such a condition can have."

His features hardened, giving little insight into what exactly he was thinking, but he kept his tone soft as he reminded himself that he was dealing with children. "Fuhrer Bradley used our military for his own personal agenda. A costly one at that. He used a science meant to help the people to destroy an entire population. Good officers were forced to perform acts they could have never imagined. You probably can imagine that this is a hard situation to change and I hope that none of you will ever be in this position. There is no right way of acting or changing the government around you. I can't offer you a 12 step program, but I can offer a few insights hopefully that will help even in situations less grave than the one I have just described," Mustang continued.

"We are each just one person. We can only do so much and influence so many people and yet that is the key. In a world where you can't trust the person above you, you will have to surround yourself with people who you can rely on. Don't assume that you can deal with everything on your own, but trust in them and give them your back. Keep them safe and expect that they in turn keep the people around them safe. Don't trust easily, but when you know that you can rely on them, do so fully and give them the chance to create room around you to come up with a plan to rise to the top." He paused and glanced around the room. "I think that this is the best advice I can give you, but if there are any more questions that you would like to ask, I'll be more than willing to answer."

[OOC: Again, many, many thanks to the fabulous Queen of Pimping herself for playing ~~General~~ Roy Mustang. OCD threads ~~are coming~~ up]

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Bridge raises his hand.

Roy smiled and nodded at Bridge. "Go ahead."

"Why did you join your country's military in the first place, if it was a bad institution?" Bridge asks. This... may have been something he's personally been giving a lot of thought to lately.

"It was also the only institution available to change things," Roy pointed out. "But I'd be lying if I said that I joined knowing what I was getting in to. I didn't understand the full extent of what was going on until very recently. I just knew that the only way to keep the people around me safe was to change the system from within."

Bridge nods thoughtfully. "I get that," he says, thinking of SPD, and what he and Z had discovered about their parents' work before they'd been born. "How do you *know* when the higher ups are corrupt?" he asks. Commander Cruger had done some questionable things, but was there a line between corrupt and just... misguided?

"It's not something that is always easy to find out. They can be good at covering the truth up behind layers and layers of lies," he said with a note of disappointment as he glanced down at his gloved hand. "And especially as a soldier, you will always have to do things that aren't easy, but you know that you are doing them to spare other people from having to and to keep them safe in the long end. When that falls away and your orders go against everything you stand for without there being a good reason behind it, then there just has to be something wrong."

"If there is a good reason?" Bridge asks. "I mean, if the authority figures around you had been lying to you for a very long time, but they *thought* their reasons were right? Then what?"

"You'd have to find out whether or not you could reason with them," Roy said. "Although, if they have been misguided for that long then it would be very likely that they wouldn't be able to see it. Sometimes change needs to be forced."

Revolutions: Week 12, Period 5

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