fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, February 10, 2nd period]

Anakin was in a very good mood this morning. Something about seeing old friends and a wife's ex-boyfriend transformed into a girl had cheered him right up.

"Today we talk about something called the Golden Rule, a concept which unites many separate religions on this planet," he began, leaning against his desk and stared around the classroom. "It sounds altruistic: 'do unto others as you would have done unto you', but there's a couple of logical flaws in it. What if you don't mind getting poked in the stomach? Does it follow that you could wander around aimlessly poking people? What if you don't see what's wrong with stealing? Or killing? Or hating entire groups of people on principle? If the practical application is supposed to be you randomly help people because they could be good, wouldn't the opposite be that you could randomly harm people because they might be evil?"

He shrugged. "I suppose the Golden Rule could be broken down to 'be nice to people, and they'll be nice to you' but out here in the real world, we all know it doesn't exactly work like that, and the concept could also be reinterpreted as 'it doesn't bother me, so why does it bother you?' Is this a case of aiming for an ideal and hoping that it will cause a ripple effect of positive things, or something overly simplistic that taken to its logical extreme renders itself useless? Has seeing it on everything from coffee mugs to tea towels made the very idea of it trite, or does it still have a place in the mind of someone trying to lead an ethical life?"

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More fidgeting.

"I, um, don't suppose you could do it to me?"

"I could," Anakin said quietly, "but I'd like to know why."

"Because Cable-san goes through my walls like water whether I want him to or not," she blurted, flushing. "And he doesn't seem to care if I don't want him to know something, and it's not, I mean, him finding out personal stuff is one thing, but him getting mission details could get me in a lot of trouble back home and I can't keep him out all on my own."

Anakin's eyebrows went way, way up. "He's just poking around in there?"

That was not an especially happy Jedi, no.

"He answers questions that I don't ever ask out-loud, when I'm not planning to ask them," she admitted. "And he's commented on things I'm thinking just, like, casually, when he's leaving the room with a coffee or something."

Anakin had certainly done that himself. "And you think he's going to look for operational information?"

"Cable-san's always been interested in how my world works," she said, "he doesn't like the way it does, and he's always looking for more information."

Anakin nodded thoughtfully. "So how about we just block that part off?" he said. "I can augment your natural shielding, at least until you get strong enough to do it yourself."

"Can you?" she asked hopefully. "I mean, I know you're really strong, but I know he's really strong and I've no idea how that sort of thing is judged at all..."

Just that she was utterly and completely out-classed.

~~It will be a Marty-Stu off!~~ "It'll be at least strong enough to let him know he's not welcome," Anakin replied.

~~*feels sorry for Ino's head!*~~ "Okay," she said, taking a breath. "Okay. That's good."

Even though, privately, Ino felt that the very fact that she had walls up, however weak, was a pretty good sign that he wasn't welcome.

Anakin closed his eyes. "Put up your shielding around those memories," he instructed, "so I'm not accidentally poking around in there."

She closed her eyes, centering herself, and gathering all of the memories she'd had from the last week, then wrapping her walls around them as strongly as she could. It took her a few minutes, of course.

"Okay, I've got it," she said, not opening her eyes. "Am I going to have to see you after every mission to stuff my memories behind this? Or can I just... add to it?"

"You should be able to add to it," Anakin said quietly, reaching out mentally towards her. "Think of it as compartmentalizing. I have certain 'do not touch' areas in my head, too."

She was just going to let him do whatever he needed to her head. "I can compartmentalize," she said, relieved.

Ino was used to that. She had little mental folders in her head labeled with peoples' names after all.

Anakin found her shields and added some of his own to it. His, not surprisingly, were rather only the insanely thick side. "Better?" he asked.

"Why do you need 'do not touch' areas? When you're so strong?" She hazarded a little mental poke at them, testing them out. "Way better," she said, blinking her eyes open and impressed. "Thank you so much."

"Because even my walls could be breached," he said, "and so it makes sense to have back-ups. There are things I've seen that don't need to be shared with anyone, young one."

"I'm fifteen," she protested, though not as vehemently as she could. "I'm not that little."

Anakin smiled. "My teacher called me that when I was twenty and five inches taller than him."

"That's not fair," she said, with a bit of a grin. "But I guess if it's like that with everyone..."

"Just people I like," he said with another smile.

"Lucky me," she said, grinning openly. "And I'd totally love to chat more, but I've got to get back to work so... I'll see you around?"

He waved her towards the door. "You know where to find me."

"Definitely," she chirped, heading for the door. "And thanks again!"

Ethics [Tuesday, February 10, 2nd period]

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