fandomhigh | Diplomacy, Relationships & Tactics: the Art of War [Monday, Period 1]

When the students came in this week, there was a passage from the eighth p'ien written on the chalk board.

There are roads which must not be followed,

armies which must be not attacked, towns which must

be besieged, positions which must not be contested,

commands of the sovereign which must not be obeyed.

"Sometimes, we must allow the distasteful thing to happen to make way for a greater victory." Ghanima was leaning against the wall, watching them from behind her glowing eyes. "Sacrifices must be made. This is most easily seen in war; sacking an innocent town for supplies, or killing civilians to prevent your position from being discovered."

"However, it doesn't just apply to physical combat." She pushed off the wall to pace between the rows of desks, looking at each of them. "What do you do when your boss, or 'sovereign' tells you to lie about something that happened at work? Or if reporting a crime implicates someone dear to you? Today, we discuss those choices, and how we know which battles must be fought, and which ones we must let pass us by. Sometimes it is a matter of personal conscience, while other times it is the good of one against well-being of the many."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As the lesser of two evils.

Breq

Peridot

Prince Sidon

Jason Lee Scott

Take notes, pass notes, poke the person next to you!

At least this one took less writing thing down on Sidon's part! Not that he minded the writing so much; he get better and better the more he did it. But the subject matter made him frown, especially as he looked over what he'd scribbled down in Hylian. Of course he knew these were facts one must face eventually, especially in a war-torn world, but that didn't mean he had to like them!

A roving batch of bullies is picking on a homeless man. However, if you stop and intervene, you'll miss the train and be late to work. Normally, this would not be an issue, but today you are closing a merger worth thousands of jobs. If you're late, the deal falls through. Calling law enforcement is not an option, either you directly intervene, or you do not. What do you do? Why?

A sovereign of a neighboring kingdom is weak and under attack. They call upon you for aid - and without your help, they will fall - but your spies report that your lands are next on the invading army's list. Do you go to their aid, half-prepared, or do you let them fall to buy time to save yourselves?

"If you were to aid your neighbor," Sidon postulated, quite seriously because he could very easily see this situation playing out back home, and the Elders arguing against the point he was about to make, "wouldn't it stand to reason that they would then be able to help you when the enemy turns its evil intentions your way? Would you not be weakening the enemy by helping your friend, thus helping yourself? Perhaps you might even trounce them so spectacularly that they will turn tail and flee, realizing they've truly met their match when powers combine!"

"Perhaps it's best to make such an agreement before you help them," Breq said, "and hope that they are trustworthy. Other than that, I think it's usually a good idea to find allies."

As long as they kept their end of the bargain. It wasn't always that difficult for the enemy to buy them off and turn allies against each other and let them defeat themselves. She had seen it happen quite a few times.

Sidon seemed a bit puzzled by Breq's words.

"But if they're your allies, your friends, why wouldn't they be trustworthy? We wouldn't be friends if they weren't!"

Oh, you sweet, naive, fishy cinnamon roll.

She should have predicted this response, Breq realized, and trying to explain the dangers of being naive wasn't something she'd like to do in class.

"They might be lying."

She didn't think Sidon would get that either.

He did, he just didn't like to think about it, nor did he honestly have that much personal experience with such a thing. Sidon frowned, huffing slightly as he forced himself to at least consider such a possibility instead of just outright denying that his friends would do such horrible things.

"It would be a chance we'd have to take, though, wouldn't it?" he said, arms folded in front of him. "I would much rather give them the benefit of the doubt. And should they turn out to be untrustworthy, well..." He faltered, honestly struggling to imagine such a situation...why, they would have had to be have been overtaken by the Calamity, in which case it was hardly their fault! "We did what we could, and we did the right thing to help. Should they back out and not help us in return, then we will strive on without them. Should we falter, then that leaves them vulnerable again, and they will realize the err of their selfish ways when our enemy turns back to them in the long run. It is in our best interests to all work together; what a shame if our supposed friends are blind to these truths..."

And now he was sad.

"Yes," Breq said. "It would be very sad."

He might be naive, but in that Sidon was right.

Edited 2017-11-14 19:18 (UTC)

She's around!

I wouldn't actually mind if the world ended today.

Diplomacy, Relationships & Tactics: the Art of War [Monday, Period 1]

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Talk to Ghanima

OOC