fandomhigh | Monologuing, Dialoguing, and Out-Quipping the Bad Guy, Workshop #5, Thursday morning

Ivanova's feeling delicate and tender and the dark glasses are once again much in evidence. She has a laptop sitting next to her when class begins, and a large, throne-like chair is set up at the front, empty for the moment.

"Morning, everyone," she said, pleasantly enough. "Today we're going to be trying something a little different. The last few weeks we've been working on one-on-one conflicts with an opponent - the outquipping and dialoguing bit. I hope, anyways. Today we're going to be doing some monologuing. Specifically, the good old standby of the rousing the troops speech. I've listened to more than a few of them in my long and speckled career, and I managed to get my hands on some recordings. Shut up and listen."

She poked a few buttons and played recordings, most of an older man who looked like he was from Iowa and should be selling used cars, but knew how to give a truly terrifying speech. A woman with a heavy accent and a strange bone crown gave a truly terrifying two-liner ("Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me, you are in front of me - if you value your lives, be somewhere else!")

When she ran out of clips, she hit another button that brought up a still photo, a string of ships hovering in Earth's orbit - and ominous shapes looming before them. "Quick future history lesson. Battle of the Line, the ultimate battle of the Earth-Minbari war. The humans on one side, defending Earth, and the Minbari on the other. The Minbari have lost one ship through the entire conflict, swatting our ships like flies. But, as you can see, this -" She tapped the screen, "- is the only chance for survival, to hold off the Minbari long enough to evacuate as much of the population as possible." Including me. Seventeen-year-old me, with my freckled nose pressed to a transport window while I watched my brother's squadron take the skies. "Today, each one of you gets to be the commander of these few, these proud. You have to get them whipped into a battle frenzy. You have to keep them from cutting and running. You have to inspire them." She smirked. "And, of course, by 'them', I mean 'us'. Your fellow peers will be your command. I want a peanut gallery, folks. Make your commander work for it." She jerked her head at the chair. "Chair's a prop. Use it as you will. Get going."

[[So. This lesson was supposed to be filled with cool quotes from Babylon 5. Instead . . . ninjas! There were, uh, ninjas! Yeah! That's it! But if this lesson were to have cool quote and links to sound clips, they would all be from The Down Below Sound Archive. Whose collection of bloopers is true distracting.]]

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Post your own, comment on others, be as mean as you want. No, Ivanova isn't delivering one of her own.

Joxer cleared his throat and adopted his dramatic voice.

"Okay men, as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Well, we're each other's friends, so that means we aren't our own enemy. So together, we'll work hard, and fight harder. Are you with me men?"

"No," River said. "I'm not a man."

That noise?

That would be Pip. Slow clapping.

Conner spent most of the class period pacing around, trying to ignore Demyx, and desperately formulating a monologue. It was rough going, as most of his motivational speeches that weren't on the soccer field consisted of "Yeah! We can do this!" Eventually, though, he came up with something he thought would work. Maybe.

"Okay, team," he said, hands on his hips as he walked back and forth. "It's just you and me, that makes an us, against insanely impossible odds. Do you know what that makes us? We're the ultimate dark horse. Nobody expected us to contend, much less make the final round! Go out there and play hard, give it your best, and we'll come home with the biggest, best, most feel-good underdog victory story in the history of ever. Bigger than the Miracle on Ice! More famous than Mary Lou Retton! Something that, two hundred years down the line, they'll hate to talk about more than Dodgers fans will still hate the Shot Heard Round the World! Ready, team? Let's go out there and win, win, win!"

River added some cheerleader moves for that. She felt like that went well with Conner's monologue.

River sat down in the chair, then looked up at her audience and smiled.

"I need you to do this. You may not return at all. You may returned injured, maimed and scarred. And even if you're lucky your heart will be different enough to be unrecognisable by your loved ones. None of that is of any importance. If you don't do this there will be nothing. Empty. Nonexistence. Possibly afterlife if your that way inclined. We all fear pain but we cling to life, and by doing this you cling to your own life as well as that of your loved ones. Perhaps you'll fail. But that's not really of any importance, because not trying is a guaranteed failure. So hold on to all those hopes and dreams of the future that you might have, and carry them with you."

"I'm not going to lie to you." Tim said somberly. "The Minbari have kicked our tails time and time again and now they're standing on our front doorstep. Things look pretty hopeless don't they? But someone once said, that where there is left no hope, there is left no fear. But if you're afraid? Join the club. But there's something we've got that the Minbari don't. We're not playing to win right now. We're playing for survival. To make sure that the human race doesn't just disapear. If want to bow out, there's an evacuation ship with your name on it. The rest of us, will go out and make sure that you get the chance to live to fight another day. Your families are counting on you. On all of us. Because if we don't fight then the evacuation will have no chance of escape and we'll be wiped out. Either way you take a chance. So? What's it going to be? On your feet? Or on your knees?"

Demyx paced, barely listening to the others' speeches as he was trying to come up with his own. Finally, it was his turn.

"Well, you know, we aren't the best. There's others who are bigger, faster, stronger...prettier." He shrugged slightly. "But you know what, we're all that's left. And if we're all that's left, than we gotta put up a good fight! We can't just go down without trying! If we go down like that, then what?? Who's gonna remember us??" He stopped and bit his lip, looking acutely uncomfortable. "But, on the other hand, who's gonna remember us anyway? Face it, you know we're gonna lose; we're the last chance for a reason; nobody expected them to get far enough for us to even fight, because we're too weak. Oh man!" Demyx flailed, gripping the sides of his head with his hands. "We're so dead!"

Peter started speaking in a loud whisper, trying to express the importance of the sentence he was just about to speak."A great man once told me that with great power comes great responsibility."

As he continued to speak, he started to get more visibly excited until he was practically jumping at the end. "We've gotten this far. We have great power! We've proven that much just by surviving the odds this long! Now we have a responsibility to use that power as best we can. It is our responsibility to go out there, take the Minbari, and show them that they're less important than a minibar! Let's go out there, take them down, hold the line to help our people escape. They can't kill us if we don't let them! We have that power over them! Also, holy crap, we're prettier than them. We can't allow their genetics to be passed on while ours end. That's another responsibilit we have."

Alanna thought about it for a few very long minutes and gave it her best shot. "These people have put their lives in your hands. Make them proud. Give them life. And give them hope."

"Planet Earth," Pip said. "What a shithole of a planet, eh?" He shook his head. "It's diry, it's messy, crowded, polluted, and full of people who will turn on you at a moment's notice. And yet... and yet there are people down there. People who have nothing to do with this fight. Nothing to do with the politics or the soldiering. People who's only crime is to be alive and try to survive at a time of war. They don't want any of this. They don't deserve any of this. So... are we going to let these poor people be run over and slaughtered, or are we going to defend them to our last breath? Are our epitaphs going to read "Here lie the brave soldiers who fought to defend the innocent to the end"? Or are they going to read "Here are the pathetic cowards who cut and ran when the going started getting just a little tough"?"

He stared out at the class. "The choice, ladies and gentlemen, is yours."

Monologuing, Dialoguing, and Out-Quipping the Bad Guy, Workshop #5, Thursday morning

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