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(no subject)

Who: Ahsoka + you
Broadcast: Video (fleetwide)
Action: Common area of the Marsiva
When: Afternoon? Evening??

Has... anyone else been having weird dreams lately, or just me?

Also, what do people do for fun around here? This is the longest I've ever been cooped up in one place. At least if there was something to do...

Anyway, I'm sick of meditating. If anyone wants to come chat or keep me company, I'm sitting in the living area. Does anyone know if they have a dejarik board around here? I'm not much good at it, but it's a good time waster at least.

Oh-- right. I'm always up for a spar, too... if you think you can keep up.

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[She says it all so casually, and Steve sort of exhales faintly through his nose. Not his world, not his place, but he knows wrong when he hears it. Everyone deserves autonomy. Trained from birth? Doesn't leave anyone much of a choice. Clone or no.]

I see.

[He does, at least, keep himself from positively radiating disapproval. Instead, he works his jaw off to one side and heads to the side of the gym where the free standing weights take up a portion of the wall.]

Anyone ever ask them how they felt about that?

[Ahsoka can sense his anger anyway, but she doesn't really understand-- that much is clear from the confusion on her face. She's an open book. Whatever point Steve's making, it clearly flies over her head.]

Loyalty and willingness to serve is pre-programmed into their DNA.

[She says, like it's obvious, like that answers the question sufficiently.]

[W e l p.]

Effectively removing their free will. Doesn't strike you as a little unfair?

[He says that as he pulls a medicine ball off the rack in the wall, one of the lighter ones. He bounces it in one palm and gestures at her to indicate his intent before he throws it to her.]

[Even clearly distracted and caught off by the question, she still catches the ball with ease. Almost as an afterthought.]

I-- I don't know. Maybe, I guess? But I mean-- it's not like we had any other option. [She tosses the ball from hand to hand idly as she thinks.] The Separatists' droid army numbers in the millions, and they just keep making more of them. The Order alone can't compete with that, even if we are the best in the galaxy. And there's no way we'd have been able to enlist and train a civilian army in such a short space of time. [She throws the ball back to him.] The Republic would've been wiped out!

Civilians'll surprise you, given half a chance.

[No matter how many people say the French were cowards for surrendering, so few remember the history of it: that the people always fought. Even in New York, even in Sokovia-- people fight when their way of life is threatened.

He knows - rationally - it's not as black and white as all that. But there are some things that'll always fire up the soldier in him.]

War's ugly, but I don't think the answer to it is ever to strip people of their free will.

[The draft is different, but even that he doesn't like. Wars are started by politicians and fought by men on the ground, it's not cowardice to want to stay out of that fight. Hell, the more he's in it, the more he thinks it's the only sane choice. It's just not one he could ever make for himself.

He shifts his palm over the face of the ball, flexing his fingers before he tosses it back again.]

[She feels a twinge of irritation as she throws the ball back to him immediately this time.]

You don't get it. I'm not talking about human enemies. I'm talking about droids. Millions of unthinking, unfeeling soldiers, who only have one mission: seek and destroy everything in their path. Are you telling me that we should ask civilians to go up against that?

[His tone is mild, gently corrective.]

I know what you're talking about.

[He doesn't like to think about what might have happened if Ultron had succeeded in Sokovia. He wouldn't have survived it, most likely. He switches hands, hefts her the ball in an easy underhand with his left.]

Most soldiers were civilians first, where I'm from. So long as there's a reason, people will stand up to fight. It's a choice they deserve to make for themselves.

[She catches it again, this time rolling it between her two palms thoughtfully.]

Look, it's different for clones. Jedi, too. I mean, it's not like I was given a choice either. But I didn't mind. I was happy to be a Jedi. Fighting to make the world a better place, to protect people, that's like the best job description in the world.

[Cool, so he doesn't like Jedi all that much, he decides abruptly. The funny thing is-- if she'd told him that fifteen years ago, he'd have agreed. It's what he wants. It's all he ever did. The serum changed nothing of the desire to serve, it just gave him the means to act on it. But she's a child. It's easy to want what you're told when you know nothing of any other way of life. And she's already been in war.

Christ. He's killed people her age, and his jaw tightens.]

What does freedom of choice mean to you? Not as a definition. How do you feel about the idea?

[She frowns when he asks the question, sensing the trap, and throws the ball back to him. Hard.]

Of course it's important. But normal rules don't apply to Jedi! Force sensitives have to be trained. Especially if they're strong. Can you imagine someone with the raw power you or I have, but put in the wrong hands?

Once you finish your initiate training, you're free to leave the Order whenever you want. But if you stay, you have to accept that you're going to spend a lot of time following orders until you work your way up. ... Well. Most of the time, anyway. Some of the time. ... When they're not stupid.

[Read: Ahsoka spends a lot of time disobeying orders she thinks are stupid.]

There's a difference between being trained and being in war.

[And it's absolutely not the training he objects to. Those with power need to know how to control it. Speaking of control-- he braces himself for that throw, and catches the ball with a bit of a grunt.]

Well, it's like I said. You can always leave. Nothing's stopping you.

[Aside from, you know, the fact that you're probably taken away from your family in infancy so the Order is all you know. Small details.]

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