driftfleet | Happy Birthday From the Dark Side!

Who: Finn, Pinkie Pie, and YOU!
Broadcast: EVERYWHERE!
Action: The Caprine, especially the bridge.
When: Today~

[Video: Encrypted from Finn]

[HOLY COW that is a huge pink pony grin in your face!]

Gooood morning, everybody~! Gueeeess who's birthday it is today~? If you guessed Finn, then you'd be right! AND you'd be invited to his super special first EVERY birthday party on the Caprine! If you guessed wrong, don't worry, you're invited anyway! There'll be cake and ice cream and music and games and lots and LOTS of blue fizzy drinks! Hope we see you there~!

[Action]

[While Pinkie has Poe distract Finn for most of the day, this little party pony's hard at work making this the best (and only) birthday this ex-Storm Trooper's ever had! As advertised, the whole ship is decorated bow to stern with streamers and lights and balloons. There's music throughout all the speakers, dancing and games on the bridge, and SO MANY TREATS in the kitchen. There's mild and spicy nachos, salsa, cubes of spiky blue fruit that tastes like cantaloupe, candy, and HUGE birthday cake made from as many real ingredients as Pinkie could get her hooves on. There's also a HUGE punch bowl with Pinkie's best punch recipe, and pre-poured cups of what looks like some blue fizzy milkshake. Knock yourselves out, guys, and help Finn have the best birthday ever since the First Order is made of jerks!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They let us do just about anything. There were bars, restaurants, a beach, an arcade, a pet shop, a movie theater, the works.

[Well, that's completely unlike any prison he's ever heard of.]

Except gain your freedom? Cause I gotta say, I think prison and I think restraints, torture, solitary confinement....

Except the freedom. Kind of like here.

There were restraints sometimes. Torture was debatable. Nothing physical, but you might get some psychological torture. Solitary was rare and random.

[Finn shakes his head and glances over at Poe, elsewhere in the room but actually enjoying himself. He'd been in terrible shape when Finn had rescued him....]

Glad it wasn't worse for you.

Thanks. I've been lucky in some unlucky situations. [She follows his gaze, curiously.] The people there were mostly great.

Definitely like this place, then.

Mind if I ask what you were in prison for?

Uh, no, but I don't think the selection process was much different than it is here. If they were going for the world's biggest criminals I know plenty of people who would have filled the place up before I ever made the cut.

[She did say she didn't care but standing here looking at him on his new birthday with those kind eyes and earnest expression that he has it's harder to do than she might have guessed.]

Murder. [So blurting it out without context feels right.] Arson, Trespassing, Theft, Endangering a minor, Assault, Jaywalking, Underage smoking, Breaking curfew, Conspiracy to destroy a timeline. [She shrugs.] I don't remember them all. [She glances away, really wishing she still smoked so her hands could have something to do.]

[Finn does flinch at "murder", but--he's also perfectly aware that's something the First Order would charge him with if they ever caught up with him. Some of those are ridiculous, though.]

Okay, what's "conspiracy to destroy a timeline"? Do they really put people in jail for smoking? What's jaywalking?

[She sees that flinch.] They didn't care about context. Ending a life is murder no matter why you end it. [She doesn't even really disagree. They weigh on her even when she knows she'd do it again if she had to.] Doesn't matter if you're protecting someone from them. They wouldn't have cared if you were under mind control. [Never a problem for her, but she thinks of Winter here and that Euphemia girl in the prison who occasionally wanted to commit genocide between stretches of being helpful and kind.]

Jaywalking is crossing the street in a non-designated area or at a non-designated time. The timeline thing is a little more complicated and specific.

[He frowns, because that's not the rules he's ever lived his life by.] Then they'd have me, too, even if they didn't look for anything else.

[And then he just looks confused.]

But if they put you in jail for crossing the street at the wrong time, I don't think very much of their idea of "fair".

I think it was just some kind of game they played. An experiment. Kind of like the way I see this place. I'm not one to take my captors at face value.

[The confusion clearns and he nods thoughtfully.]

Looking for excuses, basically. Like this whole "reality show" thing.

Right. I doubt I'm any more the most entertaining person in the universe than I was the most criminal.

[And that gets a snort of laughter.]

I don't know, I've watched some holos with really low standards.

[She's heard about holo whatevers replacing TV in his world enough that the term doesn't throw her.] Yeah? Would you watch me then?

If it's that or endless reruns of Clone Brothers, sure. I mean, I liked the show, but you can only watch the same thing so many times.

Clone brothers? [She looks amused.] Is cloning a big thing back home?

[Finn winces lightly.]

Controversial. But it's a historical drama, takes place about fifty years ago during the Clone Wars.

Clone wars, huh? Sounds like it was definitely a thing.

Well, it's called that cause there was a clone army, not cause they were fighting over cloning.

So, just an army that all looked like the same person?

That was based on an exceptional warrior, and had some commands genetically coded in. But armies always worse face-concealing helmets anyway, so it didn't matter if they looked all the same.

Edited 2016-08-07 05:10 (UTC)

Commands genetically coded in...to people? Wow. [Yeah, she doesn't think that's okay. Not that she's hot on having an army of clones in the first place. Cloning for medical or procreation reasons, sure.] It might matter to them. Were they treated as disposable?

Yeah. The idea was they couldn't betray their maker that way. And it worked - they were the standard for all troops after, even when they stopped using clones.

[He nods, grimacing.]

Of course. Who cares about one trooper when you have ten thousand more just like him?

What happened to them when they were too old to fight if they didn't die in battle? [Apparently someone cares about the troopers.]

(no subject)

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