driftfleet | Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

Who: Panem!Bucky
Broadcast: Yes
Action: The Bridge of the Wonderduck
When: Now

[The video opens with a view of Bucky's face, hair short, face scruffy and a steel determination in his expression as though challenging the very fleet to suddenly do something and prove all his paranoid assumptions correct.]

The last time I was on a show for other's entertainment, we were made to fight and kill each other until only one person was left. Supposedly that's not the case here. Yet.

I assume some of you have been making attempts to learn more about this place and the people behind it.

[A pause. 'What do you know' was on the tip of his tongue, but he was the offworlder now. He didn't hold a single damn card in his hand he knew it too well. He hated it. He'd have to change that.]

What do we know?

[Anyone on the ship itself for any reason will find Bucky at the comms station, waiting for responses and seeing exactly how far the system would allow him to hack until the firewalls caught him. Sometimes you had to test the strength of the bars when you were in a cage.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[That's good at least. He's not looking to alienate any of his crew members so quickly and over such a simple thing.]

I do. It's a little different, but it still involved cameras and an audience watching your every move and conversation. And, in case you might ask, it wasn't another place I got pulled to. It was my home. [He [pauses, considering. What was the point in pulling punches, though? The Capitol wasn't listening and if, somehow, they were and this was some splinter faction, they might as well know the mistake they made pulling him here.]

Every year for seventy-four years, my government pulled two children, a boy and a girl, from their homes and to the Capitol. From there, they'd be paraded around and dressed up and treated like celebrities for a week, all while learning to fight and survive. After that, they were sent to special arenas that forced them to fight each other to the death; last child standing out of twenty-four wins and gets to go home. But the circus doesn't end there, they get paraded around for the rest of their lives as a tool of the Capitol.

[Alucard listens, his brows slowly furrowing more and more. He understands tournaments, he understands the need for a show for various reasons. The Essen Tasch was just that sort of competition, one for allowing several nations to compete in friendly circumstances so that less friendly circumstances might not arise.

...But children? Unwilling children? To the death?]

What was the justification?

[He's almost cold, clinical with his answer. The tone of a native who's heard the reasoning and had to explain it too many times.]

Publically, to serve as a 'reminder' of the war that "tore the country apart" seventy five years ago and wiped out an entire district. The Capitol wanted us to remember that we had it good, that these 'tributes' as they were called, were a reminder of the payment made for our lasting peace.

Politically, it was a scare tactic. The Capitol held all the power and stepped on nine of the twelve districts to remind them they were lower than dirt. The Games were the method to show they held that power and could kill us all at any time. And they could. The Capitol had the man and firepower to wipe most of us out if they wanted to, but then who would get all their supplies and cripple themselves in unsafe working conditions to supply the good needed to keep the rich fat and happy? So they scared us instead.

Then...on the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games, one girl from the furthest flung district cheated the system and saved herself and the boy she'd been sent with. She was an icon and people began to whisper her name and mutter things about rebellion, so The Capitol got smart and built a machine that could pull people from other worlds and timelines and bring them to Panem to fight in the Hunger Games instead. The districts remembered the fear and had the threat looming over them that things could go back to the way they'd been, the Capitol had a never-ending supply of participants for Games that were held every few months, and the rich and happy stayed that way.

[Alucard can recognize that tone, absolutely. He listens quietly through the whole explanation. Nothing of what Bucky says makes the initial revelation much worse, if only because it had been bad enough on its own. The rationale is no real rationale, but it's not particularly more chilling.

His own experience with governance isn't as dire - the Maresh had always ruled well and now he is...partial to the Crown, to say the least - but Alucard Emery is nowhere near naive and he can stretch his imagination to the scenario that Bucky puts before him.]

Ah. Suddenly, our own situation seems practically enjoyable.

[The words may seem dismissive, too light-hearted for what he's been told. But the tone is much quieter, more level than how he's been addressing Bucky. And as he speaks, one of his hands wraps around a wrist, thumb rubbing absently against his skin.]

Happy to provide new context.

[It would be a joke but for the tone in his voice. His bite isn't directed at Alucard, he can appreciate anyone willing to try and understand, though he doubted anyone who hadn't faced the same really would. No, his bite was directed at everything. The Capitol, Atroma, the whole idea of people being used by that higher power for entertainment instead of being left to live their lives and find what peace and happiness they could.]

I doubt this place has even a fraction behind it of what's now behind me, but you'll understand why I can't even begin to trust the lies they're likely feeding us. They might not be forcing us to fight each other, but we're still nothing but entertainment to them. They're up to something, I'm sure, and we're the core of it.

[He smiles faintly at Bucky's prediction, though it isn't particularly positive. A little wry, shading towards humorless.]

I fear that any intentions that begin with a kidnapping cannot be entirely aboveboard.

[After a moment, however, he sighs theatrically, and shrugs. The seriousness of his expression lifts, and Alucard shrugs lazily.]

Nevertheless. What can we do, in the face of such powers? We must soldier on.

[He doesn't remotely believe that there's nothing that can be done but if they really are watching, he's loathe to telegraph his displeasure too obviously. Better to play the dissolute nobleman and be underestimated.]

[He knows the game, as much as he hates playing it, so he nods along, as though simply overtaken by maudlin and now coming to his senses. He'd been in Thirteen for too long, there the halls were full of hatred for the Capitol, no one needed to play the game because the whole outfit was to tear everything down. But a lot of them hadn't needed to sneak into Capitol-controlled areas like Bucky and his teams had. They weren't used to pretending.]

You're right, of course. All we can do is find the positive and move on. I appreciate the talk.

Of course. Any time.

[Breezy and blithe, with a faint smile.]

We are, after all, crewmates now.

[The implication being: Crewmates take care of each other. Which is something he truly believes.]

Video/Action- First Pirate Transmission

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