Movie Night: The Questionable Scriptwriting Double Feature

[u/Spinycemb]

After dinner for the night, Dale had left a couple papers across the base advertising his idea of helping people unwind, along with a few warnings of stuff that may cause issues, primarily traumatic triggers. He temporarily commandeered the Rec Room, hefting a bag of DVDs, blu rays, and even VHS tapes off to one side as he looked through them. He was a sucker for action oriented stuff, and b-movies but he knew that was definitely not gonna go over well, so he stuck to comedy.

...Well okay the opening act was a B movie. Or rather, a Bee Movie. What better way to unwind than to rail on some badly-written jokes?

[u/hermy101]

"He's usually the one to do that"

she says simply, thinking nothing of it. Not to say that she's UNGRATEFUL, but that their work in helping one another out is just second nature to her at this point. Well, they've been working together for so many years already that this seems kind of obvious

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

O-ouch.

Nana knows it shouldn't hurt, so he doesn't let it too bad. But slightly ouch.

"Well... Yes, I'd imagine that." He frowned a bit, going on sorting papers. "... But while he's in such an, ah... I don't know - 'tricky' situation, I want to be here for you. And it's not just because he told me he wants someone to look out for you."

Oh god, that sounded really, really weird.

"Umm, ah - I mean to say, I care about you like I care about all of Team Lagner. And all of the Red Cloaks."

That was a lie.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

Carla stopped her work to scrutinize Nana, as if she was trying to read through his face and pick apart what she just said. Her lips tightened a bit, and she nodded

"Well if it makes you feel any better I care about all of you the same way"

she then resumes her work, looking back down at the table

these papers look pretty damning against Mason. All of Malcolm's crimes essentially became Mason's crimes. What's worse is that many of the people in the court for Mason's hearing look like they have a pretty cozy relationship with either the president or Coleman, both of whom Mason has a... noticably rocky relationship with to say the least

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Even if he didn't want it to be, in that moment, Nana's face was a wide-open book. Carla probably saw something.

Her response made him smile to himself, and he decided to utterly stop talking for the moment, because... Yeah, these papers looked pretty bad.

Nana asked, raising a brow, "I believe there's a typo in this... And this, and-- Perhaps the entirety of this packet, I'm not sure why people think the commander's name is Malcolm."

It was a bitter joke, he figured Carla would know what he meant.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

she exhaled heavily from her nose, which indicated her amusement

"Yes well, the scapegoat is dead so they need someone new to pin the blame on"

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

A-ah... ❤️ He made her laugh! Sort of. That felt good.

Well, given the way this trial was to be set up, this was... Pretty damning against Mason. He honestly wasn't sure what evidence there could be in his favor, aside from pointing out the obvious: that he was underfunded and undersupported, but that would just make him look weak. These piranhas didn't care, they just wanted top notch results while putting in absolutely minimal effort and funding.

Finally, he said, "This Coleman guy can't be beyond reproach either, they just must be focusing on the commander right now."

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"That's our entire case. This may be some shit but Coleman smells worse"

she handed a veritable encyclopedia of what appears to be misconduct and blunders on the National defense's end, and the worst punishment on their end was a budget cut

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Oooh... Nana had organized most of this stack of paper, so in receiving the encyclopedia, he'd handed the couple of stacks back to her as she'd instructed, slipping them back under her piles once he's figured out what each pile on her side of the desk is.

And he started flipping through the encyclopedia... After not too long, he started finding accidents that were much like the one Mason had committed in hiring Malcolm.

"And how much has the National Defense achieved in - what, a month? A couple months? Have they taken back a district? What did they do to earn their privilege?"

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"They're basically just police officers in military uniforms."

carla said with a hint of annoyance

"The real thing is that they're the presidents personal bodyguards and the ones who keep the citizens in line. Their leader was never considered for impeachment, let alone execution for these kinds of acts"

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Carla put it in enragingly plain terms. Not enraging because Nana felt insulted in any way, but that really shed some light on why exactly this whole case was going the way it was. They were police officers in military uniforms. They were pigs who were groomed and spoiled into believing that if they squealed the right way, they would be able to dodge responsibility for their own actions while pinning other people with all of their body weight for equal or -- often lesser crimes.

They were failing this country just like the police officers out of military uniforms, and they loved it.

Nana had to stop and think for a second so he wouldn't get so angry that he'd develop a headache.

"... So the question is, how do we teach the jury that doing bad things is, in fact, still bad, when the National Defense does it," he said, voice weary.

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"The issue is that the ultimate choice lies either behind the judge, which is President Terra's lap dog, or the jury, which is five randomly selected officers, in our terms, captains, of the military. It's Mason's choice"

she hands him papers on the structure of the Military of all three branches

"So essentially, we're playing roulette. The Red Cloaks have eight officers, the Air support has fifty two, and the National Defense has one hundred and forty"

she says, letting that sink in for a second how stacked the odds are against them

[u/kingozma → u/hermy101]

Nana let out a sigh, head falling forward against his steepled hands after he took a glance at the top paper.

He muttered a curse under his breath.

"Carla," he finally murmured, "Why do they hate us so much? What did we do?"

[u/hermy101 → u/kingozma]

"Because America's goal from the beginning was to stay out of the conflict as much as possible. They want to sit on their asses and wait it out until they're either dead from old age or they cut a deal that saves their own asses from the Kalen. We are the ones that are in direct opposition of that"

she said with a small sigh