9876/PoG: The Mind of a Warrior

PoG: The Mind of a Warrior
Date of Scene:	27 January 2022
Location:	Grand Central Station
Synopsis:	Donna comes to tell Jon what she learned in speaking to Michael, and they discuss the archangel's motivations, Jon's psychological profile of him, and the power of a name.
Cast of Characters:	Jonathan Sims, Donna Troy
Tinyplot:	Path of Glory

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Jonathan Sims has posed:
    When Donna Troy comes to visit Jon, he's not in the Main Concourse, nor down in any of the food galleries, or even in the tunnels beneath the station, stalking the abandoned subway platforms. Which doesn't mean he's hard to find--any SHIELD agent asked would point right to where he is, but it's entirely possible Donna could find him on her own.

    He's up on the roof.

    Jon sits cross-legged on a floating citrine-colored platform, surrounded by bags and jars of various... stuff. A container of salt, another of boiling blood, a ziploc baggie full of red petals and another full of blue, a stack of paper, a large canvas bag and several smaller ones. He's currently writing on one of the small bags with a silver Sharpie, in what looks to be cuneiform, a fountain pen stuck behind one ear. Despite the wind up here, he's evidently devoting part of his attention to keeping the paper from flying off, but it still tugs on his hair, which has gotten long enough that he's pulled it into a half-ponytail just to keep it out of his eyes.

    He's quite visible, though, and easy to join. He'll even wave at Donna whenever she shows up; he's waved at a couple of angelic patrols in the distance, too, though that was more out of cheek than anything resembling actual welcome.

Donna Troy has posed:
    It's actually quite convenient for Donna that Jon is on the roof, because that's the first place she's going to look. Not because she has any reason to assume that he's likely to be there, but simply because she's coming from above.

    Jon will get a bit of a warning of her arrival too, that first warning the sound of the T-Jet flying overhead. It's not a very unusual thing to hear lately; though when the Titans have delivered supplies it has always happened via teleportation, the T-Jet has been seeing a lot of usage in the last few weeks as part of the efforts to ease the humanitarian problems caused by the evacuation. The jet doesn't come in to land, but it does slow down and come to a hovering halt over Grand Central Station. However many times you see the T-Jet, quinjets and the like doing this trick it never gets old; there's just something so counter-intuitive about seeing a great mass of metal and composites just hanging in the air like that.

    The jet stays hovering for about twenty seconds before the cargo bay door opens, and Donna drops out of it, drifting through the air to touch down gently on the roof close by where Jon sits. The T-Jet departs on some other mission before she has even landed.

    "Sixty-two thousand, four hundred dollars an hour," Donna says. "That's the average running cost for that thing. Ask me how I know. No, on second thoughts, don't. Apparently it's a model of cost-efficiency for what it does, but still. That's serious money. We try to avoid... correction, I try to avoid it getting used too often. Sometimes it makes all the difference though."

    She crosses the short distance to where Jon is and takes a seat on the roof facing him. "Despite that I can't convince Terry that we can afford to give him a scholarship. I don't want to go down the route of a paid team, but... you know. How are things going here, Jon? Everyone holding out okay? Anything else we can get for you?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon looks up to stare at that hovering mass of metal and smiles. "/That's/ magic, you know," he says as Donna joins him, "however much it costs. I mean, I've been studying aerodynamics here and there to try to figure out how to fly and it's the most bloody complicated thing I've ever undertaken as a serious study. And I'm a medical doctor." He shakes his head. "And somehow... they get them to /hover/." There's a kind of wonder in his voice, despite the fact that he is /literally/ hovering on the platform he's on.

    "I think we're doing mostly alright, though I'm certain everyone would prefer better food quality. Peggy dropped by and brought me Harney & Sons tea, bless her, which is really all /I/ need." He idly melts a bit of sealing wax and seals the ties on the bag he's working on shut with it, stamping it with his SHIELD rank pin. "I don't think we'll be here much longer anyhow. A week or two, maybe--the wards Zatanna put up are about to fail, so I'm replacing them, but if we don't make a firm push, and soon, the spell that's keeping the angels weak enough to fight will fail and then..." He shrugs, expression wry.

    "I'd like to get the 'Manhattan as a battlefield' bit done and behind us so people can come back to their homes and we can rebuild the city." He reaches up to tuck a stray bit of hair behind his ear, sets the little bag into the larger one, and then faces Donna properly. "How are you? Things still chaotic in Metropolis?"

Donna Troy has posed:
"Crazy as ever," Donna says with a smile. "But I might have something to help with Battlefield Manhattan real soon now. The science guys have been working hard. They're very excited about 'entropic shear forces', which is kind of... a localized disruption to how energy works between two small regions of space that have a differential in thermodynamic stability. If you think keeping a plane flying is complicated, you should hear some of the stuff they've been talking about. I try to stay reasonably knowledgeable when it comes to scientific things, but it's way beyond me. I can see the possibility of an angel-proof fence coming out of that research, but honestly? I wouldn't hold my breath, that make take a few more years of development. Maaaaybe a few decades if certain problems in energy requirements aren't solved. Project Gozer is coming along nicely though."

    She tilts her head thoughtfully. "How many people you got here? Like... tonight? Food quality is going to be an issue when people are roughing it like this, but the restaurants in Metropolis are all still open, and teleportation means the food stays warm. Let's arrange a treat for everyone, just as a little morale booster. I'm sure everyone could use it, and it'll cost a whole lot less than flying the jet around. Not going to extend that offer to the other side though," she adds breaking into a grin. "There's far too many of them, and besides they probably eat pollen or something."

    She sits back, palms down on the roof to lean on her arms, and studies Jon carefully. "So. How goes your attempt to understand Michael?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Including the civilian refugees in the Hyatt? Two or three thousand. About a tenth of that is the actual resistance, but I'm responsible for the refugees, too." Jon glances over at the taller building of the Hyatt Grand Central New York, what used to be the Commodore Hotel, brow furrowing for a moment. He murmurs, "Maybe I should do this up there...? Mmm, no, they'll attack here first, if they attack, and this is the heart of the complex anyway."

    He shakes himself and looks back to Donna. "I'm sure everyone would appreciate hot food, however much can be provided. It was better at the beginning, some of the vendors stayed and others let us have the food that would've spoilt anyhow, but that only lasts for so long and it turns out /most/ restaurants operate on an astonishingly quick turnaround." He sighs. "Terry brings by shawarma regularly, too, but you know, not everyone wants to eat that every day." He smirks.

    At the last question, he hesitates for a moment, and reaches out to pick up another one of the small bags, into which he pours some salt, followed by a very small plastic book and a button with a smiling sun. "It... goes. He came at us without the archangels he had scouting East Harlem on Saturday, presumably because they failed him? Or because one of them changed the terms of my deal so I can attack the angels now." He smirks and shakes his head. "He seriously considered setting the 'game' aside after he lost the battle. /Definitely/ a sore loser."

    He sighs, and looks up at Donna. "He's an arrogant bully, he overlooks people he doesn't think have much power, he has an enormous burden on his shoulders, and I'm certain that from his perspective everything he's doing is justified. And... in a way, I suppose it is." He shrugs. "It's not a remotely unique psychological profile, though perhaps the fact that he's such an important underpinning of the universe is /why/ there's so many like him in the world. But I know I'm missing a lot of it. The... core. Whatever it was that made him the way he is, presuming his mind works at all like a mortal's, and there's some kind of underlying damage. I'd like to /think/ the builder of the universe didn't start /out/ like this."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna's brow creases. "Why are we not evacuating all the refugees? Anyone who doesn't want to be here doesn't have to be here. You've got at least three people capable of portaling people away here regularly. I mean I can order a couple of thousand pizzas if that will help. We can set up a Rabbit Hole outside the tower, get the AI to order ten pizzas from a hundred different places and just shove them through as they arrive. But it seems to me it would be more sensible to order a hundred for the resistance folks and get any refugees out of here."

    She looks down, studying her hands in her lap as she flexes her fingers open and closed. "I don't think he's a bully," she says slowly. "And arrogant... isn't exactly right. Lacking in empathy, surely. But I think it's... it's different. There are ways his mind doesn't work like a mortals. Or like most immortals. In some ways his perceptions are almost unlimited, but in other ways they are extraordinarily limited. It's like there's a predetermined set of thoughts he's /allowed/ to have. Or so he believes, anyway."

    "I suspect he didn't start out this way, but he may have been this way for most of the time the universe existed. I think when the most important thing to him stopped being to work with his brother to construct a universe and became to defeat his brother in war, that changed him. Whether you'd call that damage, I'm not sure. I'm starting to think of it more like... left-over subroutines. Lines of computer code programmed for a task that's no longer needed, interfering with the smooth running of the program. Gods, I think I've spent too much time with the nerds lately."

    Donna looks up at him and grins, but the grin fades away. "Would it surprise you if I told you that he hopes you'll win?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon sighs. "I've told them they can go. Some of them are afraid of the portals. Some don't want to leave New York. Some feel safer here, with the resistance nearby, and we can't convince them the angels won't leave Manhattan and attack elsewhere. Some are the families of those who've joined the militia, who want to stay nearby. But that's why there are /only/ a couple thousand--that's the ones that showed up that wouldn't leave. We get a few more leaving every day, usually families. I'd have ordered them all out but... what am I going to do, shove them out at the point of a gun? I won't... I won't do that. They came to us looking for refuge, I won't force-portal people to the Gotham Stadium camp, not when we /can/ keep them safe here."

    He frowns down at the little bag in his hands, and reaches out to put one each of the petals inside, and a drop of the blood. "But... I have to be certain these wards hold."

    He listens, quietly, to what Donna says, and then replies, without looking up from what he's doing, "It would. Not because I think he hates me, particularly, but because I presume that Uriel suggested a game to appeal to his competitive nature. He has been known as a warrior going back to Atlantis at least; the guise in which /I/ best know him, and in which he is now appearing to us, is as Saint Michael the Archangel, defender of Israel and the Catholic Church." He taps the larger bag next to him. "The Prayer to Saint Michael the archangel begins 'defend us in battle.' What general would /want/ the other side to win?"

    He glances up, finally. "I have a rather competitive nature myself. When I play a game, I may not hate my opponent--I may even love them. But in that moment, I want to win, or I wouldn't be playing. Even if I can accept losing, and be gracious in my loss, I /want/ to win. So why on Earth would Michael hope that I win this? If so... why bother?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Because he doesn't think he has a choice, I guess," Donna says with a sigh. "I think we've been seeing... no. I won't speak for anyone else. But at least /I/ have been seeing this as a battle of ideologies, and now I think it's a battle of methodologies instead. Think about it. Michael has told everyone right from the start that the universe is broken, that it's leaching from other universes. He wants to stop that. The problem we have is the how of it, right?"

    "And I mean... Gaia, Jon. Do you think Gaia's purpose in making a champion is to win a war? /Gaia/? Michael picked a warrior as his champion. Gaia picked a scholar. If Gaia wins and Michael loses, then what, she's just going to ignore that whole vampire universe problem? No. She thinks that whatever it is you're going to do will fix it. Both sides of this war are fighting for the exact same thing, they just plan to achieve it in different ways."

    "So why would he want you to win? Because he knows your way of fixing the problem is better. Simple as that. Why wouldn't he want you to win? The real question here is if he wants you to win, why is he fighting?"

    Donna takes a deep breath then blows it out again, puffing out her cheeks. "My guess is because he thinks this is the same fight. He believes Lucifer caused the fault in the universe, and fighting Lucifer's action is his reason for being. Or at least has been since Lucifer's fall. He has to fight, because solving this problem by fighting is /who he his/. He can no more not fight this fight than you can not be Jonathan Sims."

    She looks up from under her eyebrows at him, grinning. "As you can probably guess, I had a rather long and interesting conversation with him. So. Two thousand pizzas it is. Probably have to be tomorrow night rather than tonight then, that's a pretty big order. Maybe some of those refugees will see the pizzas coming in through the portal and realize it's something safe for them to go through themselves."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Perhaps he thinks my way is better," Jon says softly, "Or perhaps... he doesn't think I can actually do it. He asks us to surrender, every time. Talks about the glories of the world to come, how peaceful it will all be." He frowns. "Perhaps he's conflicted. It's entirely possible. I don't think they're computer programs, at all--a computer program couldn't do what several of the archangels are doing, and circumvent their general."

    He stares down at the bag in his hands. "They can't disobey direct orders from Michael, but eight of the thirteen don't agree with this, and several of them have been /helping/ us, without Michael's knowledge. That alone tells me that there's more to them than a computer program--or, if they /are/ like a computer program, they are like the ones that are so advanced I would argue they have a soul." He smirks, and looks up. "I mean, do you have any idea how many decisions humans make without even thinking about them? We all run on outdated bits of code, in our ways. My job, usually, is to help people learn new scripts. Literally re-train the brain's response to stimuli."

    He frowns at Donna for a moment. "But... you're wrong in one thing. Gaea didn't choose a scholar. She chose a /healer/. That is why I think there is damage there to heal. And that is why I think that merely fixing the imbalance isn't enough. Michael is part of the problem, in some way. I mean..." He laughs. "I'm /fairly/ certain that Lucifer's Fall didn't break whatever's wrong, because I'm fairly certain it's actually tied to Nullspace. Think about it--why can Ammit grant me the power of the Void? Why should souls be /going/ to the Void, at all? Short answer: they shouldn't. But if they do... well... that causes an imbalance in the flow of souls, and our universe has to draw from others to make up for the imbalance. And I'm supposed to die anyway--not Gaea's idea, by the by--so I can get down into Duat and tell them to cut it out, and... hopefully get a start on fixing the problem."

    He sighs. "But it's not as if Michael showed up and told me that. He showed up and started /killing/ people. He /tortured/ people. He stepped into a spell he should /not/ have been the one to respond to. He blames Lucifer for a problem that appears to be not remotely connected to him. Somewhere, somehow, Michael is part of the problem, and I don't think he... sees that. Not the whole of it, no. But he's evidently done this whole cycle at least once before, and the universe he created was just as flawed as this one. Implying that he needs to... I don't know. Change, somehow. /Can/ he change?"

    He frowns. "...Are you saying he's fighting because he was /bored/? Good lord." He actually puts his face in his hands.

    "Two thousand pizzas," he murmurs. "Sounds good."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "Project Gozer, Jon. Think about it." Donna straightens up. "Artificial intelligences. Not as sophisticated as the ones you'd say have a soul, but they work in fundamentally the same way, at a lower level. How they differ from a true AI, or from you or me... is they are programmed to have a single belief that overrides any contrary information. The guy we had in working on the neural net, guy called Parker... he described it as 'magical thinking' routine. Good description. You cannot persuade one of these things that it is wrong about that belief, because it has a one hundred percent weighting in the network. "

    "So scale that up. You have a true artificial intelligence, one with a soul. I know one of them quiet well and I have no doubt she's as real a person as anyone made of flesh and blood. But program it with that same kind of deterministic algorithm, and nothing -- not even being able to figure out that they are wrong from other data, because they are that smart -- will persuade them that they are wrong. That part of the network is isolated from the rationalization of different pieces of data that make up true thought that they can wholly believe two contrary things at the same time. You see that to a smaller extent in the ideological blindness of people all around us. So imagine an angel, a being created for a very specific purpose, with a mind as sophisticated as any mortals, except with this extra bit of deterministic code that says in big capital letters THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE, THIS IS WHAT YOU DO. I think 'bored' is a very human way of looking at it. It's... it's /kinda/ like that, but... "she stops mid-sentence with a sigh.

    Donna shuffles around where she sits, turning so that instead of facing Jon she's facing the same way, and kicks her feet to move back beside him, so she can look out over the city. "Strange thing about all of this is... the city is kind of beautiful like this. I remember my first day in New York. Diana telling me there were nine million people here. My English wasn't that great then, and it took me a minute to remember that million wasn't /myriad/. I thought she meant ninety thousand people, and that sounded like such a crazy amount. Before that week I had never in my life met someone who had lived less than nine hundred years. When I was ten, I knew nobody who hadn't lived for a thousand years before Rome rose. I'm twenty-seven now, and... Jon, I know what it's like when people understand themselves. I don't. But I realized that there is something fundamental that Michael and I have in common. We're both /warriors/. It's our purpose. I'm reluctant to try to interpret for you what this means, because it's something I struggle with very much myself. I worry that anything I tell you about how I see Michael now will be colored by my own struggles to understand myself. But I /think/ I understand, kind of, how it must feel to him. I know there are depths that I haven't achieved, and I struggle to achieve them. Any shallowness in him, in how he sees himself as a warrior -- I think it's not something he struggles with, because that's how he's meant to be."

    She lets out a short laugh and turns to Jon, smiling a little. "I asked him about that. About... what happens if he starts things over and the same problem is there again. I think he avoided the question. That may be telling. As for Ammit..." She arches an eyebrow in wry amusement. "I remember addressing that question before. Remember? I told you. Fuck Ammit."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon chuckles. "That's what got me thinking down this path, actually." He picks up a slip of paper and begins writing on it; a prayer to Saint Uriel for intercession, in English, in the Anglican tradition. "'Fuck Ammit.' Well, I intend to--to tell her to fuck off, at any rate. We're putting together a group that will go down into Duat and meet me there, and hopefully start to fix this whole mess."

    He pauses in his writing, when he reaches 'Obtain for us the grace to use the sword of truth to pare away all that is not in conformity to the most adorable.' Frowns down at the paper for a moment. "I understand what you're talking about better than you might think. I was born for a purpose, shaped to a purpose. If I try to deny that purpose, I suffer for it. I tried to tell Cael I would go back on my deal with Michael, if she asked... and it /hurt/, even /thinking/ about that." He presses a hand to his chest, over his heart. "Going back on my word... it would break me, somehow. It would mean giving up my power as Archivist."

    He looks up at Donna. "Power is all the archangels /are/. They are Will Incarnate. So it makes me think... could Uriel, for instance, defy a direct order from Michael? Perhaps--but doing so would destroy him utterly. Could Michael lie? Perhaps--but, again, to do so would destroy him utterly. Or perhaps they cannot, at all; I can't quite say, just yet. But it amounts to the same thing; I cannot go back on my word and remain Jonathan Sims, the Archivist... though I /could/ remain Jonathan Sims. For an angel to deny their Purpose would be to be destroyed entirely. So I understand that in a way most people seem not to. It's been hard to convince people that, no, they /cannot/ lie. That they /cannot/ defy orders and 'stand up for their convictions.' That what help they're giving us is what they can do. And I /definitely/ understand that blaring deterministic code screaming in your head, THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE, THIS IS WHAT YOU DO. I live with that, every day." He taps the side of his head. "The Archivist wants me to do and be things I do not want to do and be. The difference between me and the archangels... is that I have a choice. I can imagine what it would be to just... give in and do what the Archivist wants. To not have a choice at all."

    He gives Donna a sidelong glance. "You yelled at me about that, as I recall. Or wanted to, at least. Tossing entropy magic about." He smirks. "I rather prefer having a choice. I... feel bad for them, in a way, that they don't, as much. Even Michael."

    He goes on writing, and says, "But I know they can lie by omission. And I know that they need only tell the truth as /they/ see it, and only whichever part of it they feel like showing any particular person. The archangels, at least, have /some/ degree of choice, if not as much as a mortal. I'm curious, though... what side of his truth did Michael show you? That he is a warrior. That he... hopes I win. What else?"

Donna Troy has posed:
    There are a few moments silence, and a wide, white-toothed smile. Donna has the kind of face that seems made for smiling, and when she smiles big, it's big. "You said that you are a healer. Imagine a world where everyone was healthy, where there was nobody left to heal. Would you just retire? No. You'd want to make sure. You'd go on looking for people to heal, because you know that healing those who are hurt is the right thing to do. When would you /stop looking/, Jon? When you stopped being yourself? I asked Michael how long it is since he last fought a war. He told me it has been fourteen billion years. Since the beginning of the universe. Imagine you'd been looking for someone to heal for fourteen billion years, Jon, and finally you found one. What hoops do you think you'd jump through, to justify to yourself that /you/ were the right person for the job?"

    "Let me think... he showed me the multiverse. The... the way our universe leaches from others. I saw it as a difference in the colors of light, between a healthy universe and an unhealthy one. I asked him about that, and he said that it probably had no meaning, but... I'm not sure. It may be he doesn't really understand it himself. He was very unclear on what was actually taking place, though it was obviously something unhealthy. He told me he doesn't really know about other universes. That he can see what is outside our universe, as part of the whole, but not what was inside other universe. They were not his purpose."

    She shuts her eyes to better remember what she had been shown, and is silent a few moments before continuing. "He showed me the Garden, and the Tree. Uriel and Gaia, together there. I saw fondness in his eyes when he looked on them both. He said that he saw only two options, to either leave things as they are or redo from start, until Uriel offered him an alternative. He told me that he could not ask mortals for assistance in his task, because that was not part of his purpose, though when I questioned this on the basis that he had appointed Caitlin his Champion he was... contradictory. He could not seek outside assistance, but he could have agents for his cause."

    "A lot was contradictory. I think... I think he is treading a fine line and trying to believe contradictory thing, to persuade himself he is fulfilling his purpose. I mean... he is fighting to stop someone from undoing the damage that he believes Lucifer did, and has found a way to persuade himself that he is not fighting for Lucifer's cause when he does so. He said that he was giving us a chance, that he could undo the universe with a wave of his hand but did not do so in the hopes that you would succeed. But... at the same time that you are his opponent and that he must do all that he can to ensure you fail."

    "He said that it would simply be wrong to let you win. That it would not be /sporting/, it would be indecorous, because of who he is. He told me that he is not as malleable as mortals are. That Caitlin may yet change sides because she is a mortal, with free will, but that he could not, because that is not who he is."

    She opens her eyes again to look at Jon, and gives him a faint grin. "He said he knew us Amazons would be trouble. And another contradiction, with an odd wording that stuck in his mind. He said that had I been one of his siblings, it's possible I might have been able to change his mind, to set aside the conflict for what he called 'a more sustainable solution.' That's interesting. I'm not sure what he meant by sustainable, but it means he accepts that his solution is not necessarily the best. And it means that the possibility exists that other Archangels can persuade him to alter his path."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon listens to all of this, while he folds up the paper and draws an Eye of Horus on it with the silver Sharpie. The paper goes into the small bag, and some more salt, and then he starts putting cuneiform on that bag--the Akkadian word for light, the closest thing he can find to Uriel's name in that tongue. He's sealing this bag with more wax by the time Donna's done speaking, and he carefully places it inside the larger one. Pulls out another; it looks like there are about three left to go.

    He's silent for a time after she's done, brow slightly furrowed, dark eyes intent as he pours more salt into the bag, a tiny staff, an extra red petal. Finally he says, "An angel should not be contradictory. All of this only underscores my feeling that something is wrong with him. Something that I can talk him out of, I would think, or Gaea wouldn't have chosen me."

    He chews on his lip, and looks up, expression sad. "I'm not /just/ a healer, Donna. If everyone in the world were happy and healthy? Honestly? I probably /would/ retire. Wander about learning things about the world and singing for my supper. And Michael isn't /just/ a warrior, either. He built the universe, he's supposed to be maintaining it--so why /isn't/ he? Because he wants to be the warrior, still?" A brief furrowing of his brow, again. Thoughtful.

    After a moment, he shakes his head. "If they were going to convince him to alter his path... they would have already. Uriel has a plan of some sort and it isn't... direct. There's something..." He frowns. "I feel like I'm missing something /really/ important, and I hate that. You ever get that? The feeling where it's like... if you just had the /one/ puzzle piece everything would make sense? I've been trying to figure out Uriel's plan and I can't quite... nnggg." The noise is one of frustration, and he twists his hand in the air like he's wrenching something. "Gaea was /much/ more forthcoming. I really prefer Her to the angels, overall."

    He lets out a long breath. "I am going to have to get his bloody statement," he says, firmly. "I... I /have/ to see things from /his/ perspective. Because... because /everything/ I hear about him, right now, is clouded by my own biases and frustrations. By the fact that he tricked my friend and hurt the woman I love. I'm /furious/ at him, and I can't really afford to be. I just... every damn time I think of him, talk about him, the /first/ thing I see is Cael on that damned cross." He shuts his eyes for a moment, to blink away tears.

    "Sorry," he murmurs. "It's just... been hard. I wish I could be... compassionate, understanding. I wish I could ever conceive of forgiving him. But I honestly don't know that I can, and I don't know what that... means, for all of this."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "If everyone could see the bigger picture, there would be nobody we need to be forgiving to," Donna says. "I told him that he was going to lose, and that when he did -- that if every other being in the universe turns their backs on him, I would not. He's not evil, Jon. He's misguided. It's only the scale of the consequences of his mistakes that makes him seem that way. But then I have not been asked to sacrifice so much as you."


    Donna leans over to look at what Jon is writing, then peers at the other bags before returning her attention to the one he has just finished. "/Ba - ba - qu/" she spells out. "I knew you were hungry, but I didn't think you were so desperate you'd want to barbeque paper and salt. Oh... that's a /ra/. /Baraqu/. Right? Not Hittite. Akkadian? Not great on Semitic languages."

    She leans back again, resting on a single hand, the other folded across her lap. "Perhaps then Gaia made you her champion to put you on a level that Michael is /allowed/ to listen to you, in a way it seems he's not allowed to listen to me. That comment about how I might have persuaded him if I was one of his siblings. I guess... what I concentrated on was the idea that both sides were fighting for the same thing, and that means that he is going to war to undermine his own purpose. I raised the point that even if both Gaia's path and his path might solve the problem, the possibility remains that simply remaking what is already here may not solve the problem. That by attempting to stop Gaia's search for another path, he was fighting against his own purpose. That he was attempting to continue fighting a war he had already won, in a manner that might be counter-productive to the very cause he fought for, against people fighting the same cause he professes to fight for. I suggested that if those who follow his cause only do so because they do not know different, or are unable to do differently even if they oppose him... he should be concerned.""

    "There was a question I asked him, at the end. I didn't ask him for an answer, but simply to think about the question. I asked him... if he is the Great Warrior, who now is the Great Stonemason? Maybe there's something in that. That he's neglecting one purpose to follow another. And if Gaia's champion performs his purpose for him..." She gives a quick shrug. "He said he could not sit back while you tamper with reality, because it would contradict his purpose. He called himself the fire of creation, but he seeks to destroy."

    "One other thing, Jon. I think he's very, very lonely."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon chuckles as Donna tries to read the cuneiform. "/Baraqu/, yes. Light. The closest thing I can find to Uriel's name, in Akkadian, yes. It's the oldest form of writing I know, besides hierogylphs; I'd be doing this in Atlantean if I knew the script. They're... protective amulets. For us, against the archangels. That /should/ ward the whole building from /all/ tiers of angels, I'm hoping, given that the angels are all tied to the highest tiers. Zatanna's ward is failing, and I have elements from three of the archangels and Gaea's power besides, so this should work just as well, if not better." He sighs. "We'll see, I suppose." He sounds not at all sure of himself, but he goes on putting together the next bag regardless.

    "My immediate response is to say that /he/ wants to do the fixing. That if he doesn't do it, he doesn't get the glory." He shakes his head. "That's the anger talking, I'm all but certain. It /feels/ true, though? At least... that on some level, somehow, he needs to... do it himself. To... control things? To have the... glory, as it were? I'm not certain. But I could be presuming. I'm /trying/ to stay open-minded on this."

    He glances over at Donna. "His name is a question, you know. 'Who is like God?' Not a statement, like 'Light of God' or 'God heals' or 'God is my strength.' A question. Who is like God? A question asked of Lucifer, but then, mortals were supposedly created in God's image. Perhaps that's the question we should be asking him. His own name."

    He sighs. "I imagine he is quite lonely. I don't think he's evil... but I don't really think evil exists in the way most people do. I think he is /isfet/, out of balance. Out of harmony, with himself and the universe. And if he is /isfet/, then the universe will be too. But, see, my ancestors believed you could not have /ma'at/ without /isfet/. They balance each other, and /ma'at/ can only be achieved by /overcoming/ /isfet/. There's no real concept that good can just... exist, that some perfect and unending neatly ordered world is even possible. The river floods, the people fall into famine, the Pharoah takes charge and restores order, overcomes the enemies of the people, unifies the two halves of the land. There is a cycle to all things, a rise and a fall."

    He blinks, then. "He... was the first Pharoah, in a way. Overcoming the /isfet/, the chaos and violence, of the Fall. But now... now he's... abandoned the rituals that keep the universe moving. It's like Ra decided to stop rising every day, forgot that he is supposed to bring order to chaos, not wipe it out entirely." He frowns. "Doesn't make me any less angry with him, really. But I think I begin to understand, at least."

    He looks over at Donna. "I... am glad that /someone/ can be there for him. I truly don't know if I could ever forgive him, but no being deserves to be alone and friendless, least of all the one that /created/ everything. I started my training in criminal psychiatry, at Arkham, and I... sometimes I was the only remotely friendly face those people saw; even many of my colleagues despised the people they were supposed to help. But all too often that's part of the reason they're doing what they do--because they have no real social support, or they only have it among criminals. Would Michael be doing things differently if he had true peers? Friends? If Lucifer hadn't abandoned their joint work?" He shrugs, and sighs. "But... I would never ask the victims, or the families of the victims, to befriend a criminal, nor even to forgive them. So I don't know if I can ask that of myself. It's good to know someone will, though."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "'In his pride he turned aside from the purpose of his creation'," Donna says, quite obviously quoting. "That's what he said about Lucifer. To be the Great Architect. To claim for himself the work he was doing, rather than accepting that it was the work of The Presence. There is pride in what Michael is doing, but also inevitability. "

    Her brow creases into the thoughtful frown Jon is becoming used to seeing on her face. "Jon... if you're right that it wasn't Lucifer who did... who broke the universe... then this is not the fight he thinks it is. And he is taking responsibility for the creation he states was the work of the Presence. That means... he's doing what Lucifer did. By his own word, he doesn't have the right to insist on being the one to fix it."

    She breaks into another smile, though it's a smaller, simpler one than before. "Unless of course he is the one meant to do that and has as you suggested abandoned the rituals that keep the universe moving. Because he's so focused on being the Great Warrior that he forgets to be the Great Stonemason, and he has allowed the foundations to crack. So either... he is overstepping his purpose, capital P by the way, just as Lucifer did before him, or he is ignoring his /original/ purpose to... to continue to fulfil his secondary purpose long past the time that purpose was redundant."

    "You're omitting the -el element in the name. Light of El. It's the same... a Semitic root anyway. Baraqu-el... I'm sure I've seen that name in some list of angels. Or.. no. Al? Allalu, right... of would be... sa? si? Baraqu-si-al? If you want something a little older, Raven is fluent in Sumerian. Send what you need translated over the T-Com and I'll make sure you get a prompt response. If it's just about the age of the script though... how would Kryptonian do? I could probably manage Kryptonian translations for you, though I might need a little help. That's far older than Sumerian."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Jon blinks and goes back into the larger bag. "Bloody hell," he murmurs, pulling out the one that says 'Baraqu.' "I forgot... only on this one, though. I think maybe I subconsciously..." He bites at his lip, shakes his head. "Don't be a bloody fool, Sims," he mutters, and pulls out the silver Sharpie. Adds 'si-al' to the name: 'Baraqu-si-al.' Light of God. "Thanks for catching that."

    He sighs and shakes his head. "It's better if it's a human language. We're fighting here, on Earth, and that's what's in my blood and in the Archive. It's..." He hesitates. "A lot of this isn't... a precise science. It's more about feeling, and belief. I don't know if the Kryptonians even /have/ angels, but even if they did... the fight is not on Krypton, or Mars, or one of the Shi'ar planets, though there are members of each of those species here on Earth, who could join the fight. The fight is /here/. There are things that were orchestrated, throughout human history, to prepare for this fight."

    He smiles, and shakes the bag a little. "And in the end? This is what /I/ know. Saint Uriel the Archangel, his name the motto of my alma mater. The original Watcher, who inspired Neith to create the Archive. I'm making the spell, so it has to resonate for /me/. I used to recite the prayer for intercession to him before exams, long after I stopped believing in any of the rest of it. I don't suppose you have that, in Themyscira, university exams? Trust me, one takes whatever help one can get." He smirks, and shakes his head. "Point being... I know /Uriel/. I wouldn't know the Kryptonian version. Whoever and whatever Uriel may be to Krypton... that's nothing I understand, nothing my ancestors knew. And magic has to come from here," he taps his chest, "or it doesn't work. At least, not the kind of magic I do."

    He places the bag back into the larger sack and picks up the other one, already sealed. Begins writing, in cuneiform, 'God heals.' Making /certain/ to get the 'si al' this time. "I think it's likely more the second, given that Michael doesn't feel remotely the same to me as Lucifer. I've been struggling with that, admittedly; how can an angel be acting in their Purpose and be doing such terrible things? But, ah, Michael has more than one Purpose." He sighs. "Or perhaps he /is/ close to Falling, and he's just... dancing along the edge, trying his best to avoid it, because he's seen what happened to his brother already. But /so/ many people have been /insisting/ that what he's doing is wrong, and I..."

    He sighs, and puts Raphael's bag into the larger one, to join the others. "If our universe /does/ threaten the whole of the multiverse? Then what he's doing isn't /evil/. It isn't even wrong, from his perspective. Does a doctor cry over the cells of a tumor they cut out? I likened him to that, the other day, to Sarah Rainmaker. Not a criminal on a murder spree, but a doctor ruthlessly keeping a disease from spreading by killing everyone who shows signs of infection. Not how he should be doing it, but the /cause/ isn't wrong. I think you're right, that we're really on the same side. I just..."

    He shakes his head. "Somehow," he says softly, "that almost makes it /worse/. Maybe I'll get over that feeling, in time."

Donna Troy has posed:
    "I'm not sure there's any difference between Uriel and Baraqu-si-al and /,:divi im eul,/" Donna says, stretching her neck. "But I know enough about magic to understand the importance of what you know. There is power in a true name, so use the name that's true to you. No Jon, there are no university exams on Themyscira. We've only had two people ever grow up there. Instead, we learning as being one of the purposes of life. Nobody would think to stop because they were given a piece of paper, and people have generally had a very long time to get good at the things they turn their hands to. "

    "I think you're wrong, by the way. When you said you'd retire if there was nothing left to do, nobody left to heal. I've been there Jon. Been somewhere where there was no need to fight for peace, because there was already peace. I was desperate for someone to do /something/ that justified me punching them, that justified my existence. What I wanted was... was for what I fight for to not be true. For the battle I try to win to not be won. It's hard feeling that way. Feeling useless, when your whole life has driven you to have a use. You feel adrift and lost. I mean I was very lost already, but that's just a physical thing, you know? Something you deal with. You find a way back. How do you find a way back to where you are needed, if your purpose doesn't exist any more and there is no back? And imagine how much harder for someone who's very existence is not who they are, but what they do."

    "I think he's good," she says. "Genuinely good. But misguided. Like Caitlin is." She get to her feet, stretching one leg, then the other. "Maybe not quite as good as Caitlin, but then who is?" She flashes him a broad grin.

     "I should get going. Red Robin has asked for a meeting at the Tower tomorrow. Come with him. I'll have something to show you."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I'd think Caitlin was a lot better if she'd stop breaking my bloody ribs," Jon mutters, reaching to prod at his side. He says it more in the way one might grumble about the weather, though, than any deep anger. "She thinks she's doing what's right, though, can't blame her for that, I /just/... it /hurts/." He glowers.

    Then he sighs. "Maybe you're right. I suppose I'd be singing to try to make people be happy. But I'm already at a crossroads; I'm having trouble continuing my work, being Archivist. And the Archivist isn't meant for healing, not as it is. There's something there, I think I'm right on the cusp of..." He reaches out a hand like he's trying to take something out of the air. "Mmm. I'll get there. Eventually."

    He looks up, and nods. "He already told me. I'll be there, no worries. I'll see you then. Be well, Donna."