Owner	Pose
Kian	Even though a fair amount has been going on in the Da... PRACTICE Room, not much has *actually* been going on.  Kian has been busy creating targets, and then staring at them and doing anything with them.     Which leads to the current situation, where Kian is at the console, looking at several "dik-heds" (Vic has much to answer for), and completely failing to use his /rhy'thar/ on them.     The problem is, this is an /assignment/, an order from the Viceroy of Kyshan and likely heir to the Crystal Council, and yet Kian finds it difficult to bring himself to use his powers even against holographic images.     To be sure, he's done it before: against Gar's doppel, and against robots and mechanical things, but the idea of deliberately causing harm to a sentient brings up a rebellion from deep within him.     So he stands there at the programming pedestal, not doing a damned thing, and sighs heavily.  "I have orders," he says, half under his breath.  "I have got to do this."     Yeah, well, so far he's not doing it.
Donna Troy	With Kian running a program -- even if that program is currently in inactive mode -- the tower systems are showing the Danger Room as in use, so it's no surprise to Donna that when the door slides open there's someone there to say hello to. Maybe it'll be something she can join in.     The fact that the program is inactive and Kian isn't even in the active area despite the fact that the Tower systems show that Kian has been here for a while now indicate that perhaps that's not on the cards after all.     Donna tilts her head and arches an eyebrow in the direction of the disconsolate bird-man. "Hey Kian," she greets him thoughtfully. She's armored in her now accustomed black full-body armor suit, with a sword and lasso at her hip and a shield across her back. Clearly ready for action, be it holographic or otherwise. She walks around the walkway to join Kian in the control area, glancing down at the settings to get some information about the pending program before looking back up at Kian with a wry smile. "Defeated before you switched the program on Kian?" she gently teases before resting a hand on his shoulder.     "/Struggling to get out of your comfort zone, Kian?/" she thinks at him through his mind touch before removing her hand and sitting down at the console. She pushes the comms button and broadcasts out to the tower, "Terry, you around? Cait, you too? If you are could you join me in the Danger Room please?" She releases the push to talk button and looks up at Kian with a smile and a shrug. "Want to talk about it?"
Caitlin Fairchild	Caitlin is in her room, studying; she reaches over and pokes the comm deck. "Yeah, I'll be up in a minute," and her words are relayed up to the control room. She stops only to put on her green bodysuit, and bundle her hair back in a quick and efficient knot. It keeps it out of her face, mostly, save for a few errant strands. Just a few moments after Donna's call, Caitlin's headed to the elevator to bring her up to the Practice Room level.
Terry O'Neil	"You rang?" A Rabbit Hole deposits Terry on site. He's carrying a little paper plate and chomping on a shawarma sandwich, wrapped in a paper napkin. "Sorry, sorry... I lost track of time and skipped lunch, so I nipped over to the palace and..." He dabs at his muzzle to clean up, "What's up? Don't mind me, I'm just finishing up here..."
Kian	Kian sighs disgustedly and glances back at Donna.  "No I don't want to talk about it, but I will.  My viceroy has tasked me to learn Earthly ways of conflict.  And I am trying to make myself be willing to use my /rhy'thar/ against things that look like sentients."     He glares at the virtual 'dik-heds' he's created.  "And I'm finding it a lot more difficult than I thought I would.  I shouldn't be surprised it is, but still.  My viceroy, and my empress, may need me to learn this, and I'm not sure that I *can*."     The birdman glares at the virtual targets, as if daring them to give him a reason.     Annoyingly enough, they don't.
Donna Troy	Donna nods her head to Kian. Most of what he had said had been written on his face anyway. "I think it's a little more complicated than that though, Kian. Remember the Brainiac drones? They certainly look like sentients. Remember when Vic and I took you aside for a conversation in the Meeting Room about it? We were able to assure you that they /weren't/ sentients, and with a bit of time you were able to bring yourself to use your rhy'thar against them."     She gestures with her head in the direction of the holographic dik-heds. "Likewise you know that those things aren't sentient. They're not even robots. Just simulations, no different really from pixels on a screen in some video game. Steel yourself to the task and I'm sure you'll be able to zap those things too."     She tilts her head to the side. "But what happens if they're /not/ simulations? Here on Earth, we have thousands of years of war, and during that time one of the standard tactics for leaders to grow their power is to train armies to be willing to kill, by dehumanizing them. Teaching them to think of the people they are fighting as things rather than people. I don't think that would work for a being with a mind touch, and I don't think you'd /want/ it to. I know I don't."     Donna greets Caitlin and Terry as they arrive, gesturing to them to join her and Kian at the control area. "Hey guys," she says. "We have a conundrum. How do we help Kian train to fight sentient beings, without hurting sentient beings?"
Caitlin Fairchild	Caitlin walks in with her usual friendly smile in place, but comes up short at the abrupt question. The redhead stops and to her credit, thinks about it for a beat or two. Thank goodness for the sandwhich that has Terry momentarily occupied. "I mean, that's hard for me," Caitlin admits. "Even still. I don't even like punching people, and that's at least not very bloody." Caitlin finds one of the low, sturdy benches and sits on her, resting her palms on her knees with her arms locked out. It puts her head on a height closer to Kian's so she's not looming over him. "I guess your only options are really to... /want/ to hurt someone, or at least not care if you do," she concludes. "Too much empathy and attachment makes you hesitate, and hesitation is what wins fights. If someone comes at you and they believe you won't hurt them to stop them, then the outcome is already decided. The fight's just a formality at this point," she posits, and adds a shrug of her shoulder.
Terry O'Neil	The sandwich keeps Terry occupied for a bit, and then he spends a few seconds licking his fingers. It's a cat thing. "So what we have here... is a bit of culture shock." The plate is vanished via Rabbit Hole, and the cat walks over to Kian, tilting his head. "Your Viceroy is definitely interested in how we handle conflict, but I wonder if they would be able to do what they want you to do, in your place? I imagine they'd have the same difficulties... not that this helps you, love." The cat begins to pace back and forth, his brain wracking itself to bring up memories and data, stringing them together with thoughts. He narrows his eyes, and idly wanders to the cosole. "Donna... have you thought of maybe teaching him Judo?"
Kian	Kian fixes Cait with a surprisingly steely glare.  "There is much difference between /wanting/ to hurt someone and /needing/ to," he says sharply... then exhales and relaxes a little, his gaze softening.  "And no, I do not *want* to, but I know I may *need* to.  And that's still a difficult thing to get past."     He regards Donna a little sadly.  "I remember well our talk... but the Braniac probes were not sentient, and that made a lot of difference.  I've used my /rhy'thar/ a few times against sentients -- against the blasphemer who used his /ki'thar/ against us while some of you were lost in a black hole, against the doppel-Gar, and against another doppel to help out Nadia.  I felt awful after all of those.  Terry /tenar'h/ will remember, he and Gar /tenar'h/ pulled me out of a mental hole I had fallen into."     He sighs heavily.  "None of this make this any easier."
Donna Troy	"Terry, I don't know Judo," Donna says, her face breaking into a smirk.     "Cait's right. If you're likely to hesitate if you get into a fight, you shouldn't be getting into a fight in the first place," she says with a shrug. "Essentially the way you know when you've trained enough to step out from training and actually get into a fight is that you're not stopping to worry about hurting someone or being hurt by them." She raises a finger. "Wait. To clarify that, I said that you're not worried about hurting them, that's not the same thing as not caring if you hurt them. For example Caitlin just said that punching people isn't very bloody. Well, that's not necessarily true. Caitlin can punch people hard enough that with most people it would be extremely bloody. And brainy, organy, and generally insides-y. The thing is she's confident enough that she's not going to."     "Something like that would probably be ideal for you, Kian. Working on learning how to hurt people /just/ enough to stop them, while inflicting the minimum possible amount of damage. You don't want to hurt people, and that's going to cause you to hesitate. If you can rationalize the necessity of risking hurting someone sometimes but have the confidence that you're not going to hurt them any more than the bare minimum required, that might help with the hesitation."     "But I think you're going to have to ask yourself whether your Viceroy is asking the impossible," Donna says. "Or even the right thing, possible or not. "     Donna chews on her lip thoughtfully a moment. "Kian, do you think your rhy'thar really is a gift from the goddess? Or do you think it's just a... biological accident? And if it is a gift of the goddess, why do /you/ think she gave it to you?"
Caitlin Fairchild	Caitlin makes a face at Donna's sidebar, but she nods along with the conclusion the princess draws. Kian's angry look is met with a surprisingly calm expression; absorbing and deflecting his flash of ire. The bedside manner training is working with her. "To be honest, it'd probably be kinder if I just punched everyone at full go," she says with a gloomy expression. "At least that would be quicker. I tossed one guy into a van this time and he ended up breaking four vertebrae. I guess he was in the prison hospital for years and years afterwards." "But on the other hand, he was shooting a gun all over the place. So if I didn't bodycheck him, he could have hit an innocent bystander. So for me half the question is, who is really at fault here? Me for hurting the guy, or the offender for putting me in a situation where I HAVE to hurt him? I don't love it, but it at least makes me unload some of the responsibility there. 'cause it would be way way worse to let some bystander take the hit to protect him from his own dumb decisions."
Terry O'Neil	"I think the solution to the problem should be more practical than that. We can stand around thinking and deliberating and hypothesizing and hypothenusin', and we won't be getting anywhere, and certainly not to the circumference of the issue." The Cheshire cat walks over to the console and starts tapping away, hmming an Aha-ing, as he selects parts of a program here, adds some modifications- he may not be as adept as Kate is with the Danger Room, but he is no slouch. "Alright, Kian, why don't we step into a scenario and just... play it by ear? We've got Cait and Donna here, too, so we might as well make it a team exercise." The simulation goes blank, and then suddenly it resets. To the outside of the tower. And five familiar figures. "Shall we?" the Cheshire smirks, and heads over.
Kian	"It's not impossible.  It's just very, very difficult," Kian says.  "I've done this before, but under limited circumstances.  I need to be able to do it at will."     He draws a deep breath, closing his eyes.  "This is just so *alien* to me," he says after a moment of collecting himself.  "I don't want to fail you.  You're my friends and--" he glances at Terry, "--and more.  And I don't want to fail my viceroy because she's my viceroy and if something happened on Kyshan like happens on Earth every other Wednesday... nnh."     He steps back and makes room for Terry at the console, and as the scenario comes into focus, he says only two words: "You fiend."