Canon is Neal Stephenson's REAMDE.

[spetsnaz]

I am, regrettably, very busy. No time to be inmate on barge. Must, instead, find Chinese hacker and try not to kill him, and then hope events - and people - become no crazier than they already are.

Perhaps redemption later.

Comments

[patheticvillain]

But they will, though.

[spetsnaz]

They will not.

[patheticvillain]

They will. People always get crazier, it's the whole point of people.

[spetsnaz]

In short term, events tend towards chaos. In long term, towards - balance.

[patheticvillain]

Wow. Who fed you that line?

[spetsnaz]

Balance is not quite right word. Towards normal.

[patheticvillain]

A normal level of total crap.

[spetsnaz]

Usually.

[themissingpiece]

I doubt that's gonna change where you end up.

[spetsnaz]

Probably not.

[themissingpiece]

Maybe the whole redemption thing won't be that bad. When they're done whose to say you won't get put right back from where they took you?

[spetsnaz]

Many details forgotten in the meantime. Small things that I have seen, that I remember without knowing I remember. It is dangerous to step back in.

[themissingpiece]

Maybe. What's so important about those details?

[spetsnaz]

Maybe nothing. Maybe something small that means getting out alive.

[themissingpiece]

If that's the case, they'll come back to you and if they don't you're in the wrong line of work.

[spetsnaz]

Probably in wrong line of work.

[bodilesswarrior]

Not really the kind of thing you should put on hold.

[spetsnaz]

Is what I am saying!

[bodilesswarrior]

I meant the redemption.

It could help you with, say, not killing your hacker.

[spetsnaz]

Thing that will help me with not killing hacker is boss who is not crazy.

[dvoryanstvo]

Redemption is illusion, only. "I am very good today". Tomorrow you slaughter school bus, but you are very sorry, so you are all right, no? [ the sound Daniil makes is along the lines of FFFFFF because consciences, what the fuck is that about. ]

wtf happened in this tag I'm sorry

[spetsnaz]

[ In Sokolov's experience, people don't really do things like slaughtering school buses. There is, first off, extremely low possible gain; school buses, in general, do not contain targets of high tactical value. They will not speed up the securing of key government and military locations. They are rarely used to transport goods of military import. Moreover, killing children is a very, very fast way to get a lot of people mad at you in a very loud way, usually in a way that other, more important people pay attention to.

If someone has the level of psychotic detachment necessary to kill a lot of children, they usually have the subtlety not to do it in a way that will get everyone to kill them back. If they lack that subtlety, odds are they won't spend long outside of a jail cell.

So, here, Sokolov's first conclusion is: this man is crazy.

His second conclusion is: this man may be full of shit.

His third conclusion is more of a question, really, as to why the hell they aren't just speaking Russian at each other.

In an operation, Sokolov might have taken this moment to shoot this man, and eliminate a quantity that so clearly had the chance of becoming unpredictable in potentially very bad ways. But this is not a mission. So he does not shoot, as he longs to, to make this situation less ridiculous.

Here, he speaks in Russian. ]

There are many reasons to stop you from slaughtering a school bus. Conscience is only one of them.

oh honestly website

[dvoryanstvo]

[ in all fairness, Daniil may actually be crazy. that said, he is mocking someone troublingly specific, and tragically the funny part is not that killing a schoolbus is unlikely. but he switches languages smoothly: ]

I've many reasons not to do something impractical and foolish; others, maybe not.

I haven't been able to get that feature to work at all...

[spetsnaz]

[ Sokolov has trouble believing that anyone could have a good reason to do something quite that foolish and impractical. ]

The 'you' I spoke of was not specific.

fffuuu

[dvoryanstvo]

[ good, no. but therein lies daniil's objection, really. ]

My observation, I fear, was more particularly pointed. Perhaps redemption lacks appeal without many good sins to abase oneself for?