Where: Farmhouse
 When: I have no idea. Early October, I expect.
 Who: Matilda, Brian, Derrick, Peter Follen, Tatiana, Rose

 (Matilda was the alt of a long time player who was trying to get back into
 RP. She soon idled out. Brian was then, and still is, the Sept Alpha.
 Natasha is the Shadow Lord's Shadow Lord. Peter Follen was a Ronin ex-Silver
 Fang. Tatiana was a mute Stargazer, and Rose was one of Derrick's favorite
 people for awhile, a lost cub claimed by the Black Furies.)


Peter Follen says "Exactly, Derrick." He looks around, seeing all the cubs 
 gathered. "Has anyone here heard of the Impergium?"
Matilda says "Isn't that something back in Roman times, Peter-rhya?"
Rose shakes her head, very slightly. She undoes some stitches that have gone 
 awry and begins again.
Peter Follen starts at Matilda's words, and he corrects her very quickly. 
 "You can simply refer to me as Peter, Matilda. Nothing more is necessary."
You say "I got told about it, yes."
Matilda ohs. "Why not? You're older than me. And you're not a cub, and you're 
 here."
Tatiana leans back against the wall, eyes halfway closed.
Derrick huhs. "I dunno, I figure if folks don't want you to be all formal with
 'em, why should you object?"
Matilda protests, "Then I won't know when I should be formal or not."
You say "Sure y'will. If they say not to..."
Brian glances back in Dusty's direction, a look of mingled puzzlement and 
 perplexion written in his features. "The Litany's our laws," he explains 
 quietly. "No one's discussed it with you yet?"
Peter Follen says "There are those for whom such an honorific is 
 inappropriate." The Ronin doesn't elaborate further. "Derrick, why don't you 
 tell the others what you know of the Impergium. The best way to discover what
 you know is to attempt to teach someone else."
Dusty shakes his head at Brian, setting his guitar absently in its case. "You 
 can tell me later if you want. There's too much commotion."
Derrick looks at Peter uncertainly for a moment, then sighs. "Ok..."
Brian nods slightly to Dusty, allowing the subject to drop, and then lets his
 attention slide back to Derrick and Matilda. "He's asking you not to call him
 'sir' all the time, pretty much. No harm in that, right?"
Matilda says "No, sir, but..." She knows when she's beaten, and concedes the 
 point. "Okay.""
You say "Ok, so I'm no Galliard, and I've only heard this once, and Dillan was
 kinda distracting me, but I'll try."
You say "So, the main point've being Garou's to fight the Wyrm, right? So back
 in prehistoric times, there was this big population explosion of humans. And 
 the Wyrm started gettin' stronger."
Peter Follen sits back to listen, ready to intervene if the cub's story should
 derail.
You say "And the Garou back then, they kinda decided that the Wyrm gettin' 
 stronger was connected to the humans, so they kinda put a cap on the number 
 of humans they thought there should be around. And they kept that cap up in 
 some kinda aggressive ways."
Derrick says, "And they kept it up, for, I dunno," he looks at Peter and 
 Brian, "Hundreds of years, I guess?"
Brian corrects, in a whisper, "Thousands."
Peter Follen nods at Brian's correction.
Matilda puts in, "You mean with cavemen and all?"
Derrick ums. "Ok. Thousands. Which if you think about it is a long time to 
 have a population cap enforced by violence set up. So eventually, th' Garou 
 of the time decided that fightin' the Wyrm by kinda being _like_ the Wyrm 
 was prolly a bad idea, and stopped randomly culling humans and things, and 
 let 'em just grow normally. But the thing is, people'd gotten so scared of 
 Garou by then that Crinos makes 'em freak, and they're just in general scared
 of Garou."
You say "Nah, after cavemen."
You say "So, I gotta question - why do wolves get nervous around us, too?"
You say "If humans gettin' nervous is supposedly 'cause of the Impergium."
Dusty listens, almost visibly filing away the information.
Matilda says "Didn't they know that wouldn't work?"
You say "What, cullin' people? Well, no, 'cause it'd never been tried before."
You say "I mean, they prolly should've realized that fightin' evil by killin' 
 people ain't real brilliant, but..."
Peter Follen says "Wolves often grow nervous around us because they can sense 
 the Beast within us. It is as much a part of you and I as our hands, eyes, or
 claws."
Derrick nods? "Do they freak at Crinos, too, or do they just go, "Ack, big 
 wolf!" and act like they would normally around a mahonkin' big wolf?"
Natasha raises an eyebrow. "Many of them felt the humans were a part of the 
 evil they were fighting."
Brian speaks a rueful defense of the Impergium. "Humans seemed the source of 
 Gaia's problems. If we kept a limit on the number of humans, we thought 
 perhaps we could also keep a limit on those problems. In hindsight we can see
 that that logic wasn't right, but at the time, thousands of years ago? I 
 doubt I would've second-guessed it. It must've made a lot of sense back then."
Peter Follen says "I suppose one might say their reaction is closer to the 
 latter. They do not suffer the Delirium the way humans do."
Derrick nods. "So it was sorta like they thought they were getting to the root
 of the problem, instead of just fightin' the symptoms."
Brian lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "We've made, and we make, a lot of 
 mistakes. You're inheriting all those. I wish it were different, and that we 
 could hand you a world that we hadn't had a hand in screwing up, but it's 
 not, and we can't. So instead we'll prepare you the best we can."
Natasha says, coldly, "There is no denying that humans have been a ready tool 
 for the Wyrm for generations. Deliberately or not, the human race has been 
 responsible for more damage to Gaia than any collection of Banes."
Derrick perches on the arm of the couch, and responds to Brian. "No, sir, I 
 wasn't complaining or anything. I mean, back when I thought I was human, 
 I'd've done the best I could for the world, and I wouldn't blame m'elders... 
 They did what they thought was right. Well, most of 'em. Same here. Good 
 intentions, different results from what was intended. We just have to do the 
 best we can, in response."
Brian turns his attention over towards Natasha. "And perhaps if we hadn't 
 been so ready to kill them for what seemed like a good idea at the time, 
 they wouldn't be so ready to embrace the Wyrm's ways. It's easy to point the 
 finger of blame at the humans, but let's face it: we know better. They never 
 had that luxury."
Tatiana arches a brow at Natasha's statement.
You say "I can't reply to that, ma'am, 'cause I don't know enough yet."
Natasha says "Speculation on the possible consequences of our ancestors 
 taking a different course of action are merely speculation. I neither attack 
 nor defend the flow of history. It is past, and requires no defense and is 
 vulnerable to no attack. What is of concern is our present situation. It is 
 a fact that the human race has, and still does, inflict terrible damage upon 
 the Earth."
Tatiana raises both brows, but is unable to respond in any quick manner.
Natasha says "I do not say that the human race is evil. The evil is in the 
 Wyrm, which uses the humans to its own end."
Tatiana shakes her head, but it isn't in denial.
Brian asks, candidly, "Then what *do* you say, Natasha? Out of one side of 
 your mouth you say the human race isn't evil, but out of the other you say 
 they're ready tools of the Wyrm. In my country that's usually called 
 double-talk."
Natasha responds immediately. "A tool is neither good nor evil. It is a tool. 
 The good or evil lies in the intent of the one who wields it. The human race,
 laid down bythe Garou, was picked up by the Wyrm and directed against Gaia."
Tatiana stands up and wanders into the kitchen. Reaching into a drawer, she 
 finds the notebook that seems to be present in every household in order to 
 write down shopping lists and the like. She turns it to a blank page and 
 takes her golf pencil from her back pocket, starting to write. After she is 
 done, she slides it down the counter to Natasha.
Natasha seems intensely involved in this exchange, much more so than those who
 are familiar with her are used to. Her usual facade of indifferent coldness 
 is slowly being replaced by a tightly focussed energy.
Brian chuckles quietly. "Funny. I thought that's exactly what we were just 
 saying. Now what were you arguing about?"
Natasha raises an eyebrow with a smile which, though not strictly friendly, is
 at least somehow pleased. "Arguing? Exploring an issue. The question remains 
 whether ending the Impergnium was the correction of a mistake, or the loss of
 control which allowed the Wyrm to use the human race against Gaia."
Natasha adds, after a brief pause, "Or both."
Brian observes, "But I thought you just said that speculation on the past was 
 just speculation, and that history needs not be defended, nor can it be 
 attacked. So the issue really doesn't need exploration, does it?"
Natasha shrugs slightly, dipping her head with a small smile. "As you say.
 Our ancestors made their decision. It cannot be changed, and need not be
 defended or attacked. However, it yet remains for us to choose our own course
 of action."
"And it would seem counterproductive to blame the humans for something that
 isn't fully their fault," Brian suggests. "Something like..." He glances back
 at Derrick, searching out a fragment of the previous conversation. "Like
 dealing with the symptom rather than the problem, wouldn't you say?"
Derrick mumbles, "Something like."
Dusty by now has gone back to his guitar, still listening but as
 unobtrusively as possible trying to tune it correctly. When he is sastisfied
 with the single sound he begins to tune it to the other strings.
Natasha agrees readily, strangely enough. "Quite so. They are, after all, only
 human. It is not rational to expect them to resist the control of the Wyrm as
 a race when it has influenced their actions and history for so long."
Tatiana turns away from the counter and takes a glass down from a cabinet,
 getting herself some water from the tap.
Natasha glances down at the note Tatiana passed her, now that she has a free 
moment. She considers it for a second, then hands it to Brian.
You paged Tatiana with 'Whad it say, huh, huh?!'.
Brian nods slowly. "Absolutely." He takes the note, glances down at it 
 briefly, and as he reads, adds, "It wouldn't be fair, or honorable, to be
 overly harsh on the humans for their own ignorance. Our time is better spent
 destroying those parts of the Wyrm that make the humans slaves... to...
 darkness..." He trails off as he concludes reading the note, and then passes
 it back to Tatiana. "That's an interesting theory. Say it around some people,
 though, and it might get you into trouble." He does not elaborate on which
 people these might be, however, as he rises from his seat and shuffles his
 coat back on. "I think I'm going to go grab some lunch. Thank you for the
 chat."
From afar, Tatiana has written; "Do not forget that the eruption of Mt. St.
 Helens released more poisonous gas into the air than mankind has done in the
 sum of it's exitance and a forest fire begun by lightening is more often than
 not more devestating then one begun by a discarded cigarette. Nature harms
 itself. The earth is a living thing, it was born, it ages, and it will one
 day die. The Garou may be able to slow the process, but you cannot make the
 planet immortal. All things die, it is the cycle of things.
Derrick gets up as Brian leaves. "See you 'round..."
Tatiana takes the notebook back, not seeming to care who "some people" may be.
 She removes the note from the book, folds it, and places it in her back
 pocket along with her golf pencil.
Brian waves Derrick back down into his seat. "I'm not the pope," he says, with
 a grin, as he turns and makes his way out of the farmhouse.
Brian leaves through the front door. You can hear the screen door swing shut
 again with a clatter.
Joseph gets to his feet as wel, saying quietly that he thinks he'll go grab
 some food too.
Dusty looks up as the people leave, and says quietly, "Bye."
You say "Think I'll go take a run. See y'all around."

  [Exeunt]