You and I and a few of Faite's friends know what she's really like. Vinnie's problem (and possibly Mumphrey and others who know a little bit about the "cosmic" scene) is that massively powerful not-quite-human not-quite-understanding-humans can have different priorities.

The Shoggoth is a good example; 90% of the time his views and responses align with humans, but just occasionally his different perspective or motives put him on the opposite side. The same has proved true of the Chronicler (who very nearly banned Lara from the Parodyverse once when she argued with him) and Lisa (whose job comes with some specialised knowledge that forces her to some hard-to-comprehend decisions occasionally). So even very benevolent, "good" characters with wide cosmic perspectives sometimes aren't on-team.

And when they are off-team they are very gard indeed to counter, and all the more difficult to stop because they are trusted and known.







Vinnie is rather like Yuki in that he never waits to be asked. If he sees a problem or someone in danger he jumps right in. Someone who was aware of trouble and chose to do nothing about it is really alien to him. Again, in his pain, he's probably be arguing, "What? You're saying you didn't help because I didn't stop to pray to you? Because your feelings were hurt that I didn't take time out from the cosmic bloodbath to personally invite you to save some lives?"

As noted in narrative and in comments, the whole Laurie/Beth/Liu Xi deal cost Vinnie a lot too.







Assuming there had been a scenario where Faite commented on what Vinnie had done that provoked the kind of response I suggested it would, presumably Vinnie would have calmed down a bit by the time he spoke to Chiaki. By then he's be worried that he hurt Faite's feelings (she's currently a teenage girl in some respects, and he knows that) and would be feeling miserable about it. It's not that his views would be different, but his means of expressing them would be much softer and more tactful once he had calmed down.

I image if Chiaki approached him reasonably he'd want to ask her if Liu Xi and Faite were okay. That's because, while Vinnie is a rigid hardass when it comes to his job, he's a guilt-ridden softie when it comes to relationships.




Beth and Laurie are very different people. Beth is a virgin temperancer schollteacher. Laurie was a promiscuous hard-drinking wannabe-lawyer. The just about managed to share a flat together, but their friendship was based upon being opposites. A merger of the two characters would create a new entity unlike either of the others, so different that it might as well have killed the others by death-of-personality.

That said, see next issue for more on this discussion.







There's a fundamental theological question common to our world and pretty much every fictional one: why do bad things happen to good people? If there's a God then why doesn't he intervene? In fictional universes where there are gods and god-like beings why don't they do something?

One has to assume free will is so important that too much "divine intevention" that would limit it would be worse than letting the bad stuff happen. Simply put, if say Faite slammed a lethal lightning bolt into anyone who committed a crime, anywhere, anytime, then she'd prevent millions of deaths and untold misery. But now people wouldn't be making a choice to be good or moral, they'd only be acting that way to avoid immediate retribution. So no free will, only benevolent slavery. So Faire (or God, or whoever) has a wide enough perspective to see the dire consequences of seemingly benevolent large-scale interventions.

And this of course is a legitimate narrative reason for Faite, Oldman or whoever not to do the heroes out of a job. Humans and those close to humanity have to make some choices for themselves, and sometimes that includes really hard choices with costs and consequences. It's the price of doing business in a free-will universe.







Whatever else he is, Vinnie's a young male. He's going to put on a brave face around others, especially young woman.







Dancer: "Sometimes you just have to stop helping people and take a hot bath. Maybe with bubbles." Real-Shep actually told me that once.







This wasn't something I wanted to cover in detail in the storyline that introduced Vespiir because issues this serious didn't sit well with the overall tone of the adventure. Had I continued regularly writing PV stuff I may have tackled it somehow, maybe even with Chiaki there.

Amongst the Caphan lore we've almost accidentally accrued since they sprang from a reply thread joke there are a couple of relevant points:

1. Until Emir Kiivan's recent reforms, a slave who was disowned, cast out, was absolutely without legal protection. There was no penalty for doing anything to such a non-person, even killing them. This was the backstory to the nine exiles' horror at the possibility of Visionary disowning them. On Caph that would have been a cruel slow death sentence.

2. There is an all-male very conservative religous cast who jealously guard a tiny number of psychics and seers and view them as holy men. Women who demonstrate such powers are viewed as blasphemous and could only gain such powers by diabolic possession and congress with evil desert spirits. As such they must be destroyed. This is taught to Caphans since infancy and has only been questioned under the new reforms.

Vespiir has a strong, untrained prophetic gift. When it manifested and she was unable to conceal it she was condemned for heresy. After her inquisition-style torture she was branded on her forehead to show she was disowned and then cast out as prey for anyone who wanted to hurt her. Her abusers included many of her former House whom she had thought of as friends until then.

Vespiir's prophecy saved Ohanna's life, and by extension saved Caph. Emir Kiivan revoked her outcast status and arranged for her to go to Earth to avoid almost certain assassination. Visionary arranged for her to join the Juniors as a way of helping her to build a new life. However, that leaves a whole set of issues unaddressed:

1. Vespiir has endures massive trauma including torture and rape. Nobody gets past that easily.

2. Vespiir is still scarred. Although she keeps her forehead covered by a headband, her disfigurement is even more singificant for a girl of beauty-obsessed Caph than on Earth.

3. Green-skinned Vespiir is obviously a Caphan, meaning she attracts a lot of attention on campus despite her friends' protection. Between the guys hoping to score with her (not knowing her history) and the feminists wanting to criticise her, she fears this alien world more than any other Caphan.

4. Vespiir still has very limited control over her visions. They frighten her and hurt her. She keeps quiet about this because she does not want to let her new House down. So far the training the LL has offered has been of limited effect. She is frightened that if she does not do better then she may be found useless and cast out again. Or else she will fail when she is needed most and cause the death of her friends. She may even have dreamed this.

5. There are techniques that could remove Vespiir's scar. She will not accept them. Ceep down maybe she feels she deserves it? Or else she yearns one day to be able to claim it as a badge of survival?

Hence the reasons Chiaki and perhaps Liu Xi would be good people to take Vespiir to lunch one day.