05-15-2017, 02:47 PM
Any doubts Dane had over the legitimacy of Axemerax's claims faded as the alien's conviction became present. Dane wasn't taken aback, per se, and he did have to make himself acknowledge more work went into world domination than he had implied - although that was fairly obvious. After all, if all conquering a country required was a loud mouth and an apparent strong will, a lot more people would attempt (and succeed) in doing so. Which was probably a good thing. That said, he didn't expect Axemerax to have quite as firm belief towards military dominion as he did. He came off as crazy, insane even, but the will seemed genuine - even through the translator. Dane couldn't really understand that. He didn't get the point. Why bother? All he could think off was Axemerax having some mad desire for power, a god complex, or a general belief he was the best one for the job. Or a mixture of the three.
That was an assumption Dane hated making. He'd pretty much assumed Axemerax was "just a crazy person", and his being screamed against it. All intelligent beings should be rational. Have motives and reasoning behind their every action - and only appear not to when deprived of the information to fully choose the best option. Should someone ever give the reasoning "I don't know" for a decision, he deemed it was usually because they thought it was a good choice/would be fun at the time, but now realise the actual consequences. Or because the wanted to see what would happen - out of a childish interest Dane could very much relate to. Intentionally antagonising Axemerax fit that category. Alternatively, the person just didn't want anyone else to know their motives or reasoning. Due to Dane's lack of mind-reading capabilities, Axemerax didn't appear rational - and thus his reasoning was unknown. It was like being given a squiggly random-looking sketch of a function and told to continue it, with no information besides the limited range of the graph given. There could be a stationary point or a point of inflection not far away, and Dane would never predict it. That is to say, Axemerax could suddenly turn around weapons drawn and attack at a more unexpected moment, or look like he's going to, before handing Dane a better sword. Admittedly, one of those looked much more likely than the other.
All that said, if Axemerax was going to attack him, he'd probably have done it already. The alien didn't have any weapons drawn and probably couldn't use magic. And he didn't appear to be built for speed, so Dane was still fairly confident as he replayed Axemerax's words in his head to formulate a reply. As with many debates or arguments, each good point or comment made by one side probably had at least two good counterarguments. And if everything was responded to, a verbal dispute would reach the point where neither side could hope to even remember the majority of an opposition speech - though this was usually prevented by people trying to shout over each other instead of actually listening. Dane had to commend Axemerax in that department, but it meant some comments would have to be dismissed, conceded, or ignored for the discussion to progress in good timing.
"Let's talk about me first, mmkay?" Dane clicked his middle finger against his thumb on his right hand. "I haven't forgotten about my old home, I just don't care about it. The way I see it, I'm too good for most of them. And I have enough books lying about and getting distributed that they probably won't miss me much. They were on all sorts, if you're wondering." Dane raised his right hand and began counting on the fingers. "Farming and Agriculture: Better Methods, What is Magic?, Everyday uses of Mathematics and the Arcane - for Everyone, Physics and Astronomy, The Art of Deductions and Logic." Dane raised the sword in his left hand, using his lack of additional fingers as a guise to execute the satisfying motion. "And lastly, Military Arts and Strategy Revised."
He decided to omit his more morally questionable exploits with the aim of playing off the moral high ground. "Most are probably pretty mundane, or partly wrong, compared to what you have. But for context, we still have people who think The Earth is flat. Yeah, I didn't really do a lot besides considerably reduce the poverty rate in non-urban areas in a few years. Still, the mathsy-science-magic part was pretty cool and I can redo any of that regardless of location."
Dane wondered if his dismissiveness was carried though the translation. He had mostly begun to feel that way about his life not long before he woke up here. Besides general improvements to some peoples lives, he hadn't really changed the way anyone thought. In general, people still made the same bad financial decisions, weren't inquisitive about the world, were generally content in ignorance, and were incapable of devising their own methods to deal with unknown or complex problems. Heck, he had some people believing spiders had six legs because of what he wrote in his book. An intentional mistake, with a retrospectively hilarious outcome.
Now for the fun part.
"Anyway, besides my original editor and the people that distributed that stuff, it was pretty much all me." Dane's face darkened. "I made my world better for the people that live in it. Can you say the same? Can you really? Did your power trip bring food to the poor as well as fuel your god complex? All you can really boast for is setting yourself up as top dog. Not because you're the smartest, or strongest, or even the best leader. But because you got lucky. Look back on it all you want, but I bet there are apparent moments of chance, a lot of them. Relying on your generals for one. And relying on people submitting to you being another. One loud individual could have easily united everyone against you and let their numbers win. That is, of course, assuming you were fighting against other people also in the interstellar travel age, and not those like me. If you only won by having better tech, then that's even more of a lucky achievement than a well fought one. You just happened to be born in the right place at the right time."
Dane spun his shortsword about loosely, pivoting it about the hilt. "That said, I don't believe you answered my question. I get you're a bit peeved someone took away your project; I mean, I'd be pretty annoyed if someone kicked over my sandcastle. But what was the point of it to begin with? Why bother taking over the world? Why order the deaths of countless individuals? And what after that?" Dane paused briefly.
Drawing his longsword with his right hand, but leaving it in a relaxed reverse grip, Dane continued. "You can speak of deserving your dominion. You can speak of all the time you invested. You can speak of all the people you crushed of those that submitted to you. But all I'm hearing is the ramblings of a madman who wasted his time and most of his life committing or ordering pointless acts of violence under some twisted, nonsensical, desire for power." He shrugged, shuffling the shield on his back to a more secure position.
That didn't go as well as Dane wanted. He almost stumbled over the words, and he'd unconsciously resorted to ad hominem. While Axemerax was the equivalent of an organised intergalactic serial killer, Dane hated arguing from a moral basis. He wasn't really sure why he was arguing, he just was. The guy had criticised him making hat and somehow a debate about each others life achievements had started. He knew he couldn't compete against anyone who has conquered so much in the scale of things, but he wasn't going to just admit that. He was still better than Axemerax in general - he had years of his life left, and with the potential promise of immortality even more remained. Axemerax was old, when he reached that age, he'd probably have achieved a lot more of worth, surely. And here, in the Omniverse, even with his severe lack of knowledge, he was convinced he had an advantage in that regard.
That was an assumption Dane hated making. He'd pretty much assumed Axemerax was "just a crazy person", and his being screamed against it. All intelligent beings should be rational. Have motives and reasoning behind their every action - and only appear not to when deprived of the information to fully choose the best option. Should someone ever give the reasoning "I don't know" for a decision, he deemed it was usually because they thought it was a good choice/would be fun at the time, but now realise the actual consequences. Or because the wanted to see what would happen - out of a childish interest Dane could very much relate to. Intentionally antagonising Axemerax fit that category. Alternatively, the person just didn't want anyone else to know their motives or reasoning. Due to Dane's lack of mind-reading capabilities, Axemerax didn't appear rational - and thus his reasoning was unknown. It was like being given a squiggly random-looking sketch of a function and told to continue it, with no information besides the limited range of the graph given. There could be a stationary point or a point of inflection not far away, and Dane would never predict it. That is to say, Axemerax could suddenly turn around weapons drawn and attack at a more unexpected moment, or look like he's going to, before handing Dane a better sword. Admittedly, one of those looked much more likely than the other.
All that said, if Axemerax was going to attack him, he'd probably have done it already. The alien didn't have any weapons drawn and probably couldn't use magic. And he didn't appear to be built for speed, so Dane was still fairly confident as he replayed Axemerax's words in his head to formulate a reply. As with many debates or arguments, each good point or comment made by one side probably had at least two good counterarguments. And if everything was responded to, a verbal dispute would reach the point where neither side could hope to even remember the majority of an opposition speech - though this was usually prevented by people trying to shout over each other instead of actually listening. Dane had to commend Axemerax in that department, but it meant some comments would have to be dismissed, conceded, or ignored for the discussion to progress in good timing.
"Let's talk about me first, mmkay?" Dane clicked his middle finger against his thumb on his right hand. "I haven't forgotten about my old home, I just don't care about it. The way I see it, I'm too good for most of them. And I have enough books lying about and getting distributed that they probably won't miss me much. They were on all sorts, if you're wondering." Dane raised his right hand and began counting on the fingers. "Farming and Agriculture: Better Methods, What is Magic?, Everyday uses of Mathematics and the Arcane - for Everyone, Physics and Astronomy, The Art of Deductions and Logic." Dane raised the sword in his left hand, using his lack of additional fingers as a guise to execute the satisfying motion. "And lastly, Military Arts and Strategy Revised."
He decided to omit his more morally questionable exploits with the aim of playing off the moral high ground. "Most are probably pretty mundane, or partly wrong, compared to what you have. But for context, we still have people who think The Earth is flat. Yeah, I didn't really do a lot besides considerably reduce the poverty rate in non-urban areas in a few years. Still, the mathsy-science-magic part was pretty cool and I can redo any of that regardless of location."
Dane wondered if his dismissiveness was carried though the translation. He had mostly begun to feel that way about his life not long before he woke up here. Besides general improvements to some peoples lives, he hadn't really changed the way anyone thought. In general, people still made the same bad financial decisions, weren't inquisitive about the world, were generally content in ignorance, and were incapable of devising their own methods to deal with unknown or complex problems. Heck, he had some people believing spiders had six legs because of what he wrote in his book. An intentional mistake, with a retrospectively hilarious outcome.
Now for the fun part.
"Anyway, besides my original editor and the people that distributed that stuff, it was pretty much all me." Dane's face darkened. "I made my world better for the people that live in it. Can you say the same? Can you really? Did your power trip bring food to the poor as well as fuel your god complex? All you can really boast for is setting yourself up as top dog. Not because you're the smartest, or strongest, or even the best leader. But because you got lucky. Look back on it all you want, but I bet there are apparent moments of chance, a lot of them. Relying on your generals for one. And relying on people submitting to you being another. One loud individual could have easily united everyone against you and let their numbers win. That is, of course, assuming you were fighting against other people also in the interstellar travel age, and not those like me. If you only won by having better tech, then that's even more of a lucky achievement than a well fought one. You just happened to be born in the right place at the right time."
Dane spun his shortsword about loosely, pivoting it about the hilt. "That said, I don't believe you answered my question. I get you're a bit peeved someone took away your project; I mean, I'd be pretty annoyed if someone kicked over my sandcastle. But what was the point of it to begin with? Why bother taking over the world? Why order the deaths of countless individuals? And what after that?" Dane paused briefly.
Drawing his longsword with his right hand, but leaving it in a relaxed reverse grip, Dane continued. "You can speak of deserving your dominion. You can speak of all the time you invested. You can speak of all the people you crushed of those that submitted to you. But all I'm hearing is the ramblings of a madman who wasted his time and most of his life committing or ordering pointless acts of violence under some twisted, nonsensical, desire for power." He shrugged, shuffling the shield on his back to a more secure position.
That didn't go as well as Dane wanted. He almost stumbled over the words, and he'd unconsciously resorted to ad hominem. While Axemerax was the equivalent of an organised intergalactic serial killer, Dane hated arguing from a moral basis. He wasn't really sure why he was arguing, he just was. The guy had criticised him making hat and somehow a debate about each others life achievements had started. He knew he couldn't compete against anyone who has conquered so much in the scale of things, but he wasn't going to just admit that. He was still better than Axemerax in general - he had years of his life left, and with the potential promise of immortality even more remained. Axemerax was old, when he reached that age, he'd probably have achieved a lot more of worth, surely. And here, in the Omniverse, even with his severe lack of knowledge, he was convinced he had an advantage in that regard.
Quote:OOC Note: I could have come up with better arguments for Dane to use, but I think it's probably better for me to use the ones I think of sooner, because unlike me, he doesn't have hours to think.