Under The Rock

Charles Rockledge

The elevator doors open into a large room.
Contrary to everywhere else in Le Gallery de Beaute', this room is not adorned with fabulous works of art.
Rather it is 'now' quite spartanly furnished, containing some file cabinets, a couple of computers, a couple of smaller desks about the sides of the room, and a handfull of chairs arrayed around the rooms main feature. A large, modern, and very serviceable conference table that otherwise spans most of the entire length and berth of the room. There is a double door set in the opposite wall from the elevator. Those doors too, are locked by keycard panel (at the very least).
_________________
"My Girls is clean and kind spirited".
"If you hurt them, I am going to kill you slowly."
-Insert humanity check.

Billy · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 197

*Billy enters and takes a seat at Rockledge's table)

Well Rockledge, i'm guessing its safe to talk in here, so what kind of buisness did you wish to discuss.
_________________
OOC: Chris Hoffman
"Gift of the silver tongue, they say it's the mark of a good officer and of a liar"
-Shalashaska AKA Revolver Ocelot

Billy · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 197

**Following the Christmas Party after the cammies leave**

So does anyone want to discuss what the hell that was about?
_________________
OOC: Chris Hoffman
"Gift of the silver tongue, they say it's the mark of a good officer and of a liar"
-Shalashaska AKA Revolver Ocelot

Charles Rockledge · Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 3:14 pm Post subject:

Where the hell to begin.
Events have been bugginng up my sleep all day long.

-starts diggin through some papers,
-mumbles
"where the hell is that agenda..."

aloud-.
This double bind thing is nonsense. Complete nonsense.
We all know that THIS is the proper way to run the government of a free society in times of peace.
-Plays it on a flat screen "window"

Obviously, though, things are gonna happen in the spur of the moment that don't have time to be discussed in committee, along the proper fashion.

We have already decided in the first place that I am not permitted to make decisions on behalf of the body politique myself, because we didn't want to concentrate too much power into one single abusable office; so we decided on the ganglords cabinet to make imortant decisions regarding the protection of the body politique.

When something comes up in the spur of the moment demanding an immidiate decision, than obviously I must indeed have both the right and authority to convene an emergency cabinet meeting on teh spot. I can't both not have the power to make a decision myself for the body politique, and also not have the power to ask for a decision from the authorised representetives of the body politique. No decision is not an option.

AND

-turns to any handy mason, or there rep or vid camera or whatever.

"What WAS that about MY Building being at the root of your counter argument?!? You know my decision would be the same regardless of where we were; that we happened to be in my building at the time is incidental. Buildings are irrelivent.

An "enemy" approached "the Barony" about another enemy currently being a county wide problem and demanded County territory from the county government in trade; and was not prepared to take rejection well, or to wait the month to recieve it.

In my judgement, this was a matter of state. I treated it as a matter of state and attempted to deal with it as I would deal with any matter of State. Under the current job descruiption of Barron as it stands at the moment, that means, convening the Cabinet to decide the answer.

@Billy again
as ridiculous as it sounds, I can't halp thinking the sabbat really are somehow working with the hunters aafterall. I don't like cooincidences, and the fact they blundered up our trap insetad of staying out of the way today of all days; or, you know, last night; isn't sitting wel with me. They could have brought us their "offeer" here at any time. Before or after dealing with us all directly and by appointment. Instead, at the very least, they wanted to take advantage of the blacmail potential of sticking bombs in heavily populated, well, policed, and media covered event.
-huffs.
bluidy sabbat.
_________________
"My Girls is clean and kind spirited".
"If you hurt them, I am going to kill you slowly."
-Insert humanity check.

Charles Rockledge · Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 1:47 pm Post subject:

-I'm placing this document out on the table, a copy for each person. I plan on discussing this

(OOC: I've only 15 minutes of net acess left on this library terminal and can not post a new discussion today; sorry.)

Billy · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 197

doesn't this sheet of paper breach the masquerade?
_________________
OOC: Chris Hoffman
"Gift of the silver tongue, they say it's the mark of a good officer and of a liar"
-Shalashaska AKA Revolver Ocelot

Alura · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 369

Your face breeches the masquerade as well, just don't let people see it.

Obviously if the committee cannot make important decisions quickly the barony needs to. Which I was doing and many people seemed to think things were running better when I was doing just that.

A barony with no power is like the Queen of England. Just a figure head.

It clearly was a state of emergency, no one knew what the Sabbat was throwing at us, and decisions needed to be made before lives were lost. In addition as far as I understand it, the Masons were more concerned about the money than the lives of innocence. This is a sad state indeed.

I covered up the masquerade AGAIN. It's really easy to look on as an on looker and say people are doing a bad job. Yet would Francois like his job back? Well he certainly hasn't come for it.

In more interesting and related matters, when is the last time ANYONE has seen Francois? Perhaps that is the reason they sent Yojhan to the meeting, because it would actually involve Francois showing up. If they scold you for trying to hold a meeting, they don't have to show up. If the Baron holds a meeting you show up right? What, is Francois is too good to show for the Baron? Excuse me, is this a double standard? The same double standard where I got scolded for as Baron for not coming to a meeting that Francois 'held' when he didn't even bother showing up?

I haven't seen Francois in over a year, has anyone else? Seems rather interesting how he's running everything from behind the scenes telling us what we can and can't do and then telling us we're free.

Something seems a little rotten in Rockland if you ask me. Are you in hiding, Mr. Francois? What are you afraid of? Certainly not pretty little me. *She lifts up her skirt a little and shows some leg.*

Anyone else curious by this display of you're free, but do what I say? We're making a committee and stripping the baron of powers but we're also making the committee useless, oh and also work together, but don't use the committee to do so.

Seems like a steaming pile of *Etiquette.* If you ask me.

(Etiquette 5 was used in this rant.)

Billy · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 197

*to Alura*

It sounds like you have some pent up angst here, you're right i haven't seen Francois at all, but i assure you he is not my master. The Masons are not the harlequins, they're not the bandileros, they're not the knights and they're not me. If the council of the rose is controlled by Francois then that is news to me, but i doubt this is the case.

*to the general crowd*

History tells us that to destroy a government requires problems from within and an outside invader. Rockland is in this scenario, and i think we all know why.
Now i know we all have freedom and i try to enjoy it as much as anyone. BUT *pause* this freedom comes at a cost. when forces threaten the freedoms that have been won, personal wants must be put aside so we can unify everyone to destroy our enemies.

*while walking around the circle getting eye contact with all present*

so some sort of meeting needs to happen where all the gangs come together and discuss the issues of the county and find out who does what to protect it. Now of course these meetings should be called by someone who is a true leader, perhaps this leader could call such a meeting and give the citizens of the county ample time to prepare for it.

But where can this leader be found!!!

Who will step up to the plate and become the leader that this county needs?
Who will unify the Anarchs to defeat the creatures who threaten freedom?
Who has the wisdom, courage and charisma do to this task?

*taking his seat*

So Rockland who's it going to be?
_________________
OOC: Chris Hoffman
"Gift of the silver tongue, they say it's the mark of a good officer and of a liar"
-Shalashaska AKA Revolver Ocelot

Charles Rockledge · Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2010 2:59 pm Post subject:

No.
At least not in here.
This is a seure room that only kindred have access too. i don't leave such documents lying about where mortals can find them.

If ever a public version for motivating mortals for some reason, all references to 'kindred" and such can be edited out. Mortals have their own anarchist syndicated commune political movements. They tend to be active mostly on college campusus, but I've attended such meetings back in my mortal days.

---

The cabinet IS the barony. The barony is meant to be the presiding officer, in this case a Baron(ess) hence the name, and the other executive secretariate officers.

They hadn't./ Hence the change. I postponed it as long as I could, but current circumstances being what they are, you were gone whether I accepted the nomonation or not.

This true. It is the very problem i've been trying to pursuade you was true all these months. It's also true that this was a state of emergency ant a simple invasion of a single building. I don;t think they were concerned with the loss of money. It's just a variabnle to take note of. I take not of all variables. Honestly, in terms of reletive gain, the money is the secondary issue. The new influence potentials from some of those guests becoming associates of this gallery is far more valuable. Not as much as lives mind you, but valuable enough NOT to jump to conclusions ahead of the evidence.

I'm not running with that one Allura. Hopefully you've not yety expended influence to this effect. Mixed messages is bad for the public. As far as I am concerned, after like 60 consecutive months of bad things being explained away as a movie or a publicity stunt for antrim theatre; everyone and their mother who is in the know can interpret those statements as if we were holding up a giant neon green sign with pink flashing letters that say "This disturbance of the peace was brought to you by your friendly Rockland VAMPYRES." Anyway, I don't want the deaths of two paramedic teams, two guests, and the loss of two county ambulences to be either cheapened or esle blamed on a fireworks accident by the theate or gallery. That will defeat the reputation building aspect of last nights event.

My preffered explanation is as follows:
"While the crowd may not have noticed, being so large and active and generating so much heat in the party hall, our monitering instruments dected no gas was getting into the heating system of the Gallery. We decided to evacuate to check if there was a gas leak from the inside between the main and the boiler room. There wasn't, so we let the crowd back in. Unfortunatly, debree from the previous explosion had loged in the pipe further up the street. Some gas had been leaking out all month, but to no ill effects as it is outdoors. Unfortunatly, the decades old ambulances pressed into service by the county during these troubles economic times had parked right over man-holes where the gas was leaking out from. A couple who had over-indulged in champaign to the point of actually collapsing (and falling backward rather than forward) when forced to move vigorously instead of remaining reletively still at teh champaign table; required defibrulation, and while the paramedics were working, the equipment ignited the gas. It wouldn't have been that bad an explosion either except that the ambulences fuel tanks also went up.

We can create a small leak for county water and power to repair just down from the sewere area on this building under appropriate spot.

I aim henceforth and hereinafter not to molleycoddle the public, as if life is just fine without their having to lift a finger to make it so, and all bad things are just entertainment to which they become desensitised. Instead, as long as the ultimate objective of explaining away any supernatural phenomonon is met, I aim for them to see that in life sometimes bad things happen to good people and as unfair as it is, that's just life. If they wat to improve their lot, they should take an active role in doing so.

This event for example can be milked to further advantage.
The Galley will offer to buy two brand new ambulences for the county and provide a scholership for the training of two new paramedic teams.

Aside from the good pr, I hope the public will be inpired to take a real look at what other aspects of the towne they feel could use some imporvement of funding and begin using the political capital of thier vote to effect these changes in theior neigborhoods.

Of course the pollitical good "WE" will be offering them to spend their capital on will be our own Allies and contacts and influences. better to reomove any currently in power who are owned by the sabbat or the hunters, or anyone else.

The Baron, err, I mean, Francois doesn't need to attend these things himself. Any mason he authorises to vote on behlaf his gang will do. Actually, call me a bit biased, but I wouln't mind it being Darien or Richard Levy. not that I don't miss Francois presence of course. ...

Welll. I'll blame that on the generation gap is all. You remember how it is with adults and children. We 'want' to be free, but perhaps in an elders pdon't uite know how to go about actually being free. Seeing as how he has 300 years of experience in maintaing an anarch freehold, he would be reasonably justified in thinking that he know better than we do exactly how to go about 'being free'. It always fee;s like being told, an a parental type authority figure tries to instruct. Kids always think we know best and get all resentful at the grown-ups for thinking they can understand our lives better than we can ourselves; event hough they were kids too once.

-Charles raises his eebrow as allura displays her leg.

Yeah, that's the part that needs to be discussed. It seems as if the masons have underestimated exactly what this cabinet is intended to be. Thats I want to discuss the status perfectus. Particulary the line indicitive of Anarchs havving no rule but that which they choose for themselves. It sayis it like that inseat of 'having no rule period.". by this milenium the word "rule is distateful, unpalatable, and easily taken out of context. i prefer, govern, or administrate, or facilitate. either way, the point remains even the anarch philosophers of the 2nd revolution recognised freedom doesn' mean freedom from government. It means freedom to choose your own governemnt rather than having a government imposed upon you. You still have government though. You need it. It's the only way to coordinate the collective power of an anarch cooperative; what we traditionally call a barony.

I don't want it misunderstood, that what I intend for this cabinet to be, and what I had stated ist should be since the first time the allura's barony was made issue off las spring, is nothhing less than a full, actual, and legitimate government. Not simple an ocasional meeting of temporarily neccesatated council of war, but a body designed meet regulary and to 'govern' this county. It must be understood, that this is not an anti-anarch sentiment, nor is it overly cam-like in form.

In function perhaps, but remember also, the Cam formed as reaction to teh anarch revolt. The power of coordinated cooperating anarchs actually forced teh elders to change there ways and begin working together too despite themselve in order to thwart and overturn the innitial victories of our sect. They didn't invent the style of government either. They too are no older than us or the sabbat, yet these governing styles have been around for thousands of years. Since the days of classical antiquity. kindred and kine have uused such techniques successfully throughout the ages.

(OOC: I'm out of net time again. Will reply to next 2 post tomorrow.)
_________________
"My Girls is clean and kind spirited".
"If you hurt them, I am going to kill you slowly."
-Insert humanity check.

shadowfalls · Joined: 20 Apr 2010 Posts: 12

Hey whats going on with all of this shit and what are we doing about this

Alura · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 369

*To Billy, she eyes him, giving him a look of, are you serious, I already did step up, after the Baron stepped down...*

To Charles:"That story is the biggest load of bull I've ever heard..., keep it short, sweet and simple."

To Alexhandros: Well it seems like we're talking about it. I would like to see what Francois has to say. I know he's had much more important things to do for the past many moons.

Charles Rockledge · Posted: Sat Dec 25, 2010 9:14 pm Post subject:

"Allura controls the Council of the Rose."
-Charles bows his head deferentially at her a moment and then moves on.

"For those who don't, the why is because we have loathe to ...not so much cooperate with one another, but to accept coordination for our cooperative efforts. Rocklands Anarchs have developed a knee-jerk relfex/gut instinct of reacting to anoyone in "authority" who tells them to run or to jump with an response along then lines of "Hell, no! I'll run or jump when I damn well please too. I'm a free anarch, you're not the boss of me! How dare you tell me ot run or to jump! enters frenzy".

Never mind that your leader might be telling you to run out of the way of incomming sniper shot, or to jump out of a building that is about to blow up; or is in some other way, telling you for your own good or the greater good of the community at large. Until such time that a leader breaks faith with his constituency and demonstrates actual oppresion or goals meley of self-aggrandizement, then it shouldbe taken on faith that those you trusted to lead you actually are working in your best interests and for the greather good of everyone.

Billy is right about the cost of freedom; constant vigilance. It's farfrom free. It can in fact be damn expensive. It's not even the whole price for us. What good is it to spot teh enemy incomming if he is too powerful for you to do anything about as an individual? Only as a group do we have the powertoturn aside the greater threats; and we can not not tap that power unless we are willing to work as a group. Willing to allow coordination of our combined efforts from those we tust to be able to do that job. When the leadership decide upon plans of action. Those plans should be carried out, not argued over and picked apart or ignored. It is not un-anarch to sometimes run or jump when your leaders say to; especialy when the result is your own salvation form the enemy as well as that of your neighbors.

errr, you mean THIS isn't THE meeting right now?

-As Allura is giving Billy 'the eye', Charles likewise raises his eybrow at Billy in expression of; 'that last paragrapgh is about six weeks late!'

That's a veryinteresting question Billy.

Francois was our Leader for 300 years.
He had Wisdom, Courage, and Charisma.

You
-@Allura
seemed to lack the wisdom they wanted for this particular scenaio.
I, apparently, lack eithor or both the charisma and the courage.
at least, I lacked it the other night with yojan."
-reaches into his pocket a moment; shrugs and mutters
"I'm working on it."
-then pickshis voice back up.
"Anyway, this is why a cabinet full of leaders is best.
Between the lot of us, working together as a group, we have plenty of wisdom, courage and charisma.

Presuming we do not want that new guy from california that seemed simply to be an anti-bardonian to be in charge; as it was one of those who started this mess way back two years ago: We only have two options before us.

One: We use this, here, what we have before us now, and continue to to try and set up a burocratic republican system of self government by representation. Unite behind it and work as we once did work.
OR
Two: We beseech Francois and the masons to retake control of this barony outright, and follow them as we once did.

-@Alura: Which story?"
_________________
"My Girls is clean and kind spirited".
"If you hurt them, I am going to kill you slowly."
-Insert humanity check.

Alura · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 369

The story about the gas leak.

Thank you Charles. *She nods her head at him.*

We have other options it doesn't have to be a republican form of government. That's just what the loudest people wanted as of a month and a half ago. Their opinion will change soon enough as apparently the afterlife also tends to give attention and memory spans of children.

As for listening to our elders, we tend to do it when we see the immediate consequence benefits us. Otherwise we'd rather know the motive. If they would treat us like adults instead of children... Also one who sacrifices liberty for security, deserves neither and loses both.

You cannot beseech Francois anything if he won't come out of hiding. If you remember he has been hiding since the hunters came out to play, when there was that assault his mason.

He's probably waiting for us to take out the major threat, mainly the hunters. Fortunately we already took down the power plant.

The hunters showed up after the corporation, which is probably not a coincidence. So did the purification of the park. The downfall of the werewolves, along with the whole Giovanni interests. Don't forget the half angel person/thing. We'd be fools to think these pieces of the puzzle didn't go together.

The hunters seem to have a fair amount of influence to cover their tracks.

I'd suggest a summon lock - boot party on each hunter one by one, but for some reason my powers have been working differently as of late.

But what I do suggest is turning the hunters one by one. If we can turn even one hunter, we could probably find out more about them than ever.

I do remember a couple years back when I broke into that hunter's head. They mostly go by private aliases. John Smith etc. They seem to work similar to that of a terror cell, only knowing their directly higher up. Also a lot of them seemed to have traumatic childhood vampire experiences as children. Often having to do with fire, and/or explosions and killing their entire families.

I know one hunter became the was he was because he watched Morticia murder his entire family.

I often wonder if these hunters were in fact terrorized by vampires, or if in fact they were terrorized by hunters, or some other organization and then recruited as hunters.

I would love to form some kind of hunter outreach program if we could find a way to not give them information about us. Don't forget the hunters have worked with us before against bigger enemies.

We need to develop a priority of what to do. If we can capture one of the hunters or even just get one in line of sight, we could find out a lot. However we did have that kind of setup before and the plan of action was to wait upstairs and do nothing...

Charles Rockledge · Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 1:54 am Post subject:

It's the form I've been pushing for for two years. ever since we first lost it. The greatest nations on the earth for the last 6 millenia have been run so. Whether called a senate or a parliament, or a tribal council, or a privy council; a cabinet or even a conclave; its the best form of allowing a representational government that also is able to streamline the decision making process for the sake of efficiency, especially in diretimes of need.

One who refuses to balance their own liberty against the communities existence, wherin liberty is in fact maintained, will also loose their liberty and security and most likely also their life. Compromise and modration are needed in all things. This includes a balance between responability to the self, and responability to the bretheren/neighbors upon which mutual reliance bears the power to protect the liberty you as an individual wish to have maintained.

That was a different group of hunters; the techie ones. Hadn't we dealt with them already? These hunters did the purification of the park and the extermination of the garou. The giovanni hadn't lost anyinterests lastI heard tell? Yes. I think they are trying to kill her, and followed her. Bigoted fools, these hunters.

We've been over this road before too. Turning a hunter doesn't automatically turn their allegance. For all we know, they will kill as many as theycan with their new found power until dawn then await destruction by the sun if they survived that long. They'd consider themselves damned outright, as inded do manyof or kind anyway, and want vengeance for it. The compromise there might be ghouling for a wee, buteven so, they're holy and might be immune to the "love".

Hunter outreach program?!?
and that was another group of hunters that worked with us that time. Was it the mage ones? This lot is totally unreasonable at present.

The plan was to track him back to his HQ. Also to observe him on camera to see who if any potential influences he was interacting with. Both to premt their acqusition of new ones as well ashopeully help to identify some of their current ones. Especially if he was giving any nods to the cops or media scattered throughout the party. It was working alright until the sabbat interupted us. Besides the security team, I'd have tried to follow him astrally aftert he conclusion of the party. Instead, the 'excitement' caused him to 'vanish'.

-waves my hand.
I don't need so big a mouse trap though.
We can still use the winter program here to lure them some more, and ...
there may a couple of other mousetraps that can be simultaneously prepared.
-charles begins tapping notes onto an ipad.
"Actually, speaking of the sabbat,"
-Charles begins diggin through some papers again looking for another document.
_________________
"My Girls is clean and kind spirited".
"If you hurt them, I am going to kill you slowly."
-Insert humanity check.

Alura · Joined: 22 Mar 2010 Posts: 369

Vanished? You said they could teleport. Seems like they're still hunter-mages to me.

They don't need to be bitten to be turned. Hunters are mere mortals. Corrupt them and they will fall. *She turns her head to the side her hair falling into her face.*

More importantly...

You don't see the blatant hypocrisy of 'your' own government.

We've got a Prince, with his Council of elders.

With a puppet/shadow government of a Prince and a Council of Elders.

Don't you see the hypocrisy? We're freaken Cam not Anarchs... What is the damned difference?... We're just not at war with the Sabbat. Something you Charles would change if you could.