Attempting to get to where we were, I got an incredibly unlikely success on the Rhetoric check. I think this scene is also really good so consider this a little bonus.
RHETORIC [Heroic: Success] - The question you mean to ask is both very complicated and incredibly simple...
"If the whole theory we're meant to believe is completely unfalsifiable..."
"If we can't even agree whether communism is about plasm or psychology or beans..."
"If we can't escape the doom that's coming..."
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - The young man waits patiently for you to finish.
"... and the rest of world conspires to invade and massacre us when we dare to stand up for our beliefs..."
"... and whenever we *do* try it just devolves into a corrupt farce..."
"... and we waste all our time arguing over who's secretly a liberal or not..."
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Yes?"
VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Say it.
"..what's the point?"
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - The young man considers your words for a minute.
COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - You're witnessing his ironic armour melt before you. This is his *true self* you're seeing now.
EMPATHY [Formidable: Failure] - There's something going on in there, but his innermost sanctum is still beyond your reach...
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "The theorists Puncher and Wattmann -- not infra-materialists, but theorists nonetheless -- say that communism is a secular version of Perikarnassian theology, that it replaces faith in the divine with faith in humanity's future..."
"I have to say, I've never *entirely* understood what they mean, but I think maybe the answer is in there, somewhere."
"Wait, you're saying communism is some kind of religion?"
"But what if you don't believe there *is* a future?"
"But what if humanity keeps letting us down?"
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Only in this very specific sense. Communism doesn't dangle any promises of eternal bliss or reward. The only promise it offers is that the future can be better than the past, if we're willing to work and fight and die for it."
2. "But what if humanity keeps letting us down?"
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Nobody said fulfilling the proletariat's historic role would be easy." A tight smile. "It demands great faith with no promise of tangible reward. But that doesn't mean we can simply give up."
"Even when they ignore us?"
"Even when they laugh at us?"
"Even when they shoot at us?"
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Especially then."
ECHO MAKER - "And of course, we'll be shooting right back."
VOLITION [Easy: Success] - So young. So *unbearably* young...
HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Why do you see the two of them with their backs against a bullet-pocked wall, all of a sudden?
INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Their faces, blurred yet frozen as though in ambrotype. You were never *that young*, were you?
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "I guess you could say we believe it *because it's impossible*." He looks at the scattered matchboxes on the ground. "It's our way of saying we refuse to accept that the world has to remain... like this..."
"Broken."
"Unfinished."
Say nothing.
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "Yes, that's a good way to think of it, broken, but not irreparable."
"It's a nice thought."
"I don't know if I believe it, though."
STEBAN, THE STUDENT COMMUNIST - "You've got to believe in *something*. Otherwise, what are you doing?"
EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - His words aren't really directed at you. He's wrestling with himself now...
ECHO MAKER - "Steban, it's getting pretty late."
Ok, that's the end of that diatribe. Rejoin me for the canonical version of events shortly.
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realized that while steban wants to be assaulted by police (or other armed forces serving the interests of capital) for being a revolutionary, ulixes' most desired thing about being a revolutionary is being the one who attacks.
idk something about wanting to suffer for the revolutionary cause or wanting to make your enemy suffer. willing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of revolution or willing to lay other people on it. being tormented or being the one who torments. passively enduring what revolution brings or actively shaping it.
being shot at or shooting back. i think this piece of dialogue is illustrative of what i want to say:
steban doesn't just say yes, he says "especially then". for him, a true revolutionary is defined solely through the suffering they've faced. and it's not him who brings up fighting back, it's ulixes; because that's what for ulixes being a revolutionary means.
and while steban is trying to avoid the thought of war crimes nilsen commited, ulixes seems to be not only approving of the violence communards caused, he wants to do the same. the most terrifying thing about revolution for steban is deaths and suffering of other people; but for ulixes, it is exactly the thing he craves for.
steban doesn't want to kill, whether that means shooting someone in front of you or sending your fellow communards to their deaths. for ulixes, there's little to no difference whether it's the bourgeoisie or the communists who are sacrificed for the revolution.
all in all: steban doesn't really want to do anything, he dreams of becoming a martyr, not a soldier. and ulixes wants to become a soldier, but, i think, not a martyr.
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