Town Meeting

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

John awoke at his usual early hour on the morning of the town meeting. He dressed with slightly more than usual care in his suit of clothes from home, broke his fast with a light meal, and headed to the Golden Horseshoe to ensure that things were the way he wanted.

The chairs and small tables were already perfectly arranged, but John dragged a podium he found backstage out to the front of the curtain. Then he bustled about in the kitchen area setting out drinks and whatever small snacks he could find back there.

Before long, interested citizens began filing in and he went up to the podium. There was no microphone because he'd never heard of such a thing, but John Adams never had difficulty making himself heard.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome. If you would please pick up any refreshments you'd care for and take your seats, we'll begin in just a few minutes."

Comments

[john-adams-1776.livejournal.com]

((Guys, feel free to keep talking in the meet and greet section, but I'm gonna keep going...))

When it seemed that everyone had arrived and settled down, John approached the podium once more, taking courage from Susan's smile.

"Gentlemen," he began as usual, though there weren't only men in attendance, so with very little pause, he added, "Ladies, and Others. Thank you for coming this afternoon. As you all know, we have an important matter to discuss and I confess that I'm pleased to see that so many of you are taking your civic duty seriously."

Glancing around the room, it became obvious that John had been appallingly sheltered lately, for he recognized very few people. "I will begin by introducing myself. For those of you who do not know, my name is John Adams. I am an American attorney and diplomat with a good deal of experience in these matters. This afternoon I am offering to act in a neutral capacity as the moderator of the proceedings." He had his own opinions, of course, but Hancock had proven that one could be opinionated yet fair, and he intended to be.

"Please allow me to give you a brief overview of the situation. A couple of weeks ago I received a letter from a citizen who shall remain nameless at that person's request informing me that a small group had taken it upon themselves to form a police force here at Disneyland. Having seen first-hand what can happen when a group claims military power without authority from the people, even if they begin with the best of intentions, I decided to call this meeting to discuss the situation so that it might be resolved to the comfort of all. I first invited two gentlemen from that group, Detective Leon Orcot and Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, to my office to inform them of this decision and ask them to prepare their arguments in favor of letting the group continue."

John looked around once more, snorted at the thought that he'd suddenly become a moderate - or at least appeared to be - and continued. "Therefore this is how we shall proceed. I will ask Detective Orcot to the stand to argue his case for having an independent police force at Disneyland. Then he will answer questions from the audience, after which we may hear from any member of the general public who wishes to speak against the idea. In the end, we will attempt to come to a reconciliation. If this is acceptable, then let us proceed. Detective? The floor is yours."

[rose-ravager.livejournal.com]

Rose wandered in a few minutes after Kon and paused at the back of the room to look for the more exotic of her two boyfriends. Spotting the dark-haired teen she headed in his direction. She dropped into the chair beside Kon, and smiled at Logan before leaning on Kon's arm lazily.

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

"Hey. No problem - nice to see you haven't mysteriously disappeared, though." He watched Rose with appreciation as she came over to the other side of Kon, and smiled back at her before going on, "Yeah, found some big sheets of styrofoam in a storage room and made...well, it's a boogieboard, not a surfboard, actually."

[no1likeher.livejournal.com]

"So why did they want to start it in the first place do you know?"

[demoted-again.livejournal.com]

"Hehe...you'll speak, and I'll agree, okay? I'm not too good at these kind of things..."

He bit his lip and looked around. He shrugged when Leon declined his offer, but decided he would save some treats for him just in case--he hadn't known too many people who would reject sweets, except maybe Mr. Edgeworth, but there were even some things that he knew of that Edgeworth couldn't turn down...at least from him, but maybe that was because he kept trying to push it onto him.

[kuchiki.livejournal.com]

"Probably more than one reason," Rukia said, not sure how much editorializing it was okay to do when the person you were having this discussion with was only nine. "They probably think it's easier to enforce laws if there's an organized brigade, they probably want to intimidate people who want to hurt other people..." She paused, before going on: "And on some level, they're probably also doing it to make themselves feel important. Anyway, I'm sure they'll tell us all why themselves when they get up to speak. And you'll have an opportunity to ask questions of them, then, too."

[hawaii-kid.livejournal.com]

"No, just got caught up taking care of a friend... who really ought to be here. If anyone out of us is the Law and Order type, it's Rob..." Kon shrugged. Rob would show up, or not. He hadn't minded that long, appreciative look Logan gave his girl in the slightest, Rose was one gorgeous woman.

"Styrofoam? Well, I guess if it works. That might work better with what I can do, anyway..."

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

Logan raised his eyebrows slightly at the 'taking care of' part. "Is he sick? Wow, wouldn't it be fun if everybody around here got the flu or something at the same time...?"

He was glad Kon hadn't taken offense at the checking-out of Rose; he hadn't, in fact, meant anything by it, two gorgeous ex-girlfriends being more than enough for him to handle at the moment. But badass blonde hotness had to be acknowledged.

"It floats. Kind of hard to stand up on for long, it's too light, but not impossible."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Carrot arrived, uncharacteristically late because his mun was reading Dumbledore fanfiction yesterday he had been preparing a few arguments that he felt might become necessary.

"Commander," he said pleasantly to Leon, and then glanced at Gumshoe. "Ah, hello, you must be a recent arrival. I'm Captain Carrot, pleased to meet you."

[superherogifted.livejournal.com]

Virgil decided to show up, too, albeit as Static. Not only did this kind of thing sound interesting, but he also hoped John Adams would provide some insight that'd give him a boost on his next history pop quiz. It was a very important goal of his to beat Richie on at least one of those just to keep his partner on his toes.

"Hey, Kon," he said. "Long time no see!"

[rose-ravager.livejournal.com]

"Exhausted. I don't think I've ever seen him sick, actually." Rose piped up, grinning at Logan. She'd caught him looking, and took it for the compliment he was. "Now what's this about a surfboard, or something?"

(Rose's hair is icewhite, not blonde, for the record (: ))

Tl;dr, I apologize.

[under-arrest-d.livejournal.com]

Leon took a deep breath, and headed up to the podium. He knew this was coming, and he wasn't a bad public speaker, but as he was, he'd much rather get this over with. Nevertheless, he was feeling pretty confident about this, since after he sobered up, he and Carrot had gotten together to write this speech. Letting go of his depressing for a moment - because the police force was all he had left and he didn't want to lose that as well - he inhaled deeply, and began.

“Hi, I’m Leon Orcot. I was a homicide detective for the LAPD from 1987 to 1994. This town meeting was set up because of the police force Captain Ironfoundersson and I set up, because a lot of people seem to have worries about it, and a lot of people don’t understand what exactly we’re going to be doing,” Leon started.

“I admit, when I first got here, I wanted the laws here to be those of California law, and I might have gotten a little ahead of myself, and for that I apologize,” at this he looked right at Logan, remembering the fight that the two of them had been in. But I have now been here for, I don’t know, half a year now, and I realize that I can’t do that. There are people from all sorts of different countries, times, and hell, even worlds. There are different laws for each of these, and I understand that, so our goal is not to push our laws onto the citizens of here. However, I’m sure that where all of you have come from, there’s one law in common, and that’s that hurting one another is not a good thing. That’s the only law enforcement that our police force is set up to do. Police officers are trained to stop it when physical fights break out. We intend to train those on our police force for the same thing, because it’s better to have trained professionals to step in rather than having someone else who doesn’t know what they’re doing diving in and getting hurt as well.

“I know what some of you are thinking, and that’s that the park doesn’t allow people to get hurt. This is not true. Maybe the park doesn’t let people kill each other, I’m not sure about that, as I’ve only heard of it through word of mouth, but I know first hand that it’s quite capable to get injured here.

“More so than even that bit of law enforcement though, is that we set this up for investigative reasons. Like I said, I was a detective back home, so this sort of thing is my specialty.” He took a deep breath here, and his voice seemed to take on at least twice as much passion as it had had previously. “My first priority is to find out how the hell to get out of here. I want to figure out what is making people disappear – what’s making them turn into ducks, as the police force has reason to believe that’s what’s happening. At this time, I want nothing more than to get out of here, but if I can’t do that, I’d like to protect people.

Re: Tl;dr, I apologize.

[under-arrest-d.livejournal.com]

“I know that a big concern for most of you is about how the power might go to our heads. I’ll admit that I’ve got a hot head, and out of everyone on the force, as far as I can figure, it’s most likely to happen to me – though after seven years on the force at home, I’ve got to say that I’ve yet to be corrupted. But if it does happen to any of us, there’s more than one person on the force to keep us in check. I do not want to have the power go to my head, so if someone were to tell me that’s what was happening, I would do my best to curve this. I really don’t think that there’s any amount of power that could get to Captain Ironfoundersson’s head, and I’m sure that if it started happening to one of us, he’d keep us under control. But humans are a race of animals that are easily corrupted, so let’s say that the captain got corrupted with the rest of us. We have a member of our team named Barnabas, and he’s er… well, he’s a dog. As my friend D, who’s no longer with us, would have said, animals don’t get corrupted by human notions like power or money or greed or anything else. Let’s say that there was a chance that everyone on the force somehow got corrupted by some semblance of power, I’m nearly certain that he would not, and that he would stop us.”

“The other problem people seemed to have was that we were completely autonomous. This isn’t exactly true. We don’t have a governing, ruling authority here,” he bit back the comment about ‘unless you count the mouse, which I do not, thankyouverymuch,’ “and though having a police force without having one isn’t the best idea out there, but the keeping of the peace and the investigation are still very important things that need to be done. We’re starting one against the better judgment because of those things, but if anyone has any ideas about how to regulate us, or a better system of laws, then we’d love to hear your ideas and make the required changes.”

He took a breath then, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not as though the police force is exclusive either. If you’d like to join, just see the Captain or myself. Thank you.”

[under-arrest-d.livejournal.com]

"This is detective Dick Gumshoe," said Leon, nodding towards Gumshoe. "A Homicide Detective on the LAPD - though in my future - and my roommate for the time being. You ready for this?"

[no1likeher.livejournal.com]

"I was just thinking maybe they were bored." Pippi said through a mouthful of brownie.

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

Logan waved his hand in the air in an obnoxious teacher, teacher! call on me! way.

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

((I know. Logan just interprets it as really, really pale blonde. He's got a thing. ^_^))

"What's he been exhausting himself doing?" Innuendo? Never! ...maybe just a little.

"Kon and I both surf, apparently. No waves around here, but there's the Rivers. When he got here we talked about seeing if we could make some waves with his...some kind of powers?"

[under-arrest-d.livejournal.com]

Leon was going to regret this, he was sure. He nodded to Carrot to let him know that it was his turn to take the stage. Then, he looked at Leon, made sure he'd be able to keep his temper under control, and then said "Logan?"

[rose-ravager.livejournal.com]

((cool. sorry, wasn't sure))

Rose smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

She settled just a bit, her single blue eye sizing the new face up before she relaxed against Kon again. "Surfing? Hmm, yeah, I can maybe see it. And it's telekinesis. Hell, maybe if you get it figured out, one of you can teach me. Never really lived on the coast long enough to try."

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

Logan bounced to his feet. "Okay. Just to start."

He ticked off one finger in the air. "People. Are turning into ducks?"

Two. "You seriously expect us to be comforted by the idea of your ethical failsafe being your K-9 unit?"

[hawaii-kid.livejournal.com]

"Hey Static, yeah, you said it," Kon agreed. "Been really distracted lately. Sorry if you've been looking."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

Carrot saw Leon's look and nodded.

"I can take that first question," he said cheerfully. "We don't know for certain people are turning into ducks, but we're investigating. In a private conversation a while back, someone here informed me that in another place similar to this one, some people who disappeared were turning into inanimate objects. After a friend of the Detective's who is somewhat of an expert in animals remarked that the ducks here are very different from normal ducks, it occurred to us that it was a possibility."

Carrot frowned at Logan's second question. "Sir, please correct me if I'm wrong," he said, glancing at Leon once again, "but I believe that the idea is more that it is unlikely that each one of us, with such different backgrounds and experiences, would be as likely to allow the whole to abuse power than one individual might be prone to do. Of course it's not a completely satisfactory answer, but as Detective Orcott said, we don't think a lack of a police force that might benefit society is a great idea either." He smiled guilelessly. "We're open to suggestions, of course!"

Re: Tl;dr, I apologize.

[rose-ravager.livejournal.com]

Rose glanced at Kon, and then looked back up at the men at the front of the room. She put a hand up - politely, even - and waited for someone to call on her. If Robin were there, he'd be shocked.

[thebadboyfriend.livejournal.com]

At 'open to suggestions,' Logan took a deep breath...and then, mysteriously, did not make the one he had intended. He wasn't sure why.

But it would take a lot of 'krisma' to deflect Logan's attitude towards authority. "That wasn't actually an answer, was it?" he said. "I mean, there's the 'being a cop' common experience, which says something about you, right? Might actually be not unlike the canine mindset. And I'm not seeing how exactly you're going to be benefiting 'society' - looks to me like you all just want a little doughnut club that lets you feel important."

[kzadbhat.livejournal.com]

"If that were the case, then I don't see why we'd be discussing this at all! I think our main benefit would be through investigation-- of course everyone is looking for a way out, but this would be a way to document and share information that we might find, which would be much more efficient than everyone looking but keeping their findings to themselves and their friends. But of course, that wouldn't necessarily have to be a police force, so in my opinion the most pressing need for a police force is so we have some sort of authority besides power alone.

"I don't know who was here at the time, but some time ago a man arrived here who attempted to attack others without any provocation. I was able to stop him because I was one of several men doing so, and he wasn't a particularly trained fighters. But there are plenty of people here who I'm sure are quite powerful, which in my opinion might lead to the unfortunate circumstances of justice being carried out by who wins a fight. Having some sort of official authority would be better than that, you'd agree?"