baloonworld: (bird)
[personal profile] baloonworld
Bring down the protracted legal proceedings. [a Mass effect fanfic]

Ka'hairal Balak was bored. It was seven months since he was committed the greatest feet of daring his people had engaged in since leaving the council; two months in hospital and five months of tiresome legal wrangling. You use mass drivers on an inhabited world and you expect reaction, but the humans hadn't blinked. They'd arrested him, gathered forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony and electronic surveillance data, asked him if he wanted to retain council, assigned him a defense team when he'd refused to acknowledge their jurisdiction, and started cross examinations and complicated legal arguments.

His defense team. No. The defense team, they weren't his, were, as far as he could tell, hardworking, committed and devastatingly intelligent; no one was going to look at the result of this trial and declare it a setup; interstellar observers had full access to the trial personnel, and their records would be unsealed whenever their governments felt like embarrassing Earth.

The defense team had just spent a week trying to get some of the electronic record expunged from the trial record on the basis that it did not conform to current data standards. It wasn't quite true that the humans were indifferent to his attack; there was actually some buzz around the court at the possibility of prosecuting the first fully Total Quality Assurance-compliant war-crimes* tribunal. He'd been issued with a VI which helped him keep up with the lawyer's discussions, giving potted histories of important precedent cases**, which he was slowly beginning to realise, was how he was to be remembered, not as a martyr to the cause of Batarian independence, but as Balak vs Terra Nova [2183], a significant case in Total Evidence Quality.

*Following some backroom discussions and the threat of legal proceedings from the Council, the state of Terra Nova had acknowledged that the Council was the proper body to prosecute the attempted destruction of a habitable biosphere. That trial was to be held once this on was over.

Date: 2013-01-23 09:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lucy-k-p.livejournal.com
I really like this. You have such a unique (and subversive) way of looking at the world. I don't know much about Mass Effect, but I think this is really funny.

BTW I think you are missing a footnote.

(And while I remember you are welcome to come and see me and Flo when you visit Bath - I should be back by then.

Date: 2013-01-25 10:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] baloonworld.livejournal.com
Thank you! The footnote was deleted as being inappropriate to the setting, leaving a dangling pointer (oops).

How do you feel about me putting you and Flo on Mili & I's increasingly crowded social calender* for Tuesday night (19 Feb)?

*"crowded social calender" is not a phrase I get to use more than once a year

Date: 2013-01-25 03:34 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lucy-k-p.livejournal.com
That sounds fine. Are you meeting lots of people in a public place, or visiting many different houses like a giftless Santa? (Either is fine.)

Date: 2013-01-28 02:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] baloonworld.livejournal.com
"Giftless Santa" is a brilliant turn of phrase, also my new band name (I do not have a band).

Date: 2013-01-28 09:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lucy-k-p.livejournal.com
Also, I've just realised that Flo and I have moved out of 6 Park View and into an (infinitely nicer) new place, but I don't know if we told you that. Do you have our new address, or should I e-mail it to you?
Edited Date: 2013-01-28 09:44 am (UTC)

Date: 2013-01-28 01:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] baloonworld.livejournal.com
I didn't know that; email me the new address? paul.wady@gmail.com if you don't have my email address :)

Profile

baloonworld: (Default)
baloonworld

December 2017

S M T W T F S
     12
3456789
10111213141516
1718 1920212223
24252627282930
31      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 29th, 2025 03:06 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios