[b]Brown![/b]

She didn't listen like a normal person. It was polite and attentive, but it was also eternal. There were no glances down to check her phone. She did not put her hands in her pockets or adjust her posture. She did not blink. Only the faint tension that held her posture steady indicated that she had not shut down. It was like talking into a camera, silent and unjudging, and anything might be happening behind those eyes.

When she finally does talk, she gets ready first. Adjusts her hands, leans forwards, carefully glances around to make sure that nobody else is about to talk and that she has attention. A sequence of smoothing, invisible movements to render the transition into words frictionless.

"I can look into the land," she said. "I do not know what I will turn up if I do. Heat might come with that. Do you want that fight?"

[b]White![/b]

White: There was a joke in an old game about wizards that the final boss was human nature.
White: It feels like Thrones is like that.
White: It feels like everyone here is trying. Trying really hard to solve every problem [i]other [/i]than human nature.
White: They genuinely believe in what they're doing. These are utopians.
White: They just think that if they solve all of the technical problems first then human nature will follow.
White: Or at least won't interfere too badly.
White: But they don't actually have the power to solve problems. 
White: They're not bureaucrats. They're not acting in the public interest. There is no accountability, democratic or otherwise. 
White: They're merchants. Laborers. Serfs. Detached from political power, yet trying to build things that will make politics not matter. All while inside the machinery built for kings and landlords.
White: Sometimes because they don't understand politics. Sometimes because politics have disappointed them and they think they can end run around it with a technical fix.
White: Often both.
White: So they don't have the power to solve problems. They only have the ability to sell products.
White: They want those products to be able to save the world so badly. I think that's why so many of them are so dedicated to their products being free of financial charge to the end user. Makes it feel like the bureaucratic infrastructure underpinning civilization rather than spyware supported by advertisers. 
White: I can't blame dad for burning out on politics. It literally kicked down his door and tear gassed him. To him the only thing that worked was the stuff that he made. That was pure, in his mind. He wants to do something else like that, but this time without the politics interfering.
White: But. Hmm. I would be. Surprised. If it didn't.
White: It took him like an hour of googling to find his long lost son.
White: He seems to just not have thought to do it until I asked him.
White: That's the thing about building something to be free of human nature.
White: Who's going to build it?

[b]Black![/b]

"No," said Black. "You want Brown."
"Hey," said Brown. "Just so you know, I appreciate the kabbalahistic implications of imprisoning the hundred-handed goat-hooved lord of monsters in the depths below the world on behalf of the New World Order."

You'd think it'd be Pink who's into numerology, arcana and high brow cryptotheology references but no, not really. Pink liked bright colours, vivid inspirations, the aesthetics of single combat. If you wanted someone who had just read a lot of books and had the patience to count out and store all the platonic symbols that underpinned reality, you wanted Brown. She was patience and with patience came the vast store of knowledge accumulated through a thousand podcasts.

"But just to clarify, by Deep State are we talking career bureaucrats, intelligence agency, or AI-worshipping doomsday cult?" she asked.