Guild Wars

Amber then straightened out her smile and spoke slowly. "I would like to ask the witnesses a crucial question. Did the studio 'GloryGore' or the game 'Boundless World' in any way promote the fact that such acts can be committed and should be committed?"

Helen frowned. "No, never."

Julia also shook her head. "Not that I know of…"

Amber made an 'it's that simple gesture'. "Then Boundless World has nothing to do with the direct cause of these activities."

Jamilee raised an eyebrow. "But clearly, your studio was the one that created a platform for this to happen, no? And I believe something you have failed to mention is the fact that it was done purposefully."

"After all, you even warned your prospective consumers of the dangers they could face, which means you were aware of what would happen."

Amber showed no change of expression, but she was beginning to become wary of this Jamilee woman. "May I ask Her Ladyship, do you also paint such claims on homeowners, construction companies, and establishments where such crimes occur?"

"If a woman is r.a.p.ed by an unaffiliated third party in your house, are you also part of the act despite having no intention to promote such behavior? Do you chase after the homeowner or the leader of the establishment with countless police cars, accusations, and public hearings while the actual culprits are watching on with glee?"

Amber's question, if translated into game terms, would be a critical hit.

After all, she had struck the core of this issue, the fact that the only reason Boundless World was being attacked at such an angle was because various parties wanted a part of the cake that the game represented.

To a sensible person, this issue made no sense after facts had been explained thus far. It was clear that the wrong party was being tried here, so what was the goal of this farce?

Of course, others felt it was reasonable, as such a game should be penalized for not protecting players like children. In today's society, a thing or person or place that did not explicitly create rules to protect the weak was seen as evil, even more so than those who would abuse the lack of such rules themselves.

The argument was thus simply 'if you had the power to do it, why didn't you?'

In a way, it made sense if one gazed at it from a humanitarian perspective. However, supporting such a position was part of the reason why society was faced with the problems it had currently.

From a purely mechanical standpoint, the human race might have nukes, jets, and fancy tech, but it was at its weakest it had ever been since the dawn of time.

A majority of the human race had lost the traits that made us basic predators, not even apex ones. Nowadays, the laws of the jungle were seen as barbaric and backwards, the laws of society seen as proper and true.

From a peaceful era's perspective, this was not wrong and was even what had allowed humanity to develop so quickly since the 18th century. To expect people to jump out with spears and hunt their food on a daily basis given the current population as well as alternative means was plain stupid and edgy.

However, from the perspective of an apocalyptic or tribulation-like era, humanity was food on the chopping block. Should the status quo change, everything would crumble like a house of cards.

Of course, a few would survive and re-adapt to obtain predator-like instincts, basically repeating the same thing after peace was recreated. In a way, it was a natural development and an eternal cycle.

The AI was looking to break that cycle through Boundless World for reasons not even Amber was privy to. However, it had clearly underestimated the 'softness' of the modern era human and was suffering for it.

The one behind it had gone so far as to create a platform where one would not suffer repercussion while striving to regain their predator-like instinct, a virtual world where only the mind would venture.

And yet, people still resisted and fought back against beneficial change.

However, the people here were not wrong for doing so. From their point of view, it was a peaceful era and the chance of that changing was low with the high self-awareness of the public.

They did not know about any Original Humans, Lineages, Gerdo Galaxy, and whatnot. If they did, things might be different, but this information could not be spread until the time was right.

Back to the case at hand.

Jamilee shook her head. "Yes, but the homeowner or the leader of the establishment in question cannot stop such things from happening because this is reality. You, however, can."

"I am aware of your argument about how you have advertised the game, the warnings you have given, and various other excuses you've made during this hearing, but I am of the opinion that they hold no water."

"To me, it boils down to a single question: 'Can you do something to prevent it?' If yes, then you should, if no, you should make every reasonable effort to rectify that." Jamilee concluded with a shake of her head.

Herbert nodded, Luis seemed pensive, Nancy frowned and Diao's eyebrows furrowed.

Herbert largely agreed with Jamilee due to his own values, Luis seemed to be torn since the logical and emotional standpoints both made sense.

Nancy was pretty much of the opinion that this was a waste of time given Amber's early arguments. She might be old, but she was not stupid. They chose a hearing because they could not make a trial work, so obviously, some powers were looking to manipulate things.

Nancy despised such flagrant disrespect for the law, which was why she had taken her chances to interrupt Diao who she knew to be the ringleader. Now realizing that this upstart whelp of a judge was also part, she was naturally displeased.

As for Diao, she was not pleased by Jamilee's words. In fact, she was rather unhappy. Jamilee was going in too hard, making it far too obvious that she was biased against the studio due to her own personal views.

Even Herbert, a very strong Naturalist, hadn't displayed such open hostility but only nodded along. He was wise and shrewd enough to know how to attack things, but Jamilee was making a big mess.

It might look like her questions were piercing, but Diao was beginning to see a problem with them. They were immaturely structured, giving Amber much leeway to explain it away or possibly twist in a way that made it seem like the judges were biased.

Bias was one of the most intolerable things in a trial, much less a hearing. Hearings were much stricter against biases, because hearings were more about opinions than law.

If biased judges were allowed to take helm of such matters, how would fairness be meted out?

Wasn't the reason the World Council had gone all-out to assemble these judges of different nationalities and jurisprudential opinions to ensure that 'fairness?

The way Jamilee was going, the whole matter could be ruined. Even if they managed to get a majority vote against Boundless, a claim of bias using this could turn the tables around and ruin everything.

As such, Diao gave Jamilee a subtle look, warning her to stop interjecting. Jamilee recognized this and lowered her head slightly, seeming aggrieved. Diao lamented such naivety and immaturity, but focused on Amber whose turn it was to respond.

She was gathering ways to counter any claim of bias that Amber might raise. As soon as Amber opened her mouth, Diao was ready to shut her down with a carefully crafted explanation.

Amber chuckled lightly. "Miss Jamilee, I believe you - and the rest of the court - have a grave misconception concerning the fourth issue. The issue is about whether or not the game is a direct cause of the events."

"The keyword here is 'direct'. It is not about whether we are a cause or not, but whether we are a direct one. So far, your arguments paint us to be a 'cause', and the same is true for the witnesses, but we are, at most, an indirect cause."

"To be a direct cause, we would have to have specifically created the game for this purpose, advertised its ability to allow such things and cooperate with the perpetrators, allowing them to do their evil and go scot-free."

Amber placed her hands on her l.a.p. "Please direct me to any part of the facts revealed that even remotely supports any of these factors to be considered a direct cause."

The judges were silent, left speechless by this. Even Diao who had been ready to fire off a planned response was frozen, her mind unable to parse Amber's words.

Everyone subtly expected her to attack from the angle of bias, not actually argue the point itself down because, from the very beginning, many had felt that issue number four was something that could not be defended.

However, Amber's reply stunned them all because it was extremely concise and very important. Due to a certain prejudice or personal interpretation, many had forgotten the specifics of the issue itself.

They had forgotten to account for the word 'direct' and had indeed been solely focused on the 'cause' part. As such, Amber's reply clearly ruined the point of that particular issue from its very fundamental, leaving the courtroom silent.

However, Amber did not leave it there. She understood that ending things with this argument would do more harm than good in the long term. People would argue that she had used a technicality to avoid taking the blame for the damage the had game caused, as well as responsibility.

To rob them of any fuel, Amber would have to dispute the claim of being a 'cause' in the first place. And so, Amber decided to bring out her trump card she had wanted to save for any unforeseen counterargument at the final stages of the hearing.

"I would like to point out a key detail that the court has severely neglected in the pursuance of this hearing. It has been put out that Boundless World is a cause of these atrocities, direct or otherwise by the court but…"

"It is a fact that can be proven at any time, that the elements of Boundless cannot perform such atrocities on players."

Amber smiled widely at this point. "That is to say, natural elements of the game, the non-player characters, the monsters the players fight, all living and non-living things that are generated by the AI CANNOT in any way, r.a.p.e or take initiative to abuse players, at all."

Her eyes flashed with a critical light. "To be clear, what I am saying is, from the very onset, the only ones who can commit such crimes… are players themselves. This includes players onto monsters, players onto non-player characters, and of course, players onto other players."

There was a spell of silence before some short murmuring erupted in the court. Many in the crowd did not understand the significance of what Amber just said, and three of the judges didn't as well.

Nancy, Herbert, and Diao were confused, but Luis, Jamilee, Helen, and Julia had greatly changed expressions, their faces one of horror. Seeing their reactions, the rest were curious about what this meant.

Diao frowned and banged the gavel. "Miss Julia, can you please explain the meaning of Miss Amber's words in layman terms?"

Julia's lips trembled as she nodded shakily. "I will do my best."

Julia then began to explain the system of Boundless and RPGs in general, as well as the raw significance of Amber's words. At first the court was lost, but as more was explained, the judges' expressions began to change gradually.

Diao desperately wanted to bang the gavel and have Julia stop, but Nancy kept telling Julia to go on, so she couldn't. Her face became thunderous, the first time Diao had shown anything but utter calmness throughout the hearing.

Even the activists in the crowd seemed speechless. From this… shouldn't they rather be advocating to ban players from interacting with natural elements of the game?

Apparently, they had protection from all the natural elements, yet the natural elements did not have protection against them. While this was not much of an issue when players fought against monsters - or did other things towards them - as nobody really cared about those beasts, didn't this mean that those poor NPCs could be used and abused without any way to stop things?

After all, players could endlessly revive while those NPCs only had one life. From the way Julia explained it, for these NPCs, this game was no different from their own reality.

The understanding from this was simple. The problem never originated from the game, but from those playing it! If those playing it refrained from acting out their sick wishes, it would never happen!

Yet they not only did it to each other, but to those who could never recover from such a thing and were helpless to their attack since they were immortal!

This singular revelation had changed the entire substance of the argument, even affecting the issues that came before. This hearing was created around the idea that players were helpless victims of abuse from the game.

In fact, neither Julia nor Helen had specified that their assailants were players or NPCs. Julia had called them her brother's friends and Helen had referred to them as assailants.

Coupled with the fact that the crowd had no idea of the inner working of RPGs, it had created a great many misconceptions. Now that Julia had explained many things, like the undying nature of players, the nature of NPCs coupled with Amber's words, the tables had turned.

Players were no longer the poor victims, instead, they were now the vile devils causing the issue in the first place!

Amber had repeatedly claimed for GloryGore to not be responsible, yet at the time her words had sounded like flimsy excuses to shift the blame, but with this revelation, it did indeed look as if they had been chasing after the wrong target!

The game studio had done enough for players with the various protections and the fact that nothing it created could harm players in such a way, but players could do whatever they wanted. They had true freedom, which had led to the reported atrocities!

Since players were the culprits, they could be persecuted by law as natural criminals would. After all, they could only enter Boundless through a helmet and not stay there forever.

No matter what, they would have an identity in real life, which could then allow the law to fully exercise its power on them.

However, a new issue cropped up!

The law was not equipped with the necessary jurisdiction to cover acts committed in virtual games since the need had never appeared before.

As such, even if evidence was brought against such an act, it would realistically have a hard time holding in court due to how grey this kind of situation was.

That was why Julia had obediently explained everything. She had understood that this entire hearing was destined to yield nothing realistically. Punishing Boundless World and the GloryGore Studios was almost impossible, and the best that could be done would be to put some troubling sanctions on them.

But she didn't care about that, only those who wanted a part of Boundless did. What she and most of the activists here wanted was to have the game shut down, compensation made, the developers arrested and for the studio closed down!

Diao banged the gavel, she had regained her composure and called for order before gazing at Amber calmly and speaking.

"Can that count as your conclusion for the fourth issue?" Diao Ping asked neutrally.

Amber nodded with a victorious smile. "That's right."

Diao acknowledged this and moved on. "We shall now sort the final issue of this hearing, whether or not the studio 'GloryGore' has furnished the relevant authorities with the evidence of perpetrators to the crime."

As Diao revealed this, Julia's hollow eyes regained light, while Amber's smile receded a bit. The crowd also displayed expressions of interest, wondering how things would play out here.

When Diao had first listed the issue, many didn't even think it would get this far, and that the studio would be convicted by the second or third issue. Even Diao had felt that the last one had just been tacked on to give the court more importance, as she had not foreseen how that particular issue could be relevant at that time.

In truth, this issue wouldn't have had much of an effect initially. At best, it could have been used to demonize the studio further, but after the point Amber revealed that shattered all other issues, that same point now gave this last one unprecedented power and importance!

And here was the third divergence from the original timeline. Initially, Amber had only revealed this fact at the end of the case, and coupled with the great amount of public attention thanks to Misha's issue, it had galvanized the world into pushing for rights and protections for the NPCs.

However, in this timeline Amber had revealed this much earlier, giving the final issue that had been glossed over in the previous timeline more influence. Also, because Misha's matter had been handled differently in the previous timeline, the argument that would have worked so well now would have a much milder effect.

It only mitigated the crime of Boundless, but since public opinion was the hardest to change using logic, the studio and game still had to suffer some sanctions and make a compromise.

Now that it was looking as if Boundless and GloryGore would go scot-free, it was down to the last issue to give Julia and co a final chance to turn things around.

Diao also knew this, which was why she had calmed down significantly earlier. She then gazed at Julia and questioned her gently.

"Miss Julia, could you please recount the tail end of your story, about how you attempted to seek redress and were denied?"

"Yes, Your Ladyship." Julia acknowledged with a straight face, but she was smiling inside. Relief flooded through her as she felt that all avenues were not closed.

"As I explained before, I made a complaint to the studio to release the evidence and identities of the three so I could report them to the police. After all, my brother only got acquainted with them inside their game and neither one of us has ever met the three in real life."

"All we know about them are their in-game aliases and the only ones who can link their true identities to those names are the GloryGore Studio, since each account is exclusive to that person and cannot be operated by anyone else."

"Secondly, I needed evidence of the crime as I could not present anything to a real court from a digital game. The methods used to check for penetration during r.a.p.e cannot work with the circ.u.mstances, so video, auditory or photographic evidence was needed."

Julia then gazed at Amber darkly. "However, the studio refused to do even that!"