@Alyx I've thought back /recently/ on that bit about the characters feeling overwhelmed at the idea of trying to save the whole world, and them reframing it as just saving a handful of people instead

as someone who has a hard time thinking of myself as important, that idea just /worked/ for me

@packbat yeah. cos honestly the idea isn't a bad one, both from the practical dramatic standpoint of "okay how do you get your average human being even used to the idea of handling a gigantic crisis by reducing it to a few people" but also the plain truth that usually events *do* come to some kind of head where a few crucial decisions are the ones that matter the most. maybe not all in one place, in one group of people (the more the better, haha)

@Alyx yeah, definitely

plus, like, as a matter of practicality? it doesn't matter if you can defend it philosophically - if it gets you unstuck and able to act and do good, /it worked/

they did save the whole world

even if, in the end, they did it by trying to save a few people

@packbat well, every massive event has to start from *some* kind of inciting event, after all. that's how societies always work, how equilibrium is restored in times of great social imbalance. one spark sets a cascade of other events in motion. what in a semiconductor junction would be called "avalanche breakdown" takes place, or what in a photomultiplier is produced by "secondary emission": one event triggers so many connected ones that they build to a flood

@packbat and the *hope* is...that it doesn't take MUCH to start things rolling. that's happened before in history; not *every* massive change gets set off by a murder or a riot. but...you know, whatever works ;=3