11: Public Opinion
It is well-timed for me, I think, to explain the importance of the press and how it swayed public opinion in the Great Matter. After all, we, as the people involved in the case, woke up to public scrutiny and went to bed at night with it. How did it affect us, and our case, and even our client? The answer, I have learned, is somewhat complicated.
What we did in court, though most of it was secret and was kept so by order of the Judges, did come out by tiny bits. Perhaps someone close to the case - an expert witness, or a guard - would hold a press conference, or would secretly confide to someone about the proceedings. Many times, the person they gave confidence to, if it was in secret, would manage to get a small, very small piece of information. Those small pieces, of course, usually even as little as three words, somehow became five pages of story the next day. How writers manage to spread a one sentence idea into millions of pages worth of news, I will never know. But I digress.
Anyways, it is very easy to say that many people were naturally against us, the defenders. There were plenty of newspapers that supported Kepe, for she was the current hero to the masses. Soon after the sailor soldiers took sides, naturally, civilians took their sides, and many took the side that Tsukinousagi was guilty.
-PUBLIC OPINION POLL, I remember reading in one civilian paper. -90 PERCENT OF OUR READERS SAY: GUILTY! 60 percent say she deserves punishment worse than death. All others say death is good enough for them!
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There were many organizations which supported the general public opinion of Tsukinousagi's guilt. There is no innocent until proven guilty thought in the Seemarin; here, you're always guilty. It's when the case is presented, depending how bad the violation proves to be, which really matters. Depending how well your crimes are proven, you are punished insomuch as the Seemarin law allows you to be. It was natural for the guilty side, then, to be the more popular side.
Some of the more prominent outlets which supported Tsukinousagi's guilt included the Minute Minute, a civilian holonews program which updates every minute; Raiset Star News, a holopaper which was civilian owned; Galaxy Portal, a Seermarin-based paper network; and of course Sailor Kastalle's Sailor Sentinel. The prosecution was represented as model heroes to those who adhered to the status quo (a close to exact description) while Dyka and I were represented as vicious, evil beings who wanted nothing more than to unleash untold destruction and eat bull brains. Except I don't eat bull brains, and I don't really even know what a bull is, exactly. But I digress.
Sailor Kastalle's, of course, was among the most important of the publications. Unlike most of the others, which only civilians could - or would - use, and the Portal, which was really only handed out to select members of the Seemarin (I got some complimentary copies myself), the Sailor Sentinel reached both civilians and soldiers at a much higher rate than any other of the important ones. What was more, Kastalle was completely biased as to whether or not Tsukinousagi was guilty. There was no doubt in my mind what she thought when I opened her paper up the day after the fateful first hearing, where Kepe announced the charges. It is, after all, hard to ignore such an article titled SCUM OF THE UNIVERSE: Why You Should (not) Care About Sailor Moon's Supposed Innocence. Another one of her more fantastic editorials included The 100 Reasons Sailor Moon Should Not Be Found Innocent.
This particular editorial caused an uproar in respectable societies. Among many reasons, some seemingly plausible, some so strange I could never have thought of them, was this one: Sailor Moon is like the antithesis of what our kind stand for. Her actions show her to be anti-establishment, anti-society, and as such should be treated as the threat she truly is. And this one: Considering the adverse effects seen in children who are known to converse with Vika soldiers, including violent behavior, rebellious activity, and even permanent brain damage, one can consider the effect that this soldier in particular to have - even through the most indirect and subtle contact - to be highly negative and completely adverse.
This caused nothing that I have ever seen before in many people. Societies against Tsukinousagi's contamination of society sprang up from nowhere, including Parents Against Tsukinousagi - PAT - which was whole-heartedly endorsed by Kastalle. This particular organization - which claimed 400 million good parents from 32 different systems - was bent on the salvation of their children's souls from the pale and tiny demon whom sat silently in her cage during the trial. So, they threw their holograph projectors out, stopped buying papers that hinted to have news of the Great Matter (other than the Sentinel, of course), and even banished their childrens' friends from their homes, particularly those who dared even utter the cursed girl's name.
While I know that she hated Tsukinousagi with an obsessive passion, I seriously doubt Kastalle actually believed in what all these parents claimed, which was that no exposure to Tsukino Usagi was good exposure. I do not doubt that it had a good effect on the sale of her paper, since its circulation quadrupled in less than a month after that article.
Another, less strict organization Kastalle liked to advertise was BaTBi - Banish The Bitch. These people were both sailors and civilians, which was a dangerous combination. They packed themselves around the Court of Justice almost from the very day of its inception. All they screamed, all day long, was -BANISH THE BITCH!-. They'd scream it the moment Kepe went in until after everyone left. They would camp outside the court as well, however, at night.
Some of the BaTBi got creative. One woman took one of her daughter's dollies with her and fashioned it into a Sailor Moon doll with a noose around her neck. It was supposedly so well done that others began to do it as well. So began the BaTBi's main income. Soon, they were selling clothing, single page holopaper flyers and hats, as well as a full line of dolls based on the people involved in the Great Matter. I still have a copy of their Themis doll; it sits on my shelf. It is unusually flattering, considering I am in the Bad Person Doll series with Tsukinousagi, my doll has fangs and there is a tiny dagger through its heart. But I digress.
Certainly, not all the organizations were that violent. Some people were simply content with writing letters to me stating that Tsukinousagi was guilty no matter how hard we tried. Some of the letters were surprisingly courteous, and I can even name a few people who forgave me for my defending the girl, for being tricked into ruining my life. At the time, such letters gave me some comfort.
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There is, of course, that other side of the ball, the side which sided with us. These people had a harder time organizing, but their groups turned out to be, later on, just as formidable as any organization which felt Tsukinousagi was guilty. Naturally, of course, they needed an initiative.
Their main initiative was based on the sparse leaks given out about the witnesses. If, these people asked, the witnesses presented by the prosecution could not be trusted to be reliable in terms of Tsukinousagi's character and past, why then was there a trial? These people believed that no matter what, Tsukinousagi was innocent because there was little to no concrete evidence besides heresay. Many of the people supported the argument Dyka was trying to present - that Tsukinousagi was an ignorant girl from an unknown planet who simply knew no better, and no harm done, no foul play.
There were plenty of publications for this as well. There was the District, which was sailor run. There was also the Savior Stories, which I'll get into in just a bit, by civilians. And there was Fact Tact, which was civilian-based. And then there was Red Blood, but I forget who published Red Blood. It was only available in select systems.
Anyways, Savior Stories was bent on showing Tsukinousagi not as just some ignorant girl, but as a godly figure who was sent from beyond to save the universe. That she went to the Galaxy Cauldron and survived, these people asserted, is a testimony to the fact that she is one whom even the Three must bow down to. Many older, respecting people shuddered at this horrendous line of thought, but it certainly worked wonders on younger people.
-I mean, I remember one holocast, with one young woman talking to the reporter. -She's like, our age. And, like, they're destroying her for, like nothing. Like, if she survived it, like she should be worshipped. It's discrimination, man. Like, it's wrong. The Seemarin is wrong. Sailor soldiers, like, can't follow some stupid set of rules when, like, their whole world is about to, like, blow up. I mean, like, would you just stand back and, like, not help your world?
Soon, though the pro-Sailor Moon groups had no set name, there began to circulate a shirt. It was white, and all it had on it was a sentence in silver: -I WAS RESURRECTED BY SAILOR MOON-. Soon, hundreds of people - mainly kids - began wearing these shirts as a sign of their beliefs. Soon, they wore it as a sign of defiance against what they saw as un unjust system.
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Interestingly enough, there was an incident in particular which caused people to start siding with Tsukinousagi. It was sometime after the first hearing, sometime after the sword was found on our door. It was actually in between that death threat and our return to the Court, though I don't remember the exact date off my head.
I do remember, however, that I had gone shopping for coocor that day, for Tsukinousagi had, to my disgust, eaten all of the ones I had tried to hide. So when I came home, I found hundreds of black-shirted men surrounding the house we were residing in. I became pale with fear; the black-shirted men were a part of the Mehsheh Security Force , among the most fearful police forces in the civilized universe outside of the sailor soldiers. They were different from the regular policemen we had encountered before, because the policemen we had encountered before were paid by the civilians, and tend to be somewhat lax in their procedures. These men were specialists paid by the affluent to keep the neighborhoods safe at all costs.
-Hello?! I nearly threw my bags down as I ran to the house. What is going on!? I live here! What is happening?!?
I was almost barred from coming through to the house, but luckily, one of the guards recognized me, and quickly got me through. I saw white powder everywhere in the front; as I was quickly escorted through the door, several men in white suits passed me.
-Wh-wh-wh-what's happening?! I began to tremble. -What are all these men doing here?!
-Seema-ship. Suddenly, a man dressed in brown stood in front of me. -Are you Sailor Themis?
-Y-y-y-yes I am...... I gulped. -What happened?
-I am a detective for the Mohsheh Security Force. He showed me his badge. -There was a break-in in your house. Apparently, someone tried to blow the house up with your client, Tsukinousagi, with it, and anyone else he could. We found traces of hydrogen cells, and several neutron-powered powder explosions, but in particular there was a timed viral bomb-
-WHAT!?
-Be calm, seema-ship. The detective held up his hand as I began to panic. -We managed to capture the culprit before he did any damage. A neighbor caught him, and we detonated his devices out of orbit. You're safe, seema-ship.
It turned out, upon seeing his file - I forget his name - that he was a member of the BaTBi movement, one person who wrote in his confession that killing the root of all evil could instantly solve the problems civilized society was facing. Naturally, BaTBi denied inciting this person into trying to blow us all into pieces. Though he was immediately incarcerated and jailed, never to be seen by us again, it got out, and the situation became more complicated with the masses as to how to handle their beliefs. What side would one take? And if one took a side, which stance on each side would one take? Wait quietly, or take action?
Indeed, the situation was starting to get more complicated for us as well. Things became more unbelievable, and we began to lose crucial ground. When we lost crucial ground, ties between people became strained, to the point where I almost did something so horrible that I fear to write it down even now. And unfortunately, the situation would only get worse and worse until, finally, everything began to blow up all around us as if that bomb, though physically gone, still counted down to its time of destruction.
