But Why, a vignette of the Addergoole project

[aldersprig]

This takes place sometime during the "sign-up" phase of the Addergoole project - ~mid-to-late 1970's. It was written in response to clare_dragonfly's comments here and here

Addergoole has a landing page here


There were very few pure-bloods in Regine's Addergoole Project. She had very little interest in finding out what happened when you bred two pure bloods, for one - they had been finding that out, over and over again, since the gods first arrived. She wanted to know what you could get from paired half-breeds.

For another, she knew that the pure bloods would eventually become distressed, when they learned of her project. It had not been all that long that half-breeds were in any way considered part of Shenera Endraae, and to go about deliberately making hundreds more half-breeds - all with the aim of educating and arming them - she had not needed Michael and Luca to tell her that somebody would be angry when they found out.

She had, however, not entirely anticipated the screaming, shouting rage or a Mara and a Daeva struggling through her wards and forcing their way to her office.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The shout was loud enough to rattle the windows.

"Come out here and talk to us or we'll burn this forsaken place to the ground!"

Regine pushed three buttons on her wall - not that she believed anyone would need a call to inform them they had guests - and stepped out onto her porch. "How can I help you?"

The Mara was the woman, a tall, angry Mara - if that was not redundant - with her blue wings spread wide. "My son told me about your little 'project.' What exactly do you think you're doing?"

Regine thought back along the list of names she had seen. Blue wings, probably, or something like it, and the Daeva had horns that resembled an antelope's. "Silvestre." He's been one of the ones who'd turned down her offer. "A handsome man, and very bright."

"And a half-breed."

"And wouldn't you be interested in knowing why?" Regine had been given more than a little opportunity to practice this speech. She watched the steam bleed off of the woman's anger.

"...what?"

"Your son was born half-breed, when you two are clearly full-bloods. Wouldn't you like to know why?"

Comments

[kuro_neko00]

"For another, she knew that the pure bloods would eventually become distressed, when they learned of her project."

This brought to mind a question, did Regine consider that the parents of the first gen students might also become distressed once they learned how Regine had misled them on exactly how the school was going to be run? What about after the fact that abuses had been, unknowingly or not, allowed to run wild amongst the students became known to her?

Though I suppose I'll be getting at least some of the answer to those questions once my commission is posted. Speaking of which, your 'should be finished in the next week' comment was three weeks ago. How's that coming?

Cheers.

[aldersprig]

So sorries! Still working on it, I promise (Airpop)

I went through a couple bad weeks, but it's very nearly done and I'm still working on it.

As for the question: different sort of distressed. We've already covered that Regine didn't anticipate the potential problems of the school. What she was anticipating was a backlash from pure-bloods who didn't want the potential of more half-breeds, let alone educating and training those half-breeds.

[kuro_neko00]

Alright, no worries. I know creativity can't be forced. It'll be done when it's done.

As to the other, yeah, none of the staff Regine included expected the abuse. But they were knowingly twisting the Laws into pretzels by making Children and Students bound by Laws they were specifically exempt from and basically forcing these peoples' children into Keepings that they may never have otherwise experienced. Even if everything had gone just the way the staff expected, I would have thought some parents would have objected. Did they consider that? And after the abuse became known, did they consider how the parents would react then? I know the parents were bound by their oaths at that point, but that doesn't solve all problems, as the recent chapter with Eluned's father shows.

[(Anonymous)]

It's fairly obvious that Regine at least considers emotional reactions from others as mere data, if she considers them at all. So potential-annoyance-of-parents probably either didn't register or didn't register as a significant problem to bother with. The parents did sign as Law-binding contract, after all, and that's all the guarantee she needs.

As for the parents... the direct and implied evidence suggests that Ellehemaei (sp) society is rather dog-eat-dog in general. It's clear that the core staff, who are full fae, thinks that preparing the children through faux-Law application is the best training for this and it's entirely possible they assumed (especially via groupthink and the selection bias of any fae who would object to Doing Things Different wouldn't be involved in the project as staff or parent anyways) that none of the fae or informed Faded parents would object. And that the uninformed Faded and mostly-human parents wouldn't object because they don't really understand the Law and its application or misapplication anyway.

Once the abuse became known, I think at least some of the staff would have expected some parents to be upset, but they already have the parents bound by the contracts so I don't think the staff expected the parents to be able to *do* much besides complain about it because the parents' hands are tied, essentially. We see that in the scene of Eluned's dad (Colden?) and Regine and Luke, actually, that all 3 of them know that Colden really can't do anything except complain.

[(Anonymous)]

whoops, forgot to sign - that's me, capriox!

[aldersprig]

Regine at least considers emotional reactions from others as mere data

Exact-amundo.

[kuro_neko00]

Colden is Cenwein's dad. And yeah, the implication there is he can't really do anything. But that's not because of any Oaths. It's because he's a young (relatively speaking) half-breed with alittle to no training in magic or combat. Eluned's dad Mordecai is centuries old and has been trained in both. The chapter where we see him, Luke is seriously on edge and half expecting an immediate attack. He wasn't that on edge when he was being attacked by Cleone's small army. Aelfgar is also shown to be powerful enough to do something, though he seems oblivious to the negative aspects of Addergoole. The state of the discrimination that most half-breeds live in means that most of the parents are going to be like Colden, untrained. But some of them would have been born to parents who actually cared about them and thus got them training. A few, like Mordecai and Aelfgar, are going to be old enough, well trained enough and experienced enough that they could do some serious damage. Mordecai seems quite confident that he'll be able to assault Addergoole and take down Regine despite it's defenses and defenders. Even if Regine is obvious to these potential problems, all the staff can't be. Certainly Luke isn't now if he was before, after his confrontation with Mordecai.

Cheers.

[(Anonymous)]

Regine seems to have quite caught your attention as an antagonist - do you like or dislike her, as a character?

My impression is that Regine's ability to guess at people's emotional distress is directly related only to things that she logically know cause emotional distress. She knows there is an illogical dislike of halfbreeds (that perhaps she once shared). She doesn't know much about how parents react to badly run schools, because she's never run a school before. Her capacity for routine empathy is quite low.

~Wyste

[kuro_neko00]

That's opening a kettle of fish I'd promised not to open anymore. I'll just say, in-story, I hate all the staff, most especially Regine, Luke, Mike, Pelletier, Caitrin and Mendosa, and think they're complete monsters for putting the children through what they go through, to the betterment of the world or not.

Regine in particular strikes me as a sociopath, in that other people aren't really real to her as people. The rest of my list above, I think they know they're doing wrong, but have various justifications for it. But I don't think Regine sees any wrong in her actions at all. She has virtually no empathy, or remorse, at all. Which considering she has/will have absolute authority over at least three thousand children over the project's run, is really scary. She, and I think at least some of the other staff, believes the ends justify the means. To quote Diane Castle, "If the means don't justify themselves, you're clearly doing things wrong."

Out-of-story, as a character, I don't think Regine is bad. She makes a good ambiguous villain, as most well-intentioned extremists do. I don't think that she or any of the other staff are good sympathetic villains, though I think that's what they were intended as, if they were intended as villains at all. But I think that's just me and my biases.

In reading any of my previous rants regarding this, one might come to the conclusion that I don't like the story, and/or see it as bad storytelling. That's not the case at all. Most of my comments are in-story comments, reacting to the characters and events as if they were real. Out-of-story I think this is a great, well written story which I have enjoyed reading quite a bit. It's just dark as hell. Which isn't a bad thing.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the staff is variously supposed to be an elemental effect akin to the weather - inhuman and unchangeable - sympathetic villains, helpful mentor dude who's secretly got his own agenda, or unsympathetic villains. It depends on the perspective of the viewpoint character. I think originally the staff were going to be more minor characters, but as the only characters that carry between all the sub-stories, the readership naturally focuses on them and their character development over time.

~Wyste

[aldersprig]

Right on the money!

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, for funsies, the 'what would you do if you were assigned to make the Addergoole project not hell' game.

Explicit bootcamp to start off with, semi-segregated from upperclassmen. Extreme psychological and physical stress, military/combat training, beginning magical training.

Hire a competent school administrator with at least thirty years experience running private/military high schools so Regine can play in her lab all day.

Shoot Regine in the head. This step isn't necessary but would make me feel better. (She is allowed to get better.)

Mandatory trauma counseling for all students.

Initial Keeping chosen by lottery, limited to one year only.

~Wyste

[inventrix]

The first thing I would do is have a much tighter rein on the whole Keeping thing. Yes, privacy, Sanctity, etc. but there needs to be a definite and unbreakable restriction on what these students can do to or with their Kept. Students tasked with the "bad Keeper" roles - those intended to give students a taste of bad things that can happen or be done so they aren't completely naive when they hit the Real World - will be explicitly chosen and under Mentor and administrative supervision.

Additionally, the preying upon new students is out of the picture. Restrictions on communicating information are still in place, as the administration controlling the release of such information is an important measure to prevent new students from being overwhelmed or freaking out from "by the way we're all magical creatures", but there is no benefit in allowing teenagers who are completely ignorant of such things be entrapped into a Keeping. Only students who know (or think they know) what Keeping is can be Kept. There would probably be a specific time limit in place, like forbidding the Keeping of students who have not completed their first semester.

Hiring a proper administrator is a good idea I hadn't thought of.

The genetic experiment aspect, I would have be more formalized and less.... rape-y, to say the least. Up-front option for "test-tube" or surrogate mothers, with that data put into the data for the experiment. Consent required from both parents, especially the mother as she not only traditionally bears the child but also owns it by Law. Extra credit for contributing genetic material towards marked pairings that would improve the data set. No underhanded fertility drugs.

The intense-stress methods of triggering a Change would be restricted to cases where it seems the student wouldn't Change otherwise, and require the permission and at least partial supervision of the unChanged students' Mentor.

Students would be held properly accountable for their actions to help prevent the development of poor ethics.

Possibly more but that's what I have at the moment.

[(Anonymous)]

Your version is more ethical than mine! ~Wyste

[inventrix]

Ethics are important! Otherwise you end up training up kids who fight for the wrong side and that would be terrible.

Besides, most of the unethical/immoral aspects of extant Addergoole are far more inefficient means to achieve the desired results than necessary. Too much emphasis on letting teenagers do stupid shit. *nods sagely*

[kuro_neko00]

You guys covered most of what I would have suggested, but here's a few more:

Mandatory Ethics Course, taught by someone who actually knows the meaning of the word.

Anyone Kept has the option to Keep their Keeper the following year, scheduled graduation would not prevent this. This option would not be encouraged but would be there like the sword of damocles.

Mandatory birth control for all females, so there's no question of a male desperate to graduate raping a girl hoping to get her pregnant by chance. The girls will all only get pregnant when they choose. Being Kept would not effect this choice.

I would extend the 'forbidding the Keeping of new students' to the whole first year. There's still three more years, and at least after the first year they'll have a fighting chance.

[inventrix]

I like the ethics class idea, although having never taken an ethics class I'm not sure how effective they tend to be.

I dislike the second point for a number of reasons, but I'll leave it at smelling entirely too much like a tool for revenge. It would not encourage healthy attitudes towards being Kept, nor for the purpose of Keeping another, which opens the door for further kinds of abuse of the mechanism.

Aaand your third point is, to be blunt, awful. Mandatory birth control? You are going to force teenage girls to take birth control? What if it's against their morals?

Semi-tangentially: my first-semester example was literally pulled out of nowhere as I don't have an actual school curriculum in front of me, so yeah, the whole first year is an equally viable option. And while I wouldn't use the term "fighting chance", that's the whole point of the exercise. The attempts to entrap students into Keeping are supposed to give them an idea of what they need to be careful of and watch out for; it's just kind of useless if they don't even know that there is a thing to watch out for at all. So it shouldn't be allowed until they have sufficient education in the matter to rule out entrap-by-ignorance, whatever point in their time at Addergoole that may be.

[(Anonymous)]

I took health/ethics classes most of the way through 5th-9th grade, including abusive relationships, sexual health, drug abuse, bullying, peer pressure, etc.

I mostly treated it like all my other classes and read a book under the table, but the workbooks were cute. I don't know if it did much good but I don't think it did any harm.

~Wyste

[kuro_neko00]

Second point: the point was that if you abuse your kept, you do so knowing that they can choose to exercise this rule and thus be in the position to abuse you in return the following year. Of course this is a repeatable choice, so the original keeper can choose to keep the original kept again the third year. If this happens more then once or twice per student then some serious examination of the students involved needs to be done. I agree it probably needs some more thought put into it, and maybe a few more restrictions, but this elaboration should give you a clearer idea of where I was going with this.

Third point: Um, you kinda missed the point here. Any of the girls can choose to stop taking the birth control whenever they want, that's the point. If they don't want to take it at all then they can choose that as well. But it should be the default assumed option, and the choice to take it or stop taking it should be with the girl alone, Kept or not.

Semi-tangentially: "So it shouldn't be allowed until they have sufficient education in the matter to rule out entrap-by-ignorance"

Agreed!

[kuro_neko00]

I know this thread has kinda died, but I had an additional thought and this is the best place for it. The easiest, most straight forward and practical place to start in improving the school is to ban sexual assault. This would be easiest because it's fairly easy to define what sexual assault is, as apposed to other forms of abuse. It would be pretty easy to implement as well. Regine calls a school wide assembly, as says, "Hence forth, all sexual acts must have all participating parties' consent. This includes all residents of the school and village, Student, Adult, and staff alike. This also specifically includes Kept. Ordering a kept to participate, or to consent will invalidate that consent. Using the Keeping bond to alter a Kept's personality, thoughts, feelings, memories or desires with the intent to induce consent will also invalidate that consent. Additionally anyone using mind or emotional control magic for the purposes of gaining consent will also invalidate that consent. Ordering you Kept to be silent on any violations of this rule will not avail you as there is no statute of limitations and you will have to release them eventually. Any accusations and protestations of innocence will be confirmed as truthful via magic. Upon that confirmation the perpetrator will be immediately punished, the punishment being [insert however harsh a punishment you think will be sufficient deterrent]. 'I thought they consented' will not be a valid excuse, so upon any question of whether or not consent is present, err on the side of caution and do not proceed."

Very simple, and it even fits the heavy handed approach the staff have to enforcing the few rules they do have. But of course Regine wants the sexual assault to be happening to increase the genetic diversity of her experiment. This is the only reason I can think of why they're turning a blind eye to this. And they must be ignoring it, because unlike any other form of abuse, sexual assault in Addergoole is impossible to hide for any length of time, the female students' pregnancy will give it away eventually. Then the confirmation is as simple as sitting both parents-to-be down (if necessary waiting until one or both are no longer Kept), having them swear an Oath that they will answer the next question asked completely honestly, then ask if they consented to sex of their own free will with this person. Such Oath questioning could also easily be used in a blanket approach to catch any abuse. This is so easy and so non-invasive that I don't know why such questioning isn't already part of the regular end of year routine.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm actually interested in 'how to engage with enjoying reading/writing really creepy/mildly creepy fantasy scenarios in an ethical way' as a discussion and wouldn't mind pulling it out of sub-sub-sub comments. For example, Lyn puts trigger warnings on her stuff for, uh, I believe I've suggested 'trigger warning: everything' a time or two, in a tongue in cheek way.

~Wyste

[kuro_neko00]

One of the key factors I've found, at least as a reader, is a happy ending is required. Some vaguely to extremely creepy/non-consequential/mind control/whatever stuff happens in the body, as long as the victim is generally ok at the end and the perpetrator is punished, usually in a very permanent way, then I feel better about it then I do otherwise. Which is one of the reasons why I'm much more ok with Year Five then I am with Year Nine.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't need a happy ending, but there are two sorts of disclaimers I enjoy - either another character wandering by and going, "I'm sorry he's a creeper," to the victim, even if the victim does a, "He is my one true love," thing - or author disclaimers like Chapter 14: In Which Don't Try This At Home, Kids, At Home You Should Set Him On Fire For Pulling That. To use my Twilight example, all the other males in Twilight had their equally abusive moments so it was just a matter of whether you wanted to stay with your wants-to-kill-you vampire beau, your wants-to-assault-you-and-marry-your-daughter werewolf beau, or your wants-to-lock-you-in-your-room-forever father. That was the creepy part.

~Wyste

[kuro_neko00]

I feel guilty if I enjoy reading something and the victim doesn't get a happy ending.

[inventrix]

I was going to say that my only personal thing is that the person in question realizes that they're in a shitty situation but then I remembered how much I love the original Harley Quinn with her unhealthy obsession for the Joker and now I don't know any more. I think it requires more thought.