Sime~Gen Roleplaying: District Controller's Office Scenario
Episode #141: Alluring, Undemanding, Obedient (1/24/00)
Nick looks around at his new office, wondering what exactly he's supposed to do with it.
Nick has never had an office before.
Homer staggers in the direction of the break room.
Homer can never seem to keep up with the pace at which he is expected to work.
Homer wonders how the other channels do it.
Nick picks up a thick copy of the department's latest status report, and tries to wade through the first page.
Nick quickly decides that this is not an efficient way to figure out what is going on, and heads for the break room instead.
Homer is relieved he made it to this break, and will savor the full 20 minutes he is allowed to the last second.
Nick notes Homer ahead of him, seemingly in some distress.
Nick: Homer? What's wrong?
Homer: Oh, nothing.
Nick looks up and down the hall.
Nick: Where's your Donor?
Homer: Oh, she went off shift a while back. And then there was this school fire and they brought in 5 cases all at once.
Nick: I see.
Nick draws closer, offering ~~ support ~~
Nick: Here, let me help.
Nick looks towards the break room, considers the potential for interruptions, and leads Homer towards his new office instead.
Homer is totally incapable of arguing in any way with a nager like Nick's.
Homer drifts after the Gen, barely holding himself duo-conscious.
Nick: You really should leave that kind of emergency to the channels whose Donors are on duty.
Nick notes Homer's difficulty, and adjusts his nager to keep him firmly duoconscious.
Homer finds his head clearing and begins to regain his strength, with Nick's assistance.
Homer: Oh, I don't lose control.
Homer: I just get tired.
Nick: Yes, but if you're too tired, your judgment may be off.
Homer: When children's lives are at stake, I can't just stand by and watch.
Nick helps Homer to sit in the chair, and pushes the report aside.
Homer: Well, I'm tired all the time, here, but they tell me that if I keep it up I'll build more stamina.
Nick perches on the cleared portion of the desk top.
Nick: Well, that's true, as far as it goes, but you don't want to overdo it.
Homer: Well, I don't want to overdo it, but I want to do at least as well as the others.
Homer: I have to do that, or they'll never let me go home.
Homer: So you see, I can't afford to just sit around and wait.
Nick is not without sympathy for Homer's plight.
Homer's systems are beginning to settle into a more normal pattern.
Homer: You are very kind, to help me.
Nick smiles a bit wryly.
Homer: And, if I understand it correctly, that is not your job, either.
Nick: If I can't look after my own channel, I might as well help others.
Homer: Well, I am grateful.
Homer frowns, wondering if Nick will be offended by the questions he is bursting with.
Homer has been urged by his counselors to ask questions if he doesn't understand things and decides to plunge ahead.
Homer: I understand that you have made your pledge to the Tecton very recently.
Nick: Yes.
Nick looks at the shiny new ring on his hand.
Homer: And you said the other day that you did that to take care of Arat and Snake.
Nick still isn't sure whether it was a good idea.
Nick: Yes, I did.
Homer zlins Nick's doubts.
Homer: In my classes, they tell me that a Donor's pledge is to care for all channels.
Homer: Not just a special one, not just a chosen one.
Nick: It is supposed to be that way.
Nick has no particular objection to looking after other channels, if it doesn't interfere with his self-imposed task of making sure Snake and Arat are taken care of.
Homer: And the Controller decides whose Need is most pressing.
Nick: It's Arat's job to make transfer assignments for the District, true.
Homer: I am confused, then.
Nick: Confused about what?
Homer: How can you serve Arat and Snake when you cannot choose who you will serve?
Nick: As long as I can remain assigned to the 53rd District, I will be serving Arat and Snake primarily.
Nick: There simply aren't many other Donors who can serve them.
Homer nods.
Homer: And then why, since you are assigned to Arat, are you here with me? [wry smile] Believe me, I am not complaining, but....
Nick: Arat does not usually explain his reasons.
Nick has spent enough time among Narosians to have adopted the principle that the only way to keep a story from spreading is not to tell it--to anybody.
Homer: I thought a channel could not refuse a legal assignment, any more than a Donor.
Nick: That is generally true.
Homer: Forgive these questions. Tomorrow is my 3rd transfer here.
Nick: Are you looking forward to transfer with Lemuse?
Homer: Lemuse is wonderful.
Homer: But then they will assign me someone new... I have no idea who.
Homer: This is all most strange.
Homer: Where I come from, everyone grew up together.
Homer: I never had a Donor I had not known for years.
Nick: It is more pleasant with someone familiar.
Homer: [wry smile] Well, not always.
Homer: Look at Arat and Pylor.
Homer: But at least there is less... suspense.
Nick winces; the combination of Arat and Pylor is rather a sore subject for him at present.
Nick's nager, of course, does not fluctuate to an extent zlinnable by a Second.
Homer: Does it bother you, to serve a channel you don't know?
Nick considers.
Nick: Not in principle. At least, not if that doesn't mean that Snake and Arat are being assigned someone like Pylor.
Nick reconsiders.
Homer: And if you met a channel you disliked, as much as Pylor dislikes Arat, could you put aside those feelings and think only of service to humanity?
Nick: I hope I'm never put in a position like that.
Nick would rather not imagine Pylor with tentacles.
Homer: Among my people, such a match would never be made.
Nick has heard some interesting things about Homer's people.
Homer: In my classes, they tell me that the Controllers make sure that those assigned are well matched.
Homer: And yet, if that were so, how could any Controller have put those two together?
Nick: Controller Neptude wants Pylor pushed to develop as a Donor, and there aren't too many channels who could accomplish that.
Nick: What would happen among your people, if no Donor liked a particular channel enough to serve as his Companion?
Homer: These days, the Sime would be offered channel's transfer.
Nick: A channel is much less effective, without Gen transfer.
Homer: In the old days... exile, suicide, attrition.
Nick winces.
Homer: And exile meant turning junct.
Homer: You understand I am not just speaking of channels here.
Homer: The same law applied to renSimes.
Nick: RenSimes were allowed to go junct if no channel wanted to give them transfer?
Homer: Channel's transfer wasn't introduced among my people until about 50 years ago
Nick: Oh.
Homer: And it didn't really catch on until after Unity when we could learn from our northern neighbors.
Nick is not as shocked by alternative transfer arrangements as the average Tecton Donor.
Homer: The Canyon culture is really a Gen culture.
Nick: What about today? Would a channel whom no Gen liked enough to serve be exiled?
Homer: [wry smile] I think a channel who no Gen liked enough to serve might be sent on rotation to the Tecton.
Nick looks at Homer speculatively.
Homer: And that would be exile enough.
Nick: Is that the voice of experience speaking?
Homer: I am not completely sure what my situation is.
Homer: It is difficult to find out from a distance of several hundred miles.
Homer: But that is what I suspect.
Nick is 75% sympathetic to tales of woe, particularly when uttered by a channel.
Homer: Controller Arat tells me that if I can complete three months working here without any black marks on my record, that I will be considered rehabilitated by the Tecton.
Homer: So I am trying very hard.
Nick: Has Arat said what will happen when you have been successfully rehabilitated?
Homer: He has said he doesn't know.
Homer: Just that I will be transferred away from here.
Nick: The authorities in Arriz haven't arranged for your return?
Homer: I don't know how much credence such reports will have back in Arriz.
Homer: My people are not big on reports.
Homer: I have not yet determined if they will let me come home if I do well here, or if they have decided to get rid of me for good and want me to accept that.
Nick looks at the still-unread quarterly report on his desk top.
Nick: Well, I can't say I'm that fond of reports, either.
Homer: Well, if you work with Controller Arat, you will write many of them.
Nick: I know.
Nick is not looking forward to it.
Nick: I suppose I'll get used to it, eventually.
Nick has heard that one can get used to attrition, if one tries long enough.
Homer zlins Nick's distaste and hastens to change the topic to something less depressing.
Homer: And what of Snake? You said she did not like reports.
Nick smiles fondly at the mention of Snake.
Nick: No. At least, not the Tecton style of reports.
Nick has noticed that Snake has a different attitude towards certain more creative uses of paperwork.
Homer: I have only met her once. She seems a most unusual person.
Nick: That she is.
Homer: She said that an ideal Donor had to be undemanding, obedient and alluring.
Nick was trained by Snake, and has spent most of his time with the Tecton with her or Arat.
Nick therefore is unaware that Donors can be anything else, the Pylors excepted, of course.
Nick: She has strong opinions, when she can afford to exercise them.
Homer: I thought it an interesting set of criteria.
Nick: How so?
Nick: What do you like in a Donor?
Homer: Well, they are criteria no Arizz Donor meets.
Homer: They may be alluring, certainly.
Nick nods, knowing no Sime would compromise on that one.
Homer: And if one is very lucky, one may find a Donor who is undemanding.
Homer: But obedient? They would laugh.
Homer: Now Lemuse fits all these criteria.
Nick has learned enough about Lemuse to suspect that she is obedient in the same way he is: skilled at getting a channel to order what she wants him to.
Homer: And I confess I could easily become accustomed to this way of doing things.
Nick: You enjoy Tecton-style Donors more than those of your people?
Homer: Oh, it is most pleasant.
Homer: To have a Gen to support me, to take care of me, to defer to my wishes.
Homer: Instead of the other way around.
Nick: Yes, it's very pleasant, to have someone taking care of you.
Nick got some of that with Riyyh, and found it a bit smothering at times, but pleasant enough.
Homer: Ah, you think so?
Nick: Well, for a change, at least.
Homer: Often here, when I try to take care of my Donors the way that I would the Gens at home, they become confused and distressed.
Nick: Well, they're expecting you to act like a Tecton channel.
Homer: Yes. They wait for me to give them orders, and I wait for them to tell me what they want.
Nick: I can see how that would cause problems.
Homer: And you? You said that you did not act as Arat wanted. So he sent you away.
Homer shakes his head.
Nick: I'm still his Donor. He just required some time alone.
Homer: But you are unhappy. An Arizz channel would not dare to treat a Donor so.
Nick: I think there is very little that Arat would not dare, if a matter of principle was at stake.
Nick hopes that the principles in question do not preclude a reconciliation.
Homer: I have heard about his problems with other Donors as well.
Homer: Among my people, he would not survive such behavior.
Nick: He has often been assigned Donors who did not have the speed and capacity that he requires, because no better ones were available.
Nick: That would be hard on any channel.
Homer: But you are everything he requires, and yet he would displease you for an idea?
Homer: Does he want to die of attrition?
Nick: He will not die of attrition, or neglect, while I can stay here..
Nick: ~~ truth ~~
Homer: Well, then I see you are undemanding as well as alluring.
Nick thinks of Riyyh, and how totally incapable his father was of satisfying him.
Nick: Not undemanding.
Nick: Although perhaps I do not demand quite the same things that a Donor of your people would.
Homer grins at Nick's display of spirit.
Homer: And what pleases you, Sosu?
Nick: A channel who matches me.
Homer: Ahh. And there are not many, for you as for the Controller.
Nick: Yes.
Nick has never met a non-Farris example, as it turns out, and so is resigned to living with large beaks, wild hair, and gene-deep arrogance.
Homer: Then perhaps you will have to work on obedience, if you want to soothe Hajene Arat.
Homer: He is one who requires control of everything around him.
Nick: Most Farrises are like that.
Homer: Well, I don't relish zlinning that huge nager angry at me.
Homer: But you are powerful enough to handle him.
Nick: I'd better be, for everyone's sake. Especially Arat's.
Homer: I wish you luck, Sosu. For his power is turned towards self-destruction, and he requires a Gen to lead him back to joy and life.