Sime~Gen Roleplaying on IRC: Snake River Dam Scenario
Episode #162: Blood and Selyn (5/6/01)
Arat finds himself once again cornered in his living room with Professor Alain Ro.
Arat has taken, despite his promise, to deliberately trying to get out of the meetings. However, with Mr. Birch and Alain Ro both agitating fiercely for them, it was inevitable another would happen.
Arat is less than a week from transfer, and had to miss a work session to do this.
Arat therefore is not at all relaxed, even compared to the previous interviews.
Alain Ro thumbs serenely through his notebook on the history of the Audnes. Despite Arat's attempts to elude him, the notebook is getting pleasingly thick.
Alain Ro frowns. The channel is just as elusive psychologically as he is physically, and Alain has not yet discovered the proper bait to snag him. It doesn't usually take this long.
Arat sits on the couch, wishing he has something to similarly occupy him, as the waiting is driving him nuts.
Arat manages to avoid fidgeting, but the tension is obvious in his body language. He looks anywhere but at Alain Ro.
Alain Ro thinks that it doesn't help that Arat shuns the limelight so fiercely. Usually leaders enjoy being seen and lauded.
Alain Ro notices that Arat's stance is more of a corralled mustang than a leader of men.
Alain Ro: What is it about our discussions that distresses you so, Controller Farris?
Arat, who did not realize he was being as obvious as all that, appears caught off guard by the question.
Arat: I am not used to discussing these matters.
Arat: Or any aspect of my private life.
Arat: I did, however, agree to do so -- for the sake of those Gens who would otherwise have died of exposure or starvation.
Arat has attempted to maintain a quiet dignity while doing so, but it is obvious he hasn't quite succeeded.
Alain Ro: My apologies again for intruding on your privacy.
Alain Ro is really not very sorry.
Arat can zlin as much.
Arat's eyes narrow at the false apology, but he lets it pass. There is no point in contesting it.
Alain Ro: Painful as it may be, this record of a vanishing period in history may be invaluable to future generations.
Arat nods.
Alain Ro: So please accept that I am not annoying you frivolously.
Arat is certain that Alain Ro takes annoying Arat very seriously.
Alain Ro creases back one page of his notes and studies it. He wishes he could get Arat to relax with him.
Alain Ro: Well, I've got a good overview by now, but there are some areas where I'd like to fill in a few details.
Alain Ro: I know that the popular press misrepresented your family's positions in the heat of the war and reconstruction.
Alain Ro: But now we can look back with cooler heads and set the record straight.
Alain Ro: I look at these events in a broad context.
Alain Ro: Matters that seem to concern you -- such as the Audnes participation in Border raids right up until Unity -- don't surprise me at all.
Alain Ro: One area that is unusual is your family's experimentation with transfer prior to the establishment of the Tecton.
Alain Ro: I'd like to know how that got started.
Arat is glad that they have finally gotten started.
Arat doesn't like the interviews, but doing them is better than waiting for them by a long shot.
Arat doesn't usually get much credit for imagination, but when it comes to working himself into a lather over something he's dreading, he does just fine.
Arat: The Garlenists first became known in Norwest during the time of my great-grandfather.
Arat: They were, as I have said before, renSimes who could be hired to care for ones children. Less spoken of was their reputation for attempting to escape with Established children to Gen territory.
Alain Ro nods.
Arat: They were expensive, and exclusive. They were well trained in the arts of child care and changeover.
Arat: Only the best of families could afford them.
Alain Ro: The Gen Mother's Helper's had a similar reputation in New Washington Territory.
Arat nods.
Alain Ro: They could be hired to assume a family's responsibility to guard youngsters approaching maturity.
Alain Ro: And often they disappeared with their charges, leaving the family ignorant of the fate of a changeover victim.
Alain Ro has always assumed the ignorance was deliberate.
Arat: My great-grandfather and the other Audnes of his generation did not wish to take advantage of such services, simply because it was traditional for the children to be raised by family members and none other.
Arat: However, when several of his children Established, leaving only a single heir, he became concerned that too many Audnes were being lost to Establishment and the central family line was shrinking.
Arat: He knew if Gen Garlenists from speaking to his captives. He approached Garlen about training one of his Established daughters to care for her younger brother and for any children that might be produced by his second wife.
Alain Ro frowns.
Arat: It was not unusual for a trusted Gen to be allowed to care for very small children, but it was considered unusual for a Gen to remain with the family of her birth.
Arat: It was his hope that her being trained as a Garlenist would allow others to ignore the circumstances of her birth and lineage.
Arat: If she were to produce a Sime child, he or she would be Audnes -- and of his own descent.
Alain Ro raises his eyebrows.
Arat: She never did bear children, but she did come to serve the family as Companion. And in time there were other Audnes Gens trained in that way as well.
Alain Ro: The Audnes would accept pre-Gen children as family if they were of the same bloodline?
Arat: No. Only if they changed over.
Arat had thought he had made that clear.
Arat perhaps is a bit Sime-centric.
Alain Ro hurriedly checks his Simelan language notes.
Alain Ro: I mean, Audnes children born of Gens were considered equal to those born of Simes?
Alain Ro: If they changed over?
Arat: It was not preferred, but in times of difficulty, yes.
Arat: Blood was of value.
Arat: This was not the case in many Sime families of the time, however.
Arat: However, as I say, it did not happen.
Arat: She never bore children.
Alain Ro: This first Garlen-trained Gen. But you say she qualified as a Donor?
Alain Ro: And served the family?
Arat: She served my grandfather in changeover, and lived.
Alain Ro: So your grandfather started his life as a Sime non-junct.
Arat: Yes.
Alain Ro: How did that affect his perspectives on the family's activities and goals?
Arat: When it happened, everyone was forced to re-evaluate the future.
Arat: There had been some contact with a householding, but mainly on business terms only.
Arat: It was discussed whether live-transfers should be pursued as a goal, and if so would that require closer Householding contact.
Alain Ro's eyes gleam with interest.
Arat: It was clear to all that a tremendous financial savings as well as tremendous morale benefit could be gained if such could be practiced regularly within the family.
Arat: However, there were other considerations. To do so would require defense of the lifestyle against the junct culture into which they had fit well before.
Arat: It might create dependence upon Naros for guidance and assistance.
Arat: And it would mean defending and promoting Garlen's interests in Norwest.
Arat: Which was always a cost of his services.
Alain Ro considers the implications of what Arat is revealing.
Alain Ro: Did you already have your government food contracts in place at that time?
Arat: Yes, it had been in place for over a decade.
Arat: An unprecedented length of time, in that society.
Alain Ro: So to promote a lifestyle that would abolish the Pens would undercut the family finances.
Arat looks oddly at Alain Ro.
Arat: There was never any talk of promoting transfer as a large scale alternative to the Pens. None whatsoever.
Arat supposes that a Gen might hope that was the case, but Audnes interests were always firmly and closely focused upon the Audnes.
Arat: Support of Garlen was normally limited to funding, shelter for agents on an occasional basis, and political manipulation.
Arat: These required a substantial effort and came at some cost, but they did not at any time undercut the Pens system.
Alain Ro: What more did Garlen want?
Arat: In some cases, Garlen would ask special favors, such as the adoption of a noble child from Gen Territory.
Arat: Some that changed over were not capable of taking on a servant's lifestyle, or in some cases their parents had made special arrangements.
Alain Ro: What then was their status within the organization?
Arat: They had none. They were adopted as a family's own.
Arat does not know a lot of detail about that, as his family would never have dreamed of accepting such a child, and would have found other ways to appease Garlen.
Alain Ro: Did the Audnes ever adopt such individuals into its closed circle?
Arat: No.
Arat: Better the child of an Audnes Gen than that.
Alain Ro sees that Arat's craving for privacy and isolation has deep roots.
Alain Ro: So transfer remained a secret within the family. Akin to the technological secrets that were also hoarded for the benefit of the estate.
Arat: Yes.
Arat: There were those that suspected, and others who knew. However, it was not spoken of.
Alain Ro: And when the Householding movement spread, the Audnes did not choose to associate themselves with it.
Alain Ro: Despite the fact that they practiced "perversion."
Arat: The Householdings were not to be associated with.
Arat: They were looked down upon by ordinary society with loathing.
Arat: Upon occasion it was acceptable to associate with them, but care was taken to avoid staining one's own reputation with unseemly rumors.
Alain Ro: Did the Audnes consider their own use of Garlenist Companions to be similar to Householding practice, or did they classify it as something else entirely?
Arat: It was acknowledged to be somewhat similar on a superficial level.
Arat: However, the Audnes Gens were servants, not equals. And they were of Audnes blood. Anything else would have been unthinkable.
Alain Ro considers that, puzzled.
Arat: If circumstances prevented the use of one of the Garlenists, a kill was taken instead.
Alain Ro: The prohibition against Killing a Gen who is blood kin is one of the deepest taboos in Sime culture. Surely, these Garlen-trained Donors risked death when they first qualified. I don't understand why the Audnes were willing to challenge this taboo, or why transfer with a Gen not of the bloodline would be considered taboo instead.
Arat: Regarding the latter, it was not taboo so much as intensely and personally distasteful. The idea of putting oneself in the hands of a stranger, and then having to live with that afterward... no.
Arat: I have difficulty with that concept, and I have done it for twenty years.
Arat: As for the former, it was illegal, but not unheard of.
Arat: And it did not happen often, among the Audnes. As Farris Gens, they were well suited to learning the art of transfer to renSimes.
Alain Ro carefully examines Arat's explanation.
Alain Ro: Putting oneself in the hands of a stranger....
Alain Ro: That's an... interesting... way to conceive of transfer.
Arat's dark eyes study Alain Ro intensely.
Arat: How so?
Arat: It is a Sime's most vulnerable moment. One mistake and life is ended. If it does not happen at all, life is ended also.
Arat: If one is only interested in surviving from month to month, then perhaps it does not matter where it comes from. But what of the Sime who wishes to hold long term power in society, and to pass on a legacy?
Alain Ro: It implies, as you say, vulnerability... and trust.
Alain Ro: I've heard Householders speak in such terms, but surely no junct ever came to the Kill with trust.
Arat nods.
Alain Ro: What you said seems to mix the two perspectives.
Arat clearly does not understand what Ro is saying.
Alain Ro: As if the Audnes were unwilling to reveal the extent of their vulnerability to a Gen who could live and use that knowledge.
Alain Ro: Except, as you say, blood kin loyal to the family.
Arat: That is a way of looking at it, yes.
Arat: It is also that they were unwilling to extend the privilege to an outsider.
Alain Ro: Within the Households, admission of the channel's vulnerability to a Companion seems a basic tenet underlying their lifestyle. It is no secret.
Arat: It is not.
Alain Ro: And yet any proud mature person hates to feel weak and dependent.
Arat thinks Ro is taking him way too literally. The Audnes did not take outsiders as Companions because they feared being vulnerable to them, not because they literally didn't want anyone to know.
Arat: Such a thing is private.
Arat: It is not to be bought or sold, or dealt with on an assembly-line basis.
Arat unwittingly uses the present rather than past tense.
Alain Ro: How do you think the modern Tecton handles the uncomfortable truth of a Channel's vulnerability?
Alain Ro personally thinks that many aspects of the Tecton system seem designed to shield Simes from Gens under the guise of protecting the Gens.
Arat: It is not often an issue.
Arat: Most channels have had no difficulty with transfer and most Donors have been trained in sensitivity and care.
Arat: When problems do arise they are most often technical in nature.
Alain Ro: And the ideal is for any channel to be able to accept the service of any appropriately rated Donor, stranger or not.
Arat: Yes.
Alain Ro: And you have said that your family had a different ideal. How have you reconciled the two viewpoints?
Arat: I have not successfully reconciled them. [stiffly]
Alain Ro has read as much as Arat's record as he could gain access to, including the stories about his difficult relationships with Donors.
Arat: It has been an issue throughout my career as a channel, resulting in various rehabilitative measures.
Alain Ro: If you could make policy unilaterally, how would you change things?
Arat's expression immediately becomes guarded.
Alain Ro wonders if Arat will toe the Audnes or Tecton line, or come up with a unique approach of his own.
Arat: I would prefer not to comment on that at this time.
Alain Ro: Is that because you have no opinion, or because you are afraid to say what you think?
Alain Ro is getting tired of Arat ducking controversial questions that relate to the present. After all, history hasn't stopped; it is being made all the time.
Arat blinks at Ro's question, and the nager that goes with it.
Arat is somewhat affronted.
Arat: I have not formulated a firm opinion on the matter, which is one of some complication and far reaching effect. As for the appropriateness of airing any such opinion here, it is true that it would not be prudent.
Alain Ro smiles ruefully. If nothing else, Arat is a damn good bureaucrat.
Alain Ro: Well, if your thoughts ever do gel, I would like to hear them. I think the matter is significant in ways that go beyond your personal situation.
Arat knows it is, which is why he will not comment on the record.
Arat: Very well.
Go on to Episode #163: Strawberry Blush
Return to the Index of Episodes