Sime~Gen Roleplaying on IRC: Snake River Dam Scenario
Episode #166: The Unscratchable Itch (5/??/01)
see note 1
Nick settles back in the steaming tub, lazily contemplating the ceiling as he mentally rehearses the topics which he wants to be off-limits for Professor Ro's inquiry.
Nick wouldn't put it past the Professor to find as many loopholes as possible in any limitations which Nick might specify.
Nick is still trying to figure out whether or not it would be helpful to enlist Jeniard in the project; Arat would be more useful, but any useful degree of inquiry would negate the whole project.
Nick absently shapes perfumed bubbles into a peak.
Nick has grown quite fond of bubble bath, for someone who never encountered it until adulthood.
Nick is forced to forgo many of the more interesting bubble baths available, due to their Farris incompatibility, but fortunately some are acceptable.
Sedel has taken Arat's suggestion to heart. He has been diligently pursuing an answer to his question. He has decided to that perhaps Nick might shed some light on the subject.
Sedel has finally tracked down the Donor who seems to become inaccessible for weeks at a time.
Sedel sticks his head into the bathing room that was pointed out to him.
Sedel: Hello, Nick. Got a minute to chat?
Sedel has actually walked into the room and closed the door behind him.
Nick rolls his eyes in exasperation.
Nick: Which of my siblings-to-whatever-degree tattled? You're lucky, Sedel. You've only got the one sister hanging around.
Nick realizes that this sounds less than gracious.
Sedel laughs!
Sedel: She is more than enough of a handful to make up for quantity.
Sedel looks around to find a semi-dry place to sit down.
Nick: You're only saying that because you've never been faced with the prospect of... well, I'm not sure anyone knows how many of Riyyh's progeny there are.
Sedel: I've heard rumors.
Sedel: Over a hundred is it?
Nick: That's the conservative estimate.
Sedel: Wow! He must have had excellent transfers for most of his adult life.
Nick would rather discuss just about anything else but Narosian genetics, although he's used to the morbid fascination the topic seems to have for those who don't have to live with it.
Nick: What can I do for you?
Sedel: Well, actually that is on the subject I came to talk with you about.
Nick: Transfer?
Sedel: Yes.
Sedel: Well, yes and no.
Nick wonders if Sedel wants him to talk Arat into giving him a specific transfer assignment.
Nick raises an interrogative eyebrow, and waits for elaboration.
Sedel: What do you get out of being a Donor?
Nick assumes that Sedel isn't inquiring about salary, retirement, sick leave, and other administrative details.
Sedel has never had to worry about money but then membership has its privileges.
Nick considers the question for a moment.
Nick: Mostly, I get access to the only channels who can give me a satisfying transfer.
Nick: That's worth putting up with a certain amount of nonsense.
Nick hasn't stopped trying to avoid as much of the nonsense as he can, of course.
Sedel considers that for a moment. He has had an unscratchable itch ever since he was taken off the rotation. That was probably what Arat had in mind when he lowered the boom.
Sedel: It's the nonsense that I find the most objectionable.
Sedel: I've watched channels get away with everything short of murder under the guise of need tension, need nerves, need trauma.... Is it really worth the dealing with them?
Nick: Well, the alternative is not dealing with them. I did that for over ten years.
Nick: Of course, at the time, I'd never given transfer, and didn't really know what I was missing.
Nick: I was very sure that I wanted nothing to do with the Tecton, though.
Sedel's ears perk up.
Nick is aware that it would cause some distress in Capitol if it became widely known how little his feelings have changed.
Sedel: You?!
Sedel would never have believed such a thing of Arat's pet Donor.
Nick wonders how Sedel can have failed to pick up on the gossip about his career as a rogue.
Sedel: What is it about the Tecton that you find disturbing?
Nick has perhaps a somewhat inaccurate perspective on Householders' tendency to gossip.
Sedel is not from around these here parts and so doesn't always get the juicy stuff, er, gossip that is.
Nick: Well, on the basis of two weeks' worth of training: I didn't like the rules, the schedules, or being forced into a career I didn't choose.
Nick: The life of an itinerant agricultural laborer in Gen Territory offered a great deal more independence.
Sedel laughs and shakes his head. He can't believe he is hearing his own thoughts from another's mouth.
Sedel: Well, you kept the itinerant part anyway.
Sedel: I've been around channels all my life. I was raised in a householding. But there is a universe of difference between householding channels and Tecton channels.
Sedel: Is it just me or do most of them seem a bit flaky to you?
Nick raises an eyebrow.
Nick: Now that you mention it, many of the Householding channels I've met have tended to become easily distracted. Perhaps it's because they have two sets of loyalties, which aren't always in sync?
Sedel takes off his coat and folds neatly. It is rather warm and steamy in the bathing room.
Sedel: I was talking about Tecton channels. They seem a bit off to me.
Nick: How so?
Sedel thinks hard for a moment.
Nick: Arat is certainly more stable than Sectuib Riyyh, for example. Or Snake, for that matter.
Nick really doesn't have much experience working with other channels.
Sedel looks up.
Sedel: Snake is a householding channel?
Sedel thinks he really should pay more attention to the gossip.
Nick: Why, yes. She's ambrov Zeor, although they're not exactly eager to claim her.
Sedel blinks twice and frowns. Holy heck and darn!! The story behind that must be a doozy.
Nick: When they found out Arat was her father, instead of one of their Farris channels, they were quick enough to leave her in his care.
Sedel can't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for both Snake and Arat. Of course in an odd way that explains a lot about Snake.
Nick still wonders at times what would have happened if Zeor had taken over Snake's rehabilitation. Would she still be worthy of his loyalty?
Sedel: Snake wasn't raised as a Householding channel then. So she isn't really one even with her Zeor affiliation.
Nick: That's a rather narrow-minded definition. Haven't Householdings traditionally taken in new members whenever they could?
Sedel: Riyyh seems normal enough to me, but then I haven't spent any time with him.
Nick wonders how anyone could consider someone with over 100 progeny "normal", particularly given the large numbers of 75%-ers.
Nick: Well, I suppose Riyyh isn't hugely abnormal, by the standards of his House.
Sedel nods.
Nick: Of course, a great deal of that may simply be genetic similarity.
Sedel: I don't question Snake's membership, but just being ambrov isn't the same thing as absorbing the attitudes and customs through your skin the way children do.
Nick: The world is full of disappointed parents, whose children failed to absorb their attitudes and customs. One presumes that those who join a Householding as adults have at least some affinity for its values.
Sedel: From what you said Snake didn't join because she had Zeor's values.
Sedel: It seems to have been more of an obligatory inclusion.
Sedel: I suppose that in truth the only frame of reference I have is Dar.
Nick's expression turns just a touch wistful.
Nick: Oh, Snake was an idealist, all right. She would have fit right in, before... well, the less said, the better.
Sedel: Before the Tecton squeezed her into its mold.
Nick: I'm sure Dar has its own standards and traditions, just like any family, but that doesn't mean that every other way of doing things is wrong, by definition.
Sedel: Never said it did.
Sedel: I think the biggest difference between Tecton and Householding channels is that Tecton channels never seem to actually touch you.
Nick smiles ruefully.
Nick: Not touch? How so?
Nick assumes that Sedel doesn't mean literally.
Sedel: There's a lot of purely physical contact but it's always detached somehow.
Sedel: Tecton channels aren't allowed to build relationships -- no that's not it -- they are afraid to build relationships.
Nick: There's certainly a difference, when you have a long-term commitment to the channel you're working with.
Nick probably has more experience of this than Sedel, actually.
Sedel: There is no true affection between channels and Donors in the Tecton. There is always the knowledge that you are only here for a season or a day.
Nick: However, have you really tried to build closer relationships with non-Householding channels? Or have you just dismissed the possibility out of hand?
Nick: Certainly if you treat your channel as an unimportant, transient stranger, you can hardly blame them for viewing you as such.
Sedel: I have never given any channel in my charge anything less than my all.
Sedel: I do wish I could say that the channels responded in kind.
Nick: And what happens when channels are no longer in your charge? Do you continue to offer friendship and support? Or do you dismiss them, as no longer of interest?
Nick: Or treat them as accidental colleagues?
Nick: How much of your purely social contacts involve non-Householding channels?
Sedel: I've been a Donor for my entire adult life, both as a householding Donor and a Tecton Donor. Most of the Tecton channels I've worked with never stayed long enough to be social or antisocial for that matter. If they weren't leaving I was.
Sedel: I suspect you have had a rather unusual situation. How long have you been Arat's Donor?
Nick: Two years, off and on. And you're right; there's nothing usual about my situation.
Nick thinks that the unusual factors started with the conception of his mother, and have only accelerated since.
Sedel: You have a sense of continuity in your life. I think that is another thing that is different about being a householding Donor. I know that the channels will always come back eventually. They know the same of me.
Sedel: I have worked with more channels than I want to think about who I will never see again.
Nick: Continuity? That's the one thing I have never had in my life, not even as a child.
Sedel: Well, I guess you don't miss something that you never had. Me, I've had it. I prefer it.
Sedel: The Tecton sees channels and Donors as field potentials, not people. That needs to change.
Nick: Do you want to work to change it? Or run out-Territory, beyond the Tecton's reach?
Sedel: I'm trying to figure that out. Do you think that the Tecton can be changed?
Nick: It's more flexible than it would like to believe, I think. At least when there's something obvious to be gained.
Nick: Of course, the argument has to be stated in the proper terms.
Sedel has been dealing with his unscratchable itch as best he can. He knows he will have to scratch it eventually, but the question remains: could he live a lifetime without scratching?
Sedel looks at Nick carefully for a moment.
Sedel: I think I've probably seen more of what the Tecton is than you have. I've seen it limping along on feet that have broken under its weight. I've seen it hurt itself for nothing more than the status quo. It resembles a mindless beast more than anything else.
Sedel: And it chews up its own.
Nick: I've often thought so.
Nick: Still, who will be around to take care of the casualties, if everyone who cares about them leaves in protest?
Sedel: That may be what it takes to get the beast to stop long enough to bind up its wounds.
Nick: Perhaps, although that would require that it understand why you were leaving--and that many others shared your views.
Nick: I admit that the future of the Tecton is much less important to me than my future--and that of the channels whom I happen to care for.
Sedel: Well, Nick, by Tecton standards your voice would certainly carry more weight than mine. What do you feel the need to do about the situation? How would you go about changing it?
Nick: I'm less ambitious than you. I'm not out to change the whole Tecton; I only want to find a way to live with the parts of it I come in contact with.
Nick has actually become rather good at limiting his official Tecton contact.
Sedel: Exactly my point. The Tecton requires changing but the people who should be making those changes are too busy surviving the disaster to do anything.
Nick: What policy changes would you like to see in the Tecton, to make it more palatable to you? On a purely practical level?
Sedel: Units. Teams of channels and Donors. Channels would benefit from knowing what Arat knows: that his Donor will be there this month, next month, next year.
Sedel: Donors will benefit by not having to constantly start from scratch every month with someone new.
Nick: Do you really think that Arat had that sort of security, back in Capitol? Or that he will have it here, now that the passes have cleared?
Sedel: That is the point isn't it? No one has that kind of security. But we all should.
Sedel: Nick, your attitude is pure Tecton. Everybody sees the problem but those who might fix it either don't care to try, or get chewed up.
Nick has been called a lot of things, but "pure Tecton" is not one of them.
Nick chuckles.
Nick: Perhaps you wouldn't mind putting that down on paper? Half of the Tecton officials in Capitol are convinced that I'm still a rogue at heart.
Sedel fans himself and opens a couple buttons on his flannel shirt. Much more of this and he will require a bath himself.
Nick: For that matter, in some ways, they're right.
Sedel: If the Tecton way is so right ,why are there so many rogues? Why would anyone even want to go rogue?
Sedel: There is something fundamentally wrong with the structure and everyone feels it but no one can seem to put a tentacle on it.
Sedel: So we go on. We try not to see. We make do and stop hoping because hoping makes you discontent with the way things are.
Nick: That's an interesting hypothesis, although the rogues I've known haven't rejected Tecton life for such idealistic reasons.
Nick: I didn't care for discipline, and I didn't want my grandmother to succeed in her plans for my future.
Nick: Snake was personally betrayed, primarily by Zeor. I don't think Linn had any opinion of the Tecton at all, and Eliza--well, she had her own problems, quite separate from the Tecton and its policies.
Nick is starting to wonder if Sedel has actually met any other rogues, besides himself.
Sedel: What discipline bothered you so much you didn't want to be a part of it?
Sedel wonders that a Farris trained First would find discipline a problem.
Nick: As I recall, I thought that it was completely unnecessary to be punished with extra kitchen duty for failing to make my bed, and I flatly refused to write letters home for my grandmother to gloat over.
Nick: Since I had no particular desire to be a Donor in the first place, I saw nothing to be gained by staying.
Sedel narrows his eyes and stares at Nick for a moment. If that's how he felt, what the heck was he doing here now?
Sedel: So why are you here?
Nick shrugs.
Nick: I don't have it in me to live without transfer any more. I tried working with Riyyh for a while, but he's not a Farris channel. It wasn't much better than no transfer at all. So, I came back and pledged to the Tecton, since that was the only way to get a compatible channel.
Sedel laughs until tears are running down his cheeks.
Nick may be an incurable romantic, but he's also pretty much apolitical.
Sedel: So, you joined the Tecton to scratch an unscratchable itch. I know that itch very well.
Sedel has been suffering from it for a month or so.
Sedel: Nick, you are a very prosaic and practical soul.
Nick gives a disarming shrug, and reaches for a towel.
Nick: Perhaps so.
Nick: Still, on a purely pragmatic level, you're going to have to decide whether... scratching the itch, as you put it... is something you're willing to live without.
Nick: Because if you're not willing to live without it, then you have to find a way to live with it.
Nick steps out of the tub and starts toweling himself briskly.
Sedel: You have a point there.
Sedel: But how to reconcile my soul to it?
Notes:
1) It is uncertain which date this log was played on, except that it would have to be after SRD#159, when Arat suggested Sedel speak to his fellow Donors, and before SRD#167, when Nick tries to get Alain Ro to tone down his questioning of Arat. [return]
Go on to Episode #167: Academic Arrogance
Return to the Index of Episodes