Subject: As I've recently seen explained...
Author:
Posted on: 2014-04-28 20:23:00 UTC
... the 'secret' in Secret Police isn't that their existence is secret - otherwise how do you use them to terrify your subjects? The 'secret' part is who they are. There's a reason the DIS wear their badges on sashes - it means they can take them off and shove them in a pocket. Anyone you talk to could be a Guard. So you watch what you say even when you're among friends.
hS
Buds & Sprouts
It's, er... well. Yes. To not reveal anything about the 'story' itself, it features members of the Department of Out-of-Character Hobbits - and small children.
En... joy? Any and all comments appreciated.
hS
It's been a long time since I've been involved in anything Scouting-related, but your descriptions definitely hit all the right notes in my memories.
I liked the alternating between the technical descriptions of what the Buds and Sprouts were about and the little vignettes. It managed to both build upon the world and give us some insights into these characters when they're not on the job. These kind of stories make the PPC, at least to me, seem like a much more realistic place.
One final minor addendum: my mind rebels at the very concept of a Department of Bad Slash achievement badge.
Without trying to come up with them in full, I'd imagine one badge would be performing an exorcism. Another might be a presentation on why slash is okay - not that the fictional PPC seems to have the same debates about homosexuality as the real world does - and why some is Absolutely Not. No particular ideas for the third, but I'm sure we could avoid exposing minors to NC-17 smut. ;) (Maybe 'stay away from 'Agent Lux' [who's actually Maly in a Lux costume] as long as possible'...)
hS
Wouldn't it be pretty dangerous to have kids be conducting an exorcism? Unless they picked a really weak wraith or it was just a test of the procedures, and/or that was more a badge the older ones would go for.
Maybe somebody could dress up in a sheet with eye-holes, though...
~Neshomeh
I thought Bad Slash would be a deal breaker. How could it possibly be appropriate for children? Well, here is what Nesh and I came up with.
Bronze - Identify the three components of an exorcism (bell, book, candle) that are being used in various scenarios.
Silver - Basic sex education. You need to know how it all works before you can tell what really doesn't work.
Gold - Based on a randomly selected fandom, select an appopriate bell, book, and candle. Then, perform an exorcism.
That was my basic idea.
-Phobos
We thought some yoga and/or the game Twister might be involved as part of sex ed. It's important to know the limits of how your body can move and still be comfortable, still be functional, etc. Plus, they're kids. They need to be active, and the full significance of it need not sink in until much later. {= )
~Neshomeh
This is sch a wonderful idea! I think my favorite badges were the Department of Out of Character Hobbits. (As an aside, if we ever get around to publishing it, the next thing that Caddy-shack and I are planning to post sends an Agent to work in that Department).
I liked all of it, but a piece no one else has commented on yet, is where Daffyd is repeating himself and the kids are worried that he is going to spend the whole time just repeating himself, like the Time Lord lecturer.
This was even funnier to me, because I call my youngest the Sprout (short for Doomsprout, but still).
Such a great idea. I have five kids to write for, though one is now too old for this, so definitely have to use this idea.
Are the Buds and Scouts based slightly off Girl/Boy Scouts or more like school? Aaanyway.... I really enjoyed it! Poor Dafydd. The Buds burst his bubble.
Hence... well, everything. The multi-year age groups (in England, scouting is split into Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, and Explorers), the badges, the Buds' Promise, the stupid names for leaders (in Cubs, the leader is called 'Akela', after the Jungle Book character)... we debated whether to put the badges on their sleeves (but Kaitlyn thought it sounded too awkward), on sashes (but I thought that was a bit too DIS), or even on their neckerchiefs, but since the movement is run by the DOOCH, they simply had to have little hobbitty weskits. I mean waistcoats.
hS
Not the least because I just recruited two ten-year-olds from my last mission. Hee hee hee. I am going to have so much fun . . .
Seriously, you've made so much plot potential in this one little short; it's a huge addition to the PPC universe and to the community. Thanks so much, both of you, for the idea.
Good seeing some of your characters' children actually doing something on the page, instead of just existing, too. I did see one typo:
" . . . and it seemed to the children that a flickering spark they hadn’t even notice fled from his eyes."
Well, how very it is. Were I an agent, I would probably be in DOGA.
Anyways, this was adorable, and the teachers' opinions on the matter were wonderful-funny. I want more with these kids!
-Aila
Man, I doubt that the PPC universe would be half as vibrant as it is now if you never fell into whatever plothole led you here!
I concur with what everyone else has been saying so far: PPC school beats normal school any day. I wonder, though: aren't there other agents with children in the PPC universe (e.g., Samantha Maxwell)? I wonder if this would conflict with whatever their stories have established as their source of education...
There was going to be a :P there but I ran out of room. I've still got some ideas though so we'll see what happens; I've got the Origins side stories still, buncha missions, DIA stories, some misc. stuff, writings about other organisations... hopefully I can catch up. Might have to drop you a line about one idea I had if it's okay?
(... who thinks I've somehow locked down or 'finished' the history and extended canon of the PPC - however jokingly they say it, Ekyl)
The only reason there was an 'all the good stuff' for me to write is because I (and Vemi, and Starwind) created it. Before I wrote the original Origins, the only statement on the reason for the Flowers was that 'we replaced all the human directors long ago' (which is now retconned as a joke). Before I wrote The Reorganisation, the SO had ruled uninterrupted since the PPC was founded - and still did, because the Board of Flowers was my invention, too.
But hey, that stuff is all written now - so what's left to do? Well, here's what I could come up with in twenty minutes of idle speculation:
-The history of the Garden. Ekyl dismisses it as 'the Origins side stories', but there's enough content there for a trilogy of novels if you wanted. I deliberately wrote as little as possible about civilians on Origin. The tensions between Works and Garden, their reaction to the increasing industrialisation of the Hill and the dangerous technology they're playing with, the entire Civil War, life on Origin after the war, the final collapse in the Cascade... there is endless scope there, and I barely touched it. Ekyl, all of your ideas are still perfectly valid - deliberately so.
-The ten-year-ish period between the Fall of Origin and Lofty Skies. This is the formative years of the PPC, when they go from 'mundicidal Flowers and Korean tech support' to 'trios of agents hunting down rogue plotholes on the ground'. There are heaps of stories to tell there - and the only things written in that time period are a handful of backstories. If someone wants to do this, I'm even willing to rent out those of my agents who were around then - Nyx and Dassie, looks like.
-The formation of the DIS. There's half a year or so between the Mysterious Somebody assuming power and the DIS being formed. How did he find an excuse to create a secret police? Was there rebellion against his rule? Did he invent a rebellion in order to continue his plans? If so, did it come true for real when the DIS was created? For that matter, what was the DIS originally like? Dassie says they used to be not that bad - why did they shift? Again, it's completely untouched.
-The early history of the Mary-Sue Factory and BioInc. Flowers from the PPC, with their utter terror of rogue plotholes, were somehow persuaded to build a factory to create them. How did that happen? I bet it didn't go smoothly. No-one who knew about the Factory made it back to HQ to spread the word - but we already know the DIS was willing to take out anyone who tried.
-The formation of the League. Reorg claims there's only one Factory, but by the end of Crashing Down, there's an entire chain of them. Did the MS found them? He doesn't seem to call on them. Did some of his Flowers split off? How did that go? How did they interact with the PPC?
And that assumes you're only interested in the big, sweeping histories. I've also expanded massively on the DRD and RDR - but there are other departments with equally little written about them (SIELU? The DMFF? Despatch?) I've written numerous interludes about various Flowers - but nowhere near all of them, and there's vastly more to say. I have a list of Infrastructure Departments first described by me as long as my arm, always including the DoDAEG - but are there really no essential functions of HQ left untouched? I have Playscriptes which introduced the concept of six-dimensional HQ - but very few stories have really played with that. I have a webcomic, but no-one has yet created any movies of anything PPC-related (barring my 'let's make HQ in Minecraft' video). Most recently, I've invented mission pins - and used them in a mission - and the Sprout movement; there's nothing to stop anyone else doing random things of the same kind. My next minor project is called 'Ephemerals', and will build on the Wrecked Music Department to look at some of our defunct departments, including some which have never been named before.
There is so much to write, folks. Anyone who thinks I - or anyone else - has done it all is missing a multiverse of opportunity.
hS
The open reign of terror seemed pretty new in Reorg, but everybody knew the DIS existed beforehand. Just not what they were guarding.
... the 'secret' in Secret Police isn't that their existence is secret - otherwise how do you use them to terrify your subjects? The 'secret' part is who they are. There's a reason the DIS wear their badges on sashes - it means they can take them off and shove them in a pocket. Anyone you talk to could be a Guard. So you watch what you say even when you're among friends.
hS
If a DIS agent going incognito involves them removing their flash patch quickly and placing it in a pocket, then the situation they were in when they decided to conceal their identities would need to be one in which a typical agent would be wearing a flash patch in the first place, right? Otherwise, if no one else nearby was wearing one, there would be no need to create special measures to hide a Guard's identity to avoid being conspicuous. They would just be wearing non-uniform clothing like everyone else. So, do the DIS spies have a backup flash patch that they wear during situations that would require a full uniform, and they just sling the sash over that when they decide to reveal themselves and arrest someone?
I mean, I can see how the patchless secrecy would work if you were in a hallway or something, and just pass by someone who isn't wearing any department designation without you noticing it, but in order to ingratiate oneself into social groups, which you implied that some of the DIS members would do with your line about speaking freely among friends, the spies would at least need to have some kind of cover story, right? A backup flash patch would help with that. Though it wouldn't be as effective if one of the agents that a Guard was sent to spy on decides to go over to the disguised Guard's RC for whatever reason(surprise party? following them back? unforeseen shenanigans?), it would at least provide a springboard for when the targets start asking questions.
I have no particular plans to write anything else set in the DIS-era, so there's no story confirmation of any of this until and unless someone writes it, but that sounds eminently sensible.
Of course, it raises the question of whether the patchless DIA could do the same thing... following this train of thought, maybe they don't have patches because it makes a distinct divide from this. 'The DIS wore whatever patches they liked to get in among you, and threw on their own to come out of cover. We will never wear any patch, our own or yours.' That sort of makes sense.
hS
They're really important for certain investigations and just going "yeah we're never going to do that" would be sorta foolish. So I'm sure it's a thing they could do if they needed to conduct such an operation - in fact when I finally get an idea or two I might write that next time I do a DIA story - but I could see it as having been making the divide from the old DIS, yeah. Tactics like that in the DIA would likely need a good reason to be applied and aren't just used to intimidate people like the DIS did - it's possible the Board even kept them from using it at all pre-2006. I'll have to ponder it, because it's interesting territory.
Take that, logical explanation! :P
I was actually specifically referring to the stories we know I'm already working on surrounding that whole time period and the stuff you said. As in "the side stories I'm working on." Just thought I'd clarify.
(Also, I was just kiding around with you. :( )
Because this isn't technically school; this is the Sprout movement. The kids also go to whatever the school system looks like, to learn boring things like, you know, reading, writing, 'rithmatic... Sprouts is more of an extra-curricular activity. You could think of it as a Very Junior Agents Program.
Also: thank you.
hS
As usual, Huinersoron, you have come upon a grand idea. I don't suppose anyone wants to write some intermissions about the Buds and/or Sprouts? I'd do it myself, but I don't have Permission quite yet.
The stories are absolutely charming, especially since they came out of the PPC, which is… a… infamous for it's madness.
Excellent job!
Those badges sound so much more fun than the patches we had to earn in Girl Scouts. Be a Good Neighbor patch? Screw that, I'm taking the DoGA badges!
I absolutely loved the look at the schooling PPC children get. I can only imagine them going on 'vacation' to World One for a day and all they tell their new friends are stories about talking plants and interdimentional travel.
But that might not make for such a good fic. At least it's fun to think about. :)
My favorite part, though, was getting to see Daffyd and Nyx again.
I'm going to go hug a Hobbit of two now.
Man, I wanna go to PPC school. First aid, fire safety, and field trips to Middle-earth beat macaroni art any day!
Things that made me laugh aloud:
- The achievement badges. Those sound familiar somehow! *g*
- "Let's Not Burn Down Rivendell Again."
- Dafydd's fire-safety speech.
- The DOOCH's badges, especially that last one.
I love this idea, and I'm glad it exists. Now I must try to think of some way to write a Henry story with it, and also come up with FicPsych achievement badges. Basic is probably Neuralyzer Safety....
~Neshomeh