Subject: There's probably less of an urgent need, too.
Author:
Posted on: 2014-04-25 16:30:00 UTC
TOS and the really early spinoffs were in the middle of pretty much the biggest fanfic explosion ever, so it really read like an "all hands on deck, if you can swing a sword we need you killing Sues NOW" situation to me. So in-universe things've at least settled down enough for the PPC to not be on a churn-out-as-many-badfic-killers-as-possible footing.
No, not that 'of age'; get your minds out of the gutter. :P
What I'm talking about is the legal adult age of whatever their country/species/continuum might be. Obviously, not all agents are abandoned or orphaned- and not all of them are legally adults. So how do underage agents deal with leaving their families behind, possibly thinking their son/daughter has run away or been kidnapped?
I ask because Rina, who is essentially myself, is seventeen and her parents would freak out if she just disappeared. And even as an adult they'd still want to be able to know what she was up to.
Are agents allowed to visit their families to tell them what's going on, or at least just let them know they're okay?
Unger was his species equivalent of 15 when he arrived at the PPC. At some point I established that he had set off on a kind of walkabout where the intention was that he find adventure, kill things, and come back with trophies. The better the trophies, the more of a man he is. (He was a Barbarian, afterall.) Not everyone makes it back. Some presumably die and others just find a life they like better. He is probably never going back. He likes the life in the PPC.
Cali was 15 almost 16 when he arrived at the PPC, but he had been living in a kind of low-rent home aimed at teen boys whose family's couldn't support them since he was 13. He was from a sort of dystopian world, so even though nothing like that was mentioned in the canon, I felt like it could make sense in the world. He does feel guilty for not at least sending his mother letters though, and we (Caddy-shack and I) have actually written a story where he goes home, but never finished it. Anyway, that's how I see his continuity.
My others were of age (more or less in Kelok's case).
I posted this before I got to school, hoping to get a response by the end of the day- and I come back to find that even the Marquis de Sod himself dropped by! O_o
Thanks, hS and Neshomeh, for giving me some ideas to chew on. (Though for future reference, I prefer strawberry flavor to grape, but whatever.)
Assuming that the then-underage agent works for the PPC for several years? decades?, and go back to the same point in their home that they left (no aging, no time passing), they would probably be very frustrated/disappointed/slightly excited to seem smarter when they have to go through growing up again.
Oh jeez, the plot bunnies won't stop breeding!
The average age of new agents tends to follow the average age of Boarders. Back in 2004-ish, most agents were 14 or so. The youngest (human) agent was Ella Darcy, who was ten when she joined.
The old answer to this question is the one used by Vemi in 'The Un-Sueing of Vemi', and it goes like this:
Since time passes differently in the metaverse than in the Earth of normal human experience, she'd re-appeared only a few days after the day she'd originally left to join the PPC.
In fact, I'm not sure that doesn't still apply. There's a more recent example - 2007 - by Laburnum. It... hmm. Agent Laburnum does imply that time passes the same - “I joined up over a year ago and haven’t been back since, because I’m either a wanted criminal or a missing person and I wasn’t too keen to find out which one.” - but also mentions that "...of course the OFUs de-age you and put you back five seconds after you left...".
She also mentions that "For all I know Makes-Things and Techno-Dann might have staged my death here, I know one or two agents who specifically asked for that when they joined."
Ultimately, then, there are several options:
-Use OFUesque timeline shenanigans to avoid anyone knowing you're gone.
-Fake your death so's no-one asks.
-Follow the example of Constance Sims and have a parent who knows about the PPC.
-Or... yeah, just tell them. The PPC isn't a secret organisation - Phobos just wandered in one day to see his wife - though you should expect that a) they might not believe it, and b) might not like what they hear. As Laburnum puts it, "Hi, Mum, Dad, all this time you thought I was dead I was actually working as a contract killer, here, meet my coworkers who are actually giant mustelids currently in human form ..."
I'd be interested to know, actually, what other examples we have of agents dealing with the passage of time in the Real World. Ella Darcy's farewell is still as emotional (for me) as it ever was, but does mention that 'She’d done a first year of college by correspondence (ironically enough), but was planning on finishing it in person, and making her way in the Real World.'. Nyx Nightingale pays a brief visit at the end of her intro... but what else have we got? Anyone? We might get a wiki page out of this.
hS
I'm willing to bet that in all his time as a Department Head, the SO has never been threatened by the mother of an agent. Oh, this will make for an interesting interlude indeed.
Also alliteration.
Thank you!
Plus, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that most of the Action agents risking their lives every day are literally children...
Also, Laburnum's spinoff wasn't exactly moving in real time, I think all her stories were still set in 2007/2008.
That 'the average age of new agents tends to follow the average age of Boarders'. Due to the changes in where Boarders come from, that average age has gone up - and so has the age of agents.
It's true that Laburnum's stories weren't written when they're set - but her agent still dealt with going home after a year in the PPC. That makes her one of the best examples I know of, though doubtless there are others.
hS
I read the comments on Laburnum as saying the fact her stories aren't written when they're set as proof of the weird time stuff as opposed to just, y'know, being when the stories are set. So my bad. :P
You still said most agents in-universe are underage in the present-tense though, which is what I expressed discomfort with. I'm sure there aren't Action agents who're literally ten year old kids any more, sure, but it just doesn't seem right.
It makes me a little uncomfortable, too, but there are a couple of reasons for that:
1. I'm a grown-up. I see teenagers as kids who are still developing and maybe shouldn't be exposed to certain things yet.
2. My culture (national and familial) supports the idea that teenagers and even college-age people aren't full adults, and shouldn't have to do certain things or make certain decisions. My culture does not support the idea of teens with weapons.
However, when you are fourteen (for instance), you're starting to realize that you're an independent person with your own will, and you want the freedom to make decisions and take action for yourself. If you feel passionate about badfic, it probably doesn't seem weird to take matters into your own hands by means of an avatar character who's the same age as yourself.
Furthermore, I've found there's an age range where people feel most strongly about fandoms and such, and about 13-24 (give or take) seems to be it. Once people hit college and working life, most of them seem to be less worried about it. Not that everyone gives up caring about fandom entirely, just that it's a less urgent sort of caring.
So, I say let 'em be fourteen if they're fourteen. Strike while the iron is hot. {= )
~Neshomeh
It's a bit different in-universe vs. out-of-universe. I think hS's post covers the in-universe stuff, though.
~Neshomeh
-n universe issue. :P
... becoming an Assassin, Slasher, Floater or whatnot in a mind-bending building with little-to-no pay, murderous food, bosses who half the time actively hate you, and a better-than-even chance of going literally insane (also a not-insignificant chance of getting killed) isn't a job you take if you don't care. It's not like the people I've known who took a fast food job because it was there, and turned into rabid obsessives - this isn't a job you start unless you care.
Or unless there's an Assassin saying 'work for us or we kill you along with your Stu brother'. That works too.
Oh, or, if you're Constance, you might have gotten one of the lying brochures.
hS
Wait, did I? I didn't mean to... oh, right, I see. You're right, that was a mistake on my part. In functional terms, though, the fact they they're older now doesn't mean they didn't have to deal with the issue once.
And I'm not as uncomfortable with it as you are, I'm afraid. I should note that Ella was in the DAC, which is not technically an Action Department - and was there because she was so young. Similarly, Elanor Laison joined at 14 and was placed as a secretary until she hit 16. On the flip side, Constance appears to have become an Assassin at 13 - but the Wiki does describe her as 'precocious'. My most recent story suggests in a couple of ways that 12 is the age when HQ-born children begin initial training as an agent; I assumed that would take at least a couple of years, and maybe longer (on the principle of 'we can't start them working yet anyway, so we might as well train them to do it properly').
In-universe, I think a lot of the 2001-2006-era Earth-recruits were movie fangirls, and so hit the demographic for that - 14-15 is a fairly reasonable average age. Nowadays, without the swell of fangirl activism on behalf of the canons, we don't have many people who deliberately seek out the PPC (Constance Sims, Techno-Dann, Nenya and Rosie... it happened a lot), and Narrative Causality seems to lead to older people falling through plotholes.
Ultimately: I remember the 14-15-year-olds who were writing the 14-15-year-old agents. I have no problem with their semi-self-inserts being in the PPC, because I knew the people behind them.
hS rambles incoherently
TOS and the really early spinoffs were in the middle of pretty much the biggest fanfic explosion ever, so it really read like an "all hands on deck, if you can swing a sword we need you killing Sues NOW" situation to me. So in-universe things've at least settled down enough for the PPC to not be on a churn-out-as-many-badfic-killers-as-possible footing.
Of course, the problem with the Flowers' way of doing that is that rather than saying 'let's take the lower badfic flux as a chance to actually train our recruits!', they seem to have said, 'let's take the lower badfic flux as a chance to recruit fewer people - and keep throwing them straight onto the front lines!'. That wisn't very clever - but is very PPC.
hS
Like, some people are just thrown in, some are interns for a while, there's a couple stories and nods to actual proper months-long training (like PC's latest Danny Richardson story), etc. Seems like not much is really "standard" about almost anything PPC since the Mysterious Somebody's day. But just tossing everyone into the grinder like it's still the middle of the badfic explosion of 2001-2004 seems really counterproductive. :P
It does seem counterproductive. I think that when I ask permission and begin with my own agents, I will show signs of at least one of them training a lot.
Do you know how many recruits we get through Personnel? Every time I settle into my pot for a refreshing batch of crystals there's another portal opening, another dazed bit character stumbling through, another agent saying 'She followed us home, can we keep her?'
And now you want us to actually train them all? Hole's sake, even leaving aside the fact that that would simply encourage them to do it again, how many trainers do you imagine I have? No, it's quite impossible.
I blame it all on the Sunflower Official, myself. Oh, he thought he was being so clever with his 'incentive program', his 'recruit and you can have time off'. Little did he know, human. Little did he know.
-MdS, Head, Dept. of Personnel
Mr. de Sod, you should really get DoSAT working on this cross-continuum Board contamination before we get another Blackout-like emergency.
Here in World one we don't exactly like getting invaded by stuff that simply shouldn't exist here.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Sergio Turbo (No, not the Agent. The other one.)
How do these things keep happening? I thought we had people to deal with this sort of non-sense.
What do you mean we got rid of them?
Then go find the one who did this job and get him back. How hard can it be to find one agent. It isn't as though you're looking for a specific dwarf in Dwarf Fortress, or something.
Oh...that's exactly what I'm asking? Well, get Dandy on the line and have him patch this up, then.
Is this transceiver set to broadcast? Oh dear. Um...there is nothing to see here. Just another fellow humanoid doing humanoid things. Like eating...with a mouth. Yes, very humanoid, that. Nothing suspicious.
-Some humanoid creature, like you. Definitely not a sentient sunflower.
So... after having to somehow get rid of an axe-toting, goatee-sporting, predatory-tea-drinking version of myself (... that sounds kinda like the Star Trek mirror universe... Mirror, Mirror) a little less than two years ago, you're telling me your world bleeds off to ours again? Sheesh. What's next, me-as-a-Time Lord staring down his nose at me? Me-as-a-Nanohaverse Mage pointing his Device at me and demanding that he'll be shown where the nearest TSAB post is?
Guys, whoever is supposed to keep the walls up, they aren't doing their job.
PS: Like Iximaz said, we're not that stupid, so please try to find a better excuse next time.
As much as I appreciate you dropping by, would you and the Marquis de Sod please go back to your... uh... continuum? My agent and I might be fairly new still, but I've read about the PPC's history and really don't want to experience a second Blackout firsthand.
Thank you for your concern, but we Boarders are, funnily enough, capable of handling ourselves. Mostly. I have a roll of duct tape and know how to use it; never fear.
Have you considered asking any of the TARDIS-owning Time Lord agents to look for the guy who "did this job"? I hear they're very good at finding specific people.
Yours truly,
-Iximaz
P.S. Next time you accidentally broadcast to the entire Board, don't try to cover up. It doesn't fool anyone. We might not be Flowers, but we are a bit smarter than an average bear.
P.P.S. Before you go, I'm curious- what does Flower food 'taste' like?
P.P.P.S. Rina says her first paycheck is a few weeks overdue. You might want to look into that. Please don't kill me.
* * * * *
The Alternate and Ahistorical Universe Monitoring Station, aka the Observatory.
Cornelius cocked his head to one side. "I've received a message from the Antigravity Apple," he said. "Apparently several communiques from the Flowers have leaked into the alternate universe designated as ME7-Alpha. Again." He paused, in what could almost be described as a sort of electronic sigh. "We've been asked to assist in stemming the leak."
DeeGee Carruthers looked up from the partially disassembled drone spread across the table in front of her. "ME7-Alpha," she mumbled through her tusks. "Right. Uh... that one."
There was a brief moment of silence.
"The universe where the PPC is a fictional organization created by fanfic aficionados on the internet," Cornelius said, a hint of reproach in his voice.
"Oh, that one!" The rigger nodded before letting out a little shudder. "Always gave me a bit of the creeps, that one did. Bunch of squishies writing about us like we weren't real? Eurgh."
Cornelius swiped his hand through the air. Holographic images and data appeared in front of him in a stream of light.
"Gather Agents Hazel and Calendar," he said. "The three of you will begin establishing the necessary reality shunts. I will coordinate with my contacts in the DES."
"You got it, cap'n." DeeGee saluted the hologram. "One weird reality patch coming right up."
* * * * *
I can't think of specifically who's done this off the top of my head, but I know some agents have told their families they're going to school or working abroad, and that's why they aren't around. The "working abroad" one has the benefit of being more or less the truth. Agent Techno-Dann even responded to an actual job ad for the PPC.
Agent Supernumerary was recently revealed to be writing home to his folks once a year. He led them to believe he was recruited into the CIA because of his eidetic memory, but I don't suppose that would work for everyone. ^_~
~Neshomeh
I didn't quite think about this... though now that I do, things look pretty simple from my angle:
1) Both Anebrin and the Librarians are adults. Anebrin, due to the way I wrote his recruitment, is probably thought of as KiA back home. The Librarian, meanwhile, just went missing.
2) Agent Des is borderline. By the time of the prologue - August 2012, HST - he's already an adult (since the age is 18 in Israel), but it's implied he's been an agent for some time, which means he joined the PPC while he was a minor. Since I implied multiple times he visits his home every once in a while, I assume his parents know about the PPC. Or at least part of it. It also means he wasn't conscripted... hm.
...but my own Floaters/soon-to-be-DMS agent Xanthus Garkaran has a friend from his home continuum that he continually sees on the Citadel whenever a mission just happens to put him there. It probably doesn't count for much of anything since he does go back in time sometimes, but hey. He just sees her whenever and keeps his occupation something of a secret without telling any specifics. You can find her appearances here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pYRDNWVGFPf5szb4mP1UliqrLs39NH9ctpKJ4C5gU/edit?hl=enUS# here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/15MlBbwW5WoU-XlZZX-1yvau-Q8mGm1sMGgeiJuJm0yI/edit?hl=enUS">https://docs.google.com/document/d/15MlBbwW5WoU-XlZZX-1yvau-Q8mGm1sMGgeiJuJm0yI/edit?hl=enUS# here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1693UCSa0yT-K2hRiTscIyq6cLs7kxCgIABw7P9vQrY">https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1693UCSa0yT-K2hRiTscIyq6cLs7kxCgIABw7P9vQrY and here: <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K3bf5la5gXOugLP2RgyutgSCrwPYqjvTdw0pT8HwRU/pub">https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K_3bf5la5gXOugLP2RgyutgSCrwPYqjvTdw0pT8HwRU/pub
(Speaking of this guy, actually... I need to get that DMS-mission-in-progress out soon. It's about time the PPC saw a Hunger Games Sue-fic, it really is...)