Biff had been on mission when he ran into Lurtor … coincidence, as usual. The kind of coincidence that follows a faithful follower of the Bladed Sun, who happens to the a VLAD irregular and member of the Border Freedom Force. In other words, no coincidence at all.
But he did not like the news Lurtor gave him: Jemison Post had become a penal colony for purged rogue VLAD agents who needed more than simple retraining. It was disconcerting news indeed. The fact that Lurtor had no idea what to do with them was all the more troubling. But then again, VLAD didn’t train leaders, they trained spies, assassins, and weapons of mass destruction. It was of no surprise to Biff that they saw the error of their ways, but had no real way to handle it. And Lurtor still had much to learn about being a member of the Order of the Bladed Sun.
What would W do in this case? Probably string them all up, allow teams to revive one at a time until each could be retrained on a one to one basis. Of course, it would mean that some would be dead for hundreds of years before being revived, but W wouldn’t care. Time wasn’t a factor, punishment and training was. Biff smirked, despite himself. After all this time, he was finally seeing some of W’s flaws. He still idolized the Strangulari’s force of will, and determination to free slaves, but W was no longer the perfect idol Biff had always thought him to be. The way of the Bladed Sun had taught him much, indeed. Which brought him to the task at hand. How do you grant hundreds of rogue agents a second chance? Without killing them all first?
He was lost in thought, and didn’t quite pick up on what Lurtor had actually said. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too awkard, now that he knew he had to say something.
“Now that we’re back at Jemison Post, we can continue our conversation. We have a problem: many of the agents coming here are coming likely because they’re either too dangerous, too sociopathic, or not worth the effort of retraining back at the colonies. Then we have to deal with the fact that they had to make their own way over to us, either being enslaved by the Uth for a week, or on their own wearing a clown costume. That would make anyone ornery. Oh, and your grand prize for surviving that ordeal? A frozen tundra filled with no creature comforts and an overwhelming likelihood of death.” Biff sighed. This process was not going to be easy.
“There are a couple of things we’re going to need. And in no particular order. First, a basic dossier of the folks coming our way. When I say basic, like: pyromaniacal, sociopathic, etc. A list of things that we should endeavor to attack first. I don’t need to know that a former agent raped babies, but I need to know they have uncontrollable urges that need to be addressed. See if VLAD control is will to provide…ANYTHING.”
“Second - create a sense of community. They’re stuck here, but they can choose to make it paradise. But if it’s going to be paradise, they’re going to have to build it. Together. That’s what we did in New Home. That includes living quarters, defenses, sources of food, etc.”
“Third - Discipline. That involves some training. Something perhaps akin to EEF boot camp. With activities less focused on mayhem and destruction and instead on … well, not mayhem. Like how to quickly assess collateral damage, and have to account for civilian casualties. For that, we may need EEF help with. For sure.”
“Fourth - Defined rules and boundaries. They need to know what’s ok, what’s not ok, and what will make us blow their heads clean off.”
“Fifth - Economy. These agents likely have coffers full of ghaz that they can never touch and we have no use for. We’re going to need a different economy for them. One that motivates them to do ‘right’, and empowers better behaviors.”
“Finally - Opportunity. They’re exiled and not trusted, but on some level we can’t treat them like prisoners. We’re going to need to be able to show them, at some point, that their hard works pays dividends. To make them feel that they’re not slaves or on a chain gang. This process is literally rehabilitation, and that means giving them some proverbial rope.”
Biff scratched his head. “Anything I might be missing?? Cuz if not, then we’re going to have to get into the meat of these points.”
