Roundtable
Mar. 23rd, 2018 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyA tall, heavyset man in his late thirties walks into the room. He is wearing faded black fatigues and a duty belt festooned with equipment, including two powerful handguns. His eyes are haunted. His label printed name tag reads "Echo 18."
Already sitting at the table is a young woman in her early 20s. Her uniform is crisp and clean, with the Eye of a Guardian taking pride of place on her breast. She is as heavily armed as Echo 18, but much less stressed. She takes in Echo 18 with some concern, and not merely for herself.
"I am Chaya Al-Hardin. Are you quite alright?"
"I know who you are. At least in this dream. What I don't know is why I am spending precious moments of sleep on this meeting."
BECAUSE THE AUTHOR ASKED YOU TO.
Echo 18 starts to snarl then thinks better of it. His life is hard enough as it is.
A thin, wiry man in his early 20s is pushed into the room, as if by an invisible hand. He is wearing faded blue jeans, a T-shirt (slogan: "I only wear black until they make a darker color") and has a folded pocket knife clipped to a pocket. All he has in common with either Chaya or Echo 18 is his eyes. They never stop moving.
"Hey. I'm Bruce. I didn't do it. I'm guessing I've been invited to represent the active shooter demographic. Or at least the troubled youth." He slinks into a chair and a donut appears in front of him. He does not touch it.
A fourth man walks in slowly, accompanied by a robotic kitten that somehow keeps rubbing his ankles without tripping him. He is fit for a man in his fifties, wearing a loose tunic and shorts. He has a bracelet on his left arm and a shapeless backpack slung over an arm. He seats himself at the head of the round table.
"Thank you all for coming. I'm Alan Anderson, and I've been asked to host this extraordinary roundtable. As you all should know, as we are in dream time, I am from a utopian future in the 2040s. We fought our War On Terror and we won it. But apparently 2018 is not so lucky. The AUTHOR asked me to step in and gather our comments on school shootings."
Chaya speaks up immediately. "I am a Guardian of the Emir, and I can tell you that in the 2900s, we have no utopia. We have evil and good, just as now, and even Allah cannot protect us from terrorism. Good people die every day keeping that evil back. I believe most Christians are good people, but the ones who are not... Tell me, Alan, how did you do it?"
"I didn't do it. Protocol did. In our Itty Bitty Bigger World, we have built up mutual assured destruction to a high art form. Stunners are everywhere - if there is a light bulb, there is a camera and a stunner attached. People who commit crimes are increasingly restrained as needed. But someone who kills for mere politics is disgusting to us ... not admired, not emulated, a tragic event without any hint of decency or respect. So there is no point to terror - it is the fastest way to lose. Everything."
Chaya touches the electrowire projector at her belt. "A world in which everyone is constantly made moral at the point of a shock stick ..."
"... is vastly preferable to a world in flames," Echo 18 interjects. "Here in the privacy of my head, I acknowledge that my world is fallen -- we nuked our own cities to give us an excuse to blow up _China_, for God's sake! Even here I don't even want to think about Homeland and how they are making Nazis look like kids playing dress up. The only reason the people I protect are still alive is because we can hold the perimeter, create a little artificial world where people don't kill each other over cans of irradiated food and there is the illusion that Homeland can't come in and cap you whenever they feel like it."
Bruce looks back and forth between the other three. He is feeling out of place, and is by far the least heavily armed. But he has some sharp words.
"Evil never dies. I assume people still torture their children in both 2045 and 2945, am I right?"
Chaya shakes her head sadly. "Not once we find out about it. The Emir is the parent of last resort. Allah makes it very clear that children are to be loved and cherished and we follow Allah's will in all things. We are mortal and as mortals can fail, but what matters next is how we make amends."
Bruce starts to say "Bullshit!" and stops himself.
Alan adds, "In a total surveillance society, you can't abuse your children. A parent's conduct is subject to audit by a jury of her peers at all times -- all parents themselves. There is no place and no time that a camera is not recording you. Ever."
Echo 18 flinches. Even Chaya is a little shocked.
"No privacy?" she asks. "So evil is prevented by panopticon rather than by following the teachings of Allah?"
"Perhaps a better term is sousveillance. Not one watching many, but many watching many. You Guardians watch on behalf of the Emir -- but who watches you?"
It is Chaya's turn to flinch, but she rallies. "Bruce, why did you lead with that question?"
"You have to break someone to get them that fucked up. We're talking about school shooters, right? Broken kids, broken teens, broken young adults. I know a lot of them. You all know I was expelled, right? I was naive enough to believe that a principal raping school athletes could be taken down with photographs and testimony. I know better now. Show me a school shooter and I'll show you how they got that way. Bring a strong stomach."
Chaya shakes her head. "Our terrorists are political. They oppose the Emir, they oppose the natural law of a society guided by Allah. They have no use for broken souls except to lie to them tenderly, strap bombs to them and send them out to kill, then laugh at their stupidity."
Echo 18 snarls, "Where I come from, we call that the military."
It is Alan's turn to shake his head. "We are post military as well. You don't fight on that scale. No one would dare. Too dangerous, too destabilizing. Your own neighbors would take you down first. I am starting to wonder if I have anything to contribute here."
YOU DON'T HAVE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS.
"No, we have mass stun fields in every room in a school and chemscanners and smartgun detectors everywhere. If I tried to carry this," holds up his backpack, "into a school, I would get warned, then stunned. If I engaged an antistun field, the nearest robotics would kamikaze me into raspberry jelly. Our schools are fortresses because everywhere is a fortress."
"And nobody hacks all this crap?" Bruce asks.
"Everything in Protocol requires numerous people to sign off on it. You can build a nuke in your basement if you can get a majority of the neighbors in blast range to sign off on the applicable Protocols. But you can't hack into a stunner let alone a bot by yourself."
"Well, that doesn't help 2018," Echo 18 says wearily. "I can tell you what I'd do. One entrance, guarded, searched. Rapid reaction on site. One way exits, turnstiles. Alarms if exterior doors are propped. Panic alarms in all rooms. The ability to barricade all rooms, and first aid kits inside them. Training for all students and staff. But you have to remember this -- a school shooting is an inside job! How do you know your fucking tango hasn't hidden his handgun in a first aid kit? Not a hypothetical, San Diego State 1995. And don't forget that your reaction force has to be both brave and competent. I can see why the push for armed teachers. They're cheap and they're there. And they're brave, they can die by the numbers just as good as any of my guards. But competence in a classroom is not competence in close quarters battle."
Chaya nods. "Much what we do with secure facilities. But we heavily restrict access to weapons. Our strongmen carry swords. Only in government service can they carry projectile weapons. Only Emirate soldiers and Guardians carry power weapons, and we are very careful with those, both individually and collectively. Your 2018 America is full of what I can only call filth - pornography, narcotics, firearms, explosives components, unaudited transport, indecent clothing, mixing of genders in private. You give your common folk such power then act so surprised when they abuse it."
"No. We don't. You're talking about freedom," Bruce retorts. "The freedom to fuck up - yes, and fuck around, the freedom for the little guy to not be pushed around too much by the big guy. I know a lot of crooks and they're just trying to get by like everyone else. You know what crooks do to tangos? We fuck them up, almost as bad as we do kiddie diddlers. I think maybe you have a terrorist problem because you don't have _enough_ criminals."
Chaya is struck by this thought and concentrates, wishing to keep it upon waking.
Alan opens his backpack and takes out a small handgun, setting it carefully on the table.
"This is a smartgun. It is coded to me and only works for me. It has a stunner built in, but it's for when stunners simply won't do. To carry it at home, I had to complete four hundred hours of close quarters combat training - back in 2025 - and keep up with ten hours a _month_ of in-service training. Most of that time is simulated gunfights, the rest is law and tactics. I had to post a 100,000 credit damage bond; a poor person could afford insurance but I just plunked down the cash. My medical and psychological records are audited. Anyone with the determination to get a pilot's license could carry a smartgun in 2045. But wasn't one of the worst shooting incidents back then, the Las Vegas bump stock concert shooting, committed _by a licensed pilot_?"
NOT A SCHOOL SHOOTING.
"Sorry, author, but if we're talking access to deadly weapons in 2018, I think that counts too. Crank up the ages, crank up the background checks, but your school shooter or terrorist will simply steal from authorized persons or follow simple manufacturing instructions. Chaya, how well can the Emirate prevent bombings? And you have tech far beyond what we do."
"But we don't use it _that way_."
"But you _could_."
Chaya shakes her head. "I doubt that we could. The Emir rules but also leads. Our society's rules are strict but ... loose in places. If we enforced the laws of Allah with an almost blasphemous ability to see all and control all ... people are human, not angels, and before long everyone would be a criminal. I cannot say that I have not damned Allah in moments of weakness, but there was no recorder to put me before a morals court -- and I am utterly devoted to Him."
"So you tolerate a certain level of freedom to maintain a society real people can live in. I will tell you frankly what troubles me, and the leaders of San San. Our suicide rate is among the lowest of any civilized society -- but it still happens, and that despite the extraordinary surveillance and forcible administration of treatment. People are endlessly creative in finding ways to die when they feel compelled to do so." Alan thinks of a man falling from a hang glider at altitude.
"Think of it as murder with the only accessible victim being themselves," Echo 18 slurs. Even in his dreams he is exhausted.
"Interesting point. So do we focus on the offender, or on target hardening?" Of the four, Chaya has the most training in criminology and policing. Alan is a police reservist - being a Guardian is her career and her second faith.
"Both," Bruce snaps. "You have to shoot some kid who brings an arsenal to school, you do it. But you didn't win. You prevented a greater loss. Better that you prevent it. And much as I hate to admit it, spying on each other is a great way to do that."
Prompted, Echo 18 completes the crime triangle. "Guardianship. You don't stop school shooters with school cops. You stop school shooters with guidance counselors. And parents, I suppose. In theory."
"That's an advantage of sousveillance. No child in San San lacks for a parent."
"Did you return that E-mail from that kid yet?" Bruce snaps.
"No, I've been a little _dead_. And busy."
"So do we have some conclusions?"
# Potential offender detection. Both community observations and through adequately staffed efforts. The red flags are known - animal abuse in particular.
# Offender treatment and incapacitation, mental health and/or criminal as applicable. Civil rights must be respected but the dangerously mentally ill must be disarmed.
# Target hardening. We protect schools from fires with sprinklers, building codes and brave firefighters. We protect from armed intruders with alarm systems, building design, and on site responders who confront and engage the attacker. This last requires careful consideration - does that first aid kit have a firearm in it?
THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING.
"As if we had a choice," mutters Bruce as he slinks back out.
Echo 18 has fallen asleep on the table. Dreaming of sleep.
Alan secures his smartgun. The KittenBot pauses for a brief scritch from Chaya, then leads him out.
She is very thoughtful.
"Criminals to fight terror ... how is it that children have become enemies?"
Already sitting at the table is a young woman in her early 20s. Her uniform is crisp and clean, with the Eye of a Guardian taking pride of place on her breast. She is as heavily armed as Echo 18, but much less stressed. She takes in Echo 18 with some concern, and not merely for herself.
"I am Chaya Al-Hardin. Are you quite alright?"
"I know who you are. At least in this dream. What I don't know is why I am spending precious moments of sleep on this meeting."
BECAUSE THE AUTHOR ASKED YOU TO.
Echo 18 starts to snarl then thinks better of it. His life is hard enough as it is.
A thin, wiry man in his early 20s is pushed into the room, as if by an invisible hand. He is wearing faded blue jeans, a T-shirt (slogan: "I only wear black until they make a darker color") and has a folded pocket knife clipped to a pocket. All he has in common with either Chaya or Echo 18 is his eyes. They never stop moving.
"Hey. I'm Bruce. I didn't do it. I'm guessing I've been invited to represent the active shooter demographic. Or at least the troubled youth." He slinks into a chair and a donut appears in front of him. He does not touch it.
A fourth man walks in slowly, accompanied by a robotic kitten that somehow keeps rubbing his ankles without tripping him. He is fit for a man in his fifties, wearing a loose tunic and shorts. He has a bracelet on his left arm and a shapeless backpack slung over an arm. He seats himself at the head of the round table.
"Thank you all for coming. I'm Alan Anderson, and I've been asked to host this extraordinary roundtable. As you all should know, as we are in dream time, I am from a utopian future in the 2040s. We fought our War On Terror and we won it. But apparently 2018 is not so lucky. The AUTHOR asked me to step in and gather our comments on school shootings."
Chaya speaks up immediately. "I am a Guardian of the Emir, and I can tell you that in the 2900s, we have no utopia. We have evil and good, just as now, and even Allah cannot protect us from terrorism. Good people die every day keeping that evil back. I believe most Christians are good people, but the ones who are not... Tell me, Alan, how did you do it?"
"I didn't do it. Protocol did. In our Itty Bitty Bigger World, we have built up mutual assured destruction to a high art form. Stunners are everywhere - if there is a light bulb, there is a camera and a stunner attached. People who commit crimes are increasingly restrained as needed. But someone who kills for mere politics is disgusting to us ... not admired, not emulated, a tragic event without any hint of decency or respect. So there is no point to terror - it is the fastest way to lose. Everything."
Chaya touches the electrowire projector at her belt. "A world in which everyone is constantly made moral at the point of a shock stick ..."
"... is vastly preferable to a world in flames," Echo 18 interjects. "Here in the privacy of my head, I acknowledge that my world is fallen -- we nuked our own cities to give us an excuse to blow up _China_, for God's sake! Even here I don't even want to think about Homeland and how they are making Nazis look like kids playing dress up. The only reason the people I protect are still alive is because we can hold the perimeter, create a little artificial world where people don't kill each other over cans of irradiated food and there is the illusion that Homeland can't come in and cap you whenever they feel like it."
Bruce looks back and forth between the other three. He is feeling out of place, and is by far the least heavily armed. But he has some sharp words.
"Evil never dies. I assume people still torture their children in both 2045 and 2945, am I right?"
Chaya shakes her head sadly. "Not once we find out about it. The Emir is the parent of last resort. Allah makes it very clear that children are to be loved and cherished and we follow Allah's will in all things. We are mortal and as mortals can fail, but what matters next is how we make amends."
Bruce starts to say "Bullshit!" and stops himself.
Alan adds, "In a total surveillance society, you can't abuse your children. A parent's conduct is subject to audit by a jury of her peers at all times -- all parents themselves. There is no place and no time that a camera is not recording you. Ever."
Echo 18 flinches. Even Chaya is a little shocked.
"No privacy?" she asks. "So evil is prevented by panopticon rather than by following the teachings of Allah?"
"Perhaps a better term is sousveillance. Not one watching many, but many watching many. You Guardians watch on behalf of the Emir -- but who watches you?"
It is Chaya's turn to flinch, but she rallies. "Bruce, why did you lead with that question?"
"You have to break someone to get them that fucked up. We're talking about school shooters, right? Broken kids, broken teens, broken young adults. I know a lot of them. You all know I was expelled, right? I was naive enough to believe that a principal raping school athletes could be taken down with photographs and testimony. I know better now. Show me a school shooter and I'll show you how they got that way. Bring a strong stomach."
Chaya shakes her head. "Our terrorists are political. They oppose the Emir, they oppose the natural law of a society guided by Allah. They have no use for broken souls except to lie to them tenderly, strap bombs to them and send them out to kill, then laugh at their stupidity."
Echo 18 snarls, "Where I come from, we call that the military."
It is Alan's turn to shake his head. "We are post military as well. You don't fight on that scale. No one would dare. Too dangerous, too destabilizing. Your own neighbors would take you down first. I am starting to wonder if I have anything to contribute here."
YOU DON'T HAVE SCHOOL SHOOTINGS.
"No, we have mass stun fields in every room in a school and chemscanners and smartgun detectors everywhere. If I tried to carry this," holds up his backpack, "into a school, I would get warned, then stunned. If I engaged an antistun field, the nearest robotics would kamikaze me into raspberry jelly. Our schools are fortresses because everywhere is a fortress."
"And nobody hacks all this crap?" Bruce asks.
"Everything in Protocol requires numerous people to sign off on it. You can build a nuke in your basement if you can get a majority of the neighbors in blast range to sign off on the applicable Protocols. But you can't hack into a stunner let alone a bot by yourself."
"Well, that doesn't help 2018," Echo 18 says wearily. "I can tell you what I'd do. One entrance, guarded, searched. Rapid reaction on site. One way exits, turnstiles. Alarms if exterior doors are propped. Panic alarms in all rooms. The ability to barricade all rooms, and first aid kits inside them. Training for all students and staff. But you have to remember this -- a school shooting is an inside job! How do you know your fucking tango hasn't hidden his handgun in a first aid kit? Not a hypothetical, San Diego State 1995. And don't forget that your reaction force has to be both brave and competent. I can see why the push for armed teachers. They're cheap and they're there. And they're brave, they can die by the numbers just as good as any of my guards. But competence in a classroom is not competence in close quarters battle."
Chaya nods. "Much what we do with secure facilities. But we heavily restrict access to weapons. Our strongmen carry swords. Only in government service can they carry projectile weapons. Only Emirate soldiers and Guardians carry power weapons, and we are very careful with those, both individually and collectively. Your 2018 America is full of what I can only call filth - pornography, narcotics, firearms, explosives components, unaudited transport, indecent clothing, mixing of genders in private. You give your common folk such power then act so surprised when they abuse it."
"No. We don't. You're talking about freedom," Bruce retorts. "The freedom to fuck up - yes, and fuck around, the freedom for the little guy to not be pushed around too much by the big guy. I know a lot of crooks and they're just trying to get by like everyone else. You know what crooks do to tangos? We fuck them up, almost as bad as we do kiddie diddlers. I think maybe you have a terrorist problem because you don't have _enough_ criminals."
Chaya is struck by this thought and concentrates, wishing to keep it upon waking.
Alan opens his backpack and takes out a small handgun, setting it carefully on the table.
"This is a smartgun. It is coded to me and only works for me. It has a stunner built in, but it's for when stunners simply won't do. To carry it at home, I had to complete four hundred hours of close quarters combat training - back in 2025 - and keep up with ten hours a _month_ of in-service training. Most of that time is simulated gunfights, the rest is law and tactics. I had to post a 100,000 credit damage bond; a poor person could afford insurance but I just plunked down the cash. My medical and psychological records are audited. Anyone with the determination to get a pilot's license could carry a smartgun in 2045. But wasn't one of the worst shooting incidents back then, the Las Vegas bump stock concert shooting, committed _by a licensed pilot_?"
NOT A SCHOOL SHOOTING.
"Sorry, author, but if we're talking access to deadly weapons in 2018, I think that counts too. Crank up the ages, crank up the background checks, but your school shooter or terrorist will simply steal from authorized persons or follow simple manufacturing instructions. Chaya, how well can the Emirate prevent bombings? And you have tech far beyond what we do."
"But we don't use it _that way_."
"But you _could_."
Chaya shakes her head. "I doubt that we could. The Emir rules but also leads. Our society's rules are strict but ... loose in places. If we enforced the laws of Allah with an almost blasphemous ability to see all and control all ... people are human, not angels, and before long everyone would be a criminal. I cannot say that I have not damned Allah in moments of weakness, but there was no recorder to put me before a morals court -- and I am utterly devoted to Him."
"So you tolerate a certain level of freedom to maintain a society real people can live in. I will tell you frankly what troubles me, and the leaders of San San. Our suicide rate is among the lowest of any civilized society -- but it still happens, and that despite the extraordinary surveillance and forcible administration of treatment. People are endlessly creative in finding ways to die when they feel compelled to do so." Alan thinks of a man falling from a hang glider at altitude.
"Think of it as murder with the only accessible victim being themselves," Echo 18 slurs. Even in his dreams he is exhausted.
"Interesting point. So do we focus on the offender, or on target hardening?" Of the four, Chaya has the most training in criminology and policing. Alan is a police reservist - being a Guardian is her career and her second faith.
"Both," Bruce snaps. "You have to shoot some kid who brings an arsenal to school, you do it. But you didn't win. You prevented a greater loss. Better that you prevent it. And much as I hate to admit it, spying on each other is a great way to do that."
Prompted, Echo 18 completes the crime triangle. "Guardianship. You don't stop school shooters with school cops. You stop school shooters with guidance counselors. And parents, I suppose. In theory."
"That's an advantage of sousveillance. No child in San San lacks for a parent."
"Did you return that E-mail from that kid yet?" Bruce snaps.
"No, I've been a little _dead_. And busy."
"So do we have some conclusions?"
# Potential offender detection. Both community observations and through adequately staffed efforts. The red flags are known - animal abuse in particular.
# Offender treatment and incapacitation, mental health and/or criminal as applicable. Civil rights must be respected but the dangerously mentally ill must be disarmed.
# Target hardening. We protect schools from fires with sprinklers, building codes and brave firefighters. We protect from armed intruders with alarm systems, building design, and on site responders who confront and engage the attacker. This last requires careful consideration - does that first aid kit have a firearm in it?
THANK YOU ALL FOR COMING.
"As if we had a choice," mutters Bruce as he slinks back out.
Echo 18 has fallen asleep on the table. Dreaming of sleep.
Alan secures his smartgun. The KittenBot pauses for a brief scritch from Chaya, then leads him out.
She is very thoughtful.
"Criminals to fight terror ... how is it that children have become enemies?"
