fandomhigh | Spy Games, Monday, Period 5

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Spy Games, Monday, Period 5

If Sarah didn't seem nervous as she waited for the class to assemble, that was only because she'd spent the last decade keeping cool on the outside no matter what went on underneath. Just teaching for the first time would be bad enough, but there was one student name on the roster that she had very much never expected to see here.

"Welcome to Spy Games," she said with a smile and a twist of her sweaty palms against her skirt as the time came for the session to begin. Her voice came out calm, sure, self-confident as possible. Thank God. "I am your instructor for the next two months. My name's Sarah Walker and, to get this out of the way, I am qualified to teach this class because I worked for the CIA for the last several years. My main focus was protection of national security data."

Anyone at the CIA could say that, but Sarah was hoping to ward off questions.

"If you're here," she went on, "I'm going to assume you want to be a spy, or at least want to know how to be a spy. Maybe you want to work for the government; maybe you just know a lot of people you don't trust. Whatever your experience, there are all kinds of applications for the stuff we're learning here. The syllabus and rules are on your desks, but some of the things we'll cover are lockpicking, disguise, persuasion, and weapons."

"But today, we're talking about basic undercover work," she went on. "If you're undercover, you're lying to everyone all the time. You lie about your name, your family, what you do for a living, maybe your politics, maybe your religion. But under all that, you can't change who you are. You're still you, but the details are different. And the secret of good undercover work is using that."

"For example, I'm not exactly the chattiest person in the world. If I go undercover for more than a few hours and I decide I'm going to be someone who can't keep her mouth shut, I'm going to get caught fast. I'll always have to think about the part I'm playing, and that's when people make stupid mistakes. And a big part of your job as a spy is not making stupid mistakes."

She cleared her throat, finally relaxing into this. "I understand the tradition for the first week of classes is introductions. We're doing that, but with a twist. If you've heard of the game 'Two Truths and a Lie,' we're going to play that -- except you must make one true statement about yourself, one false statement about yourself, and a third statement that can be either true or false. Your fellow students will guess how many lies you told, and which they are."

"Remember that if you're undercover, you're lying for a reason. And in this class, you have a purpose too. Tell lies -- and truths -- that will make me think you have it in you to be a good spy." She pointed out randomly. "You first."

Once the students were done with the game, she smiled before dismissing the class. "Your assignment for the week is to tell one lie. It doesn't have to be a big one or about anything that matters. Just tell it and see how it feels; we'll report back next Monday. And if any of you want to be TA, I could use one. And Miss Bartowski, please stick around too -- I have a quick question for you."

She was impressed how level her tone sounded on that last bit.

[OOC: First posted class of the semester! I will pick up tags in the a.m.]

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"A king is a male ruler," he said, slowly. "It sounds like you're from a matriarchal society: Queens in charge of everything?"

For the first time in a lot of months, Ender's interest was actually piqued by something.

"Well, yes," Karla admitted. "Males serve and protect. Queens are the focal point of Blood society; we are the land's heart and the Blood's moral center. We rule, but that is because we are the most connected to the land, and the Blood was created to be caretakers of the land. Being a Queen isn't status, it's a caste; any female can be born a Queen, whether she wears the White or the Black, whether her mother was a Queen as mine was, or she is the first born to her family.

According to our history, the Blood was created when the Queen of the Dragons flew across the Realm and dropped her scales. Because she was female, those scales bonded with females, turning them into the Blood. Thus, we are more connected to our power, if that makes sense. We had generations of females who wore Jewels and could do Craft long before we had males who could do the same. But witches are vulnerable in many ways males aren't, so males use their strength and aggression in service to females, and females prove that they're worthy of being protected by males. It's a dance, of sorts."

Ender sorted that information out according to lines that worked for him: a matriarchal society based in intertwined but rigid gender roles, with powerful-- Craft? Magic, like they said here-- between them.

It was strongly based in genetic potential, and Ender, who technically pretty much hailed from breeding stock for genius, could understand that. "That's, to a point, how our culture - the one you're finding yourself in - started," he said, at last, "But for a long time, it was the males who, with their abilities for war, ruled everything. As Kings, the male counterparts to your Queens. Feminism - the process of women gaining power and fighting their oppression - hasn't been going on here for longer than a few decades."

In Ender's time, that was a few centuries, but even then Battle School had mostly been run by the boys.

"But why would you want to be ruled by power-hungry warmongers?"

Karla could understand a few males gaining power like that--physically, they were the stronger gender, after all--but why didn't those being oppressed stand up and depose them?

"In Kaeleer, even landens who were being abused by a Blood ruler can rise up and free themselves with violence, if necessary. And if this society doesn't even have Craft to kill people...why, they'd be stuck using swords and spears!"

Of course, Karla had no idea what had bee going on in Terreille for the last few millennia, but even if she did, she'd point out that Dorothea was still using Craft.

"It's not about wanting to be," Ender said, patiently, "Even revolts are dependent on circumstances and the power of the people; a strong ruler, someone born to lead, can ride in and take over if the people descend into chaos themselves. Real revolutions, the kind that last, don't happen in an eyeblink anyway: they creep up and show their faces only when everything's already been done and said, because people gain new ideas about what's wrong and what's right at the slowest pace imaginable."

"Glacia, my home, is undergoing a change of sorts," Karla said slowly, clearly working things out in her mind. "My uncle has instituted an all-male Ruling Council. It has only been six years since my parents died, and already things are...different. The trust between males and females is being eroded: males break females, so females strike out to control males, causing the males to fear females and try to break more females so they can't grow up to be threats, causing females to use harsher methods to control the males...Suddenly, violence spins out of control because of fear. And even people who long for the old ways do not speak, out of fear of reprisal and retribution, and any who would be willing to fight are broken or killed or removed..."

Suddenly, Karla was deeply afraid for her cousin. Their uncle would know that Morton had rescued Karla and spirited her away. What shape would his punishment take?

"We tend to operate under the assumption that pain is control," Ender said, without offering apologetics one way or another. "That the only way to have power is to make sure that no one can ever hurt us." That had been Ender for a long time. "It sounds like a vicious circle."

A small part of Ender wouldn't have minded throwing himself into that mess to see how it could be fixed.

"Yes. And it's hurting more than the individual males and females involved. Darker Jewels are being targeted, because we're more powerful. So Darker witches are being broken early, before they can make their Offering to the Darkness, and then Darker males are Ringed, to prevent them from hurting females. Soon, there will be no Darker Jewels left. And we're not veyr numerous to begin with. There have been two black-Jeweled males in the Blood's entire history, and only a handful of Ebon-grays. Slightly more women have worn both, but still, not many."

In fact, Karla could only name two people who wore the Black: the High Lord, and Jaenelle, her best friend.

"Darker is more powerful," Ender repeated. "So the civil war," because that's what it sounded like, "Is eliminating threats on both sides." Like a cull.

He thought of the Buggers, and their Queens; he probably understood her better because he was so involved with them. "You'd need a stabilising pact," he said. That had been Peter and Valentine's area, Locke and Demosthenes, mediating between the western nations and the Soviet Union. "Stability is something both sides are risking right now." If anything from the outside invaded that situation, they'd either perish of weakness or bond together and fight.

He tilted his head. "We're slower and more peaceful here," he said, "The balance is restoring itself, not upsetting, like in your world."

"Or, I need to make the Offering to the Darkness, form my own Court, and get rid of my uncle. None of this happened until he came into power. Unfortunately, the Offering's five years away, if I actually want to attain my true strength.

I'll wear the Ebon-Gray. He wears the Yellow. It will be no contest."

"Taking out one player rarely ends the game," Ender said, in a rare display of sympathy.

Karla acknowledged the truth to his words. "Even if I became the Territory Queen tomorrow, Glacia will spend years healing. There are witches who have been shattered beyond repair, and males who have been enslaved and will never trust again." The word 'enslaved' was said with a blend of horror, rage, and sorrow. "He's the source of the poison, but it's spread too far. But we won't be able to start healing until he is neutralized. That's another reason I must wait until after I make the Offering. I can't form a Court until I have, and I'll need the resources of all thirteen Circles to start setting things right."

"I don't know anything about your circles or courts," Ender said, and that was utter truth, "But intelligence lies at the base of any strategy."

Ender's strategy tended to come down to finish them, which was why he didn't strategize much these days. "You need to find the variables where the healing starts," he said, "But while you're in Fandom, I'm afraid that's mostly a theoretical question."

A proper Court is made up of thirteen Circles; the First Circle is the Queen's closest and most trusted advisors, and the Thirteenth is made up of the servants who wait upon the court, though people like the head cook, housekeeper, and butler may be of a higher Circle. Getting good information is fairly easy in a Court, since the Circles can and do span from the very highest ranking Blood to the lowest. Of course, then the trouble is figuring out which members of your Court you can trust, beyond the First Circle. My uncle served in the Third Circle of my mother's Court, for example.

But even if I admit no one who serves on my uncles Ruling Council, who knows how far their lies will have spread in five years, or how deeply they'll be accepted. But you're right, for the next five years, it's all just thought exercises."

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Spy Games, Monday, Period 5

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