A belief

[forthemayqueen]

I BELIEVE IN [ m e m e ]

- your character has been asked what their strongest belief is. what do they hold true in their heart of hears? their creed, their mantra?
- post it for all to see in your subject header.
- brace for the impact of all the naysayers.

Comments

[ministryproject5]

I feel like that sometimes, when I'm angry or scared. I try to stay calm.

One of the other project children kills the people who made us to manage the training they haven't been able to deprogram yet.

[ricochetingbullets]

The difference is no one made me this way. I've just always been like this.

[Born with a genetic predisposition towards mental illness. Just a shit hand drawn from the deck of life through no fault of his own.]

[ministryproject5]

We were bred this way. I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone like you in our ancestry.

[Dominic could look but in the moment had no idea. It felt like something the Ministry would do though.]

[ricochetingbullets]

Probably. They've been trying to isolate the gene that causes psychopathy for years. Wouldn't surprise me if they finally did and immediately started weaponizing it.

[He felt damn sorry for anyone bred to be the same way he is. Dex wouldn't wish a mind like his on his worst enemy. And at least he'd just ended up with way thanks to a random genetic quirk instead of someone deliberately trying to make him like this.]

[ministryproject5]

It was my job to alter the genetics of the generations after mine. The first generations were bred without intervention but starting in the fourth generation they started using genetic engineering.

[Dominic didn't feel one way or the other about it. He was like this. Everyone related to him, if you could call it that, were like him. There was a lot to be said for it being normal to be violent.]

[ricochetingbullets]

Did they want to breed weapons or just find the right intelligence level for a guy to be able to move an elevator up & down and nothing more?

[That's what they'd done in Brave New World from what he remembers of the book. Bred people one way to produce the cream of the crop and then another to produce a race of idiots that would ever be subservient to the first group.]

[ministryproject5]

At first, I think it was experimenting with human breeding. When they saw the benefits in the second and third generations it turned to physical prowess, aggression, and better senses. My generation, fifth, they wanted to add high intellegence.

[Dominic shrugged because it wasn't such a big deal to him as it was for most people around him. It was like talking about how your family immigrated or what ethnic groups came together.]

They quickly regretted my generation and following generations had the intellegence bred down to make them easier to manage. There were other traits they found difficult that were bred out as well over the sixth and seventh generations.

[ricochetingbullets]

You make it sound like they were breeding dogs instead of human beings.

[Breeding certain traits in and phasing other ones out to create their perfect specimens.]

[ministryproject5]

You're not the first one to say it.

[Dominic was not as disturbed by the process as others.]

I was bred as part of the program. When I escaped, I stole my children that were still alive.

[ricochetingbullets]

Children? How many do you have?

[Of course, with all this talk of breeding people like they were dogs, he has a feeling this guy could have a untold number of kids genetically related to him.]

[ministryproject5]

I've read reports for the past 30 years but there were more, before. [It didn't take much to understand by tone that there were a lot and most were not alive.] I stole 14.

[ricochetingbullets]

[Dex looks confused.]

How old are you?

[Because the math doesn't seem to be adding up between the remark about 30 years but the fact this guy doesn't look over 45 at the most.]

[ministryproject5]

We...I don't know. I was partially rewritten at least once. My memories aren't in the right order sometimes.

[There are reasons the math isn't adding and they make Dominic visibly nervous.]

My psychatrist and doctors think 70 or maybe older. My genetics make age difficult.

[ricochetingbullets]

Huh.

[Dex head tilts a little bit to the side as he processes that. Again, there's not all that much of an emotional reaction beyond some mild curiosity.]

You look great for a senior citizen.

[ministryproject5]

I've talked to the people who donated half of my genetics. According to them I am a child.

[Not human was what he was leaving out at this point.]

I haven't had the time to look at the effects from the animal genetics I have past the obvious ones.

[ricochetingbullets]

Shit. That really puts things in perspective.

[Suddenly, Dex feels like his life is measured in dog years compared to this guy.]

[ministryproject5]

[Dominic simply shrugged]

I don't think anyone knows how long I will live. I'm aging faster than the natural hybrid I know but slower than humans.

[ricochetingbullets]

Not sure if I'd want to live twice as long as I already have but only aging half as fast.

[Heck, Dex isn't sure he likes living as long as he has already.]

[ministryproject5]

I'm not sure how I existed before was living.

[Those thoughts came directly from comments of people around him. He felt like he had lived and was accomplished but now he questioned that thought.]

[ricochetingbullets]

What would you call it then?

[ministryproject5]

I don't know. I thought it was living but I don't know now.

[ricochetingbullets]

Were you just doing those bad things that you mentioned before?

[ministryproject5]

I was working to perfect the project that made me.

[Dominic couldn't reconcile the comments that breeding people was wrong but breeding people leading to his existence. He might never be able to reconcile those ideas in his mind.]

[ricochetingbullets]

What made you decide what you were doing was wrong and to stop doing it?

[ministryproject5]

I didn't choose. I was sent to be rewritten and one of the rogue children took me out of the facility when they were raiding it.

My partner tells me all the time that how I was treated is wrong.