In my #korps story, the gang of “vigilantes” calling themselves the Arch Dukes, are abducting people from the college campus that my protagonist Caden works at. One kidnapping goes wrong and results in a death. All the victims are openly queer or allies.
But I don’t quite have a motivation for why they’re doing this, and I don’t think “they’re just bigots” is enough to explain the specific action of kidnapping. Could use some ideas! #writing
@IsDaGany I'm not sure if this is the tone or world building you're thinking of but, the U.S. military and their civilian companies like BAE target the poor and disadvantaged at colleges. If you look around you will find diversity and inclusion was recommended and is still ongoing in the civilian sector because there were difficulties getting enough hetero white men to join up and / or work for the military industrial complex. I think if you wrote the story such that a racketeering cult was siphoning off the poor and disadvantaged students to use as expendables for a project that would be compelling because it is what has happened in real life.
It's also a lot of other sectors and companies though.
Pyramid / Ponzi / MLM schemes
Disney
Church cults
Temporary migrant worker schemes
Mercenary work
Extremist groups
AI companies
ICE
ETC
Racketeers are always looking for victims to exploit
@celestestormysea In this case, it’s a world with superpowers. The Korps is an enigmatic group who are labeled as villains for wanting to create better lives for people (It’s a bit more complex than that, but that’s the short version). Many of them are not afraid to do things as, say, assassinate someone who’s using their wealth and power to abuse people. The super “heroes” are basically hired mercenaries protecting the rich assholes who wanna keep things this way. Many heroes and their supporters are bigoted, horrible people, but they “get the bad guys to protect America,” so they’re propped up as idols.
The “vigilantes” in my story, don’t have superpowers, but they think they’re doing good work to support the heroes—but even the heroes view this group as an unpredictable liability. Though some view them as useful expendables.
@IsDaGany Kidnapping is a very involved process. It takes a lot of preparation and intention to plan and follow through with a kidnapping, and it's something that's typically done either for immediate personal benefit, or pursuant to cultural norms.
For a while, the Philippines had a pretty big issue with kidnapping for ransom, often with the FBI hostage negotiation team getting involved.
In the realm of cultural motives, it's plausible for people to try to kidnap someone if they think that person is misguided or is acting strongly against social norms.
For example, in societies that practice arranged marriages, if a woman rejects an arranged marriage, it's possible that her own family might kidnap her to force her to marry the person she'd been arranged to wed.
If all the victims of the kidnapping are queer in some way, that could itself be an answer to the motivation of the kidnappers.
What are the deeply-held social values that the Arch Dukes hold? How do queer people go against these deeply-held social values? What good do they think they're accomplishing by kidnapping queer people?
In the united states, there's some history with people being kidnapped and held for extended periods by anti-drug inpatient programs, and also a great deal of history with anti-gay conversion therapy camps doing something similar to queer adults and teenagers.
Often, the families of these queer adults and teenagers believe that this is for the benefit of the individuals, and will aid in the kidnapping.
@katanova The Arch Dukes, many of whom are ex military or police—or in the main antagonist Farley’s case, a national guard guy who wants to join the Dukes—basically have the whole “might is right” mentality. Farley believes that strength is the only thing that matters, that empathy is weakness, peace is only brought by destroying america’s enemies (basically anyone who’s not american, or if they are, not nationalistic enough), and that queer people are weak by nature, and therefore enemies of america.
The Dukes think that anyone who’s queer MUST have ties to the Korps. Maybe it could be a sort of McCarthy-an “confess your membership and give us names or we make you disappear permanently” kind of thing?
@IsDaGany Patterns of abuse like this tend to radicalize people. What I like to say is that we make the world into the way we believe it is.
It seems like a group of these kinds of guys kidnapping queer people and assuming they're a part of the korps would push people towards joining the korps, in a kind of self-fulfilling cycle.
@katanova True, that’s a good point!
That’s actually what starts Caden’s story. The first kidnapping goes wrong and an outspoken ally dies. Shaken up, he takes time off work, and during this time, goes to a concert where he unknowingly meets a Korps agent.
As the kidnappings resume, he eventually realizes she and the Korps may be the only ones who can protect him, and/or stop this. Heroes and cops aren’t doing jack, and he learns just how dangerous Farley really is, to others and himself.
@IsDaGany So what is it that these Arch Dukes think they're saving or protecting the world from? People's beliefs don't arise from nothing, so then what is the connection to reality that their beliefs arise out of?
What actual thing happened that's connected to what the Arch Dukes think they're protecting the world from?
@katanova They think that the world as it is, is perfect because it allows power hungry shits like them to be able to destroy “the freaks.”
The Korps seek to depose repressive state-based hierarchies, which groups like the Dukes see as unamerican and “destroying our freedoms.” Lots of crazy, untrue conspiracies get spread about the Korps, and unfortunately, too many believe those conspiracies.
@IsDaGany No one is the villain in their own story. People have a story that they tell themselves about why they're good and what other people are doing is evil.
Where do they get their stories about why they're actually the good guys?
Committing violence against people erodes our humanity, and it takes a constant input from some motivating force to keep people committing violence. What motivates these people to keep committing violence? How do they cope with the erosion of their humanity that results from committing violence?
@katanova They get their “we’re actually the good guys” shtick from military and religious propaganda, along with all the “we’re the greatest country in the world so we’re above everyone else’s ideas of morality” crap. They’re perfectly ok with the erosion of their humanity because they see having empathy as weakness.
I actually work with someone who says stuff like this out loud on the job, and truly believes it. Much of this is based on things he’s told me about himself.
@IsDaGany I don't mean "how do they feel about the fact that violence erodes humanity?"
Violence erodes our humanity regardless of whether we believe it does or not. This is the root of PTSD, in veterans and in other areas of society.
I mean, when they're alone, late at night, and they can't sleep because visions of what they've done to people are going through their head, what do they do about that? How do they live with themselves? Do they drink? Do they try and find more people to commit violence to, to cover up the feelings? Do they listen to angry talking heads?
@katanova Oh I’d imagine many of them drink, listen to radio/podcasts and watch more propaganda shows, or try to make it better by constantly looking for “enemies.”
The main antagonist Farley, however, doesn’t struggle to sleep at night because his morality is that warped. He has nothing but Randian contempt for anyone who’s not like him. Believes being physically stronger than everyone is the only real virtue. He’s utterly awful, knows it, and loves it.
@IsDaGany Being so far gone that the harm doesn't register anymore is a different kind of erosion of humanity.
Ever seen american psycho?
People like that tend to not have friends, even among people who are on the same "side" as them.
What you're describing falls under the umbrella of an antisocial personality disorder
See here: https://www.simplypsychology.org/psychopathy-vs-sociopathy.html
Note that psychopathy and sociopathy don't inherently lead people to committing violence. As an example, a lot of medical surgeons test high for psychopathy indicators.
Do you think that Farley is a psychopath (cold manipulator, doesn't actually feel most emotions, sees other people as mechanisms to be operated to get what he wants) or a sociopath (reckless, compulsive lying, lack of remorse, very limited meaningful interpersonal attachments)
The circumstances of psychopaths vs sociopaths are very different.
Psychopaths and sociopaths both have antisocial personality disorder, but psychopaths typically lack empathy and are manipulative, often blending in with society. Sociopaths, however, are more likely to be impulsive, visibly erratic, and less able to form attachments with others.
@katanova He works at the college bookstore Caden also works at, as a lead, just below the manager.
Anyone saying “America sucks” or “we’re not the greatest country in the world” or “nobody needs guns” or being openly gay/trans would get him being like, “…exCUSE ME!?” And then acting like he’s been through shit they can’t imagine—despite never actually being deployed.
IsDaGale
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