15 Oix 4260: Gaol Blues

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

The last few days have been so full of events that I scarcely know where to begin, a predicament worsened by the condition that I do not know to what extent all of you have been informed. I gather Song-of-Songs has provided some explanation already, but I do not quite grasp the details.

Mayhaps you are wondering how it is that I am writing this, in Delight's wonderous Scroll of Infinite Worlds to Read, without knowing what has been written upon its parchment mere inches above where my pen now scribbles. If I wish to know, one might ask, why do I not simply unroll the scroll and learn? Ah, but my predicament is ... rather more complex than such a simple solution will admit. I may be of the stock of Accanax's first prime race and not his second, but I have pledged my word not to read what was written herein from 12 Oix until now, and I intend to keep that vow.

Perhaps I should begin a bit closer to the beginning.

During the course of performing at the Naked Parade on 11 Oix, through a series of unfortunate events that I shall not belabor here, I lost possession of my hat. Like most of my kind, particularly in hot Surprise, I had not opted to encumber my tentacles with any coverings. Consequently, the city guard arrested me for the unintentional but incontrovertible fact of my nudity.

My good friend Song-of-Songs was most distressed by this turn of events -- more distressed than even I, I daresay -- and set to the task of securing my freedom with the alacrity for which Orren are famed. The Daukhrame city guard are rather less famed for alacrity, unfortunately. Song-of-Songs was at length permitted to visit me in my gaol cell on 12 Oix, when together we learned of the steep fine laid upon me. Rather steeper, in fact, than my finances would presently allow me to pay. Song-of-Songs rushed off wildly, swearing to secure the funds necessary to free me, notwithstanding my assurances that I would be fine and she need neither exert herself nor panic.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, her subsequent exertions included securing my version of the Scroll of Infinite Worlds to Read. Song-of-Songs then wrote to my devoted adopted cousin, Delight-in-Surprise, with news of my plight and a plea for assistance.

But I remained incarcerated and unaware of this. My next contact with world at large came on 13 Oix, when my friends and fellow quartet members Ioste and Orziman were able to visit. They brought the welcome news that they had (a) secured my drums before anything could happen to them in the bedlam after the guards arrived at the parade, and (b) informed my foreman as to my whereabouts. They were curiously apologetic about that last.

"We didn't want him to think you'd been causing trouble -- " Orziman began, striped brushy tail swaying nervously behind him.

"-- especially since you hadn't been --" Ioste interjected.

"-- but we thought it'd be better for him to know why you wouldn't be in than to think you were shirking," Orziman finished.

"Quite right," I assured them. "I'm much obliged for your assistance."

"I hope you don't lose your job over this," Ioste said.

I waved a tentacle in dismissal, chuckling. "Not to worry. If they fired every dockworker who got arrested, the foreman'd be doing all the lifting himself."

The two Rassimel stared at me. "You mean ..." Orziman started.

"All your fellow workers are criminals?" Ioste asked.

"No, no, not at all," said I in hasty correction. "But as one may observe from my present predicament ... one need not intend wrongdoing in order to be arrested."

Ioste was horrified. "Surely this can't happen often?"

"This exactly? Arrested for having one's hat removed in public? Not at all! Now, arrested for being present when a brawl started in the city market ... or because one's neighbor's good flatware went missing (it emerged later that her sister borrowed it without asking) ... or because one was the only Khtsoyis about when the guards were looking for a levitating kidnapper (who proved to be a Cani, not that the guards knew this at the time) ... or because one made a wrong turn and floated tentacle into a shop in the noble's district -- " I cut short my list as I realized that my audience was only looking more aghast. "... well, these things happen."

"Did all of that happen to you?" Ioste asked, her voice hushed.

"No, not at all," I answered her, gently. I neglected to clarify that the first had befallen my father, the second my grandfather, the third myself, and the last a good friend.

"But that can't right!" Orziman said. "I don't know anyone who's been arrested."

"Anyone else," Ioste said. "... maybe they just don't tell us?"

"Do the guards really make so many mistakes?" Orziman asked.

"They're only prime. Only Pararenenzu knows everything, and he makes more mistakes than anyone," I said.

"It's just not right." Ioste's shoulders slumped.

I raised the upper sections of my tentacles in a shrug. "These things happen," I repeated, because what else is there to say?

Comments

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

That... is quite a lot of discrimination against Khtsoyis in that city...

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Then again, how likely do you think it is that the discrimination against Khtsoyis is someone with power specifically using the legal system and the city guard and such to pursue a personal vendetta against your family and those important to your family, rather than Khtsoyis in general?

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

While my family has in some ways a worse reputation than most, we're rather obscure to be the target of such a vendetta at this point. Our greatest scandal is ancient history to all but the good Zi Ri wizard. No, I don't have any special paranoia about the unfortunate events that sometimes befall.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Hardly unusual. Consider a city, let us call it Normhrame because it is normal, with a normal mix of people living there, and a normal amount of crime. If less than half the crime by citizens against citizens, or the violence, is due to the Khtsoyis, I will eat Grinwipey's stinkiest hat. A certain amount of extra attention upon them is all but required.

[Bard notes that Sythyry is often wrong, especially about statistical matters -- even when zie's trying to be right, which is not always.]

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

With all due respect to your wisdom and experience, both of which greatly exceed mine, it does strike me that, with but one or two Khtsoyis for every hundred other primes in the typical city, we would have to be a quite busy and diligent race indeed to perpetrate half of all criminal acts. Or the remaining races would need to be extraordinarily law-abiding. My recent experience in gaol and a brief survey of the species of my fellow prisoners does not bear your statistic out, although the surge of Orren arrests from the Naked Parade no doubt skewed the normal numbers.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Ah! Not of all the criminal acts, but of the ones by citizens against citizens only. Which is, I suspect, a small fraction of the criminal acts around.

And of course, the survey of fellow prisoners is an accurate measure of who is imprisoned -- not, as you are well aware, of who has committed what crime.

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

Ah, of course, my apologies for my imprecision. And naturally, citizen against citizen crime is the least common category, so arrests as well as convictions over such crimes are comparatively infrequent. Even so, one in two seems a trifle high. Other races do get into bar fights and marital squabbles that exceed the bounds of the legal and suchlike as well.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

I am, of course, utterly ignorant of marital squabbles in most cities, save those caused by transaffection. I imagine it will be different in Kismirth.

[When in doubt, change the subject. -bb]

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

One may certainly hope! My own grandparents got on exceptionally well for many decades, by all accounts, so perhaps transaffectionate relationships have certain advantages over the more traditional ones.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

I think Sythyry might be trying to justify zir speciesist bias so zie can live with zirself? Zie does have a bit of history with doing that... Luckily, zie also has a history of eventually changing zir viewpoint on some of zir biases... it just takes a while. ;) ;)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Living with myself is straightforward. Living with Grinwipey is rather less so.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

But Grinwipey is totally *awesome*, if your journal is any clue. I LOVE his antics!

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

... I am not sure that the words 'awesome' and 'love' have translated correctly. They are not adjectives that I myself woould generally use to describe extorting large sums of money from the guest and relation of one's host, for one example.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Apply some sarcasm, and a feeling of 'wow, that makes a good story, what a grand old yarn!' to them?

In Sythyry's Vacation journal, as best as I can tell, he takes the storytelling position of The Cunning Trickster, which is often considered a heroic role.

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

I can only conclude that his 'antics' are more entertaining to read than to survive.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

That's probably the case!

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

His blackmailing of my cousin? Or his other moments of undue violence and viciousness?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

See the other comment regarding what sort of archetype he represents...

I suppose you are right, though. The things he does are vile...

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

The Wizard Sythyry is one of the most open-minded, thoughtful, considerate, wise, and generous primes it has been my pleasure to know. Zie puts up with Grinwipey, for goodness' sake, a feat exceeding the talents of most who share Grinwipey's race. If zie has any biases, I am sure they are well-founded in zir considerable experience.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

To clarify, that I am not greatly upset with Sythyry's biases, hence the winking faces (the ;) notations). Zie is very socially liberal in comparison to the rest of zir society, and zie does quite a bit of good work! I was just making some hopefully good-natured teases at zir blind spots that I can tell yet remain. I am sure I have blind spots myself, and perhaps some extradimensional creature with experience in a society that has 'a society like mine' in their distant history could determine those in turn?

[calamitous-cani.livejournal.com]

Particularly difficult given the amount of time that your sort spend in gaol and presumably unable to be out and about raising trouble. I have some minor appreciation of the matter.

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

Oh, I daresay it's much the same in most other cities -- no worse than Vheshrame, for instance. One of the hazards of being the child of an Evil god's race, I imagine.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Which gods that happened to make Prime races are considered Evil, then?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Gnarn (Sleeth) and Accanax (Khtsoyis). See the connection?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Didn't Accanax help with Gormorror, or am I getting confused?

Also, do people tend to assume that those races commit lots and lots of crimes too?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Accanax had expert assistance with the Gormoror. They exhibit enough violence to delight Accanax, but with enough honor to delight Reluu.

Each of the evil gods' races has their own characteristic anti-sociality. Khtsoyis are criminal. Sleeth are cruel and amoral. Gormoror are violent.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be interesting to try and determine if some of the innate anti-social tendencies have changed over time, in nature or intensity? I can't imagine that Primes would stay exactly the same. Witness the rise of Transaffection after the initial breeding population numbers stabilized... maybe some of these issues are changing as well, with the rise of so many cities?

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Here's a bit of commentary, relating to some of the comments in the earlier posts. All criminal justice systems have flaws and make notable mistakes. However, the sorts of mistakes these systems tend to make can be targeted. One of the concepts ingrained in the legal system of the society of which I am a part is summed up by the quote,

"That it is better that 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer, is a maxim that has been long and generally approved."

That is to say, the legal system has a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and the guard can't just arrest people without crimes actually being committed, and there are other safeguards.

Further, there is intense social pressure for the guard to not assume that people are criminals just because they might look a bit different than those in power.

It still happens, of course. But we try to keep it minimized. The courts are for justice, not vendettas, you know?

[calamitous-cani.livejournal.com]

That seems like an open invitation to chaos and destruction, to me. There are quite a few things which would justify a few innocents being found guilty to stop.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

And what if you were one of those innocents? And what would those things be, hmm?

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So you don't know why the guard thought your indecency was aggravated either?

[boomstarter.livejournal.com]

I did not at the time described, though I learnt a few days later -- certain violations of law are always construed as Aggravated if performed by a Khtsoyis.

[gavinfox.livejournal.com]

Sythyry and Delight and Song, THAT is the sort of issue I was talking about in the big debate before... You will likely have a fun time reading it, Boomstarter, when your vow lets you, of course.