> A Deregger polity requires people to take Esper tests at a young age. Those found to be of strong talent are forced to go to special compounds where they are only educated enough to be useful, and their abilities are trained to benefit the polity. The problem comes when they start trying to force the Espers to breed to create Esper children, and people rebel in rage at being treated like mere animals. -- Anon Guest
[AN: Eugenics is bad, m'kay?]
Deregger polities have forced reproduction as a matter of course. How they make it palatable to the people living in them is another matter. Some have memorials to "soldier mothers" who "gave" their lives for their children. Some just shrug about it and keep telling their people that their way of life is threatened because a nebulous "they" are going to replace them[1]. Others literally cut off all means of debate by excising the walking uterus' ability to think or act.
As long as the children keep happening, the CEO's are glad. Except on Greater Deregulation Median Northeast. _There_, the CEO's wanted something special. They want Espers. Lots of them.
The history of Humanity's Esper population is fascinating. There have always been some with what you might call a special knack. In most cases, it's a special knack for flim-flammery and sleight of hand. There are the rare few with gifts that science cannot explain. _Those_ are Espers.
Many of them were burned, hanged, or crushed during specific religious frenzies. Those who survived kept their metaphorical lights under very thick bushels.
The first acknowledged Esper ability that was proven by science was the "hunch". After that, others emerged from the woodwork. The Dowsers, the Finders, those with prophetic dreams. The people who could thin slice the future out of any environment.
Once it could be tested, it could be encouraged.
Experiments have been done with Espers before. They will be done again.
In the case of Greater Deregulation Median Northeast, the experiment was a breeding program. With the typical Deregger idea of "subtlety".
Freshly-birthed citizens had a drop of blood run through a testing device. If indications were positive, that child was enrolled in a program to help them benefit the greater good. Their parents never saw them again.
Since it's in the CEO's best interest to promote brain growth, those children _did_ get food and medical assistance to benefit their health. That may have been the only positive thing. As for education... They learned just enough literacy to read directional signs, and enough mathematics to do whatever triangulation they needed to weaponise whatever they had.
They were taught from birth that the best thing to do was breed more Espers. It's heroic. It's for the good of the polity. It's for _patriotism_.
It was, ultimately, a failed idea. Why? Because some Espers have Remote Viewing _and_ Foretelling.
More than one of them saw what was _really_ happening.
Which was, of course, profit for the CEO's only and never very much trickling down to those putting their lives at risk.
There never was any "greater good". Only ever inflated egos.
Word got around. Truth tends to shine in amongst cesspits of lies. Again and again, the Remote Seers said what would happen. Again and again, it was treated like Cassandra foretelling seemingly impossible doom. Again and again, the foretellings came true.
Sooner or later, _someone_ was bound to pick up on the pattern.
Sooner or later, _someone_ was going to act to change the threads of fate.
The CEO's of Greater Deregulation Median Northwest had spent generations breeding psychic super-soldiers, never once believing about the Frankenstein Effect. The sudden betrayal was inevitable, of course.
If only they had gained the power to see the future, themselves, they might have prevented it.
[1] This is Lies For Fascists 101. If "they" are "outbreeding us" then that must be part of a plan to overrule _your_ way of life. Bridge the baby gap! It's your duty! Stop thinking about it.
[Image by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@pixnum?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Manik Roy</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/astrology?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a>]
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