Kids 'R' Us Orphanage

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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@Neo, I realize you’re still working this thing out. On the “human condition” I mostly just mean stories whose key characters are humans rather than objects. To rescue the key 'graf from a way overlong post I wrote a while ago:“Some of the most popular stories are those that simplify other people to objects of the main character’s choices. Like stories that treat women as objects to be screwed or rescued by men; or poor people as victims who need to be saved by kindly rich people; or our enemies as inhuman monsters who hate us without cause and must be killed if we are to survive. If we put ourselves in the shoes of the active, powerful character in those stories, they’re quite satisfying.” But they’re not about humans. They’re about me (the reader) and my world of puppets and/or demons.

I’ve been sending these comments from deep in Darfur, as it happens, where child soldier “recruitment” and child rape are ongoing. There are powerful, human stories to be written about these horrors and the people who both perpetrate and suffer them. Dystopian sci-fi isn’t necessarily a bad way to do it. But it would take quite a writer to do it in a “tactful, non-exploitative” way (as 13ventrm said). And trying to include a Choice of the Psycho path that allows the reader to indulge in the violence and abuse of a perpetrator makes the job virtually impossible.

Do you find any of the above non-questions thought-provoking?

Or just pompous and preachy? (And @Shoelip or others, feel free to come back with, “Dude, you’re always pompous and preachy.”)

@Havenstone Yes, I do find your non-questions thought-provoking, and not really pompous nor preachy, because they’re things I would say and/or question.

I thought about just doing the bare minimum to answer your question, but, I won’t leave you hanging, so in response to your first point, if you can’t see the main characters of this game as something close to human, with the capacity to make you feel an entire spectrum of emotions, then I have failed miserably.

As for your second point, I believe I know how I can make a “choice of the psycho” path (*ba-dum-tss*) while being tactful and non-exploitative.

@Hermit 1. You should play the intro! It answers your first question. And probably most of your questions. The answer is, “I’m a bad person”.

  1. Yes.

  2. Yes.

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Where is it?

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Okay one question is what is the current “state” of the world? I mean I know WW3 has broken out and the chaos is there, but if we’ve got at least one known government system in place that has some measure of competency, I’m just wondering why they’d have need for child sex slaves on such a mass scale.

Child soldiers? Yeah, I get that. There’s a war going on and you want more bodies on the battlefield, especially ones you can mold into perfect killers from birth.

Child labor? Yeah, I get that. There’s a war going on and you want everyone to pitch in to be productive to help the effort.

Child sex slaves…I’m not seeing an immediate need for unless we’re going with the premise that most of the world population seems to be as equally turned on by kids as they are adults. (Regardless of whether its for power reasons or a genuine attraction thing) Even in the real world, child rape/sex motivation as I see it happens usually one of two ways, either the person is a genuine pedo and is going to go for kids no matter what or the person is just so far removed from any sort of morality that they don’t give crap what they’re having sex with. If we add the war element, then there’s also the revenge/sadistic motivation of “defiling” the enemy.

So which one is it? Who are these child sex slaves being given to primarily? The soldiers? I guess they’re “comfort girls/boys” during R&R, but eh, I’m still not seeing a great demand for them than say regular sex workers, unless we’re saying that soldiers in this world have just been completely stripped of morality, but if that’s the case I imagine they’re doing most of their raping on the battlefield against enemy villages/towns rather than the organized pedo stuff from their government.

Are they being handed out to the perverted corporate/government overlords in charge? I could see that, but again that’s pretty much implying that most if not all these people in charge are into kids for whatever reason which still doesn’t seem likely, I mean unless you’ve got more than a few Tiberius/Caliguia type people in charge then I guess all the kids are all primarily going to one or two guys (or women).

Or (and maybe this is the part I missed) are these kids just being strictly “trained” for sex by a few perverted task masters and they actually don’t get released to the public so to speak until they get to be a certain age? (Which I’m guessing would still be pretty young) To me I can sort of see the logic in this scenario a little more.

I dunno, I guess I’m just wondering if this is going to be handled in a somewhat realistic manner rather than throwing in child sex slaves on a grand scale just for the hell of it.

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Commercial sexual exploitation of children already goes on around the world on a grand scale. Many hundreds of thousands of kids.

It doesn’t take the collapse of civilization as we know it.

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Damn, I forgot to erase Haven’s quote. That’s going to tarnish my posting record for the rest of my life.

@Hermit On my desktop.

@EndMaster 1. The war has been going on for 10 to 15 years or so, and is still going on. The chaos and power struggles have allowed room for even more corruption. The soldiers and the common people don’t know the real reason as to why the war started anymore. Those with power and money, however, know the real reason: simply that there is even more personal profit to be gained for them. Corruption has become the majority and the norm in the world, even though it isn’t stated as such. For those with obese amounts of money and power, the “orphanage” was merely another market to create and expand into.

  1. They’re more like mercs.

  2. Hmmm, they do do labor, but that’s not really what they’re being trained for.

  3. They can go to anyone. In real life, you don’t find out who the pedophiles are until it’s too late.

  4. The big wigs and fat cats.

  5. The soldiers have heard rumors, but only a select few have actually seen it firsthand.

  6. More like sold.

  7. No. They are trained for what the market demands.

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Okay, thanks that cleared up a lot of stuff, sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into your story idea. Good luck on writing the rest of it.

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Hm… The US has already been at war for over ten years. Things are going to get that much worse in another four or five? The basic premise so far is, "There’s a war going on. It’s been going on for a long time. Corruption is widespread. Everyone’s morality has suddenly taken a massive unexplained nosedive and child sex slavery is commonly accepted…

Do you see that there’s a bit of a leap in logic there? It doesn’t really help dissuade people from thinking that your main motivation was to create shock value… Or worse.

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@Shoelip Here ya go! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2066380/Will-World-War-III-U-S-China.html

That should fuel some World War III ideas. It’s because we’re already in a war that another world war can seem plausible: we’re sitting on a rocky foundation right now. Especially in the Middle East. Even a seemingly tiny insignificant event can trigger another world war. World War I was caused by a university student, right?

You must live in a world of rainbows and sunshine. I don’t see a leap of logic at all.

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Literally speaking, yes actually. But that’s beside the point. And you really aren’t making any point with that statement other than that you’re the type of person who’d use it as an argument. I’m not sure what you’re trying to argue by linking to the Daily Mail. It’s a tabloid designed to exploit and feed off of the deep seated prejudices of right wing extremists. World War I was triggered by a huge number of people from various countries being morons.

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@Shoelip Please prove that everything in that article is wrong with proof instead of attacks. Even if you do, I’ve already created a fail-safe, in that all I did was claim that “That should fuel some World War III ideas”. I did not branch off from the article. I branched off from where you said, “The US has already been at war for over ten years”.

What other people did was forge alliances and escalated tensions. It was someone else who shot Franz Ferdinand and started WW1. What you really want to ask is, “Are the tensions in the world right now really that high?” And if so, I’d wager “yes”. Right now, I’m taking a comparative government class, but because that class doesn’t cover every country, I’m also in the process of thoroughly investigating the current political climate of the world. So if you want to ask me, “Prove it”, I’ll have to get back to you on that, haha…

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A very dark visage, and I like how it sounds. If done correctly, this can be one hell of a game. I say go for it.

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@shoelip dude back off the guy wants to make a fiction game of one possible future. Sure you can go and punch holes in it but you can do that with almost every game book movie ect.

@neo how are you dealing with nuclear weapons. Were they used up or destroyed? Or is the world one big waist land

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I just think a game about child sex slavery deserves a little more scrutiny than, for example, one about shooting evil space aliens who are evil because that way you don’t have to have any qualms about killing them.

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Hell, I’m surprised there hasn’t been at least one person asking if there will be the option to pick your gender along with male and female romance choices yet considering the great demand for them in every sort of story.

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Maybe because we don’t care for child sex slavery?

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Hey why not, I mean if the story is already going to go full depravity with child rape, it might as well go beyond the simple baser power trip of pure sadism and have the option of an individual that’s actually falling in love with his “star pupil.”

If anything, something like that in the story would add an extra layer of complexity to the black and blacker choices to the point where as the player protagonist is obviously a sicko but he cares in his own twisted way about whatever kid he’s teaching that he can’t even bear the thought of letting her go to some other pervert.

So what does he do? Realize he has to let her go and resign himself to the fact that she’d eventually get too old anyway? Does he kill her so nobody else can have her? Or does he defy the system completely and become a fugitive by running away with her where they live happily ever after? (Until she turns 14)

The choice is yours!

Personally I don’t give a crap either way and its Neo’s story to do with what he wishes, but since its been brought up, I’ll go ahead and ask the questions anyway.

So can you pick your gender in the beginning of the game?

And will there be romance options of the male and female kind?

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Personally I was too focused on the whole child sex slavery thing to even think of romance plots or gender choices. It’s kind of a big deal for most people.

@EndMaster. Not everyone can make playing a sick sadistic jerk as interesting as you can. You’re kind of exceptional like that. That is to say, an exception. Also sort of frightening, but that’s another story. See, all that stuff you just mentioned made the game sound several times better than what had been mentioned so far.

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I don’t think Neo’s game concept is much of a stretch. WW3 could start in the tangle of alliances in East Asia – a war between Pacific powers that eventually extends to the Atlantic, sort of the opposite of WW2. I think the odds are against it (thankfully), but it’s certainly not unimaginable.

More importantly, I don’t think the game concept even needs a new world war to make sense. There’s an enormous existing global market for child sex slaves, extending across rich and poor countries in every continent. Most child soldiers are “locally sourced,” but virtually every major conflict in the world has them on one or both sides.

Men and women are already profiting massively by rounding up kids and selling them into sex and war. I couldn’t point to any specific place where there’s enough value-added in training these kids to pay for some elaborate dystopian “orphanage,” but it wouldn’t surprise me if something close to what Neo describes already exists somewhere.

@Shoelip and @EndMaster, you’ve expressed the idea that it would take a massive moral change to make a business like the one Neo’s suggesting work. It wouldn’t. Our world is already like that.

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That being said, @Shoelip, thanks for adding a voice on the “Child sex slavery? Really?” side of the room.

Yes, it’s Neo’s story, nobody’s saying he shouldn’t be allowed to write it. But to everyone who’s doubled down on their “Woo! Super-dark story!” reaction since it became clear that the story was going to feature child sex slaves… really?

What do you expect Neo to produce here that makes you so enthusiastic?

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@Havenstone

Actually it wasn’t the morality I was questioning it was more about the cost/time effectiveness of it since it doesn’t produce immediate results. Child labor produces immediate results. Even child soldiers produce quicker results, give them a gun and tell them to kill. Child sex worker…hold on have to go find some pedos who are going to buy my product!

If WW3 is going on, I’m going with the idea that the child sex tourism scene isn’t exactly hopping with moderately rich western perverts in the third world countries which are probably in complete anarchy at this point no matter how enticing their child sex slaves are. I’d be more likely to accept the idea that it would be an Africa situation where you’ve got child rape going on by the locals due to war rather than any major organized affair.

The governments that are stable are probably pumping so much effort into the propaganda and war machine that they aren’t really going to be bothering with training child sex slaves on some grand scale. A few groomed kids for the rich important perverts? Sure. Some sort of black market that panders to the lower class pervs? Of course. But still not seeing organized child rape on a mass scale when you’ve got Armageddon going on. Unorganized mass child rape? Sure. Again, I’d be more inclined to see the governments just encouraging their soldiers to go rape the enemies’ children since its a lot cheaper and it involves killing the enemy.

However Neo kind of already answered those questions and cleared things up, so it seemed like it was on a reasonable scale.