The CRC rewards handsomely for those that rescue Dereggers from their polities, but what of those who do not wish to leave their home planets because they are trying to help, from the inside, make things better? Does the CRC reward if they are kidnapped and taken as a "rescue" against their will, or are they allowed to go home to continue their work? -- The New Guy
Consent is essential when rescuing Dereggers. Forcing people to go where they do not want to be is what the Deregger Overlords do. We are citizens of the Alliance, and therefore ask first. It solves so many problems before it starts.
Take the case of Freedom Denni. Yeah, I know hir. I almost took hir out of hir good work that one time. Consent, my fellow cogniscents. Consent.
You might think you're doing a good thing, but not until you get a You idiot letter from the CRC. Further, those unwilling expats will move mountains to flee back to their beloved home and the flakking Dereggers just never shut up about it.
Oh you want to hear about Denni. Not my proudest moment. Let's make that clear.
I was young and stupid and in charge of my first clunker. A rental. I had a mad idea for a trade route and using Dereggers against themselves. You know, like ten billion other young dumb spacers with a bright idea.
Some of us graduate to become freelancers for the CRC, but we make mistakes on the way.
I met Danni at one of the cargo exchanges, jumping through all the hoops that Dereggers insisted were for their own protection. Some were entirely asinine, like no leaving comic books where any of the proles could see them. Or books of any kind. No "playing with" my datareader in view of the proles, no eating in view of the proles and so on. I couldn't use the autotranslate, but had to speak through a paid translator and I am certain that they misrepresented what I said to anyone.
Danni was up to something, and I could see what it was. I had detatched and then disassembled all the hatches that lead into the maintenance tunnels, and some of those tunnels lead into a whole smuggler's hold for about forty people. I noticed how ze was encouraging one or more workers into the tunnels. Never hirself.
I was more than a bit angry when I was almost ready to launch and ze was still in the loading bay. So after the translator bade me a "fond" farewell... I crept up on Danni and tranq'd hir.
You'd better believe I found out how bad a mistake that was.
Consent.
Long story short, Danni's on the CRC payroll. They send hir covert gifts of this or that technology. You know. Stuff to subvert whatever security measures they have down there. Ze gets others out and circulates material to tell folks the truth. Really subversive stuff. Some of it's wrapped around extra supplies like it's an accident.
The CRC are sneakier than you might believe.
They want people to think that all they do is turn up with the megacanons when someone's been irredeemably terrible.
What they're really doing is working towards everyone having the same rights and responsibilities. By hook or by crook, as Grennie[1] might say.
Certainly a lot of crooks like me.
Still, it wasn't a complete disaster. I got the "You idiot" letter and the lecture, and we had to script a plausible triumphant return for Danni. I had to spend a year in a Deregger prison for intelligence purposes, and to make sure I knew what I was in for if I flakked up again.
We make lemonade out of all the lemons, here in the CRC.
And I personally make sure Danni has more than enough of the good chocolate. Ze's earned it.
[1] Short for "grand-parental". If Rennie is short for Parental, then Grennie is short for grand-parental.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / namamax]
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