I wrote this bit of blurb as the theme to a "contest" I was planning to sponsor. I modeled some props and with the help of my partner, chemicalbrother, got them into Poser. This story was meant to be a character portrait contest, where the artist who created the best visuals won the entire pack. Here's a link to an early WIP image by chemicalbrother - http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=255110 Not quite where I wanted the story to be. The balance is way off... I was hoping for casual rambling that gave an off hand sort of backgrounder without committing to a particular set of images. Yet at the same time gave enough for a Poser artist to start working on. I've also deliberately omitted reference to gender so that it works both ways. Please bash away so that I can get this right. Many thanks! - M - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Bounty Hunter Remember how they used to say, "only the good die young"? Well, it doesn't happen like that anymore. At least it shouldn't. Several generations ago society figured out a way to keep track of the good things people do. I don't know how they did it, how accurate it was, or how they even tallied the scores. Gifted ancients used to be able to read the aura of some people, and that usually said more about people then they were willing to admit. Scientists took that bit of mumbo-jumbo, tweaked it and brought it to a whole new way of keeping score on goodness. Santa Claus used to do it. So some sick bureaucrat decided to name the central database and tracking system, "Santa". The more positive contributions you make to society, the more points you gain. You make an investment on your future by being one of the good guys. Farmers and doctors seem to rake up the most points. As you get older, start falling apart and can no longer make positive contributions, that's when they start making withdrawals. Eventually, your account goes dry and Santa goes and deletes that entry. It tends to work pretty well over all. A single harvest year for a farmer will usually translate to about four or five years of retirement life. You live your life normally, without doing a single bad thing in a single day... you usually get a couple of days ret-time in exchange. When people start doing bad things, that poses a bit of a problem. That's where I come in. Santa usually gives us a call down at the Lot. He posts notice that some quick accounting needs to be done, and we bounty hunters go out and help straighten the books for him. It's a nasty line of work that not too many people like doing. You do a proper accounting for Santa and you get ten to twenty years added on. You make a mistake on his books, even if you're on the job, and you lose about fifty years. If you're good, you get to hang around for a long time. I've been around the Lot since the beginning and I don't plan to cash in just yet.

That's a chilly little idea. As I slide down my fifth decade, I especially don't like the idea that: "As you get older, start falling apart and can no longer make positive contributions, that's when they start making withdrawals." It's bad enough I'm excluded from all the temples that Vickys are allowed into, but this disallows me from breathing. :( Guess I'd better start running! Kind of makes you wonder, though, if you can't "bank" points, what would the point be of being good or productive...since you're going to get knocked off as soon as you get older anyway, given this scenario. And what kind of society is left that defines productivity so narrowly? The one we are in, given the idolization of youth and beauty and retirees that are all of 30 and fast money, or one soon to come? Does make me think and does make me want to see the story more fleshed out, but, now that it's not going to be a contest, I'd want to see the protagonist more clearly. What happens if the bounty hunter decides not to hunt and thus become nonproductive, or becomes physically unable to hunt and also becomes nonproductive, or isn't as productive as another bounty hunter and so yet again becomes the hunted rather than the hunter (completely justified, I'd think). I think it's worth playing around with .... there's lots of ideas to explore if you are interested enough to do it.

I agree almost entirely with dialyn. It's a good idea. Even though I'm just starting the third decade, I balked at that same sentence dialyn did and read it a few times to check if I was misunderstanding. People can still make contributions even after they start "falling apart physically." I would think that would be especially true of writers. That said, after re-reading, I accepted the sentence as is as part of the somewhat jaded outlook of the narrator/bounty hunter. I thought the idea of calling the database Santa was a clever twist, and it becomes more ironic (as you say "sick") as the more sinister elements of the story become apparent. On the final re-read, your first sentence is excellent, though I completely missed the import first time around.

M I've read a lot of sci-fi. Never seen anything like what you mention. It seems very original. For a piece of futuristic "bounty hunter", it seems very interesting. I realize others have had some misgivings about the premise, due to age, but as an aging human, myself, I can relate to it. After all, speaking cynically, doesn't the current age and time specify a retirement age which is nothing more than saying, "This is the age at which the corporation figures you have reached a balance of not being able to contribute any more, and, won't live so long as to drain our retirement resources." In other words, being put out to pasture. So, your premise is not so far-fetched. It lends itself to short stories (with your lead-in as it is) and to a novel with a few subplots etc., should you decide to "flesh" out and spend more time setting up the "intro" you have displayed. Imaginative and interesting.

I wanted to add a bit to my last comment. Because the premise isn't without similar ones. These are the movies that came to my mind: "Wild in the Streets" (I remember because of the hit song that spawned it, I believe) "Soylent Green" "Logan's Run" So, while disturbing thoughts may surface (I'm old, too..hehe), the idea is not alien to fiction.

Thanks for the input. :o) I'm glad that I was able to tickle and tease with this short piece. Actually if you do the math on the premise of the "Santa" system, it averages out to a normal human life span... I think. I was never very good with numbers so you'll just have to trust in my uncanny powers of "guess-timation." What I was hoping to bring out were the positive sides of the system. That it is "rewarding to be good", and no longer is "goodness its own reward". Unfortunately my botched handling of the language made readers latch on to the negative darker side of the system. What this system is designed to eliminate are thieves murderers and psychopaths (and all other types that do society some harm). Unfortunately the system is sooo vague that it also nets in bums, mendicants, vagrants and useless lumps that take up space in front of television sets. I am familiar with both "Soylent Green" and "Logan's Run" and I suppose they might have been strong influences here. Not familiar with the first one though. :o) I would like to point out that while the "Santa" system might be similar to these previous works, my main lead in character is on the other side of that equation, and that I am selling the premise that the system is actually "good" for society. While Logan had some pretty nameless adversaries, my bounty hunter is faced with some equally nameless "statistics that need correction". Logan's problem was pretty straightforward, my bounty hunter is open to the classic complex internal conflicts that made Philip K. Dick's blade runner such an excellent character. Not that I would even attempt to go down that road. :o) How can I rehash this piece and make the positive side a bit more palatable? Thank you for your input. - M

I think it's not so much a matter of making the idea of a bounty hunter palatable, because there are a lot of people who won't find that concept acceptable no matter how you present it, but rather bringing the bounty hunter into focus and making that character dimensionable (not necessarily likeable, but understandable). I've already written out why the system seems scary to me...but that's okay. A sense of dread adds to the suspense. And the potential for something to go wrong has to be there...otherwise, what is the point? If all is smooth in bounty hunter land, why would I read on? If it were my story, I'd work on the main character and the story line and not worry about trying to sell the benefits of the system. Let the reader decide how they feel about this world view from the evidence you give them. Trust that they will bring more to the story than you put in it. But that's just me.

Oh, the other person you might want to flesh out is the person/people the bounty hunter is taking aim at. The fact that a system determines that a person is no longer profitable to society might come as a shock to the person(s) so selected. I could see the hunted becoming the hunters. The other problem selling this as a "positive" idea will be the fact that recent sniper shootings have left definite and strong feelings of such activity in people. That can be used in a story, but you need to be aware of it going in.

As Mr. T might say of the "Santa" database, "I pity the poor lawyers!"

Oh, Chuck reminded me of one other idea I had, and then I will stick to my promised to stay off the forums for a couple of days. What if the bountyhunter found it was someone they cared about that was on Santa's list of whose expendable? Easy to knock off strangers, but not so easy to find out someone has your grandmother or grandfather on their list. Now that's it for me. you know it's a good story idea if it has people thinking about it, even if none of the ideas are ones you can use. :)

Excellent point about offing a loved one, Dialyn. I haven't even explored that possibility. I'm tempted to write a second short piece to continue this, but I'm too caught up in inventing the underlying pseudo-technology supporting the story (and modeling the gear). I have a model (equipment piece for the bounty hunter), called a tracker/mapper that works on the same principles as the "Santa" system of reading auras. If we assume that auras are unique (like DNA) and that they can be mapped, this device locks on to specific signatures. Actually with the advent of cloning, the whole idea of unique DNA is not as unique as it used to be. Auras (haven't coined a better term yet) are not only influenced by the physical characteristics of a person (DNA, et.al.), but are refined and varigated by experience and attitude. Stay with me on this... LOL... I know that it sounds like a lot BS. :o) Santa sends a profile down to the Lot, uploads this profile signature into the t/m and the bounty hunter has both a way to hunt and a warrant for "deletion of the account". Point the device at a crowd and it will pick out the target. Nothing new there, but I have taken it one step further. :o) Anyone in the crowd who has come into contact with the target for the last... say seven days, will bear residual traces of the target's aura. You know how when you come in contact with people in your life we sometimes say that a person has "left a mark on my life". Bingo... same thing here. It's a trail for the bounty hunter to follow. Why days instead of hours? Actually I want to introduce sleep as a way to flesh out the characteristics of this aura thingie. Sleep refines and replenishes the aura, dreaming analyzes the influences of the day and assimilates this into the aura. So if a person has come into contact with the target, while there will be a strong initial impression like a footprint, the events of the day will wash these out. Sleep erodes the trace like wind and rain wear away the trail. Again, this is all a load of bull at this point and there are a million holes in it, but I believe that there is a good idea in there somewhere. Thanks for your feedback! I know I have a few interesting concepts here, but I need serious pointers on the writing style to help flesh these out properly. - M

If you revamped the payback of points so the physical aspect is removed, it would help. After all, when a farmer retires, s/he might become a teacher. It's less physical, but definitely helpful to society. (In these days of Internet teaching, it's not necessarily a very physical job at all, but still vital to society.) Maybe s/he just takes care of the grandkids so the parents can be good and productive citizens. Would that count? Your system works in the middle, but not on the ends. Is it fair to knock off grandpa because he came down with Alzheimers early on? What about babies? They're not productive in the least. At what age does someone have to be productive? If the age of work is 18, what if someone goofs off until age 19? They won't have accumulated credits, so they're on Santa's naughty list. Can you transfer credits? Maybe Joe is a saint, but his wife Jane is average. Can he give her some of his credits so they can grow old together, or is Joe going to be a widower once Jane runs out of credits? This really is a neat idea, but it needs some more thinking out. You may not want to solve the flaws, but use the story to show that no system is perfect. No, I'm not a lawyer, just a pain in the butt. ;-)

You keep saying BS, but I see a really unique concept here. Much like your modeling, your novelistic idea is very good. As long as a plausible (somewhat plausible) idea is explained, there need be no detailed scientific basis (at our current technology) or explanation. Readers usually take it an run with it as long as it seems plausible. Or believable. I don't know everyone's writing ability here. I know one can receive a LOT of good ideas and things to think about from most everyone who pops in here...well, except for me, I think. WOrds like protaganist, etc., are things I don't understand. I can recommend you "bother" dialyn. I know she has written two novels (and have been granted the opportunity to read one of them). Your novel (and main character) need to have a balance, how shall I say it, of the "cold steel" of the future and the feelings of real people. As she suggested, there are a few different ways to go with it. I don't know what you intend to do with the idea, but it sounds delicious enough that you should copy this thread so that you aren't surprised one day by someone who took your idea and ran with it before you could. (not saying the people who frequent this forum would stoop to that level, but no one knows who pops in and reads and departs...never saying anything.)

Like Cres said...all those things to think about. Not even sure they need to be addressed in a single book (assuming that is the ultimate goal). For instance (pardon my novice attempt at giving advice...it really springs from what a reader might like to see), the main character could be in, say, five books. And he runs the gamut of being a cold-steel hunter following the edicts of his job. But, from book to book, he begins to question things...just like the things that Cres mentioned.