You’ve been watching that show, haven’t you?

I know that you are too smart to deliberately base your beliefs on fictional evidence, but I think you might be underestimating how pernicious this kind of thing is.

Just to be clear, the Unreformed Ultrahuman Rehabilitation Center (UURC) is nothing like the facility depicted in the feeds.  It is not glamorous.  It is not a ‘slice of the Pantheon right here at home’.  Ultrahumans do not engage in wild and dramatic love affairs and use their gift for brutal brawls.  Put that stuff all to one side.

At Tartarus (We’ve gave up on suppressing the name after General Miles accidentally used it in a briefing), we hold the Ultrahumans who have surrendered in battle, those who have sought political asylum, and certain select individuals that Special Interventions have need of.  That much is true.

But you need to put out of your mind all of these pictures of Ultrahuman felons exercising in the yard, eating meals together, all that kind of thing.  That would never happen.  We are not dumb.

Think, instead, of a morgue.  Think of a hospital, filled entirely with patients that are never gonna wake up again.  Tanks with people, gently floating.  That’s all that there is.  Just a cube full of living corpses.

Well, that’s not exactly all.  There are also extensive security measures.  Drones, soldiers and our own Ultrahuman combatants provide a robust deterrent for any terrorist shrewd enough to determine the facilities location and with a gift potent enough to lift them into it.

We have pretty much all of the security features that the drama thought up.  There are bombs, drugs, guards and all that, but the key insight that they missed was that none of that would be enough on its own.  It would be impossible to guarantee the captivity of so many Ultrahumans if they were able to act.

The ancients were right about one thing.  Tartarus is the underworld.  Let it lie.  Enjoy the sunlit freedom that its existence guarantees you.  Do not seek to further sate your curiosity, or you may get that visit after all.

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Hello readers!

November is coming up, and following my usual tradition I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo again this year.  As a consequence, Wednesday updates will be brief posts similar to Sunday updates.

If any of you have any requests, or feel like creating any fan art or fiction, I’m always eager to display it during this month.  If you’ve got anything to send me, or any questions that you want answered in some detail, or anything like that, go ahead and shoot me an email at thefifthdefiance AT gmail DOT com.

As always, thanks for reading, and please vote for me on TopWebFiction with the button in the upper right!