I'm one of those authors that just writes as I go. I do some planning but mostly just write what comes to my head at that moment. In my story, every year, 5 high-school prodigies are chosen to go to a highly acclaimed academy that will train them for highly intellectually demanding but rewarding careers. The government is much like North Korea, so everything is controlled, and they're trained from an early age to only want to obey. Such an opportunity to get a job that'd serve the nation was a dream come true. The kids, however, discover that all this is a lie, that they're actually being sent to their deaths. They'll eventually escape and try to live in the poverty-stricken outside world they previously knew nothing about, but I first need to decide why exactly they were going to be killed. What would be a reason to kill 5 gifted teens in a futuristic society that'd benefit the government? I thinking something like scientific experimentation, but I dunno. That seems a little too demented for me. Ideas? Thanks
For such a government, every thinking person is dangerous. So they select the best and then get rid of them.
I think idle's on the right track. Maybe have the kids tested/observed for intellectual curiosity, the ability to figure things out, think outside the box, etc. They would be the most dangerous to the regime.
Idle got it right. MAybe they started to make questions about their goverment, maybe they somehow listened to the differences berween their country and other countries and started to make questions.
Why do you think that oppressive regimes have often limited education as other people have said thinking people are dangerous. The school could be a means to identify and break the most intelligent ones so they wouldn't pose a threat or to simply to eliminate them. When I was fairly young I read a chilling short story about a child who sat and excelled in a test in some for of dictatorship and died for his excellence. I'll see if I can remember what it was called. As others have said it is very logical to kill the threats. I must admit as soon as I read your post I was thinking that the teenagers who do not fit the mould would likely be eliminated.
i agree... that's what makes best sense... in such a regime, a high level of intelligence in the general populace would put the regime's control over the country at risk...
Excellent. It's even possible to apply this in a much broader sense. For example: few people like to have subordinates that are vastly more intelligent than they are. Such subordinates are invariably a thorn in your side. They have ideas (better than yours), show up your mistakes (and don't make as many), they outshine you at meetings, in short they are... a threat! If you look deeply at promotions and promotion behaviour, you will find that under certain conditions, not-too-intelligent people are promoted to take on management positions while the brilliant geniuses remain oppressed subject-matter experts.
Are you sure you didn't If you realized on your own, consciously or not, that tyrants wouldn't want intelligent subjects before anybody else spelled it out for you, then I would trust that you know what you're talking about. Good luck!
