Title: Sociopaths, Situational Ethics, and Control

For a moment, pretend you’re a sociopath. By definition, a sociopath lacks a conscience and exhibits behavior which deviates from the expectations of society.

Now, pretend you are a sociopath who fell into the position of being the head of a massive, covert counterterrorist and intelligence agency. Part of it was luck (the first and second in command dying), and the other part is a secret. Or it was until one man found out; a man you never liked, never trusted, outright hated, and who eventually had the grace to drop dead.

All was well until his teenaged son, nearly-identical in looks and sharp tongue, shows up. You don’t like him either, but the opportunist in you, the sociopath in you, knows you can use him. He’s young, malleable, and better at killing than most of your veteran field agents (thanks to his dead father’s training). He’s too good to pass up just because you despise him on principle, but you don’t know what he knows, and you think he will be trouble.

So how would you control him?

This question is the guiding force behind the actions Marshal Connors, the head of the Agency, takes when it comes to Sin in Evenfall. To understand it, and to form a hypothesis about the answer, you have to know a few key things about the Agency itself.

The Agency may be a counterterrorist group, but they’re not the good guys. In Evenfall, there are very few good guys. The Agency was founded after WWII as a response to the Cold War, and at first it was primarily an intelligence agency. In Evenfall’s alternate reality, the Cold War never ended, and the tensions between the United States and Russia exploded in a massive war which turns into a third world war after other world powers were drawn into the fray.

At the start of Evenfall, WWIII is over, but the state of the world is in chaos economically, environmentally, and politically. Treaties have been signed, but the people haven’t forgotten; they want an international revolution, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to get it. This is what Evenfall opens up with: a world where governments jump at shadows and move quickly to neutralize real and imagined threats. This is where the Agency comes in once again.

Very few people know about it, and that’s why they are able to carry out operations that are effective but technically illegal according to international law. It operates under situational ethics, views its staff primarily as material to be dispensed as useful tools or discarded when no longer operational, and functions based on efficiency and totalitarianism. The Agency is the most dystopian element of Evenfall, not just the bleak, futuristic setting.

This is the Agency that you, the sociopath, controls. Although there is a board of directors that oversees missions and the organization’s goals, the treatment of the staff and the running of the Agency’s compound is entirely at your discretion. You do just enough to keep your staff nourished and comfortable, but you also use fear as a deterrent to disloyalty.

For Sin, you have found that superficial comforts and the illusion of kindness does not work, but force and fear does. He is strong but defiant; has a high pain tolerance but has several mental triggers. So, what do you do? How do you keep him in check if “kindness” didn’t work? What if he only buckles under the weight of threats and torment? What methods will you choose?

By now, I’m sure several horrible things are entering your mind. If they’re not, they should be. How does Marshal Connors get a man who is described as a “living weapon” and a “perfect soldier” to do whatever he says? How does he toe the line of torture while keeping Sin functional? IS Sin functional? What will Connors do with him when he’s not?

Most of all, what will Connors do when Sin meets Boyd, and everything changes? Connors knows it will only take one person treating Sin like a human, showing him how different things could be, for years of conditioning and dehumanization to crack and crumble; for Sin to realize he could be something besides a weapon.

So what will Connors, and the Agency, do to keep them apart?

These questions won’t be explicitly answered in Evenfall, but they should be questions you’re constantly asking yourself as you read through Volumes 1 and 2, and eventually move forward with the rest of the series.