False Justification

Kariya was finally back from his trip to the Slums to take down Corneo and place his former 'businesses' in Shinra's hands, and had expected that nothing much would have changed—only to walk into the office to see everyone milling around as they ate. Sly and Hex both had on feathered hats of the sort once prominently worn by a tribal group living in the area Shalyn, Shelke, and Shalua had lived in until the attempt on Shelke, and there was a young, blond girl in the room, playing with Shelke. As he glanced over at Cloud, though, he did a sudden double-take and returned his gaze to the young blond—and realized it was Yufi.

"Funny, isn't she?" Donnel asked from beside him in amusement, and Kariya turned to face him. "She's even decided her new name and identity is going to be 'Claudia Strife', Cloud's younger sister. I don't envy him, but you should have seen the chuckles that roused from the rest of us. Ansha gave the approval, but even she had no idea this would be the result."

"Okay, fair enough," he agreed, recalculating what he thought he'd known about the girl—especially since she and Shelke were playing and talking quite happily together. He had never bothered to introduce them because he'd thought they would be like fire and water, but now, he supposed it would be more like water (a waterfall in particular) and ice. Somehow, the two of them getting along so well scared him. "And why are we eating out here?"

"A prospective Turk is being tested, so she's in Veld's office," the red haired Turk smirked. "Apparently, she knows exactly who and where our Wutain Turk currently is, despite him being undercover with such a good disguise none of the rest of us know that answer. And she's got a combat recommendation from Reno, too."

That made the orange haired man reach up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Really? All this when I'm in the Slums for all of two days?"

"Oh, and the Science Lab's host of Kimera Bugs attacked a street in town earlier today, which the prospective Turk also helped with," Donnel added with another smirk.

Looking up sharply, Kariya asked the man beside him, "Why would the Lab have sent them to attack a street in town? Or are they claiming a break-out?"

"Apparently, Hojo expected them to be successful, so never bothered to 'create' a false break-out record, and because Vincent had the sense to go right to the President when he got the notice of what had happened, he can't hide it now," Donnel shrugged. "If he'd been successful—Cloud and Tifa said they were trying to kidnap a girl with special abilities—it's possible the President would have just overlooked it, but it wasn't, so Hojo has nothing of use to the President to show for it. In return, the President isn't very happy with him, so some of the department's funding has been cut."

"Well," Kariya blinked in surprise. "I don't think that's happened in the last twenty years at least."

"I wouldn't know, just that it's been a very long time since Science had to deal with the same shit the other Departments frequently do," the younger Turk shrugged.

"Has anything else changed in the meantime?" the older man asked in faint amusement.

Donnel was about to answer when Scarlet said from behind him, "I don't know what all has changed for you here in a few days, but I know the President has chosen a replacement for Palmer and will be giving him his notice tomorrow." That didn't just draw Kariya's and Donnel's shocked attention, it drew the attention of nearly every Turk in the room as they all turned to look at her while she leaned on the door frame of the room, looking rather amused.

It was Vincent who finally asked, "Is that so, Scarlet?"

"I just got out of the 'limited' executive meeting—Lazard, Reeve, and myself were the only ones there, besides the President. I'm a little surprised Hojo wasn't, but it's no surprise Palmer wasn't, not when he was the one being discussed. Apparently, he's been embezzling Company money?" she asked curiously.

"The Turks have been investigating it since just before Cloud and I arrived here," Vincent offered, and she blinked, then nodded. "And he probably didn't invite Hojo because I just gave him word earlier today that Hojo deliberately sent some of his Lab results to terrorize the people on a city street on the Upper Plate."

Scarlet gave an impressed whistle, then pushed herself off the frame as she eyed the food and asked, "What's with the change of locale?"

"Someone's doing the written portion of the Turk entrance tests," blond Verde commented with a shrug. "That means she's in our way to the hidden area we'd usually take you into Blinded."

"I see," she commented in some amusement. "So, with storage being re-arranged, I need to talk with you about how to arrange engineering parts, Rufus."

"Fine, fine. Eat first, then we'll discuss that," Rufus agreed with an absent wave of his hand. With that, the new arrivals settled in as Kariya got the story on the storage situation and Rufus' actions to fix it.

When Shelke and Yufi—now Claudia—left the room, obviously deciding to stay attached at the hip, Kariya just shook his head and found a place to sit where he could ponder ways to keep them out of too much trouble. When someone asked about changing Shelke's looks like Yufi's had been, Cloud shot that down right away by saying the Restrictors would recognize her anyway because they were looking. It was a valid point, so it was set aside and he could turn back to his own thoughts on what he was sure were going to be trouble-makers in the two girls.

As he thought about that after finishing his meal, Rufus sat down beside him with a puzzled frown, but he didn't say anything, so Kariya left him to his thoughts at first. Until the younger man asked, "I've been thinking about the disparity between the organization of my father's workspace and the disorganization of Company storage. Why that difference? I don't understand it at all."

Kariya's brow rose, but he asked in reply, "Why create the Slums? Why encourage people to turn to drink and drugs? Why leave rats to infest every part of the city except the homes of the extremely wealthy? What purpose do those things have?"

Rufus looked up at him with a glare. "That's just greed talking."

"Is it? Your father doesn't own any of the alcohol and drug businesses—he's stayed right out of it, so he's not making any money on one of the things he encourages. He also doesn't own any of the businesses which benefit from rats running around, and in fact, it would benefit him more to get rid of them with the same sound wave system which keeps them away from your mansion here. So, why would he do those things?"

"I don't know!" the blond glared in annoyance. "I don't grasp the logic—there isn't any! All it does is hurt people who are already suffering enough!"

Kariya's brow rose. "Don't you think that's exactly the point?"

The response made Rufus' gaze turn puzzled in a quizzical sort of way, clearly asking for more data, even without him verbally saying, "You'll forgive me if I still don't see the point. Clarification would be nice."

"Keeping storage a mess, leaving rats around, the Slums, drink and drugs—those all either outright harm people, demean them, or both, Rufus. People who are ill, injured, or depressed and demeaned don't think much of themselves, don't stand up for themselves, and accept poor treatment because they don't think they're worth more than that. It's how he keeps control of the people at large," Kariya explained.

Rufus just stared at him like he'd grown another head, then asked slowly, "That's it? That's his reason for leaving things the way they are?"

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Vincent put in, making both look up at him. "I wondered when you'd ask, and you should have asked me. Rufus, your father is looking for justification for treating people the way he does, justification to lord it over them, something he can throw at them to make them think he's right so he can be sure he can keep his power." The black haired Turk paused to eye the blond intently for a moment. "Most people who live in a civilized society keep their living spaces clean and reasonably organized, and most who have decent lives aren't inclined to turn to drink or drugs for more than casual entertainment. There are exceptions, but that's generally how people are."

When Vincent paused, Rufus nodded, but before he could say anything, Vincent went on, "Your father knows that, so the only real way he can justify taking power over them is to create circumstances—false proofs—of the 'depravity' of people. If he creates those proofs, he can throw them at the people who would say 'we don't need you' to retort that they'd be living in filth without him. After all, they couldn't be bothered to clean up or organize their work spaces, or to get rid of the rats in their homes, or whatever else, on their own, forget that he never gave them the funds or the resources with which to do so.

"This is also visible in things like how he got an infestation of mice in Gongaga by sending someone during a drought year to tell them to get rid of the dead underbrush to prevent forest fires from reaching town. If it had been enforced that it was the dead underbrush, which would be dry and easily catch fire, that would have been fine, but the same person, at your father's orders, also never corrected them when they got scared and decided to just clear out all the underbrush, even the living stuff which wouldn't have burned easily. Where do mice live, Rufus?"

At Rufus' utterly confused expression, Kariya blinked and said, "They live under and around the roots of small trees and bushes. You start tearing all those up and they run. Wherever they find from there is then where they stay, no matter how bad it is to live there, because that's what they do—root themselves in a place. You disturb tons of mouse nests all at once and at least some of those are going to head into the nearest town. (1) I never realized the President was the reason for that infestation, though. It was really subtle if that was how he did it."

"But how does having mice in the village because their nests were disturbed demean anyone or give him the right to say he should be controlling them?" Rufus asked in confusion.

"Because then he can say the people at large are living in such filth that they have mice in their homes and 'aren't bothering to get rid of them,' when most methods of trying only work so many times before they just don't anymore," Vincent replied with a shrug. "There are hundreds of things he's instigated which fit under that category, all of which are intended to both demean people, and to make them look like they're little better than animals—he can't justify taking control of other humans, but he can justify taking control of animals, after all. He just also needs people at large to believe they are, and that doesn't generally work well to the full extent. It even happens with education, right here at the Academy."

"Wait, what?" the blond asked in surprise.

"It's a fantastic education, right, Rufus?" Kariya asked in amusement, realizing what the black haired Turk was getting at.

"Of course it is!" the blond agreed.

"Except that there are several things they teach which are notably wrong, and are scientifically known to be wrong," the orange haired Turk replied, shaking his head slowly. "I've seen a few of those personally. He's pushing people down certain paths on purpose, and he can only get them to go that way if he only tells them the 'truth' he wants them to know, which is only partially 'true' at best. Let's just start with him telling people the Reactors are completely safe for the environment, when looking around at the Wastes outside every town with one blatantly tells a different story.

"And what about historically, how most people never got an education in the first place? Only the elites and very wealthy did, their excuse being that 'common people couldn't learn,' but then—how could people never given a chance to learn do so? So, they as the elites lorded it over everyone else 'because they were the only ones able to do so.' That's also part of why your father hates Wutai—they educated their people in the extreme, rather than refusing to do so, and instead controlled them with propaganda, which is a lot more delicate a game than just keeping them uneducated."

For a few long moments, Rufus sat silently and thought about the situation, then said, "So he's using things like 'they didn't bother to clean up Company storage' as a reason have his control over them, even though they only didn't because he never gave them the tools to do so?"

"Mostly," Vincent agreed. "A portion of it was greed in the case of storage, since it was extra money he didn't want to spend, but really, that's a minor aspect of the situation."

"...I see..." the blond began, looking vaguely horrified by the new information.

Suddenly, a new voice asked Vincent sweetly from right behind him, "So, what are the rules about where I can go and what I can do if I didn't leave the office through 'that' door?" They all looked to see a blond fifteen-year-old with blue eyes who wore the Academy girls' uniform, and Kariya guessed she was the prospective Turk being tested.

Vincent blinked at her for a moment as Rufus gaped, then the black haired Turk said, "Then the only rule is that you don't use 'that' door until you're ready to hand it in. You're still running on a time limit, and you have less than three hours to finish before being marked harshly."

"Good enough—I'd already solved about half of it before getting antsy. And I'm going to eat some of this absolutely wonderful food before I go back to work, if you don't mind. For the record—if you don't actually want that space found by mere prospective Turks, from now on, don't test someone in there while your chef is cooking. Let me guess—Tifa?" the blond asked, her expression completely amused, and Kariya had to give an impressed whistle.

Vincent's expression turned flat as he said, "You aren't the only prospective Turk to have found it, and they didn't have the benefit of Tifa's cooking to lure them into looking, so don't get cocky, Maria. Whatever else you do is up to you—if you want to eat, feel free. As you can see, there's plenty of food available."

"Great!" the blond girl grinned, then made her way to the desk where most of the food had been laid out to choose some things to eat.

"...That's one we really don't want to let get away, isn't it?" Kariya asked in mild surprise.

"She is," Vincent agreed, sounding tired. "And her sister after her, even, once she turns fourteen."

Kariya just hummed and shook his head in amusement. "Where's Shalua, by the way? Shelke was here earlier, but..."

"Shalua?" Maria asked from the food desk, a plate in one hand as she held one of pastry treats near her mouth. "Probably in the Library studying with Elena by now. They have an agreement—each of them takes some time out of their day to help the other with their worst class. For Elena, that's a biology course our father insisted she—we both, actually—take, and for Shalua, that's martial arts or handling a gun, depending on the day. Which means they'll probably both end up here at some point, together." She then popped the pastry into her mouth.

Rufus snorted and asked, "Well, isn't this just a shockingly small world lately?" The statement made Maria grin in amusement, but she quickly turned back to her food.

"And I have another headache coming on," Vincent muttered, which made Kariya chuckle faintly and shake his head.

Rising, the orange haired man said, "Well, there's nothing I can really do about the chaos the girls—all four of them, apparently—are going to cause, so if you don't mind, I'm going to stop by Genesis' before I call it a night?"

"Go ahead, you've been busy more than long enough to have earned a rest," Vincent agreed, and Kariya headed out.

It didn't take him long to get to Genesis' apartment, where he was surprised to hear female voices as well as those of the two men there, and those voices weren't Shelke's and Yufi's. One of them, he realized as he opened the door, was probably Shalua, and if Maria was right, the other would be her younger sister, Elena. He could just hear the unfamiliar girl's voice asking, "—to grasp how a Coerl's—or any monster's—body works?"

"How similar to a normal cat do you think a Coerl's body is?" Kunzel asked curiously.

"I'd guess pretty close?" the girl replied cautiously and questioningly as Kariya stepped inside to observe the room.

Shalua was sitting with Diva in her lap (since Shelke wasn't there, she could appropriate the lovely bird) on the couch, Genesis was in his favorite chair (to all appearances sleeping, but Kariya knew better), and Kunzel was making something in the kitchen. Those were all fairly common and expected. This time, however, there was also a blond haired, brown eyed girl with a definite family resemblance to Maria holding Sierra in a 'standing' position by her front paws, and it was clear Sierra wasn't especially happy about that, but she was behaving herself.

"Superficially, yes. That means they're outwardly quite alike—appearance, basic habits, and so on. The problem is that, internally, they're so different that if you try to treat a Coerl like a cat, you're going to either make it deathly ill in short order, or you'll incite it to the violent assault of your person," Kunzel informed her, still working, and she blinked. "We study monster and animal biology ostensibly so we know how to kill them better when they cause problems for people—rabid wolves or bears are as dangerous as Behemoths—but the reality is that anyone dealing with them in any capacity needs to know those differences, because they're often very big."

The blond let the Coerl kitten's front paws drop to the ground and stood up to face him, asking, "So there's actually a valid reason I need to study biology, at least to some extent, if I'm planning to be a Turk? I thought they dealt mostly with people?"

"That's a misnomer regarding their common perception in people's minds," Kunzel replied, shifting his feet so Sierra could curl up between them. Kariya got the impression she was doing it to 'hide' from the blond. "Probably about half of what they handle deals with people, but honestly, the other half isn't so different from what SOLDIERs do when we get sent on things like monster clears. On top of that, their 'people-related missions' often lead them out into wildernesses where they need to make their ways through monster-infested territory, which invariably means finding ways to either bypass or kill them."

"How do you know that?" the blond asked in surprised confusion.

"I have friends who are Turks, you know," Kunzel replied in amusement, then took one of the food items he'd been working on and dropped it on the floor. It only took Sierra a few moments to decide to uncurl from between his feet and pounce on the morsel, devouring it quickly. The rest of the food, he put on a tray and took into the living room. "Shalua, feed Diva a few of these things—they're mostly fruit with nothing meat-related in them," he added as he set it down and motioned to a set of items facing her.

"Sure," Shalua agreed, picking one as Diva chirped curiously and stared at the tray. When she realized Shalua was offering her one of the items which smelled good to her, she turned her attention to devouring it.

"Okay, so how did Maria's sister Elena end up here?" Kariya asked in vague amusement, causing everyone except Genesis to start and turn to blink at him in surprise.

"How do you know my sister? Or me?" Elena asked suspiciously, and he had to commend her for thinking to question that.

"Apparently she's being tested for the Turks right now," he replied. "She mentioned that you'd probably be with my older daughter as she tried to help you with biology?"

The blond blinked at him again, then asked, "So she gets tested and I don't? Why?"

"She figured out something she wasn't supposed to know, so she was double recommended. Apparently, you have a recommendation, too, but you're not fourteen yet," he told her dryly, and she blinked again. "So, your presence here?"

"Shalua and I were both getting frustrated with my lack of ability with biology, so she suggested we visit her brother. The next thing I knew, we were here and the Commander was letting us in and was good with us playing with the babies," Elena offered candidly.

"Stop calling me 'Commander'," Genesis sighed without opening his eyes. "It's Genesis—just Genesis. This isn't a formal setting requiring my title."

With a nod, Kariya offered, "So, what Kunzel said is true—knowing monster and animal biology to some extent is a definite benefit for a Turk. In our case, it's more important that we have a good idea of various possible biologies of them because we're invariably the ones who have to clean up after the Science Lab when they create new monsters with generally unknown biologies. Even the Lab can only give us so much data, and the fact of the matter is that they may not have time to brief us because they just had a break-out right here in the building, so we have to just go in and kill them."

"...Like that break-out some weeks ago?" Elena blinked in surprise. "And the Turks have to respond to that without data when they aren't even enhanced?"

"That's exactly it," Kariya agreed. "Though on that one, even SOLDIER had to work by those terms."

She paused to think about that for a long minute, then gazed at him shrewdly as she commented, "And like how those Bugs from the Lab attacked people in town earlier today, too. Those were Lab results, Cloud was clear on that, so he and I and his Lab-bred puppy took out what he thinks is the whole nest." The man's lips quirked but he nodded, and she asked, "So is there some trick to make it easier to remember the vastly different elements of biology I have to study for a single course?"

"Shalua just has a good memory for things like that, but most Turks aren't that academically inclined," Kariya commented in amusement. "I get it—even I had trouble remembering all the necessary data at first. The best I can offer is to first look for commonalities between various animals and monsters, and create your own mental groupings of types based on those commonalities. It takes making a lot of lists at first, but once you have some triggers set in your own mind, those often will call up some or all of the specifics of single members of those groupings. By writing out those lists, you'll also begin to imprint the data into your own mind, and you can make dozens of them, putting every monster and animal in every one which applies."

"...Lists..." Elena mused thoughtfully, gaze becoming distant for a long moment.

"I tried a few lists with her, and that helped some, but I don't normally use them, so I had no idea what would be effective for that," Shalua put in, still slowly feeding Diva. By then, Sierra had climbed up onto the coffee table to hijack a few of the other items on the tray, too.

"Well, there's a few basics, like whether they're carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores, just to start, because each of those has other commonalities based on the food they actively eat," Kariya offered. "But there's also things like the abilities monsters have, terrains they live in, diurnal or nocturnal habits, and traits related to nesting and young. There are probably others besides those, and in the case of monsters, there are even variants for ones which are humanoid versus ones which aren't, and their common intelligence levels. Trust me, there are plenty of types of lists you can make. If you can relate those back to your basic biology study, you should do quite a bit better."

"Thanks, I'll try that," Elena agreed. She then faced Kunzel and asked, "So, do we humans get to eat the food, too?"

Kunzel smiled and agreed, "I know how much Sierra and Diva eat, so I made enough for everyone. Dig in."

"Thanks!" Elena grinned as she picked something to munch on.

Kariya just mentally sighed and shook his head as he wondered what kind of chaos was going to be next. By their track record, however, chances are it wouldn't be good chaos like the well-meaning kind he'd walked into in the Turks' office. He wasn't looking forward to the shit hitting the fan. Again.

Notes:

(1) This one in particular with the mice actually happened in the town where I live—someone from the government came and said we should clear out the dead underbrush so forest fires have a harder time taking, but everyone panicked and decided they should clear all the underbrush. Instead of stopping them, or even trying to stop them, from doing something so monumentally stupid, the government agent just sat back and let them go for it. The next thing we know, virtually every house in town—which had been largely clear of mice—has an infestation and a nest.

Everything else I noted about this justification issue (as well as the demeaning one) are true, too, and some places/times where those incidences happened have even been noted as such, though they didn't say so blatantly that it was effectively arranged by the elites for the elites to justify their 'control' of the average person. The sad thing is that a huge amount of this is happening at all times right now, today, and people don't see it—and it's happened throughout history. False justification is the same thing as propaganda in that the one controlling it deliberately shows only what they want others to know, regardless of how true or false it is, solely for the purpose of justifying what they want—generally, the right to be dictators over others.