NOTES ON NOBODY’S CHILDREN

WARNING: This page contains substantial SPOILERS for Nobody’s Children.


NOTES ON THE ORDER OF PROTEUS

A later stab at resolving the custody storyline ran as follows:

Through hints and legends throughout the book, and eventually through something Benny learns while visiting Isaac in the 1980s, we’ll establish that there exists in Benny’s time a highly secretive organisation of shapeshifting spies, assassins and mercenaries. Pending a better name, I’ll be calling them the Order of Proteus. They recruit from various shapeshifting species – they probably have Zygons and Whifferdills working for them (although not Rutans). They certainly have Mim.
The Order of Proteus are regarded as legendary by the majority of people who’ve actually heard of them
The Order has a culture of its own, developed over at least six centuries. It’s as pseudo-chivalric and honour-bound as that of the Draconians, but takes a quite different view of what’s ‘honourable’ (as you’d have to, being spies, assassins and mercenaries). Because a fair few of their members are Mim, some of the essentials of Mim culture (whatever we decide those ought to be) have seeped through into their code of honour.
The Draconians are afraid of the Order, which they believe to have infiltrators in high places throughout the Empire. The Mim, who have good information that this is in fact the case, are furious because the Order nonetheless refused to risk revealing these agents by taking the Mim’s part during the war.
Somehow, Benny discovers that one of the Earth military agents on the Collection is actually an impostor, a shapeshifter belonging to the Order. The Order’s plan – set in train by some of its senior Mim members – is to steal the children bound for Earth, and to raise them as members of the Order.
The Order protects its assets fiercely, and like the Draconians it has the resources to ensure that the young Mim will reach adulthood. They will of course be pressed into service with the Order, but it treats its members well and they stand a good chance of advancement. It’s better (their representative assures Benny when she confronts him / her / it) than ending up with the Earth military and being used to replicate Operation Narcissus.
Benny tells the Order’s agent that she can go one better than that. How would they like their pick of the whole current generation of Mim?
The deal Benny brokers is basically the compromise she’s offered before – but with one crucial difference. The child-farms’ ‘Draconian’ supervisors will in fact be members of the Order of Proteus – the same high-level, deep-cover agents who have been infiltrating the Empire for years.

[...]

The children all get to grow up, and to reach adulthood as part of Mim culture – except for the (huge) minority who are invited on maturity to join the Order of Proteus. Everyone wins – except the Earth military, of course, who object most strongly.

In plot terms this is very close to what I eventually used. The differences are that the Children of Narcissus are exclusively Mim, and are just starting out (they’re effectively children themselves), whereas the Order of Proteus would have been long-established. It made for a more optimistic ending that way.


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Nobody’s Children cover © Lee Sullivan 2007.
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