Majgen Ch. 003

Extraordinarily arrogant mentarions tended to mold the feelings they perceived on a near conscious level, to better fit their own view of the world. Weissme's source for knowledge of Baglian, had spent the first year after his graduation studying under Femaron Baglian.

The Syvaron had shown Ottearon Weissme several memories of occasions where Femaron Baglian had misinterpreted sarcasm for sincerity. Misinterpreting sarcasm was very rare amongst freshly graduated mentarions and should have been impossible for a Femaron, since Femaron was four ranks above the lowest graduated rank; Etaron.

Ottearon Weissme had never met or heard of such an arrogant person reaching Femaron rank. Never until the moment he had aired the hypothetical possibility that such a person could be the solution to the 'Majgen Rahan problem'.

----=(Taxi Gate 7, Part 3)=----

Majgen was swimming in the image of colour blue. Something that Femaron Baglian had once seen and was now giving her, in a more intense form. She was not used to that type of sedation during a mind scan.

It was pleasant, like a dream.

However, it was less like sleeping than other kinds mind sedation she had been exposed to. Unlike what she was used to; she felt fully aware while being sedated by Baglian. She just felt more interested in the image of blue than in any of her worries.

Ottearon Weissme had informed Femaron Baglian that Majgen Rahan was neither delusional nor dimwitted. That her peculiar ideas in general were more likely directly caused by her upbringing, than by flaws in her sense of logic. At one point in the conversation the Ottearon had said:

"Most of her unusual ways can be explained by the random mechanisms behind moral, philosophical and political indoctrination during an underprivileged insecure childhood, Femaron Baglian."

Later Ottearon Weissme had gone as far as saying:

"Considering the girl is a 'Hawlun-orphan', we should praise whichever luck has kept her from obtaining permanent mental damage."

Femaron Baglian had much experience in searching human minds for mental damage. For several years, his primary work-field had been aiding mentally sick people. He was referred to such patients frequently from the Mentaricon, but also worked in fields of mental sickness privately.

He did not need much time in Majgen's mind to understand Ottearon Weissme's position on the matter of the young woman's mental health. The young woman standing in front of him was in many ways a nervous, insecure girl. Fear would easily come to her. However, Baglian could swiftly establish that her anxious nature was a healthy state of alert, grown from the constant danger of corporal punishment she had lived with for the last five years.

As soon as he started investigating specific memories, he was amazed at how vivid her mental readings of her surroundings were. He himself as a Femaron could see the minds of others very clearly once he entered their minds to perform scans. However, without actively probing he only got basic emotional readings from mentarions or weaker empaths close to him.

Non-empathic people did not emanate, no mind-reader ever got mental sense input from them without entering their minds.

Baglian had on many occasions looked into the minds of stronger mentarions and understood exactly in which ways mental senses were amplified with stronger empathic potential. He had even forced memories from the minds of several yijejo prisoners of war, once they had been broken by torture and drugs.

The yijejo were a fully empathic species. No yijejo was born with less mental potential; than what was needed for a human to obtain the highest ever mentarion rank, Niaron. The majority of yijejos had far more mental power potential than any human had ever had.

To experience some of Majgen's memories of being around mentarions, from the last few years, was to Baglian like seeing a whole new world. It was a bit similar to the difference between having watched trees on a two-dimensional monitor for years, and then one day walking in a forest. Seeing, smelling, hearing and touching.

'Not even the yijejos sense like this,' he thought. 'Is she stronger than the average yijejo? Or is this extreme sensitivity something else?'

Ottearon Weissme had said: "The girl evidently possesses a strong empathic potential, it would be a true shame to let such potential be wasted." Baglian was now sure that this had been an understatement. He was sure; the girl, as she was, would obviously already now be a valuable resource if assigned to proper tasks.

With more training, he was convinced, Majgen would become an invaluable asset in the right hands. Baglian did not immediately spend time thinking of ways a unique empath like Student Majgen could be put to good use, he estimated there would be plenty time for that later. Instead he continued his scan, he wanted a broader insight of her personality.

Baglian found that Majgen was convinced; she had often been punished for thinking differently at the mentarion school.

Like any other mentarion, Baglian too had received beatings from teachers on multiple occasions during his time studying at a mentarion school. He suspected that some of those had been caused by teachers' displeasure with his opinions. Since no teacher had admitted such a motive to him he could not know for sure, not even in retrospect. Baglian was unable to gain extensive information through a mind shield and teachers at mentarion schools almost always had mind shields up around students.

Majgen, however, could sense many motivations clearly in spite of mind shields, whether she wanted to or not.

The Femaron wanted to get an estimate of her ability to interpret situations correctly. In her semiconscious mind he focused on her impression of; the dangers of inappropriate thinking. From that point he backtracked the causes for that impression, to find memories of incidents where Majgen had come to believe she had been punished for her thinking.

'How many of these associations lead to separate memories of punishments?' Baglian wondered as he found that the impression he was tracking in her mind was based on a multitude of conscious-, semiconscious-, and subconscious-based interpretation chains. He picked one of the stronger associations and traced it back to a memory.

'Student Majgen interprets this to be a clear case of her having been punished for thoughts rather than actions,' was Baglian's understanding of the interpretation chain he had passed to get to the memory. He was not startled to find she was correct.

'It's amazing how little she needs to rely on assumptions to interpret the actions of mentarions around her.'

Baglian chose to trace and study ten more memories of corporal punishment linked to Majgen's impression of dangers of inappropriate thinking. In each of the memories he studied there was no doubt Student Majgen had been punished for her thoughts and opinions.

Amongst the eleven he saw nine occasions where she had obviously been punished in direct contrast to the set code of 'Freedom of Thought for Students'.

He also saw one occasion where, in his estimate, a slap on the face followed by a verbal reprimand would have been a proper punishment, but rather than this standard reaction, Majgen had been given a painful whipping.

In only one of the eleven memories did he see a clear case of offense to mentarion school rule-set on Majgen's part, the beating which had followed this particular event had been suitable for the offense.

Femaron Baglian was severely unimpressed by the way Mentariata staff had imposed so strong fears of punishment in Majgen. He was not blind to the value of fear of corporal punishment, when used to motivate mentarion students further to do their best. However, in Majgen the fear had become too dominant.

Practically all other possible motivations to comply with the strict education at the Mentariata had been forced aside, faster than they could show themselves to her conscious mind.

Ironically the absence of more duty based motivation in her, had been yet another cause for further harassment.

Baglian had on several occasions had the displeasure of having to clean up after similar abuse. Healing the minds of mentarion students broken by too many severe punishments or too much fear. Especially after repeated breaches of the code of 'Freedom of Thought for Students'.

Sometimes Baglian had subsequently gotten a chance to address the persons responsible for such break downs directly. On such occasions he had always seized the opportunity to look straight at them with a condescending scowl and say:

"The code of 'Freedom of Thought for Students' was made for a reason."

If the teacher had been put up for severe reprimands or had been fired, Baglian would follow the first statement with some clear and demeaning comments; these usually of a type which expressed Femaron Baglian's view on the intellectual level of an individual who would inadvertently cause severe break down in a student.

After gaining this early insight into what Majgen's life as a student had been like, Femaron Baglian left her memories a while to examine her mind for signs of stress syndromes. His skills at finding signs of harmful disorders were highly developed. Even obscure symptoms, that often evaded the average mentarion, hardly ever escaped his disciplined and methodic searches.

Majgen was obviously very unhappy about her life as a student, she had lived a life dominated by fear and despair for five years. He feared she might have suffered some subtle forms of long term damage.

At this time, Baglian no longer felt much confidence in Ottearon Weissme's assurances that the girl was mentally stable. Femaron Baglian had correctly gotten the impression that Weissme had not personally scanned Student Majgen for years.

Femaron Baglian feared that the Ottearon's information about Majgen's mental health, might be incorrect. Especially if it had come from the same teachers, who had exposed her to such potentially harmful abuse. He had some experience with such mentarions, who had so little understanding of the mechanics of mental health.

"Usually such mind-readers are as unskilled at diagnosing harm, as they are successful at applying it," he thought to himself while searching for unhealthy discrepancies in his new personal student.

Femaron Baglian was very relieved to find that Majgen's mind had no traces of permanent damage. Her anxiety was superficial, even though it was clear and evident, it was only skin deep. He found that Majgen Rahan was not merely mentally stable, she was mentally sound.

After Baglian had gained a detailed picture of Student Majgen's mental health, he started planning how he should deal with her, he contemplated on the future course of her training. He did not take the responsibility of training such a unique mentarion power as hers lightly .

'She is already eighteen, she should have been near ready to contribute to society by now,' Baglian thought. As her personal teacher, her mentor, it was his duty to teach her to use her abilities as fast as possible.

He began a further analysis of her mind, this time his priority was to estimate how strictly he could push her into his training without risk of causing mental damage in her. To this end he also investigated what had made her able to survive the hardships of her last five years.

When training students in the past, Baglian had many times peeled several behavioural habits out of them, both habits of thought and habits of action. However, it was very important not to rip away even obstructive habits without consideration.

Baglian expected that if he gained an understanding of how Student Majgen had managed to stay healthy through so hard times, then he could use that knowledge to estimate what it would be safe for him to peel out fast and what he needed to leave be for a while.

His aim was to obtain the swiftest possible, but still risk free, progress with her training.

----=(Majgen's Motivation)=----

Baglian was already aware of the problematics regarding Majgen's motivations for working with the training. Most personal students he had trained were eager to learn, primarily because they were eager to be promoted to higher ranks. Femaron Baglian would usually strengthen such motivations by making those students aware of how humiliating a position as personal student could be.

Majgen had long since stopped believing she would be promoted, no matter how hard she tried. It was evident to Baglian that at this time her only motivation to comply with his training would be the same motivation that drove her to follow any orders. He had already understood that her only motivation for that was fear of punishment.

'Fear of pain simply won't suffice for healthy, swift training,' Baglian thought, 'not in the long run.'

'Maybe I will find more constructive motives in her along the way, if none surfaces on their own I will eventually need to pry some out of her. Not by mind control though. Her motivations needs to be truly her own, those are the only kinds to instill the desire to learn and improve, which I need in her.'

Baglian hoped the student would develop motives based on a sense of duty. He had enough self-control to work with students, whose motivations seemed despicable to him. The same way he would have enough self-control to perform his duties if he had to work in a sewer. It was doable, but not pleasant.

----=(Majgen's Anxiety)=----

Another problematic was Majgen's general level of anxiety.

'She has somehow learned to live with the fear,' Baglian concluded silently to himself, 'but there is no doubt it has had, has, and will have an inhibiting effect on all her learning processes.'

Majgen's anxiety was based on a sensible state of alert, as a response to daily insecurity. A natural reaction to a very real danger of being exposed to physical pain. After thorough investigation the young woman did not appear particularly fragile to Baglian.

'Her anxiety would not have risen this high if the normal codes for student treatment had been observed,' Baglian thought to himself with certainty.

Majgen had been exposed to an immense amount of pain from corporal punishments through the last five years. In many individuals such a degree of violence over such a time span could in itself cause break downs.

'It was not just pain, that caused this anxiety however,' Baglian realized as he analyzed the pattern of her general anxiety.

Student Majgen's mind had interpreted the pain as punishment. Not as mere violence. She had actively done everything in her power, to adapt to the Mentariata rulesets. The continued punishments were not just painful, they were constant reminders of her failure to adapt.

In a primitive level of her mind the continued harassments had caused feelings of inability to conform to the rules of her surroundings. This again had caused a primal insecurity in the young teenager she had been. Since the situation had persisted over five years, so had the insecurity had been enforced rather than outgrown.

'If she had actually been rebellious, and had received a similar or amount of corporal punishment in response to a true disobedience. She would not have been this anxious.' Baglian's conclusion rose from his theoretic and practical understandings of the primitive mind.

Baglian believed that the primitive mind could tolerate and accept large amounts of punishment from the 'pack' in response to rebellion. Since the primitive mind mostly interpreted rebellion and disobedience as a struggle for higher status within a pack. By the same logic, punishment following obedient sub-servitude was interpreted by the primitive mind as a failure to conform to nature, and was hence intolerable on a primitive subconscious level.

Femaron Baglian expected Majgen's anxiety would dissipate quickly if the threat of corporal punishment was removed from her every day life. At this time however, her only motivation for learning mentarion skills time was fear of the corporal punishment; that could follow if she should fail to comply with orders to learn.

Baglian decided to stick to his standard use of corporal punishment. When studying with him, Majgen would eventually be able to avoid corporal punishment by being truly obedient. In that respect her life with him, would differ from what her life in the Mentariata had been like.

He felt confident that once she began to notice that particular change in her life: Then her strong anxiety would swiftly diminish. He knew that Majgen was a perceptive girl, so he had good reasons to hope these effects would take their course within an acceptable time frame.

----=(Thinking of Trivia)=----

Majgen's tendency to fill her conscious mind with trivia, was a direct obstacle to swift training.

Baglian understood exactly why she had taught herself to think of trivia, whenever she was with mentarions. However, during the five years Majgen had lived in the Mentariata, she had been with mentarions whenever she was not alone. So in effect she had intentionally spent most of her waking hours thinking about trivia for several years.

Majgen had not realized it, but the habit had gotten out of control. She was not aware, how often she recited trivial data to herself even while safely alone. When her progress in non-mentarion scholarly education had started slowing, she had assumed she simply wasn't sufficiently intelligent. She had not understood that her inability to comprehend new material was a direct effect of remembered trivial data coming to her conscious mind, while she was trying to read up on things new to her.

The detrimental effects of trivial data reciting on her homework performances, had not been the only obstacle the habit had placed to slow her learning. The conscious choice of thinking of trivia while amongst mentarions had an extremely inhibiting effect on what benefit she got from the classes she attended.

'Right now, the best course of action will be to brutally terminate her habit of reciting trivia to herself,' Baglian decided, 'Her ability to perform this thought-technique might very well come in handy in the future though.' Femaron Baglian understood that Majgen would on many occasions in the future need to use thought-techniques when around other mentarions.

'Even though her subconscious emanations are under control at this time, she seems to have an ability to aggravate mentarions.' Baglian had already seen several examples of that in her memories. Furthermore he had witnessed yet another example of it himself at the meeting where he had first seen her in person.

'If she had not been transferred to my custody at that moment, she would have been submitted to a wrongful whipping by the hands of one of the other Femarons present.'

Baglian could protect his personal student from mentarions of same rank as himself and lower, but if she should accidentally infuriate a higher ranking mentarion then he would not be able to protect her.

He had been directly instructed not to teach her techniques for thought concealment, so the only thought-techniques available for her to use, were the ones she already knew and used. The most efficient of those, and also the one she had most experience with, was the trivia reciting.

He needed Majgen to break the habit of trivia reciting, but he also needed her to use trivia reciting whenever they should meet other mentarions.

'I need to figure out how to make her realize that she is not allowed to recite trivia to herself when I am the only other mentarion within sensing range of her, while making sure she understands she is still allowed to do it amongst other mentarions,' Baglian thought to himself.

----=(Baglian's Privacy)=----

Baglian started thinking up a plan for how to make his new student continue to use, but no longer abuse: trivia reciting. In particular he wanted to find a way to communicate it to her. One that didn't involve truly letting her know; that he would tolerate her attempts to hide thoughts from other mentarions. Especially higher ranking ones. He looked in her mind as well as his own, to get good ideas on this. Ways that would not make her realize his motivations.