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Incubator Q&A

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Comments on Is it possible to indoctrinate child soldiers to the point of being robotic in science fiction setting

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Is it possible to indoctrinate child soldiers to the point of being robotic in science fiction setting Question

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Backstory:

So I had an idea where there's this secret society type organization with a specialized super-powered group to deal with serious and major threats. After something of a civil war breaks out with the small group the organization decides to greenlight a secret project to breed soldiers meant for the sole purpose of fighting and killing the group should any liabilities come up. The children, who will be called "subjects" for the question, are raised from birth for fighting the various members of the group, being the offspring of either members or various people with traits and powers desirable for this task, having age acceleration to speed up the aging process to be at the prime age. The subjects have no sense of individuality or self, being completely robotic in nature, not understanding basic human concepts such as humor, figurative speaking, or even emotions.

Additional Details:

The subjects are breed to have traits and powers to fight designated members of the target group, with some even having addional augmentations such as cybernetics, while some have more beastial based traits and as such act a little more aggressive. The people in charge experimented with all sorts of methods to ensure absolute obedience, with some working less than others, until they found a way to make it so the soldiers are all absolutely obedient without question, even the more aggressive beastial subjects, through psychological programming and even setting it up so any form of insubordination was not tolerated and swiftly weeded out by fellow subjects such is done in the military, albeit done in a more harsh and inhumane manner.

I started to wonder, however, what methods could be used to psychologically condition them into obedience or if it's even possible to make them act with absolute obedience due to the human element involved, especially since I began to notice that even in my story the subjects do exhibit some level of human behavior such as varying levels of aggressive fighting styles as well single-minded determination towards whatever objectives they're given and tend to learn, adapt, and adjust and "relevant" information to each instantaneously through specialized brain implants designed to allow neuro-telecommunications among each other, which indicatessome level of social etiquette and communication between each other.

Question:

What would be the most effective way to indoctrinate child soldiers into absolute obedience or if it's even possible to make them absolutely obedient and non human in behavior without just making them into literal machines in a close to reality science fiction setting.

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2 comment threads

This is not a question I want to see on Worldbuilding Codidact (16 comments)
The obvious option would be brain implants controlling the emotions. (6 comments)
The obvious option would be brain implants controlling the emotions.
celtschk‭ wrote about 2 months ago

The obvious option would be brain implants controlling the emotions.

But then you'd preferably explain how the brain implants work, or provide the basis for it to be a written truth that brain implants are simple enough technology that the society has them available on a whim.

Melchizadek ‭ wrote about 2 months ago

Hm not a terrible idea especially since I already put it where they have these specialized implants in their brains that allow for Neuro-telecommunications between each other for faster and silent communication, I don't know if there's an equivalent to this but I wanna say it's kind like codecs from metal gear. That would make sense but I already have one subject where when she was experimented on she was given an experimental implant that would release serotonin and dopamine everytime she does what she's supposed to do in an attempt to create obedience through positive reinforcement, but because she kept being ordered to kill her brain made the association and instead became literally addicted to killing which eventually resulted in instability. In addition I wanted to put it where what happened to these subjects were reversible to a degree, but that does give me an idea though, maybe an experiment to do the polar opposite where the subject has no emotions..

Melchizadek ‭ wrote about 2 months ago

Plus I wanted to do a storyline where some of the subjects rebel and escape, while a vast majority are tok indoctrinated to join, so that's part of the reason why I rather keep it all more psychological than anything else

That's an interesting way to engineer the implants for the purpose, and actually much simpler and straightforward than what I'd consider necessary, I guess because I'd want a solution that rules out self-control by default. With such implants, the individuals would still have empathy and moral choices, that could create lots of issues with controlling the soldiers.

Melchizadek ‭ wrote about 2 months ago

Exactly, now given in my story because they were literally raised from birth in the facility and were mentality conditioned to the point where they don't know right from wrong, not even knowing that the experiments done to them were actually pretty evil. The ones who did especially get tired of the experiments rebelled and escape with some being slightly more aware than others simply due to social darwinism. The rest however were too indoctrinated as far they were to concerned hence why they were left behind. The girl with implant becomes a psychopathic murder junkie looking for her next fix but eventually is helped by loved ones to get over her addiction. In case you haven't figured it out I like redemption stories. As for that idea of emotion of blockers I may consider that, especially since I can put it where someone had it as an experiment but it failed one way or other. Other than that I do want it to mostly be psychological on the other subjects so they can be redeemed.