Simon and River's parents by ncbrowncoat

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Simon and River's parents

POSTED BY: NCBROWNCOAT
UPDATED: Sunday, April 9, 2006 10:54
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Saturday, April 8, 2006 12:38 PM

I have an interesing theory about Regan and GabrielTam. They might have cared about their social and business standing but I don't think that they were totally unfeeling about Simon and River.

I think that they may have investigated to see if River was OK and might have been convniced by the Alliance that nothing was wrong with River and she was doing fantastic i.e. "She's brilliant, our best student ever etc. and she's so advanced that she's involved in top secret research (she sure was) and can't contact you,"

To make it even more real the Alliance may have promised a reward in order for Gabriel to pressure Simon to give up Simon's search for his sister.

I'm thinking along the lines of moving Simon's career along faster than normal even considering he is a talented surgeon, which is what his parents wanted anyway, if his parents get Simon to drop his probing.

Combine that with some sort of an underlying threat that something bad would happen to Simon and River or themselves if Gabriel and Regan didn't comply.

This seems more credible than just simply not caring about what happened to their children and letting the Alliance experiment on River.

What do you think?

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Saturday, April 8, 2006 1:07 PM

RACH

Even better than that...

What about if they got a pay off to send River to the school/lab place? I know Simon said that River really wanted to got to that particular one, but I think the father was looking distinctly guilty when he bailed Simon out of jail.

And manipulative, screw-over-their-own children for the sake of power/money/whatever are always so much more interesting than merely neglectful and self absorbed ones.

x

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Saturday, April 8, 2006 1:11 PM

THEPISTONENGINE

"I won't come for you."

I think that says it all. Yes, they appeared to love their children very much. They had two prodigy children. With one, they were self-blinded into thinking she was perfectly ok when she wasn't. With the other, he was his own man now. He'd have to take the consequences for his actions.

I honestly don't know if we can fault them for thinking River was fine. Did they know her as well as Simon? Could they really tell?

_____________
Carry the Nuttin'

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Saturday, April 8, 2006 3:11 PM

DONCOAT

In my opinion, in a society like the one the Tams live in, overt threats or bribes wouldn't be necessary.

In their own way, the Tams (senior) were like the Operative: they were believers who fully bought in to the system they lived in so comfortably. They simply couldn't conceive of their government doing Very Bad Things to one of their own. It was easier for them to believe that Simon was having some sort of stress-induced breakdown.

And like most of us, they took the path of least resistance. They weren't evil, just deluded (and perhaps somewhat emotionally distant from their children).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I don't disagree on any particular point.

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Sunday, April 9, 2006 8:29 AM

INDIGOSTARBLASTER

I agree with the original post. Your loving, well-adjusted 14-year-old goes off to boarding school for the first time, stops writing letters for months, doesn't come home to visit during holidays and then starts writing nonsense letters that greatly worry your gifted and responsible elder son -- most parents would respond to this by, oh, I don't know, offering to visit her, as a family, to take her out for dinner on her birthday, so they could all see for herself if she's happy (the Tam family seems wealthy enough to afford a weekend trip of this kind). Most parents would not react by warning their elder son not to jeopardize his career (lord knows, if that happened to me, I'd be saying to my parents, "What do you mean, my career? I'm telling you my little sister isn't adjusting well her new high school!").

My belief is that the Alliance told them that River was needed for the sake of interplanetary security (to appeal to their patriotism), were told that she was doing fine and would be kept safe but that they could not contact her because of secrecy requirements (to soothe their parental worries), were given all kinds of bureaucratic and maybe even financial payoffs, such as government contracts (if they ran a business), reimbursements of all River's school fees, assurance of any internship of Simon's choice (as the carrot), and told of dire consequences should they try to withdraw River from the program (as the stick).

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Sunday, April 9, 2006 8:37 AM

WHOOPS

IMHO I reckon that they did know about what was happening on some level probably not too the point where they knew they were cutting her open ect but on some level they must have know something wasnt quite right when she was miss spelling words ect.

Thats my thoughts anyway.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Love, you know all the math in the verse but if you take a boat in the air, you dont love she'll shake you up sure as turn of the worlds" Mal

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Sunday, April 9, 2006 10:08 AM

SAB39

What I never understood is why, once Simon did have absolutely clear and irrefutable evidence that terrible things had been done to River (if nothing else, in the form of River's own mental state afterwards) he didn't attempt to contact his parents.

Based on the events in Safe, we only know that they didn't believe him about what was being done to River. There's no indication particularly that if they had believed him, they wouldn't be just as horrified as he is. And if that were the case, Simon would have quite a lot to gain from trying to get the Tam fortune put to use in keeping River hidden.

I wonder if Simon himself suspected that his parents were rather more than self-deluded...

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Sunday, April 9, 2006 10:25 AM

NCBROWNCOAT

IInidigostarblaster, I was thinking along the same lines you are but you put it together a lot better than I did.

Simon couldn't contact their parents about River's mental state. He grabbed her moments after he learned the truth.

As for contacting their parents once Simon had River and you were in his situtation, would you try to contact parents that you weren't sure wouldn't try to turn you and your sister in? They were safer just disappearing.

Contacting Gabriel and Regan would also confirm to the Alliance where they were (at least before the BDM). Dobson and Jubal Early were the only ones to have seen Simon and River and we all know what supposidly happened to them.

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Sunday, April 9, 2006 10:54 AM

SAB39

Quote:
Originally posted by ncbrowncoat:
would you try to contact parents that you weren't sure wouldn't try to turn you and your sister in? They were safer just disappearing.

There are definitely ways in the 'verse to contact someone without revealing your location. From the low-tech (give it to a third party who's loyal enough not to reveal the source; drop it in a public location; use your friendly neighborhood alliance postal service) to the high-tech (in the BDM, Mal tells the Operative that he's "not getting a location trace off this wave").

So even if the parents did immediately turn over his message to the Alliance, all that would tell them is that Simon and River are together, which they already knew anyway.

Simon's resourceful. If he wanted to, he could find a way. So I definitely wonder if there's something we don't know behind the fact that he didn't...

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