Mutant Draft Board: Difference between revisions

* Averted in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] Season Eight''. While Buffy's Slayer organization tries to persuade new Slayers to join, they don't force them to do so, and allow them to slay independently or as an extracurricular activity. They're less nice about Slayers who misuse their powers, like Simone or Gigi, of course.

* A relatively benevolent form appears in ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' - any and all psychics found are rounded up and enrolled in the Academy of Law so that their powers can be used to fight crime. Those that fail to qualify are allowed to live as normal citizens, but must register as psychics.

 

== Film ==

** The Black Tower has a very short policy on people leaving: they're classed as deserters and their heads hung from the Traitor's Tree. It's unclear whether they recruit unsanctioned male channelers by force; [[Fanon]] tends to have them be very intolerant of the subject.

* The Esper Guild in Alfred Bester's ''The Demolished Man'' is a generally benevolent example of this trope.

** No one (mentioned in the books, at least) has actually refused to join when offered, although in a couple of cases, it takes either outright bribes (Jeff Raven) or an appeal to the Talent's more mercenary side (Tirla, who was enticed with the promise of all the pretty things and food she wants), and it was never presented as an option for the Rowan (who was raised in an FT&T school and groomed to be a Prime virtually from birth).

** Vsevolod Roznine is the exception to the rule, and the reason that the Center has jurisdiction over all Talents; after he was caught using his telepathy in an attempt to stir up a riot and [[Mind Control]] another Talent, he was mind-blasted, taken to the Center, and {{spoiler|blocked so that his power only worked in gestalt with the Talent he tried to control}}.

* In Laura Anne Gilman's Retriever novels The Council is the association of 'current' users who become progressively more ... persuasive about making everyone join them

* [[Harry Potter|Hogwarts]] was a benevolent kind of such organisation for the majority of the saga and turned into an oppressive one under the Death Eaters' reign in the seventh book (the attendance was voluntary and mandatory respectively).

* The White Council in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. They won't bother you if you're too magically weak to do much. The problem is, someone with a lot of power who just happens upon magic by accident isn't going to know about the Laws of Magic. It's quite possible to break some of them with the best of intentions - messing with someone's head to get them off drugs or magically keeping someone alive long enough for an ambulance to get there is good, right? But all 7 laws exist for a reason: [[Black Magic]] in ''any'' form [[The Dark Side|is addictive]], so breaking one Law is a slippery slope to breaking the rest. So you get the death penalty if you're caught violating any them, even if you'd never even heard of the White Council or anyone else who could do magic. There's not enough recruiters out there to find most potential wizards, leading the world to [[Crapsack World|kinda suck]].

* This trope is essentially the premise of Jeffrey [[De Rego]]'s [[Union Dues]] universe.

* In ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'', all [[Psychic Powers|parapsychics]] (people born with innate abilities, which can range from mind control to having control over gravity) have to register with the [[State Sec|Office of Internal Security]], be tested, are subjected to surveillance, and if their powers are deemed [[Mind Rape|Invasive]] or Dangerous, they have to wear badges in public to inform people of it. In addition, [[Gravity Master|gravikinetics]] ''are'' forced to join the NEG or die; they're just too dangerous to leave off a leash. On the other hand, looking at [[Cosmic Horror Story|what kind of place]] the Cthulhutech setting is, it's fairly justified.

* [[White Wolf]] 's ''[[Aberrant]]'' has Project Utopia, who do this very subtly - they're just helpful folks who want to teach you how to control your superpowers and use them for good. Except that they also sterilize you so you don't make more little superhumans and (largely out of ignorance) persuade you to overuse your powers, causing bad mutations and insanity.

* ''[[Paranoia]]'' has this trope gone mad...rather like everything else in Alpha Complex. Mutations are officially treason, however a mutant may confess their mutation and become registered - they must wear a yellow stripe on their uniform and effectively become second class citizens, passed up for promotions and scapegoated for any number of treasons. {{spoiler|By the way, if you're a player character, you're a mutant. Oh, and since Alpha Complex is run by The Computer, the Machine Empathy mutation is cause for immediate execution and probable erasure.}} There is, of course, PSION, the pro-mutant Secret Society that wants to put the mutants in charge, and are therefore [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|doubleplus]] treasonous.

 

== Video Games ==

 

** The ever-practical Arcturus Mengsks restores the Ghost Academy upon crowning himself the Emperor of the Dominion, knowing the value of psychic assassins to be used against his enemies.

** Also, as mentioned in the ''StarCraft: Nova'' novel, all psychics slated to be Ghosts (some weaker psychics act as "sniffers" of rogue telepaths) are mind-wiped in order to ensure their past experiences will not interfere with their duties.