A School for Children kidnapped from different Historical Eras and Periods

Imagine a school where children who are kidnapped from different history eras and periods around the world. It is masterminded by a adoption agency called Zeit Yatim Patrinus in the 21st Century owned by a corporation which secretly invented time travel. When a child is kidnapped and smuggled through time travel, they are deposited to the Institute of Timekeepers which is a boarding school for time-trafficked children ages between 7-17 years old.

The purpose for the institute is to teach basic skills and standard education for the time-trafficked children to adapt for modern society and to be adopted by parents. Many of the children ages 7-17 come from a wide variety of time eras and periods like Ancient Israel, Ancient Rome, Nazi Germany, Prehistoric France, Dark Age Germany, Tsarist Russia, Sultanate Malaysia, Colonial America, Islamic Arabia and other historical periods and eras.

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And they hope to gain what from this?

edited 10th Jul '16 1:45:49 AM by MattII

The money from parents adopting the time-trafficked children. The parents who adopt them are usually average middle to rich class Americans.

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And why do the parents want kids out of time? Surely they'd be mal-adjusted and difficult? Remember, back in the medieval period in Europe you were considered a man at 12.

You know, adopted kids like any other kids from real life adoption agencies. The Institute tries to adjust them into modern life.

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You know there are millions of kids just in other countries right? Why bother with time travel is some as mundane as an airline ticket can achieve the same aim? Also, you really need to pick them well before the age of seven, say, around 2-3 years old, otherwise they'll never really adjust properly. Also, screwing with time is never a good idea.

edited 10th Jul '16 5:58:38 AM by MattII

That... sounds very... Vault-Tec-esque....

I do remember one time travel story sort of like this. Far future earth near the end, abducted people from plane crashes just before the plane crash, and other disasters with no survivors from history. The purpose? Send them and a bunch of other people into the far future to start again.

That's it. Very simple premise and story. The story carried itself on the weight of its world building and exploration of related ideas.

And it actually exists: Millennium

edited 10th Jul '16 8:56:58 AM by war877

Kind of them like that. The Adoption agency makes money off it. Now shall we continue expanding and building the world.

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Sure, because I still don't understand this world you're writing about, where maladjusted, rebellious kids with strange ways and poor language skills are preferable adoptees to kids from the same time but worse financial circumstances.

I don't want to make it over-complicated but I have to handwave or err... or something like that, a time-trafficking adoption agency that kidnaps kids from different eras and periods and places them into a Institute where they learn English, teach basic skills, give them standard education and adjusting them in their new world in order to give them a chance in normal society for stepparents to adopt the time-trafficked children as adopted children to get profit.

Do you ask any questions and problems with suggestions?

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Well I assume this is a post-scarcity world then, and the parents are adopting these kids for the variety they bring, because otherwise I don't see the point, it being but easier in the modern world to just adopt orphans, most of whom would be better adjusted and have better local language skills.

If you're going to kidnap kids out of history and you want them to adjust you really need to start earlier than 7, because in most ancient cultures that half way to adulthood (12 was the usual age of adulthood in the medieval world f.e.).

edited 10th Jul '16 3:53:13 PM by MattII

The society is not post-scarcity, it's like our society and economy. And also, parents are demanding their own dream child from historical eras and periods at ages like a 11 year old Etruscan girl from Ancient Rome and a 10 year old Malay boy from Sultanate Malaysia, so the agency has no choice but to obey the stepparents wishes and desires to get a time-trafficked children.

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And what do they do when they find out that this 11 year old 'girl' is extremely rebellious and doesn't have good English? I'm sorry, I really don't see this working for more than a few years before someone in Authority finds out and the game is up.

The Institute and the Agency confiscates the child and tries to put on more intensive therapies regarding the said child rebellious nature due to the psychological maladjustment to the modern age and tries to force them more basic English education.

edited 10th Jul '16 4:25:36 PM by Huthman

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In other words, kidnapping, brainwashing (without erasing their memories), and interfering with history? I'd guess they're paying off the government not to be suspicious then? This is sounding more and more like a dystopia run by either druggies or super-villains.

edited 10th Jul '16 6:20:48 PM by MattII

This world is not a dystopia or a utopia, it is like our world. The company that owns the agency and the Institute is secretly supported by the government of America which is unaware of their time-travel shenanigans and antics and think it is normal adoption agency owned by a company.

edited 10th Jul '16 6:39:23 PM by Huthman

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The amount of brainwashing you'd need to do to change the mind of a (in their time) confirmed adult is extraordinary. At fifteen in our world a person is still a kid of sorts, a rebellion teen, but two-hundred years ago he was a man, might even have had a child on the way. Well some do today, but the difference back then is that most people wouldn't really bat an eyelid at the idea.

edited 10th Jul '16 7:15:15 PM by MattII

Yeah, it's pretty intensive, but the corporation and the Institue can produce mind-altering drugs and therapies that keeps them from having psychological maladjustment while still keeping their identities, their histories and their personality except the parts that have problems.

So can we just talk about the time-trafficked children effects on their life and their self during and after adoption by stepparents.

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Should I feel bad that I'm a bit disappointed that this isn't basically a Slice of Life show about kids from various time periods and countries and continents and whatnot in the vein of Clone High?

I mean there's a ton of potential there mixing up various time periods and all that. Especially if you Show Your Work.

It's like Clone High but more dramatic and serious. So can we continue building our world and the time-trafficked children's lives and effects on their self and society.

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Trafficking (of any kind) and brainwashing has too much of bad connotation, even if it used in relatively benign or necessary situation. Doubly so if the recipients are children. That's all I need to say.

I know that human trafficking and brainwashing is bad, but I don't have any better words about the business of kidnapping children from the past, placing them to learn to adapt modern times and put them up for adoption.

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Unless you change their memories (rather defeating the point of taking kids from the past in the first place) they're going to have major psychological issues anyway, either because they can't fit in with their personalities, or because how they feel about their memories will leave them torn up inside and emotionally traumatised.

And yes, I am a person who niggles about stuff like that, not because I dislike the idea, but because ideas not properly thought out are what hurts sales. Take, f.e. The Amity Incident, some interesting ideas, but a lack of oversight gives us gaping holes that makes many of the characters on both sides look moronic, such as the humans who did the hazing, who should have picked out that Shanice was agoraphobic, or virtually the entire Numidid establishment, who are virulently anti-scientific, despite having come from another star-system, which required a huge amount of technology just to get here.

edited 11th Jul '16 1:34:52 AM by MattII

Why, maybe its how it works, the mind-altering drugs has a beneficial effect of suppressing their emotional trauma permanently and forgets about the psychological problems and maladjustment in their minds to prevent more problems from spawning. Which helps their innocent profit scheme of the Agency and the Institute.

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