Imagine that one day you discover that there are dozens if not hundreds of extraterrestrials living in your city. Some are humanoid enough to pass (visually speaking) merely with a change of attire; others are so unlike us that they require significant disguises, prostheses, and perhaps body suits. Shortly after you make this discovery you are approached by representatives of the shadowing quasi-governmental organization – let’s call 'em the Guys in Grey – responsible for managing the alien population. Impressed not merely by the fact that you didn’t go batshit when meeting a squidman, but also by your general awesomeness, they offer you a job.
Now the GIGs are not quite identical to the agency in the Will Smith movies. For one thing, they dress in charcoal and scarlet, not ebony and ivory; for another, they don’t require their agents to erase their prior identities or to cut all connections to their lives, because frankly that’s jut asking for trouble. But in most other ways they do their jobs similarly to Jay, Kay, Elle, and Zed. Only the highest levels of the American government are aware of their existence; they are not subject to congressional oversight or budgeting, funding themselves through discreet releases of alien tech; they actively work to keep the public in the dark about aliens, including using memory-wipe technology; and of course they regularly save the world from destruction.
Are you willing to join the Guys in Grey? (Assume that if you decline, you’ll get neuralized.) Why or why not?
Are you waiting for the poll? Well, that’s stupid, because there isn’t one. I do have tiramisu and gelato and Armagnac for anybody who’s paid up on their teleport pad bill, though.
In an instant. It would be an incredible job and open my eyes to a hidden world. Given that you don’t have to cut ties, I can’t see why someone wouldn’t (apart from the danger factor, I guess).
Yes, it’s a secret recruiting thing; if you hadn’t gotten onto their radar by meeting the squid person (and presumably helping out in the latest world-saving adventure), you’d never have been asked.
I myself would have a big ethical problem with the memory-wiping and the fact that the GIGs are basically a rogue agency (though not quite as bad as the MiB).
I think that, if you’re already living in the city where all the aliens are hanging out, your danger level goes DOWN, not up, if you join the GIGs. You know the truth about your situation, you get neat weapons, and you’re not risking brain cancer from the flashy thingy.
Why would they call you Agent Pee? The GIGs don’t force you to give up your civilian identity. As I wrote in the OP, that’s an unnecessary stressor that probably ramps up the turnover rate. They’ll probably dummy up a role for you as an FBI agent or whatever, but you’ll be using a regular name and probably your own.
I’d join. Even if I’m eaten or vaporized on the first day I’ll get to see and do some really cool stuff. Nothing better than that is going to happen to me in the rest of my life.
I’d wonder first where are the checks and balances on an organization where persons could for say, go in, rob a bank (or harm someone), then use their toy to erase any memories.
I would probably want to join, but I would make a terrible field agent. I mean, I’m in decent shape but if I have to go into hand-to-tentacle combat I’m toast. Not to mention unless the atomizer has really good auto-aim I’m more likely to fry a civilian than the rampaging bugbeast of Tagulon VI.
Now, if they need a decent computer programmer, I would LOVE to take the job.
I’m not at all buying that your danger goes down by joining the GiG: if an alien is gonna attack the city, their first target is gonna be the agency that might stop them. I’ve never heard of a situation where law enforcement is safer than the general population they protect.
That’s my first main hold-up: I’m kind of a coward about the whole danger thing.
My second is that I have very little experience with large organizations that makes me think the people at the top are wise. In my current job, the lack of wisdom of the bosses just means I test kids too much and lead them through too many dreary drills. In the GiG, it might mean committing far direr acts.