My last story involving the US Government—ONSET—was based around a SWAT-style team who showed up after due process was written off. This story is about the front-line supernatural cops in the same setting. The conceit of the story is that every US Government branch has an ‘Omicron Office’ to give supernaturals the same legal process as mundanes. So now, of course, I have to know what said processes are.
One of the reasons I like the internet: I google “United States procedure for issuing arrest warrant” and get a lawyer’s summary of the process in the first three hits.
Another tweak? I need names for crimes that don’t exist in the real world: Thaumaturgical Murder, for example, being pretty obvious.
But what do you call the pre-meditated influence of someone’s mind with magic?
Twitter and Facebook gave me a bunch of suggestions that I’m still mulling over. “Psyche Invasion” will work as a placeholder, and I’m still considering “Thaumaturgical Influence.” I do want to avoid using ‘Thaumaturgical’ in the description of every supernatural crime. At the same time, I can see the US Legal System using a consistent naming scheme for supernatural crimes.
“We’re talking life and death here. Life for Psyche Invasion in the First Degree, and the chair for Thaumaturgical Murder.”
Glynn Stewart
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