Crusader Kings II is consuming my life and my mind. I'm afraid to look at the number of hours I've played in Steam. I am in deep. I recently began play as the independent Count of Jamtland (which I mentally pronounce without the T). I had to give up independence to Norway, who is hurting after their defeat at the hands of William the Conquerer. William killed off the former King of Norway, and everyone else hates each other (partly because the King had to keep all their armies in England for so long, so *everyone* is grumpy). So they all hate me less than each other, and have selected me to be the next King of Norway. (And unfortunately, the pagans have not gotten the "I like pluralism" postcard I sent, and have way more fighters, because *they're* in fertile river valleys and not in mountains and, uh, fjords.
It didn't take long at all to find out that my European history sucks. Thanks, American schools. Thanks a *LOT*. (WTF is Waldensianism? The game assumes you already know.)
As a result, I am incredibly sleep deprived and grumpy, because all I can think about is how to solidify my claim to the Norwegian throne long-term - I have to change succession rules, which pisses everyone off. Maybe a marriage-alliance with England? William is a badass. (Too bad he, uh, got maimed early on in the fighting and is now comatose. I'm . . . pretty sure that's historical, right?)
Waldensianism-- isn't it one of the flavors of Christianity that was big for a while then was stamped out by the winning flavor we have today? (Evolution-- not just for species!) Of course that's all I know about it, not terribly useful.
I am happy because I finished writing a chapter of my story last night, and also happy because there are five more to go. Finishing the whole thing will make me very proud but then there will be that terrible moment when I'm done with chores and there's a nice marathon of some good background-noise show on TV and I sit down to write and... there's nothing to work on 'cause I finished it!
Also, some books need a warning sticker: "Terrible cliffhanger within! Do not read until sequel is published!" Because aaarg, Mister Green, don't kill off all your characters and then end the book! T_T
Also, some books need a warning sticker: "Terrible cliffhanger within! Do not read until sequel is published!" Because aaarg, Mister Green, don't kill off all your characters and then end the book! T_T
All the characters? Good lord. That's one way to raise questions.
I don't know if anyone else around here watches Being Human (UK), but this reminds me of the S3/S4 transition, wherein (rot13!) bar bs sbhe znva punenpgref jnf xvyyrq bss va gur F3 svanyr, nccneragyl envfvat gur fgnxrf sbe gur arkg frnfba - juvpu ortna jvgu nabgure znva punenpgre zheqrerq bssfperra naq n guveq znxvat n urebvp fnpevsvpr, fhpu gung bayl bar bs gur sbhe znva punenpgref fheivirq vagb F4. I thought I would hate it, and I hated it while it was happening, but then I actually really enjoyed the new aspects - it was like they jumped the shark and then stuck the landing. The recent S4 finale finished the job, and yet I am still looking forward to more, if there is more to come.
I've been watching Being Human (UK) (I refuse to watch the US version) slowly via Netflix. I'm loving it a lot, especially the werewolf whose name I can't remember because he'll always and forever be "Alonso" in my mind, but I can only watch in small bites because it's so grim and violent at times. I'm partway through the first season, but I read your rot13 anyway, and it makes me think of Torchwood, in which Gjb bs gur grnz ner qrnq ng gur raq bs Frnfba 2, jr ybfr Vnagb va Puvyqera bs Rnegu, naq gurersber ol gur yngrfg frevrf jr'er yrsg jvgu whfg Tjra naq Wnpx uvzfrys. Nf zhpu nf V ybir gurz, V pbhyqa'g trg vagb Zvenpyr Qnl jvgubhg gur erfg bs gur grnz. Also, the American accents were too jarring (even though I'm American!)
I'm loving it a lot, especially the werewolf whose name I can't remember because he'll always and forever be "Alonso" in my mind, but I can only watch in small bites because it's so grim and violent at times.
The werewolf is George, who will basically never stop breaking your heart. He can be funny and inspiring and all, but maybe above all else he has an incredible ability to exude desolation. Now that S4 has ended, I feel the need to go back and rewatch the old stuff (there are a fair number of episodes along the way I've never seen, either) but it's startling realising how different it will be comapred to the latest series.
I can't get into the US version, which I think suffers from North Americanisms (it is substantially Canadian-made too) in the writing despite having quite a good cast.
The evolution of UK Being Human's latest season does have some similarities to Torchwood's audacity - originally I thought this might be due to Toby Whithouse (co-creator of Being Human) but I see he only worked on Doctor Who, not Torchwood. Yet, while Torchwood lost me too during Children of Earth (I will give Miracle Day props for some excellent stunt casting) my love for Being Human has really not wavered at all. It takes the most terrible and harrowing circumstances and then throws in the most ridiculous sense of humour and makes it work, because life does not have a sense of thematic tone.
WTF is Waldensianism? The game assumes you already know
Well... an awful lot of people think they know about Waldensianism, but since our actual medieval sources are scant and uniformly hostile, Waldensians are pretty much like Cathars: sort of a theological / political / sociological Rorscharch test, on which people project whatever they wish to see.
Best evidence suggests that they were similar to a LOT of ecclesiastical reform movements of the High Middle Ages, anti-clerical, anti-sacramental, appealing primarily to the poor and oppressed, led by a charismatical leader who preached a sort of radical "opting out" of existing social structures and popular access to salvation, coupled with a fire and brimstone condemnation of the privileged. (Such preachers usually claimed, with some justification, to be restoring the original message of Jesus)
Most such movements were condemned as heretical and / or schismatic, although quite a few were incorporated into Catholicism (e.g. the Dominicans, the Franciscans). Those that survived to the later Middle Ages generally aligned themselves with the Protestant reformers.
In a complete nonsequitor, I just need to go Augh! for a moment. I am so unbelievably creeped out by Star Wars: Clone Wars, though, for some inexplicable reason I'm now on season three. It's a train wreck! I can't stop watching!
(Note: before writing this, I totally thought it would just be a couple of paragraphs. I AM WORDY.)
I assume you're talking about the clone troopers? I'm not super-informed when it comes to Clone Wars lore, but I know enough to confuse myself morally.
A slave is still a slave if they don't consider themselves a slave, so the troopers' willingness to continue fighting doesn't necessarily say anything about their enslavement. All indications are that, if they were popped out of their Spaarti cylinders and told they could do anything they wanted with their lives, their first words would be "I would like to serve in the Republic military."
So, question one: do they get asked that? And what would the Republic do with a clone who said no?
The reason they all will say yes is of course that they've been preprogrammed with biological tendencies and propensities to make them ideal and eager soldiers. Presumably, if a clone said 'no', this would indicate an error in their cloning, which means they're not someone you want on the field anyway, because who knows what else is 'wrong' with them. So if a clone didn't want to fight, would they be told "Well, you've been programmed with a bunch of useful skills, here's 500 credits and a shuttle ticket to a planet that's having a labour shortage"? If not, and they would instead be forced into service or killed, then we're back to the clear answer of 'Yes, they are definitely slaves'.
If clones who choose not to fight are handled reasonably, then the next moral question seems to be the nature of cloning: is it enslavement to mass-produce people who are genetically engineered to want to do the thing you want done? And I don't think we ever get a clear description of how this kind of cloning works: are they regular people with certain parts of their brains short-circuited so that they automatically devalue their own wishes in favour of what their cloner says, or are they, from their biological point of view, working as intended? I'm not sure what to think about this part. I think Lucas pushed a lot of the moral questions offscreen by never providing details.
However, the last point of the matter seems to me to be: who in their right mind would put actual living soldiers on the frontlines when they have that kind of tech level? They have droids and FTL communications. Even if you can grow the perfect soldier, why put them directly on the battlefield when you could just have them in a pilot suit elsewhere delivering all their commands by remote to a nonsentient robot body?
So regardless of whether it's proper slavery or not, the clone troopers are clearly a horrendous disregard for life. For that matter, given the Star Wars tech level, it certainly seems like some droids are calling the 'sapience' line into question as well.
I'm glad I'm not the only one squicked by the clones. I never could understand if we were supposed to AGREE with their use or not. (Plus, it seems so STUPID. The enemy created these clones for us, so let's use them! Twelve-dimensional chess FAIL.)
They remind me a little of the episode where The Federation tries to force Data to submit to research he doesn't approve of (and which is dangerous to him) and The Federation argues that it's necessary to create more of him. And someone, I think Guinan -- who is awesome in all the things -- points out that mass-producing Data would essentially be a new kind of slavery, at least if they do it the way The Federation wants to do it, where he's deemed an object for use instead of a person with free will.
Will, your "I would like to serve in the Republic military." thing reminds me of Hitchhiker, where they've bred cows who WANT to be eaten and are capable of saying so perfectly clearly and the whole thing horrifies Arthur. I love that scene.
(Plus, it seems so STUPID. The enemy created these clones for us, so let's use them! Twelve-dimensional chess FAIL.)
In their defence, they think the clones were requisitioned by good guys who were then killed off and the plans hushed up. But yeah, any of them should have been able to put in four minutes' worth of thought and realised that if the bad guys kill off the clone-buying guy but let his order for three million venti latte double-whip supersoldiers go on through, it may in fact be part of the bad guys' plan that those soldiers get used.
And someone, I think Guinan -- who is awesome in all the things -- points out that mass-producing Data would essentially be a new kind of slavery, at least if they do it the way The Federation wants to do it, where he's deemed an object for use instead of a person with free will.
Yes, it is Guinan, awesoming around Ten-Forward as she is wont to do. And in Data's case, he was built to be independently-minded and they're talking about reproducing that technology but forcing them into subservient roles. (Voyager, in later years, did some similar stuff with the holographic Doctor.) I think the cow-that-wants-to-be-eaten is a great parallel for the clone troopers, and it freaks me the hell out as well, though I'm not sure what to label it exactly.
I don't know if there even is a label for it - "fundamentally unnatural", maybe? Since the desire to continue living (or, at least, not get eaten by a predator) is such a fundamental part of the behavior of just about any living thing you can name, I can't even imagine how many neural circuits you'd have to re-wire to make a living thing want to be eaten.
Will Wildman's question on the nature of cloning is interesting - suppose the Republic finds a career soldier who grew up wanting to be a soldier and is willing to be cloned, and further suppose they make no alterations to said clones, but give them an approximation of that soldier's childhood as implanted memories so that they will come out of the cloning tubes approximately as interested in a military career as that original soldier was. Do we find this immoral and/or disturbing?
I think the creepiness is using someone as a tool, and in order to do that, wiping free will. Living to die in glorious battle is just a culturally foreign concept - I'm not really into the whole Valhalla yay death thing. That's just kind of weird. But deciding someone else should believe that, and making them do it, is the creepy part.
The other bit of it is the risk for catastrophic failure. I'm guessing the clones are going to start diverging pretty quick - chaos theory and all that - and then you've got a bunch of weaponized people that are now not aligned with your goals. I suspect the same is true with any AI complex enough to be called an AI - you've got to have some neural net patterning, and from there it's a short, slippery slope to Skynet.
No, they do not. There are clones who are either defective/washouts or made that way who are servants at the clone "academy" - regular slaves, apparently, though whether they want to be there is never addressed. (The only one we meet is, er, a hunchback.)
And what would the Republic do with a clone who said no?
It wasn't entirely clear to me in the season three episode with some troopers who weren't doing so well at their training that their lives were not possibly on the line. There was some talk of them being servants, but it wasn't handled very clearly. They certainly wouldn't have been allowed to just go be people. Also, that episode introduced the idea that the DNA was wearing out and they'd have to find another suitable candidate.
In a season two episode (I think it was season two) we meet a clone who deserted and has a wife and kids. It's handled rather as if he were a deserter from a normal army, though the fact that they're bred for it is kinda brought up. The troopers who came across him do leave him to his life, at least, but it's pretty damn clear he'd be courtmartialed and either executed or forced back into service if they had turned him in.
There is absolutely no doubt that they have no choice in their lives.
are they regular people with certain parts of their brains short-circuited so that they automatically devalue their own wishes in favour of what their cloner says, or are they, from their biological point of view, working as intended?
That's less clear. They are considered not to be people by the Republic - even the Jedi, though our heroes, of course treat them well. That may suggest tampering. Though, obviously they do go rogue occasionally. However, since they are raised from "birth" to be clone troopers, they are so severely indoctrinated that I'm not sure they can be considered un-tampered-with even if they haven't physically been.
That's not too far off of what happens, actually. Though I don't think they do implanted memories - just raise them to be soldiers (no choices, no options, separated from the rest of the galaxy) from birth.
Ye gods. These descriptions are rather unlike the more-tangential references to clones in what Star Wars stories I am aware of. And yes, that is way screwed up, and yeah, that is totally slavery. In previous stories, it seemed pretty clear that the clones were literally programmed on a biological level to have clear preferences and aptitudes and attitudes that would make them automatic super-volunteers ("I want to protect the Republic above all else and the best way I can do that is as a soldier"), but that sounds more like they just mass produce some dude and then indoctrinate indoctrinate indoctrinate. Apparently moral grey areas are for suckers.
Some weeks back I outlined how I would radically rewrite Episode I in order to make some of the Jedi properly heroic and close plot holes. I am left with no doubt now that Episode III of that prequel-rewrite would involve huge turmoil and civil unrest over the morality of the clone army, which would be the wedge issue that the Emperor would then use to throw the Jedi into disfavour before betraying/killing them all. It would parallel nicely with the first movie's new focus on Tatooinian slavery.
I recall in Stargate Atlantis they created a replicator designed to be a superweapon against the other replicators, a process that would kill her. They were rather freaked out that she was on board with the plan. (And not just on board with it, actively improving it because they screwed up the math and she was the one who noticed.)
As I recall, they were not trying to create a slave, they weren't even trying to create something sentient. It was just that the equipment they had was set up to make incredibly human robots so it ended up being a lot easier to create one of those than the mindless block of nanobots they were after.
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The Star Trek episode with the plan to create the Data-slaves also had an interesting dynamic with Riker, who was required to make the case against Data.
Data: No Disassemble! Some other guy: Riker, prove that he's wrong. Riker: But I'm with him: no disassemble. Some other guy: No, make the argument. Riker: But I don't wanna! Some other guy: Suck it up and deal.
*later*
Riker: Yes! I found the case winning argument. *Pause* Crap, I found the case winning argument.
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Riker was more or less playing the role of Kirk's ex from the original series episode where Kirk is courtmartialed (that role being: I want to lose, I am morally obligated to do my very best to win.) Which I suppose would mean that Picard was playing the role of the book loving lawyer, which ... Picard did love books.
Yeah, it just gets worse and worse as the cartoon show progresses. I don't even know why I keep watching the bloody thing. Half the time I just sit there with my mouth open, trying to figure out if anyone involved in making the show realizes what they're depicting.
While programming them biologically to be super-volunteers is a bit more morally gray, it still seems pretty horrible and dark. It's still coercion. It is like the "please eat me" cow. (But that all raises a different set of questions, beginning with what you do with such beings once you've created them. Even if you object to how and why they were made.)
Of course, that version is also slightly less disturbing because it's less real. We can't make a cow that sells itself for dinner and we can't clone supersoldiers who want nothing more than to be soldiers. But we can raise people to be soldiers the way the clone army is raised to be soldiers. That's the icing on the WTF is this and does anyone realize what they've written?
The morality of the Star Wars universe is so deeply messed up because so many things have been thrown into it without being carefully thought through.
I don't even know what this is and yet I think it sounds fun. I used to play Castles II (now I'm dating myself) and I always loved taking over every AI opponent and then, instead of asking the pope to crown me king, I'd take over all HIS lands. HAHAHAHAHA, WHO IS POPE NOW!?
Er, not the most historically accurate game. Still, Valois for the win! w00t!
CJ Cherryh's _Cyteen_ and _Regenesis_ (just finished reading the latter) go into the ethics of cloning-and-indoctrination quite a bit. You might feel they're biased, though, as they are mainly from the POV of people in power--clone-makers, and a few elite clones. But I don't feel that the author sugar-coats the fact that the society is badly morally compromised: she just chooses POVs who are on board, more or less, with the compromises, and then tells it straight.
My only complaint is that _Regenesis_ has no resolution at the ending, not even the rather weak resolution that _Cyteen_ had. I hope that's because it's part 1 of several and not because she just dropped a whole bunch of threads on the floor unresolved.
I was always losing my manual, which is inconvenient when you're playing a game that periodically quizzes you on your knowledge of the manual's historic trivia on the assumption that such quizzing is an effective anti-piracy measure.
What country has the proverb, "Zeal without caution is a runaway horse"?
Aw, man, don't I know it. Worst copy protection ever was the Sierra "Laura Bow" cp, where you had to IDENTIFY A FINGER PRINT. Yeah, those don't all look the same to me. Grr, I say.
The zeal one is "England", according to the text file that came with my latest "no, really, we swear it will work on modern machines" version.
But, oddly enough, I'm CERTAIN they bowlderized the latest version that I'm running. I remember the original version having a lot of risque references to sex, but the later ones do not. Which is a shame, because I found the entendres amusing.
I would feel much better about the Clone Wars if I were sure that's what the creators were doing. It's one thing to present a morally compromised society because you, the author know it is compromised and you want people to think about it, and another thing entirely to present a morally compromised society by accident. Even if it still gets people thinking.
With the Clone Wars I can't figure out if I'm supposed to be shouting at the TV "No, they're not like you, they didn't ever have a choice!" or nodding and thinking that the Jedi is wise.
Actually, though, the more episodes of season three I watch, the more I begin to suspect that either the people involved with the show are trying to do as much of a deconstruction as LucasArts will let them or that some (but not all) of the writers see the problems and are trying to bring them out as much as they can despite not being the majority. It makes for a very unclear work of fiction.
Depizan, I know what you mean. The very same fictional events can be okay (for me as a reader/viewer) or not depending on whether the presentation makes me feel that the author is aware of the issues they raise.
I loved the _Lensman_ books as a kid but doubt I could read them now because they are so uncritical of the Few Good Men theory they espouse (and even as a kid the Men part was a problem for me, Clarissa and her daughters notwithstanding). But the events--an alien species pushes superpowers on a few humans and insists that they force the others into line--could make a perfectly good story with a different level of self-awareness about their awfulness.
Cherryh is good at this stuff. I have a theory that _Cloud's Rider_ was written as a response to Anne McCaffery, because it has a very McCaffery plot but doesn't romanticize it, and actually being mind-bonded to a powerful predator at a young and vulnerable age might not be an unequivocally good thing, once you think about it.
Now I'm trying to think of a book or show where I'm flatly unsure whether the author(s) knew their setup was skeevy or not. Anyone have a good example? (I haven't seen the _Clone Wars_ series, only the original movie, which didn't have a lot of moral depth to it in my recollection.)
Now I'm trying to think of a book or show where I'm flatly unsure whether the author(s) knew their setup was skeevy or not.
Ender's Game? An incredibly insightful look at how societies lionize people responsible for horrific genocide, somewhat spoilt by an author clearly doing his best to lionize a character responsible for horrific genocide.
Card's later books spoiled the earlier books for me; in particular I had such a violently negative reaction to _Speaker for the Dead_ that I doubt I could ever re-read _Ender's Game_. The only book of his I can still stomach is _Hart's Hope_ which is a very early and atypical work. I read _Ender's Game_ in its novella form as a teen and was wowed by it. But yes, it is problematic.
I suppose _Interview with the Vampire_ might be another of these. The author seems to start out knowing that there is something wrong with being a bloodsucking killer, but loses track of it partway through, and more so in _The Vampire Lestat_. It's possible for a writer to be seduced by his/her own characters or milieu and lose perspective. (I've had it happen with roleplaying characters.)
My husband thinks that Walter Jon Williams' _Aristoi_ is in this category; I'm not sure myself.
Ender's Game? An incredibly insightful look at how societies lionize people responsible for horrific genocide, somewhat spoilt by an author seemingly doing his best to lionize a character responsible for horrific genocide.
Well, it was an accident. Though the question of why anyone in their right mind would give someone (even a random BS genius) total control of a manned force remotely... (also, FTL communications how?) is still pressing. As is the question of why it never occured to them that Dr. Device could bust planets before...
Depizan, I know what you mean. The very same fictional events can be okay (for me as a reader/viewer) or not depending on whether the presentation makes me feel that the author is aware of the issues they raise.
Heh. This seems to be all I'm capable of writing, though whether I can convey that awareness remains to be seen/is dubious. About 75% of my protagonists/characters are terrible people, or at least pretty messed up. (The 'Main Character' of (still-not-really-named Succubus Story is pretty much a Complete Monster... which is the whole point. That, and the universe is really not nice. Parthenogenesis has the good faction in a bad situation, but dealing with it... etc, etc...
While I think it is debatable that "wiped out a species whilst training to wipe out a species for real-sy" can credibly be called an "accident", my point is that by setting up pretty much the one situation where wholesale genocide can be perpetuated by someone who remains an innocent (by virtue of youth and unawareness), Card had a decent setup.
Where he dropped the ball, in my opinion, was by becoming so invested in Ender as a character that even Ender's victims are awfully upset about his poor hurt feelings. That's taking intent and making it not just magical but also with a free pony thrown in, I think. :)
I think it would have been more valuable for Ender to wrestle with his feelings WITHOUT having everyone in the universe contantly making gentle reassuring cooing noises at him. But that's just me. :)
I see your point... I never actually got past Ender's Game itself... I can see the humans liking him, but the bugs being all happy tiems after he killed a few thousand of them... mostly, I just got the impression the entire war was one massive clusterfuck, and OSC promptly forgot about it to write about tree sex, or something...
On the subject of the bugs, though... even if they don't understand the human concept of individuality, WTH? On their world, is it normal to greet someone by stabbing them with a needle and taking a blood sample? Also, with their vivisection fetish, the humans never realized something was up with their nervous system?
Yeah, I played the demo for 4 hours last night and STILL don't understand anything. That's not a good sign, ha.
Fortunately (for my free time), my enthusiasm was diminished when I realized I can't create an entirely matriarchal line of succession through which to role play because it's not "realistic". *sad face*
Yeah, and the penalties for having a female heir/ruler are punishing. :(
I don't exactly mind the historical accuracy, because it's kind of interesting to see how the social structures are reinforcing. It's easy to treat your daughters like pawns for prestige or alliances, while grooming your sons much more carefully for leadership, for instance, because there's a lot of incentive there from the rules. Which is something I'd object to strenuously in other games - I think I wrote a furious rant on how pregnancy/maternal leave worked in the Sims 2, back in the day - but feels okay in this specific context.
It's one of those games where understanding sort of emerges slowly - it can't really be tackled in a straightforward manner. That suits some people (and amounts of free time, ha) better than others.
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I love that rabbit so much.
Is it weird that I want to put ribbons in its hair?
Crusader Kings II is consuming my life and my mind. I'm afraid to look at the number of hours I've played in Steam. I am in deep. I recently began play as the independent Count of Jamtland (which I mentally pronounce without the T). I had to give up independence to Norway, who is hurting after their defeat at the hands of William the Conquerer. William killed off the former King of Norway, and everyone else hates each other (partly because the King had to keep all their armies in England for so long, so *everyone* is grumpy). So they all hate me less than each other, and have selected me to be the next King of Norway. (And unfortunately, the pagans have not gotten the "I like pluralism" postcard I sent, and have way more fighters, because *they're* in fertile river valleys and not in mountains and, uh, fjords.
It didn't take long at all to find out that my European history sucks. Thanks, American schools. Thanks a *LOT*. (WTF is Waldensianism? The game assumes you already know.)
As a result, I am incredibly sleep deprived and grumpy, because all I can think about is how to solidify my claim to the Norwegian throne long-term - I have to change succession rules, which pisses everyone off. Maybe a marriage-alliance with England? William is a badass. (Too bad he, uh, got maimed early on in the fighting and is now comatose. I'm . . . pretty sure that's historical, right?)
Waldensianism-- isn't it one of the flavors of Christianity that was big for a while then was stamped out by the winning flavor we have today? (Evolution-- not just for species!) Of course that's all I know about it, not terribly useful.
I am happy because I finished writing a chapter of my story last night, and also happy because there are five more to go. Finishing the whole thing will make me very proud but then there will be that terrible moment when I'm done with chores and there's a nice marathon of some good background-noise show on TV and I sit down to write and... there's nothing to work on 'cause I finished it!
Also, some books need a warning sticker: "Terrible cliffhanger within! Do not read until sequel is published!" Because aaarg, Mister Green, don't kill off all your characters and then end the book! T_T
Also, some books need a warning sticker: "Terrible cliffhanger within! Do not read until sequel is published!" Because aaarg, Mister Green, don't kill off all your characters and then end the book! T_T
All the characters? Good lord. That's one way to raise questions.
I don't know if anyone else around here watches Being Human (UK), but this reminds me of the S3/S4 transition, wherein (rot13!) bar bs sbhe znva punenpgref jnf xvyyrq bss va gur F3 svanyr, nccneragyl envfvat gur fgnxrf sbe gur arkg frnfba - juvpu ortna jvgu nabgure znva punenpgre zheqrerq bssfperra naq n guveq znxvat n urebvp fnpevsvpr, fhpu gung bayl bar bs gur sbhe znva punenpgref fheivirq vagb F4. I thought I would hate it, and I hated it while it was happening, but then I actually really enjoyed the new aspects - it was like they jumped the shark and then stuck the landing. The recent S4 finale finished the job, and yet I am still looking forward to more, if there is more to come.
I've been watching Being Human (UK) (I refuse to watch the US version) slowly via Netflix. I'm loving it a lot, especially the werewolf whose name I can't remember because he'll always and forever be "Alonso" in my mind, but I can only watch in small bites because it's so grim and violent at times. I'm partway through the first season, but I read your rot13 anyway, and it makes me think of Torchwood, in which Gjb bs gur grnz ner qrnq ng gur raq bs Frnfba 2, jr ybfr Vnagb va Puvyqera bs Rnegu, naq gurersber ol gur yngrfg frevrf jr'er yrsg jvgu whfg Tjra naq Wnpx uvzfrys. Nf zhpu nf V ybir gurz, V pbhyqa'g trg vagb Zvenpyr Qnl jvgubhg gur erfg bs gur grnz. Also, the American accents were too jarring (even though I'm American!)
Ah, but Being Human the US version has a friend of mine in it, IIRC.
I'm loving it a lot, especially the werewolf whose name I can't remember because he'll always and forever be "Alonso" in my mind, but I can only watch in small bites because it's so grim and violent at times.
The werewolf is George, who will basically never stop breaking your heart. He can be funny and inspiring and all, but maybe above all else he has an incredible ability to exude desolation. Now that S4 has ended, I feel the need to go back and rewatch the old stuff (there are a fair number of episodes along the way I've never seen, either) but it's startling realising how different it will be comapred to the latest series.
I can't get into the US version, which I think suffers from North Americanisms (it is substantially Canadian-made too) in the writing despite having quite a good cast.
The evolution of UK Being Human's latest season does have some similarities to Torchwood's audacity - originally I thought this might be due to Toby Whithouse (co-creator of Being Human) but I see he only worked on Doctor Who, not Torchwood. Yet, while Torchwood lost me too during Children of Earth (I will give Miracle Day props for some excellent stunt casting) my love for Being Human has really not wavered at all. It takes the most terrible and harrowing circumstances and then throws in the most ridiculous sense of humour and makes it work, because life does not have a sense of thematic tone.
WTF is Waldensianism? The game assumes you already know
Well... an awful lot of people think they know about Waldensianism, but since our actual medieval sources are scant and uniformly hostile, Waldensians are pretty much like Cathars: sort of a theological / political / sociological Rorscharch test, on which people project whatever they wish to see.
Best evidence suggests that they were similar to a LOT of ecclesiastical reform movements of the High Middle Ages, anti-clerical, anti-sacramental, appealing primarily to the poor and oppressed, led by a charismatical leader who preached a sort of radical "opting out" of existing social structures and popular access to salvation, coupled with a fire and brimstone condemnation of the privileged. (Such preachers usually claimed, with some justification, to be restoring the original message of Jesus)
Most such movements were condemned as heretical and / or schismatic, although quite a few were incorporated into Catholicism (e.g. the Dominicans, the Franciscans). Those that survived to the later Middle Ages generally aligned themselves with the Protestant reformers.
Thanks!
In a complete nonsequitor, I just need to go Augh! for a moment. I am so unbelievably creeped out by Star Wars: Clone Wars, though, for some inexplicable reason I'm now on season three. It's a train wreck! I can't stop watching!
Slaves! They're frackin' slaves! That's evil! AUGH!
(Note: before writing this, I totally thought it would just be a couple of paragraphs. I AM WORDY.)
I assume you're talking about the clone troopers? I'm not super-informed when it comes to Clone Wars lore, but I know enough to confuse myself morally.
A slave is still a slave if they don't consider themselves a slave, so the troopers' willingness to continue fighting doesn't necessarily say anything about their enslavement. All indications are that, if they were popped out of their Spaarti cylinders and told they could do anything they wanted with their lives, their first words would be "I would like to serve in the Republic military."
So, question one: do they get asked that? And what would the Republic do with a clone who said no?
The reason they all will say yes is of course that they've been preprogrammed with biological tendencies and propensities to make them ideal and eager soldiers. Presumably, if a clone said 'no', this would indicate an error in their cloning, which means they're not someone you want on the field anyway, because who knows what else is 'wrong' with them. So if a clone didn't want to fight, would they be told "Well, you've been programmed with a bunch of useful skills, here's 500 credits and a shuttle ticket to a planet that's having a labour shortage"? If not, and they would instead be forced into service or killed, then we're back to the clear answer of 'Yes, they are definitely slaves'.
If clones who choose not to fight are handled reasonably, then the next moral question seems to be the nature of cloning: is it enslavement to mass-produce people who are genetically engineered to want to do the thing you want done? And I don't think we ever get a clear description of how this kind of cloning works: are they regular people with certain parts of their brains short-circuited so that they automatically devalue their own wishes in favour of what their cloner says, or are they, from their biological point of view, working as intended? I'm not sure what to think about this part. I think Lucas pushed a lot of the moral questions offscreen by never providing details.
However, the last point of the matter seems to me to be: who in their right mind would put actual living soldiers on the frontlines when they have that kind of tech level? They have droids and FTL communications. Even if you can grow the perfect soldier, why put them directly on the battlefield when you could just have them in a pilot suit elsewhere delivering all their commands by remote to a nonsentient robot body?
So regardless of whether it's proper slavery or not, the clone troopers are clearly a horrendous disregard for life. For that matter, given the Star Wars tech level, it certainly seems like some droids are calling the 'sapience' line into question as well.
I'm glad I'm not the only one squicked by the clones. I never could understand if we were supposed to AGREE with their use or not. (Plus, it seems so STUPID. The enemy created these clones for us, so let's use them! Twelve-dimensional chess FAIL.)
They remind me a little of the episode where The Federation tries to force Data to submit to research he doesn't approve of (and which is dangerous to him) and The Federation argues that it's necessary to create more of him. And someone, I think Guinan -- who is awesome in all the things -- points out that mass-producing Data would essentially be a new kind of slavery, at least if they do it the way The Federation wants to do it, where he's deemed an object for use instead of a person with free will.
Will, your "I would like to serve in the Republic military." thing reminds me of Hitchhiker, where they've bred cows who WANT to be eaten and are capable of saying so perfectly clearly and the whole thing horrifies Arthur. I love that scene.
(Plus, it seems so STUPID. The enemy created these clones for us, so let's use them! Twelve-dimensional chess FAIL.)
In their defence, they think the clones were requisitioned by good guys who were then killed off and the plans hushed up. But yeah, any of them should have been able to put in four minutes' worth of thought and realised that if the bad guys kill off the clone-buying guy but let his order for three million venti latte double-whip supersoldiers go on through, it may in fact be part of the bad guys' plan that those soldiers get used.
And someone, I think Guinan -- who is awesome in all the things -- points out that mass-producing Data would essentially be a new kind of slavery, at least if they do it the way The Federation wants to do it, where he's deemed an object for use instead of a person with free will.
Yes, it is Guinan, awesoming around Ten-Forward as she is wont to do. And in Data's case, he was built to be independently-minded and they're talking about reproducing that technology but forcing them into subservient roles. (Voyager, in later years, did some similar stuff with the holographic Doctor.) I think the cow-that-wants-to-be-eaten is a great parallel for the clone troopers, and it freaks me the hell out as well, though I'm not sure what to label it exactly.
I don't know if there even is a label for it - "fundamentally unnatural", maybe? Since the desire to continue living (or, at least, not get eaten by a predator) is such a fundamental part of the behavior of just about any living thing you can name, I can't even imagine how many neural circuits you'd have to re-wire to make a living thing want to be eaten.
Will Wildman's question on the nature of cloning is interesting - suppose the Republic finds a career soldier who grew up wanting to be a soldier and is willing to be cloned, and further suppose they make no alterations to said clones, but give them an approximation of that soldier's childhood as implanted memories so that they will come out of the cloning tubes approximately as interested in a military career as that original soldier was. Do we find this immoral and/or disturbing?
I think the creepiness is using someone as a tool, and in order to do that, wiping free will. Living to die in glorious battle is just a culturally foreign concept - I'm not really into the whole Valhalla yay death thing. That's just kind of weird. But deciding someone else should believe that, and making them do it, is the creepy part.
The other bit of it is the risk for catastrophic failure. I'm guessing the clones are going to start diverging pretty quick - chaos theory and all that - and then you've got a bunch of weaponized people that are now not aligned with your goals. I suspect the same is true with any AI complex enough to be called an AI - you've got to have some neural net patterning, and from there it's a short, slippery slope to Skynet.
So, question one: do they get asked that?
No, they do not. There are clones who are either defective/washouts or made that way who are servants at the clone "academy" - regular slaves, apparently, though whether they want to be there is never addressed. (The only one we meet is, er, a hunchback.)
And what would the Republic do with a clone who said no?
It wasn't entirely clear to me in the season three episode with some troopers who weren't doing so well at their training that their lives were not possibly on the line. There was some talk of them being servants, but it wasn't handled very clearly. They certainly wouldn't have been allowed to just go be people. Also, that episode introduced the idea that the DNA was wearing out and they'd have to find another suitable candidate.
In a season two episode (I think it was season two) we meet a clone who deserted and has a wife and kids. It's handled rather as if he were a deserter from a normal army, though the fact that they're bred for it is kinda brought up. The troopers who came across him do leave him to his life, at least, but it's pretty damn clear he'd be courtmartialed and either executed or forced back into service if they had turned him in.
There is absolutely no doubt that they have no choice in their lives.
are they regular people with certain parts of their brains short-circuited so that they automatically devalue their own wishes in favour of what their cloner says, or are they, from their biological point of view, working as intended?
That's less clear. They are considered not to be people by the Republic - even the Jedi, though our heroes, of course treat them well. That may suggest tampering. Though, obviously they do go rogue occasionally. However, since they are raised from "birth" to be clone troopers, they are so severely indoctrinated that I'm not sure they can be considered un-tampered-with even if they haven't physically been.
That's not too far off of what happens, actually. Though I don't think they do implanted memories - just raise them to be soldiers (no choices, no options, separated from the rest of the galaxy) from birth.
And yes, yes I do.
Ye gods. These descriptions are rather unlike the more-tangential references to clones in what Star Wars stories I am aware of. And yes, that is way screwed up, and yeah, that is totally slavery. In previous stories, it seemed pretty clear that the clones were literally programmed on a biological level to have clear preferences and aptitudes and attitudes that would make them automatic super-volunteers ("I want to protect the Republic above all else and the best way I can do that is as a soldier"), but that sounds more like they just mass produce some dude and then indoctrinate indoctrinate indoctrinate. Apparently moral grey areas are for suckers.
Some weeks back I outlined how I would radically rewrite Episode I in order to make some of the Jedi properly heroic and close plot holes. I am left with no doubt now that Episode III of that prequel-rewrite would involve huge turmoil and civil unrest over the morality of the clone army, which would be the wedge issue that the Emperor would then use to throw the Jedi into disfavour before betraying/killing them all. It would parallel nicely with the first movie's new focus on Tatooinian slavery.
I recall in Stargate Atlantis they created a replicator designed to be a superweapon against the other replicators, a process that would kill her. They were rather freaked out that she was on board with the plan. (And not just on board with it, actively improving it because they screwed up the math and she was the one who noticed.)
As I recall, they were not trying to create a slave, they weren't even trying to create something sentient. It was just that the equipment they had was set up to make incredibly human robots so it ended up being a lot easier to create one of those than the mindless block of nanobots they were after.
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The Star Trek episode with the plan to create the Data-slaves also had an interesting dynamic with Riker, who was required to make the case against Data.
Data: No Disassemble!
Some other guy: Riker, prove that he's wrong.
Riker: But I'm with him: no disassemble.
Some other guy: No, make the argument.
Riker: But I don't wanna!
Some other guy: Suck it up and deal.
*later*
Riker: Yes! I found the case winning argument. *Pause* Crap, I found the case winning argument.
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Riker was more or less playing the role of Kirk's ex from the original series episode where Kirk is courtmartialed (that role being: I want to lose, I am morally obligated to do my very best to win.) Which I suppose would mean that Picard was playing the role of the book loving lawyer, which ... Picard did love books.
Yeah, it just gets worse and worse as the cartoon show progresses. I don't even know why I keep watching the bloody thing. Half the time I just sit there with my mouth open, trying to figure out if anyone involved in making the show realizes what they're depicting.
While programming them biologically to be super-volunteers is a bit more morally gray, it still seems pretty horrible and dark. It's still coercion. It is like the "please eat me" cow. (But that all raises a different set of questions, beginning with what you do with such beings once you've created them. Even if you object to how and why they were made.)
Of course, that version is also slightly less disturbing because it's less real. We can't make a cow that sells itself for dinner and we can't clone supersoldiers who want nothing more than to be soldiers. But we can raise people to be soldiers the way the clone army is raised to be soldiers. That's the icing on the WTF is this and does anyone realize what they've written?
The morality of the Star Wars universe is so deeply messed up because so many things have been thrown into it without being carefully thought through.
I don't even know what this is and yet I think it sounds fun. I used to play Castles II (now I'm dating myself) and I always loved taking over every AI opponent and then, instead of asking the pope to crown me king, I'd take over all HIS lands. HAHAHAHAHA, WHO IS POPE NOW!?
Er, not the most historically accurate game. Still, Valois for the win! w00t!
CJ Cherryh's _Cyteen_ and _Regenesis_ (just finished reading the latter) go into the ethics of cloning-and-indoctrination quite a bit. You might feel they're biased, though, as they are mainly from the POV of people in power--clone-makers, and a few elite clones. But I don't feel that the author sugar-coats the fact that the society is badly morally compromised: she just chooses POVs who are on board, more or less, with the compromises, and then tells it straight.
My only complaint is that _Regenesis_ has no resolution at the ending, not even the rather weak resolution that _Cyteen_ had. I hope that's because it's part 1 of several and not because she just dropped a whole bunch of threads on the floor unresolved.
I was always losing my manual, which is inconvenient when you're playing a game that periodically quizzes you on your knowledge of the manual's historic trivia on the assumption that such quizzing is an effective anti-piracy measure.
What country has the proverb, "Zeal without caution is a runaway horse"?
Aw, man, don't I know it. Worst copy protection ever was the Sierra "Laura Bow" cp, where you had to IDENTIFY A FINGER PRINT. Yeah, those don't all look the same to me. Grr, I say.
The zeal one is "England", according to the text file that came with my latest "no, really, we swear it will work on modern machines" version.
But, oddly enough, I'm CERTAIN they bowlderized the latest version that I'm running. I remember the original version having a lot of risque references to sex, but the later ones do not. Which is a shame, because I found the entendres amusing.
In Crusader Kings, you can create an anti-pope, and make him the Pope. HAHA, lol your pope. Serious shenanigans in this game.
I would feel much better about the Clone Wars if I were sure that's what the creators were doing. It's one thing to present a morally compromised society because you, the author know it is compromised and you want people to think about it, and another thing entirely to present a morally compromised society by accident. Even if it still gets people thinking.
With the Clone Wars I can't figure out if I'm supposed to be shouting at the TV "No, they're not like you, they didn't ever have a choice!" or nodding and thinking that the Jedi is wise.
Actually, though, the more episodes of season three I watch, the more I begin to suspect that either the people involved with the show are trying to do as much of a deconstruction as LucasArts will let them or that some (but not all) of the writers see the problems and are trying to bring them out as much as they can despite not being the majority. It makes for a very unclear work of fiction.
Depizan, I know what you mean. The very same fictional events can be okay (for me as a reader/viewer) or not depending on whether the presentation makes me feel that the author is aware of the issues they raise.
I loved the _Lensman_ books as a kid but doubt I could read them now because they are so uncritical of the Few Good Men theory they espouse (and even as a kid the Men part was a problem for me, Clarissa and her daughters notwithstanding). But the events--an alien species pushes superpowers on a few humans and insists that they force the others into line--could make a perfectly good story with a different level of self-awareness about their awfulness.
Cherryh is good at this stuff. I have a theory that _Cloud's Rider_ was written as a response to Anne McCaffery, because it has a very McCaffery plot but doesn't romanticize it, and actually being mind-bonded to a powerful predator at a young and vulnerable age might not be an unequivocally good thing, once you think about it.
Now I'm trying to think of a book or show where I'm flatly unsure whether the author(s) knew their setup was skeevy or not. Anyone have a good example? (I haven't seen the _Clone Wars_ series, only the original movie, which didn't have a lot of moral depth to it in my recollection.)
Now I'm trying to think of a book or show where I'm flatly unsure whether the author(s) knew their setup was skeevy or not.
Ender's Game? An incredibly insightful look at how societies lionize people responsible for horrific genocide, somewhat spoilt by an author clearly doing his best to lionize a character responsible for horrific genocide.
That's an excellent example.
Card's later books spoiled the earlier books for me; in particular I had such a violently negative reaction to _Speaker for the Dead_ that I doubt I could ever re-read _Ender's Game_. The only book of his I can still stomach is _Hart's Hope_ which is a very early and atypical work. I read _Ender's Game_ in its novella form as a teen and was wowed by it. But yes, it is problematic.
I suppose _Interview with the Vampire_ might be another of these. The author seems to start out knowing that there is something wrong with being a bloodsucking killer, but loses track of it partway through, and more so in _The Vampire Lestat_. It's possible for a writer to be seduced by his/her own characters or milieu and lose perspective. (I've had it happen with roleplaying characters.)
My husband thinks that Walter Jon Williams' _Aristoi_ is in this category; I'm not sure myself.
Antipope requires Zlad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGBHfXPqbgI
Like a hammer hits a cantaloupe.
Hee!
Ender's Game? An incredibly insightful look at how societies lionize people responsible for horrific genocide, somewhat spoilt by an author seemingly doing his best to lionize a character responsible for horrific genocide.
Well, it was an accident. Though the question of why anyone in their right mind would give someone (even a random BS genius) total control of a manned force remotely... (also, FTL communications how?) is still pressing. As is the question of why it never occured to them that Dr. Device could bust planets before...
Depizan, I know what you mean. The very same fictional events can be okay (for me as a reader/viewer) or not depending on whether the presentation makes me feel that the author is aware of the issues they raise.
Heh. This seems to be all I'm capable of writing, though whether I can convey that awareness remains to be seen/is dubious. About 75% of my protagonists/characters are terrible people, or at least pretty messed up. (The 'Main Character' of (still-not-really-named Succubus Story is pretty much a Complete Monster... which is the whole point. That, and the universe is really not nice. Parthenogenesis has the good faction in a bad situation, but dealing with it... etc, etc...
While I think it is debatable that "wiped out a species whilst training to wipe out a species for real-sy" can credibly be called an "accident", my point is that by setting up pretty much the one situation where wholesale genocide can be perpetuated by someone who remains an innocent (by virtue of youth and unawareness), Card had a decent setup.
Where he dropped the ball, in my opinion, was by becoming so invested in Ender as a character that even Ender's victims are awfully upset about his poor hurt feelings. That's taking intent and making it not just magical but also with a free pony thrown in, I think. :)
I think it would have been more valuable for Ender to wrestle with his feelings WITHOUT having everyone in the universe contantly making gentle reassuring cooing noises at him. But that's just me. :)
I see your point... I never actually got past Ender's Game itself... I can see the humans liking him, but the bugs being all happy tiems after he killed a few thousand of them... mostly, I just got the impression the entire war was one massive clusterfuck, and OSC promptly forgot about it to write about tree sex, or something...
On the subject of the bugs, though... even if they don't understand the human concept of individuality, WTH? On their world, is it normal to greet someone by stabbing them with a needle and taking a blood sample? Also, with their vivisection fetish, the humans never realized something was up with their nervous system?
Dav, I'm seriously considering picking up this game, having played the demo. But good grief, NOT INTUITIVE. Digging through YouTube tutorials now.
No. No, it is not. Intuitibility and cohesive menu design are for the *other* kind of game developers.
Yeah, I played the demo for 4 hours last night and STILL don't understand anything. That's not a good sign, ha.
Fortunately (for my free time), my enthusiasm was diminished when I realized I can't create an entirely matriarchal line of succession through which to role play because it's not "realistic". *sad face*
Yeah, and the penalties for having a female heir/ruler are punishing. :(
I don't exactly mind the historical accuracy, because it's kind of interesting to see how the social structures are reinforcing. It's easy to treat your daughters like pawns for prestige or alliances, while grooming your sons much more carefully for leadership, for instance, because there's a lot of incentive there from the rules. Which is something I'd object to strenuously in other games - I think I wrote a furious rant on how pregnancy/maternal leave worked in the Sims 2, back in the day - but feels okay in this specific context.
It's one of those games where understanding sort of emerges slowly - it can't really be tackled in a straightforward manner. That suits some people (and amounts of free time, ha) better than others.
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