opnet [OpNet] Kids, Who Needs Em?

[Leliel]

Quite frankly does it matter whether it is Project Utopia, or some mere coincidence? Regardless as Timeslip has said, Children are the future of any people, and the One Race will triumph over the fertility problem, regardless of it's source.

[Loge]

Is this a manifest destiny thing or are you just really confident we can do anything?

[Leliel]

The latter. To be specific a sincere belief that our ultimate potential as Novas is unlimited. But even without dealing with levels of evolution or transcendance, I honestly believe that we have the will and the dedication to triumph over all obstacles.

[The White Rat]

I would'nt mind having a lot of children. My mate of course, would have to be of the One Race as well. This would be to ensure that the offspring have the highest chance of being nova.

Of course those children who do not, or will never possess a node will have to be euthanized. It would be done painlessly and quickly, because I have no wish to prolongue their suffering. After all, they are still my children.

[Loge]

Leliel - it seems to me to be more a commercial than anything else. Or worse, its just a quantum age rewrapping of the old saw about God. You know the one? Its goes "God can do anything right? So can God make a weight so heavy he can't lift it?"

Here's the thing I think a lot of people miss. Once you've got a hammer then everything is a nail. If you have a screwdriver then everything is a screw. Does that make sense? Hell no! But we're people and that means being animals with enough brain power to really fuck things up including ourselves. Sure if eruption were something we could work towards and control then maybe it would be different but that's not the case. Momentary impulses, half remembered day dreams, a little trauma either mental or physical all happening in the right moment and suddenly we have a headache that just won't quite. Channeling the power of the universe sure but only in a certain way. The problem isn't controlling the four forces its the fact our limited brains viewed those forces through the lense of our own screwed up and flawed perceptions. To be anything like what you're talking about would mean we'd first have to go back and completely unlearn everything we've ever remembered, thought and have been. Until we can do that, and I don't think we can because of how the brain works, what you're talking about is fantasy. We can do a lot, a hell of a lot, but the one thing we can't do is stop being ourself. Master quantum energies? I think we'd all be better off setting our goals a little less lofty and learn to master ourselves first.

White Rat - Repeat after me:

We... Do... NOT... Harm... Children.

Ever.

Not deliberately. Not knowingly. Not with premeditation. It doesn't matter what you want. It doesn't matter what you think or feel. It doesn't matter whose child it is. You don't ever contemplate harming a child because they don't meet your expectations.

[Leliel]

First of all something you have seemed to overlook. Finding a solution to a problem through willpower and dedication does not necessarily involve the direct use of quantum forces.

There are such things as creativity, inventiveness, etc. If we just go "We can't find a solution", then the limit is one we are ourselves creating. Yes, it would be a wonderful thing (for the One Race at least) If I could alter the very fabric of the universe in such a way as to solve all of our problems. And yes, I am not close to being capable of that. One day perhaps I may, since my "brain" is no longer even solid matter in nature, but that is academic to the discussion since we talk about the present.

Whatever is affecting the fertility rate of novas can and will be dealt with. That was my only statement.

White Rat: What if one of your children was born without a node, but later could erupt? You would still terminate a potential member of the One Race?

[Timeslip]

Loge,

The whole concept behind Teras is setting aside, one by one, those "flawed perceptions" and moving forward in our own development. Is it a perfect process? No. Is it fast? Again, no. That said, it has and does bear fruit.

When we erupted, there was a moment when anything - anything - was possible. It is quickly reduced, as you said, to a faint, half-remembered dream. But picture getting a second chance. A second glimpse. A sort of second eruption. And a third. And fourth. And so on. And imagine, if you will, that you are in control, that you do get to direct what happens during these quantum leaps. That, Loge, is the fruit that Teras bears. Oh, to be certain, it is not anywhere near as drastic and overwhelming as that first moment of incredible change, but I assure you: it is real.

That said, we are not even twenty years into the Nova Era, and by the best estimates currently available, some of us will live for hundreds of years... or longer, unless we run afoul of accidental death. We have time.

[The White Rat]

Loge: Are you asking me to act to my detrement? What I am doing is natural, and is seen throughout the Animal kingdom. The male cat will kill his own kittens, just so the female will go into heat again. A bear will abandon a cub who is born deformed. What I would do is no different. Essentially, what you are telling me, is that I should take a HUMAN view towards my children. I do not.

Leliel: If you notice, I said potential to develop a node. There are ways to detect latency in humans.

[Satyr]

I happen to know for a fact that I am quite virile. (Just ask the Lakota.) Which is helpful since I happen to have a bit in common with you're average fertility god.

Were I to find that I suddenly were sterile, I'd be rather upset, moreso perhaps than when those CoMA bastards burned down my home.

[Loge]

White Rat - Yes. I am asking you, advising you and stopping just short of telling you to act to your detriment. And the only reason I am stopping short is it's hypothetical. You don't have kids at the moment, don't seem to be seeking to have them and it would hopefully never go any further than an opinion post on the opnet. If any of that changes then yes we will have a problem. I'm telling you that straight out because you seem smart enough to figure it out on your own and I don't want you to think I'd be willing to back down on the subject because I waffled over being a prick about it now.

We're the animals with the big brains. We have the ability to think and to choose. Instinct is there but while the animals don't have a lot else we can choose what we're going to do. I don't care if you call that acting as human or acting as an animal. And honestly I don't see anything trascendent about what you're saying. If you want to be something more than human then go for it. But don't hand me all this crap about animals and then tell me you're just not being human. As a matter of fact, I don't see anything about what you've said here that's different from human. Being inhumane or acting to shock the straights isn't the same as being something different from human.

Leliel - Sorry I made you think I was just talking about the juice but I think the same theory holds true. Once you perceive things in a certain way, assume certain things, there are other roads you're just not going to walk down. They don't exist for you and you can't get there from where you are.

But when we do talk about the juice it means that people, or the mind if you want to get general, sees things in certain ways. One guy erupts with magnetic powers. Now somewhere down the line he becomes convinced magnetics fields have something to do with the functioning of the body and so as a master of magnetism he should be able to help people heal. In time he actually does learn to do this. Now that guy knows more about magnetism than I ever will but here's the question. Is he healing because he's a master of magnetism? Or is he rationalizing something that has nothing to do with reality just because he sees reality as magnetic.

Timeslip - Here's the thing. White Rat is a terat and his way of setting aside flawed perceptions seems to be by rolling around in them until his skinny gets all wrinkly. He's like a kid rolling around in the autumn leaves but telling himself how he's not actually playing.

[Velvet]

White Rat:

You're a fucking nutjob, and I can't read any more of your insanity here without speaking up. All this crap you've been spewing about being superior to humans, and moving beyond their limitations, and you're still working with the "animal kingdom" schtick? Isn't that kind of a backwards tumble down the evolutionary ladder? Yeah. Instead of trying to help your "flawed" offspring grow up with your philosophies and understanding so they could, you know, help other "pathetic humans" move forward, you kill them? Oooh. Reeeaaal enlightened of you. People like you are the reason that the Teragen as a whole gets painted with the "Batshit Terrorist" brush, and why you'll never see me at the holiday mixers. For every rational, clear-headed and reasonable adherent of the philosophy, there's someone like you.

If I ever hear of you spawning or attempting to reproduce, you sick fuck, I guarantee you will regret it. You do not get to hurt children, and if you truly adhered to that line of bullshit about the flawed ones needing to be euthanized, you'd have splattered your node all over the god-damned wall a long time ago.

And to everyone else who isn't White Rat or a similar headcase, I hope you're having a wonderful day.

[Warren Verona]

There was a woman I knew, long ago. This was shortly after I erupted and before the Zurich Accord. We met as children and were 'intitutionalized' for out own 'protection'.

We vowed to one another that we would never let that place change us. That we would never give in, no matter how great the torture. She never gave in, I did. I became the one thing I swore never to become, a mindless drone and a baseline weapon.

We got older, and she fell in love with me, I never loved her back, I wasn't capable of such things. But it never stopped her from trying to get through to me. Well, time goes on and she eventaully decided to escape from our 'prison' and I was sent to recover her, or destroy her.

She killed herself, there in front of me. She told me she cared for me, and would rather die than have us return to that place. At the time I thought 'us' was reffering to her and myself.

Later, I learned that 'us' meant her and my child she was carrying. I was incapable of love, but sorrow and rage come natural to me. Many baselines died that night, they paid the price of my own hubris.

I have no desire to have more children but I wish I could have back the one I lost.

[The White Rat]

Velvet:

If you approach what I would from an evolutionary standpoint, I am well within my rights to ensure the survival of the fittest members of my species. A non-nova child would be a threat to that survival, just like humanity is a threat. As for being a 'backward tumble', that is not the case. In fact, I am seeking to increase the numbers of those who are superior, therfore, moving foreward along the evolutionary ladder. If I ensure the survival of the fittest, by putting my resources into their survival, I am behaving in a purely rational way, free of the emotional entrapments that plague nuch of humanity. My actions would be completely rational. It is your emotionalism that has clouded your reasoning.

In fact, even humans have acted in rational, survival oriented ways. Infanticide has been recorded throuhgout human history. Ever read the story of Oedipus Rex? Even the Greek gods killed their children.

Loge:

I in fact do have a child. He was born in 2005, when I was a soldier. This of course, was before I erupted. He is 10.

[Loge]

Do the best you can for him White Rat. Not the best you can for you but the best you can for him. Treat him right.

You addressed this to Velvet but I'm going to answer. Its my answer not hers but there it is. There is no rational without emotional. There is no search for objective truth that doesn't start with assumption. There is no fact unvarnished by perception. Even with novas this remains true to the best of my knowledge. Humanity got Pandora's box. A bite off the low hanging fruit in the tree of knowledge. We got all of that from our parents and then a node to go with it. Now the cold hard truth of it all is there is no survival of the fittest because evolution and nature scatter guns the possibilities across the board of potential. Whatever makes it, makes it. Whatever doesn't changes or it dies out. Life goes on. A node isn't a criteria for survival.

But when you're talking about thinking beings, i.e. us, if you really want to fuck someone you give them power. A node is a simple thing. A mind isn't.

[z-Silvestru]

White Rat, rather than killing off undesireable offspring, why don't you give them up for adoption? That way, your resources aren't drained, and someone who desparately wants a child can have one.