On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:20 PM, David Brin wrote:
--- Warren Ockrassa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:To me what was probably most interesting about KP is the story you told with the scenario you conceived. (I mean the contrast of what you explored versus what I would have done given the same starting point.) I would have gone down a totally different exploratory path -- one you mentioned tangentially, as it happens -- body-swapping and species swapping. (Gender-switching alone would make for an interesting > character study.)
I saved a bunch of possibilities for KILN TIME, which is now 2 years behind schedule. Anything you folks care to suggest, including puns, is always welcome.
That's pretty dependent on what sort of story you want to tell, of course. Your titles seem to explore the meaning of humanity, sometimes by contrasting us with aliens and sometimes with ourselves, so the ditto concept is just a lovely vehicle to use for the purpose.
At the end of KP you blast the transcendent consciousness through some squids, f'rinstance, which was intriguing on two levels: The squid mind and the still-changing transcendent one.
Note the MAJOR theme in all my works... that whatever's new won't be monopolized by dark powers OR solitary demigod heroes... but will be shared by the masses.
Yeah, and a lot of the initial (prurient and otherwise) possibilities for dittos were already covered in KP.
Here are some things to speculate about, if you haven't already.
1. Presumably dittos -- at least the expensive ones -- are capable of sensual/sexual response (pleasure models, but also enjoyment of food, drink, etc.). Does this mean that dittos in general contain copies -- to proportional levels of crudity or refinement -- of all human sensual systems? If so, how clearly do those responses map, and can they be mapped across body plans?
What I'm wondering is what an oceanographer (example) might do with a clay dolphin body, or a squid's -- how much of the sensation of that (ahem) otherness would carry through?
2. Dittos across genders would probably be interesting from many points of view. Would a clay experience estrus, for instance? Can pregnant women copy? How ... accurate ... would that copy be?
Or is it simply not possible for pregnant women to copy because the body and mind differences between a nonpregnant ditto and a pregnant human are too great? Is this regarded as sexism?
If the copy does in fact bear a weight that *feels like* a fetus, how likely is it that husbands (mates) would ditto into a pregnant version of their significant others to see what it felt like?
How would ultraconservatives respond to gender-hopping dittoheads? Would they be treated as transvestites are now in many places? Or as transsexuals?
How about pre-op TS clinics where people with suspected gender dysmorphia are allowed to try on the other sex for a day to see if there's really something there? Or of course one person dittoing into each gender (or not! ;) to explore another kind of ... dittoeroticism?
I'm not suggesting you probe (!) that stuff in depth, but it might be tangent fodder. I'd be all over it myself, but that's because I'm me. ;)
3. Extraterrestrials. Say we meet some bright aliens from someplace. Do we ditto with them? How do they react to our cloning and parallel immortality experiments? Are they horrified but too polite to say so, or horrified and descend with Fry-O-Matic™ 3700 cannon blazing, or do they show us a way to upgrade the tech beyond our wildest imaginings? Do they show us a means of remote dittoing, for instance -- a kind of corporeal telepresence?
4. Drama. Snuff films for real, sort of -- but suppose there's a way to shove a second consciousness into a clay brain, or a way to get it out (I agree that telepathy's out, and for basically the same reasons you brought up in KP) -- feelings, though, rather than thoughts or memories.
What I mean by that is that urges in the meat (clay) are not exactly thought items, so perhaps they'd carry in a way that inloaded memories can't. Thus an audience of voyeurs could all experience the *sensations* of some thing happening on a stage ... everyone could get into the show, on a gut level.
Tying this with #1 could yield some interesting results.
What would happen if a link like that were opened up through everyone? We'd have universal empathy. What if some rejected it? Would they be compelled to get linked anyway? Would those who were biologically incapable -- for whatever reason -- of being linked be treated with mistrust, or put into institutions as sociopaths? Hunted down? Feared?
Envied?
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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