Shaper hypocrisy vs. Shaper tragedy (SPOILERS)

[Student of Trinity]

In the Wow G4 thread, I argued at some length that the long-term and collective behavior of Shaper society is very much like the mad rashness of the various rogue magicians that the Shapers condemn. Like the many rogue magicians we have seen in the games, Shaper society pursues dangerous experiments to increase its power, mistakenly believing that its controls will prevent catastrophes. We have seen many instances in the game of dangerous accidents, yet Shaper society has not stopped trying dangerous experiments. Ironically, then, Shaper society seems to have something of the Rebel madness in its collective soul.

 

So I argued, citing episodes from G1 to G3 which seemed to show that an alarmingly high percentage of Shapers are latent megalomaniacs. But as Waylander argued against me earlier in that other thread, it is not clear that the examples seen in the three games are typical of Shaper society. They could all be dreadful exceptions. So I think that at least two alternative scenarios are also possible.

 

We might first suppose that the original Geneforge on Sucia Island was an unprecedented event. It happened, and happened there, because Danette and company ran into some sort of records from the aboriginal culture that had launched Shaping in the first place. Plausibly, those early proto-Shapers had suppressed the most dangerous Shaping secrets; with this suppression came the stability that enabled them to build the Shaper empire. Clues to these deadly secrets survived in their most ancient records, however. Danette found some of these, and the rest is history.

 

If Danette really was unique, the speed and throughness with which her project was shut down were remarkable achievements. Perhaps implausibly so; but perhaps the Shaper Council is a remarkable bunch of folks. And perhaps it isn't because sealing labs and barring regions are common that the apprentice PC recognizes these as standard Shaper procedures. Perhaps Shaper education just drums these ideas into students, precisely because of how shaken the Shapers were by the first Geneforge.

 

After Danette, there are still alarmingly many instances of fully indoctrinated Shapers going power-mad for canisters or geneforges, and doing the really dangerous things of G2 and G3. But it could be that Goettsch wasn't really picked up at random: perhaps only a somewhat corrupt Shaper would have been sailing close to a barred island in the first place. Then perhaps a single brilliant but unscrupulous character like Barzahl might naturally find his way into the clean-up team. And once the Rebels get rolling, they are good at finding people like Litalia. Plus they find out-of-the-way places, like the Ashen Isles, where rogue Shapers and magicians do occasionally manage to escape the generally excellent Shaper vigilance.

 

On this view, the prevalence of corruption in Shaper ranks is actually very low. In fringe areas one does find a fair number of eccentrics; but only in fringe areas, and these eccentrics are generally successfully contained. The problem is just that a very few bad apples have gotten their big chances after the secrets of canisters and the geneforge have gotten out, and they have seized their chances. Shaper society is thus in a unique crisis.

 

Perhaps indeed in retrospect a crisis like this was bound to happen eventually, and one might fault the Shapers for not anticipating it. But in this scenario, the Shapers had no idea that all this could happen, until Danette dropped her bombshell; by then Shaper culture had a lot of momentum, and a big empire, and they've been doing their best to cope anyway. They may be victims of a historic irony, but they are tragic victims rather than fools.

 

A second scenario which also tends to exculpate the Shapers:

Rogue magic is and always was very common in Shaper society, but this is just because magic is actually quite easy to learn in the Shaper world. So magicians are cropping up constantly. The Shapers are doing their best to suppress the necromancers and monsters, but it's an uphill struggle.

 

They make deals where they have to, sometimes turning a blind eye to wacko hermits making Runed Serviles or Experimental Gammas, in order to contain them while sparing their few reliable people for cases that cannot be settled by such compromises.

 

And they enroll all the talented younsters they can find in their Shaper schools, hoping to turn as many as possible into disciplined Shapers. Given the raw material they start with, a fair proportion of their graduates are still latent megalomaniacs. But they are trying to walk a fine line between producing trained maniacs and not producing enough Shapers to control the maniacs. It's tough, and they're doing their best.

 

Under this second scenario, Shaper discipline is indeed about as flawed as I alleged in the other thread, but the Shaper ideology is not hypocritical: it's determination in the face of adversity. They're collectively trying to 'fake it till they make it', believing in the disciplined society that they are actually still struggling to build. And then the Geneforge comes along ...

 

I think that the evidence available in the games doesn't really suffice to force a choice between the three scenarios I have now outlined. One can still be persuaded of one of them -- or of some other one -- based on subjective impressions; for myself, I'm still sticking with my first one, of Shapers as slow Takers. But this is a matter of opinion. Perhaps G4 will resolve things.

[MagmaDragoon]

Well, I would "pick" the first scenario. I don't think that magic is easy to learn.

 

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:

...I'm still sticking with my first one, of Shapers as slow Takers...

I think that they are more slow Barzites than Takers.

[Major]

Quote:

ometimes turning a blind eye to wacko hermits making Runed Serviles

Some proof that that is not true:

question = "You met Litalia?";
text1 = "_She came here after the rogues attacked, when I was helping to shut down this complex. I, a colleague, and our serviles were here, clearing out any supplies of value._";

And this:

question = "And what happened?"; t text1 = "_Litalia was kind. She offered me and the other mage canisters, advice, power, the control of the serviles, if we would interfere with the Shapers. I was wise. The other mage was foolish, and suffered accordingly._"; text2 = "_So Litalia gave me the powers. Powers I will now use to destroy you._";

[Zeviz]

If I understood you correctly, the 3 scenarios can be summarised as follows:

 

1. All Shapers are just hypocrites, talking about control, but taking every opportunity to grab any bit of power that comes their way.

 

2. Events of Geneforge are completely unique and represent an unexpected crisis.

 

3. Megalomania is human nature, and Shapers are struggling with it as well as they can.

 

I think it's a combination of cases 2 and 3. On one hand, it looks like experiments gone wrong are common enough to have standard procedures for dealing with them. On the other hand, Shapers have built a stable empire spanning two continents, and the Geneforge War seems to be an unprecedented challenge. (At least that's the feeling I am getting from Geneforge 3.)

 

There are unstable hermits, power-hungry maniacs and unscrupulous researchers in any society. The areas we've seen so far are exactly the kinds of areas where such people would lurk:

- Gf1 was set in a remote research center that was digging up ancient knowledge and was shut down as soon as authorities found out what kind of experimentation was going on.

- Gf2 was set in a desert frontier settlment so remote that a whole valley of terraformed land could be hidden for years from the outside world.

- Gf3 is once again set in a frontier so remote that there is no worse place for them to send Diwanya, and, until recently, just getting to the testing center to take Shaping Tests was considered to be a part of the test.

 

Gf4 will be set in more central areas of Shaper empire, so only after seeing that game will we know whether all the rogue experimenters we've seen are the exception or the rule.

 

PS There is also a simple consideration that without sealed labs and mad scientists, there would be no side dungeons for the party to fight through. (It's a lot easier to throw a few monsters into an area and call it "sealed lab" than to make "enemy camp #10" that is different from the previous 9 enemy camps the PC had to clear.)

[Retlaw May]

I, too think that such problems would be rare at best. Do you think that the Shapers would have been so unprepared if such problems were common occurances? If there were such problems the Shapers would be on constant alert to put down any rebelion or mass of rogues. I think that the reason that the rebels had such initial success was because this was a very, very, unique occurance.

[Randomizer]

I think there is a mistaken assumption. While Sucia Island was the origin of the shapers, Danette's Geneforge was independently created without ancient knowledge but as the outgrowth of centuries of research. It represents a systematic way to achieve results instead of the trial and error that originally destroyed the island.

 

Shaper's try to regulate new knowledge and who gains access because of the results with mistakes. In GF3 there is the case of burrowing mold that has gotten loose and infected the man at Fort Kentia. The necromancers and other mad mages that want to try out anything are what needs to be stopped.

 

The problems is the mistreatment of serviles. They are treated as a step up from tools and animals. When the Shaper's Council accepts that they deserve better then a moderate course can be started.

[Suspicious Vlish]

Student of Trinity:

 

As always, you've made thoughtful and clever posts. I'm sorry that I haven't replied yet in the 'Wow' thread, but things are very hectic at the moment.

 

I'm actually quite impressed, since you've given quite an accurate representation of my basic contention. In past discussions with individuals on other forums, they have often misrepresented even the simplest of my arguments (either delibrately, or out of obtuseness).

 

Zeviz also made some interesting observations, which I'd like use as a basis for my thoughts:

 

Quote:

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If I understood you correctly, the 3 scenarios can be summarised as follows:

 

1. All Shapers are just hypocrites, talking about control, but taking every opportunity to grab any bit of power that comes their way.

 

2. Events of Geneforge are completely unique and represent an unexpected crisis.

 

3. Megalomania is human nature, and Shapers are struggling with it as well as they can.

 

I think it's a combination of cases 2 and 3. On one hand, it looks like experiments gone wrong are common enough to have standard procedures for dealing with them. On the other hand, Shapers have built a stable empire spanning two continents, and the Geneforge War seems to be an unprecedented challenge. (At least that's the feeling I am getting from Geneforge 3.)

 

I think that Student of Trinity and myself make the exact same observations, and come to very different conclusions.

 

He observes the chaos caused by careless and rogue Shapers in the Geneforge series, and believes that this is strong evidence that the Shaper regime, its structure, attitude, beliefs and laws encourage corruption, megalomania, and dangerous behaviour.

 

On the other hand, I observe these happenings and feel that the attitude and laws of the Shaper regime is vindicated. Every time the Shaper Council relaxes their control, or is too slow to enforce their laws, or allows research to fall into rebel hands, disaster ensues. Quite simply, every disaster is a result of a direct defiance of basic Shaper laws and attitudes.

 

As for the megalomania and Shaper nuts, I don't deny their existance. However, I attribute these flaws to human nature, not Shaper teachings. As Zeviz perceptively pointed out, curiosity is human nature. And the fields which the Shapers perform research in are exciting and revolutionary, which makes it difficult to keep ones curiousity in check, to ensure that one does not cross into dangerous territory.

 

However, I believe that Shaper laws and attitudes help to maintain a happy medium between curiousity and the discovery/further research of forbidden knowledge, and also to ensure that megalomania is kept to a minimum.

An analogy which may be relevant is the belief that certain elements of priest-hood encourage child abuse. However, when we look objectively at the issue, the frequency of molestion in the priesthood is of the same proportion (and some say less), than that observed in the community. So it is fair to say that this molestion occurs not because the individuals are priests, but because they are human.

Likewise, I believe the megalomania observed in Geneforge is not a product of Shaper teachings, but due to the innate nature of humans. I also believe that the Shaper teachings and laws are instrumental in keeping megalomania, and the abuse of power, to a minimum.

 

Problems still do arise. No human institution is perfect, and even if you let your guard down for a second, you may have someone's human nature of curiousity and desire for power overwhelm common sense and Shaper Law.

However, the mere existence of crisis and megalomaniac Shapers is not evidence that the Shaper regime is a 'failed experiment', any more than a dead child is evidence of bad parents.

 

The state of the rebels vindicates my position. Here we have a group of serviles, drayks and drakkons who do not have Shaper laws in place, and do not share the Shaper attitude of restraint, control and discipline. And the difference between the Shapers and the Rebels is obvious. Rogues that they cannot control, widespread destruction, squabbling factions, instability, and the loss of their own 'humanity' (granted, serviles and drayks aren't human, but they lose their basic sense of right and wrong as the power of self-shaping corrupts them).

 

Finally, as Zeviz mentioned, the fact that the Shapers have established successful civilizations on two continents is strong evidence that their system works. It is only when they were too slow to enforce their laws that everything went awry.

But even then, it's apparent that the Shapers have managed to bounce back from initial defeats, as Geneforge 4 specifically states that they are winning the war.

The ability of a country to bounce back from so many disasterous defeats (eg. Observe Rome during the 2nd Punic War) merely highlights how resilient, well structured, and adaptable that regime is in the face of disaster.

 

Overall, while the Shaper regime is not a perfect institution, it has been remarkably successful.

[Student of Trinity]

To clarify my first scenario again, it is not that all Shapers are hypocrites or megalomaniacs. It is just that too many of them are prone to megalomania, such that all it takes is a bit of temptation, and they start chugging canisters and making monsters. And given that, it is (according to this scenario) foolish and reckless of Shaper society overall to keep on with its research and rule, as if its discipline were much better than it actually is. It ought to be freezing all research, and pulling out the serviles that are laboring to build labs in hostile places, until it can get its collective act together, purge its own ranks of latent corruption, and return with the right cultural tools for the job. Instead, Shaper culture may not actually encourage corruption, but it tolerates it too much. It punishes rogues who get caught, but it does not do enough to keep unreliable people out of responsible positions in the first place.

 

In this scenario, Shaper culture (not all individual Shapers) is like an alcoholic who refuses to recognize that he has a problem. He talks about self-control, and demonstrates it in periodic bursts, but the fact is that he is fundamentally unreliable. However much part of him may believe in discipline, another part of him is just waiting for a big enough temptation or a good enough excuse to fall off the wagon again.

 

Even in this scenario, the Shaper empire can be considered successful. It may have strewn the world with sealed labs, but it has grown and avoided total catastrophe at least until the present Rebellion. But in this scenario the success of the Shaper empire is kind of like the success of the Soviet empire in the real world: a ramshackle regime that muddles through the minefields of history, occasionally exerting great coercive force, and otherwise piling up waste and riddled with corruption behind a solid ideological front. Many of the individual cogs in the big machine may be honorable, or even heroic; but the system they serve in staggers and lurches.

 

And a system like this can still be resilient, in a sense, just because it is so big. The whole Rebellion (in its current form) had to start with one overlooked vat growing in G2. The Rebellion is small, and it is not surprising that an intercontinental empire, even a dysfunctional one, might squash it by concentrated effort.

 

Personally I still find this scenario the most persuasive. An ignorant apprentice has had to pull the Shapers' chestnuts out of the fire three times now, and my respect for the Shaper council is not running high. Observing their deeds more than their words, I've started thinking of them as a politburo of grey old geezers in baggy suits, much better at pulling triggers on easy targets than at solving grave problems.

 

For what it's worth, I'm still more inclined to support the Shapers than the Rebels. I just think of them as a lesser evil rather than the good guys.

 

About Sucia Island and Danette: I don't actually remember any indications in G1 that Danette followed ancient clues, but I presume that she might have, since otherwise it is just a wild coincidence that the Geneforge was discovered on the same island that gave birth to the Shapers centuries before.

 

About the Runed Servile guy (can't remember his name, don't have the games here to look him up): I had indeed forgotten the remarks that indicate he was okay until meeting Litalia. Still, even though Litalia may have corrupted him, he camps close to Dhonal's Keep without anyone ever giving you a mission to rub him out. Rahul never mentions him; for the moment, at least, he is being let lie. It certainly seems as though a sortie from the Keep could easily wipe him out. But okay, perhaps he is just being overlooked in the excitement of the war.

 

Finally, about why there are so many sealed labs: of course the sealed labs are really all there just to provide dungeons. And cool dungeons they are; exploring a sealed lab sure seems more exciting than just some cellar currently serving as a monster flophouse. But the question is whether Jeff made the sealed labs by special creation, or through the evolutionary mechanism of a dysfunctional Shaper society.

 

EDIT: Important clarification: In this pessimistic scenario, I am still only criticizing the Shapers according to their own lights. The basic injustice of creating and using Serviles is another issue, and on it I don't think the Shapers come out as well.

[Suspicious Vlish]

Student of Trinity:

 

I'm quite surprised that you compared the Shaper regime to the Soviet regime. All three games focused on fringe colonies at Shaper borders, so it is no surprise that Shaper control was not absolute. This is the same with any empire. You mention that the Shaper order is in a shambles regarding organization, but I always got the impression that they were unified and focused. *shrugs*

 

More to the point, I have question. If you were give the position of dictator in the Shaper regime, how would you act to change the 'mad experiment'? What laws would you pass? What mechanisms would you put in place? What you change the method of research? How would you screen for megalomaniac individuals?

[Student of Trinity]

I guess it's just a matter of extrapolating from the areas we've seen in the three games so far to the Shaper heartlands. Just how different are the fringes from the center? I'm guessing not so much, you're guessing a lot. Perhaps we'll see more in G4.

 

The Shaper Council does seem kind of ineffectual, though. If you leave G2 too soon, they drag their feet about dealing with Drypeak, and get overwhelmed. And your poor little apprentice PC always has to do the hard work for them, but then gets treated as a mere apprentice, despite being 50th level and able to take Benerii-Uss before breakfast. They just don't seem very clued-in about power, and that's not good in a Shaper Council.

 

I'm not sure what the Shapers should do, other than putting the brakes on until they do find something to do, however long that takes. Add a few more ethics courses in Shaper school. Build in a lot of tests of character into the curriculum, as wells as tests of skill, and make these tests be about more than whether you believe in keeping the Serviles down. Give normal humans (maybe even Serviles?) some voice in risk management discussions, so that Shaper arrogance doesn't always carry the day.

 

Maybe the Shapers are just doomed, by now, the time in which they might have steered their society straighter having passed centuries ago. I doubt there was anything much Gorbachev could have done, for instance, to salvage the Soviet Union at his point.

[Major]

Quote:

Finally, about why there are so many sealed labs

For a ingame reason? I might have one. They closed off the labs when the war started. Simply because it would be hard to hold them. Of course this doesn't exactily match. But it could be the problems in the mines started when they started to leave. (As they were in a hurry they didn't do it too carefully.)

Quote:

The Shaper Council does seem kind of ineffectual, though.

Yes, it does need alot of improvements.

[MagmaDragoon]

Quote:

Originally written by Student of Trinity:
Maybe the Shapers are just doomed, by now, the time in which they might have steered their society straighter having passed centuries ago.

This would be the answer to the question: "Why GF4's subtitle is Rebellion?"

[ThirdParty]

Quote:

If you were give the position of dictator in the Shaper regime, how would you act to change the 'mad experiment'? What laws would you pass? What mechanisms would you put in place? What you change the method of research? How would you screen for megalomaniac individuals?

That's the key question, isn't it? If there's a better way that the Council could be behaving, then it's failure to behave in that way signals that it is interested in something other than the good of its subjects.

So:

• Stop sealing and barring things when an experiment goes bad: clean it up instead. A hyperactive golem with demon's blood in its veins can last a very, very long time in an airtight laboratory; eventually, the seal will be breached, and people will get hurt. But the Council is more interested in avoiding accountability and hiding their mistakes than in the safety of the people.
• Don't just close off avenues of research. Just as any sealed lab will eventually be breached, any fact will eventually become common knowledge. The right way to deal with something like the discovery of the miniature scrolls is to continue doing research, to make any technology better and less buggy, and to figure out how society can be adapted to live with the new powers which people will have. But the Council is more interested in delaying social change and keeping themselves at the top of the heap than in the long-term well-being of the people.
• Rule by respect rather than fear. No matter how overextended the Shapers are, they could do better if they treated outsiders as allies rather than as an occupied people. Shapers don't need unlimited authority, don't need to be above all law; they could give reasons for their commands and convince people to do what's in their own interests (presuming, of course, that it is--they could also listen to people's input if there is disagreement), instead of by demanding unthinking obedience. But the Council is more interested in exercising its power than in producing good results.
• When measuring the suitability of candidates for training, base it not on their loyalty to current policies but rather on their loyalty to the people. By all means eject someone who might abuse power, but don't reject him for having alternate political views. But the Council is more interested in maintaining a corrupt regime than in ensuring the best possible succession.
• Bring back the Drayks. Genocide of an intelligent people cannot be justified by "they're too independent to make useful slaves", "when they live, they consume resources that could instead be consumed by our people", nor "they're sub-humans, more like reptiles than like us." But the Council is more interested in what's good for themselves than in what's morally right.

[Retlaw May]

Anybody who has read The Prince can tell you that it is best to be both feared and respected, but that is difficult. So if you must pick one, you pick to rule by fear. Only by fear will you stave off the worst of rebellions and disobediance.

[Randomizer]

Ruling by fear is easier. There isn't likely to be the mistake that kindness is a sign of weakness. That's why serviles are punished for showing independent thought. In Japan they used to say that the nail that stands out above the others gets hit by the hammer.

 

Although the Shaper's Council has taken it too far and that has caused the servile rebellion. In GF1 there were some endings where the serviles (Obeyers) were treated better, but usually they were cannonfodder that could be most useful by dying so they didn't contaminate the other serviles. The drayks are by GF3 considered too powerful and dangerous to be allowed to exist. The serviles have pushed their search for power to the point where their creations are more likely to go out of control and damage the world rather than help it. I don't think that certain creations will be allowed to continue in Shaper controlled areas.

[Retlaw May]

In America, the saying goes, "Squeaky wheel gets the oil."

In Japan, the saying goes, "Crooked nail gets hammered back in."

[MagmaDragoon]

I totally agree with ThirdParty. If the Council will change, Shapers Empire can have a chance, IMHO.

[Hamilton G. Phantamos]

While I see the Shapers as oppressive tyrants, I don't agree that the creations should be given absolute freedom or regarded as independent beings. Once that happens, the entire point of making the creation is lost. I was reluctant to side with the Shapers in Geneforge 3 mostly because of their high and mighty attitude and general disregard for "outsiders." That and the rebels came off more as unjustified terrorists that tired to hide behind thin claim of justice to excuse indiscriminate slaughter.

 

Normal human beings shoulnd't have to live in fear of the Shapers or be treated like second class citizens, but the serviles were created in part to alleviate this. They perform many of the mundane, trivial, or hazardous tasks that most humans would refuse to. I felt the conflict in G3 was between two sects of extremists with opposing viewpoints. No matter how intelligent, or clever, or independent a creation is, it's still only a creation and was created for some specific purpose. However, that doesn't mean the creator has a right to be inhumane or abusive to their creations.

 

Think about Terminator, The Matrix, I Robot, Frankenstein, or any other story where a creation has turned on it's developers. The creations in those stories were created for some purpose but the downfall of their cretors was always hubris and reckless experimentation. Personally I don't see much difference from a few serviles getting bored and deciding to kill their masters and an over-advanced AI becoming self-aware and launching a nuclear warhead to claim it's own independence.

 

Drakons can't be allowed to exist and shouldn't have been made in the first place because they exemplify this the most: a creation that is a product of reckless unchecked research that will invariably turn on it's makers. That dangerous and unchecked research is why the Shapers are so strict about who learns magic and how much, but it deosn't change the fact they go too far too restrict the flow of knowledge and information. The Shapers need reform, but outright rebellion isn't going to solve their problems.

[ThirdParty]

Quote:

Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:
I don't agree that the creations should be given absolute freedom or regarded as independent beings. Once that happens, the entire point of making the creation is lost. ... Normal human beings shoulnd't have to live in fear of the Shapers or be treated like second class citizens, but the serviles were created in part to alleviate this. They perform many of the mundane, trivial, or hazardous tasks that most humans would refuse to. ... No matter how intelligent, or clever, or independent a creation is, it's still only a creation and was created for some specific purpose.

The clawbug is a modification of the desert scorpion; what do you suppose the servile is a modification of? Human, right? So we know that humans can be "created" in your sense of the word. (I don't whether serviles can be Shaped; most people breed them instead. But if they can, then humans presumably can too.) So one could "create" a human just like you or me, with the intention of using it to do nasty work in awful conditions for no pay (you would undoubtedly refuse to do "trivial, mundane, or hazardous" tasks at first, but I imagine you'd change your mind after some time in one of those tiny cages or on one of those whipping posts, that always seem to be found near any servile-holding community). If this was the purpose the human was created for, does that make it right to treat it that way? How would you like to be told that because you were created for some purpose, that was what you had to do with your life?

On the other hand, slaves are not the only thing one might want to create: just because Shapers have chosen to use their ability for this evil purpose doesn't mean that it's the only thing that Shaping is good for. (However, If slavery were the "whole point" of Shaping as you suggest, that would be an argument against Shaping, not an argument in favor of slavery.) Especially in underpopulated areas, one might want to create people to be friends, allies, citizens. Hey, people decide to have babies, right? Shaping is just an alternative, less messy, way of making new people. And it gives more options: for example, if one wants the new citizens, one's children as it were, to be stronger and braver, smarter and more creative and more magically apt, more noble and more honest and more trustworthy, and better looking and better able to fly than average people are, one can do that. (Drayks make excellent citizens, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. The incidents have all been because drayks make poor slaves.) There'd be no danger of overly-"independent" creations eating their masters if you stopped trying to set masters over them.

[Retlaw May]

I don't agree with you that serviles are just modified humans. They are "humaniods" but does that mean that they are really the same as humans? I would sooner say that they were made from chimpanzees or something. Also, there is no evidence that Shapers have or ever will, create a human from essence. Shapers are quite strict on the research that they allow their people to do; just look at how they forbid necromancy. Even though shaping a human from essance is in theory possible (after all they are just shaping dna) there is no proof that that created human would truly be "human".

[Dikiyoba]

It's been hinted at the serviles were created by modifying humans. But it doesn't really matter if they were human, it matters whether they are human (enough) to be given the same freedoms that the ordinary humans have.

 

Dikiyoba.

[John S]

Quote:

Originally written by Retlaw May:
I would sooner say that they were made from chimpanzees or something.

Well, of course you would. That's the easy way out. It lets you continue to think the way you think, even though the only humanoids we've seen have been humans and creations.

Quote:

Originally written by Dikiyoba:
It's been hinted at the serviles were created by modifying humans. But it doesn't really matter if they were human, it matters whether they are human (enough) to be given the same freedoms that the ordinary humans have.

Dikiyoba.

They quite clearly are. You can argue that some serviles are less intelligent, and so don't deserve the same rights as a human, but I would like to stress the point that they can become intelligent when raised in the proper atmosphere. Much like the situation of women a few hundred years ago.

[Micawber]

Quote:

Originally written by Your ad could be here- contact me.:
They quite clearly are [human]. You can argue that some serviles are less intelligent, and so don't deserve the same rights as a human, but I would like to stress the point that they can become intelligent when raised in the proper atmosphere. Much like the situation of women a few hundred years ago.

You may believe this, but not everyone has to agree with you. From the viewpoint of a shaper, serviles are just creations - the same as ornks or fyoras. A servile is a utility, not an individual. You created it, you own it. At any time you may decide to reabsorb it, just the same as any other creation. It's rather pointless, granting the right to self-determination to an object that has no right to life.

[Retlaw May]

I'm just talking from a Shapers view point here:

If you give serviles equal rights, then there was no point in their existance and creation. Shapers made these things to be happy to work for shapers. So in some ways, it would be inhumane to suddenly say, "Hey you have equal rights now, so go away somewhere to live your lives because we might as well use humans now." How do you think the majority of serviles would react. I think that they would beg their masters to let them stay and keep living as they had.

When you speak of serviles, you speak as if the majority are for the rebels and are intellegent. I got the feeling that the majority were the dumb ones that liked working. You may argue that even the dumb ones don't like it in the dangerous places like on Gull Island, but I bet that very few actually work in places such as that.

So, I feel that the intellegent serviles are acting much like a minority trying to impose themselves and their lifestyles over the majority. They don't care if the other serviles want it, they just will force feed it to them anyways!

[John S]

Right, so I had this great post written out. It pointed out puns, it had elegant quote-work, it had FYTs. It was beautiful. But when I tried to post it, "the connection timed out" and I lost everything. So this time, I'm just going to spell out the main point rather than answering every little detail individually.

 

What gives humans the right to command and destroy creations? It's not their superior power, intelligence, or numbers. It's not their ability to rationalize or to organize themselves into societies and communities. It's not because they can shape. So what is it?

[MagmaDragoon]

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Originally written by Your ad could be here- contact me.:

What gives humans the right to command and destroy creations?

The desire of unlimited powers?

EDIT: Or the desire of have a slave?

[Retlaw May]

What gives the intellegent serviles the right to destroy the happiness of so many of their own kind?

[Dikiyoba]

Originally by Your ad could be here- contact me.:

 

Quote:

What gives humans the right to command and destroy creations? It's not their superior power, intelligence, or numbers. It's not their ability to rationalize or to organize themselves into societies and communities. It's not because they can shape. So what is it?

Arrogance, desire for superiority, and other facets of human nature.

 

Really, I think Jeff has done a good job with the servile rights conflict (and everyone else has done a good job buying into it and adding their two cents) because I don't see the free the serviles or keep them as slaves as an eay decision to make.

 

Dikiyoba.

[John S]

Quote:

Originally written by Retlaw May:
What gives the intellegent serviles the right to destroy the happiness of so many of their own kind?

Why would every single servile have to be freed if only some want to be? Those that want to be free should be free, and those who want to serve the Shapers can serve the Shapers.

If they are simply raised from birth to think of themselves as equals, then they will never want to be anything but free. So the intelligent ones can be free and can train their children to want to be free, and the unintelligent ones can keep having children who think of themselves as being unworthy.

[Hamilton G. Phantamos]

There's an obvious difference between humans and the serviles, and that's humans are naturally existing, independent beings that exist without having to be shaped into existence by anyone (unless you want to bring a belief of god into it, and that's an issue all to itself) The point is, in the world of Geneforge, the only organisms we know of that arose through their own natural selection are the humans. Based on the behavior and nature of the shapers, any other natural flora and fauna went extinct and was shaped and reshaped by shapers changing their environment to fit their will. That I definitely don't agree with. To apply it to a real world environmental problem, if we could bring species back from extinction or magically clean oil spills and reverse global warming overnight, would we have any right to abuse THAT power? I think doing major environmental overhauling at the expense of naturally existing native organisms is wrong, but that isn't the issue that's presented in the games.

 

The issue is the right of "creations." Not animals, or organisms, but "creations." Life produced artificially by magically aided means. If you can create something, you can destroy it or use it to whatever whim you please, as long as you don't abuse that creative power. There are creations that can be shaped to reproduce naturally and set up a habitat for themselves, but how many glhaaks do you think naturally existed before somebody decided to make them? Or battle alphas? Maybe it's because I have a more scientifically based perspective on it, but to me the creations are immediately analogous to robots. You could produce more and more advanced robots and machinery, and even give it an ability to learn, grow, and develop more of its kind, but in the end, it's still an unnatural creation you personally created with some goal in mind. What if bomb disposal robots became self aware and decided they wouldn't want to do their intended function anymore? What do you do when your computer locks up? Do you try to reason with it and console it? Most people think that smacking the tower a few times should make it run better. It shows they have no knowledge of how to repair machinery, but does that make them cruel? Tyrants? Or just bad owners? How many people do you think neglect their cars? Drive them faster then they should for too long, go long periods without oil changes, bump and scrape into obstructions without regard to body or paintwork? Of course, cars aren't programmed with any level of real sentience, and very few computers in the world can actually learn, and even then are highly experimental and learn slowly.

 

So what makes the creations in Geneforge any different than the real world machines we use and abuse everyday? Because they're magically crafted bits of flesh given a rudimentary intelligence to help them operate under limited supervision? Compared to another work of science fiction, what makes a servile that much different than a replicant in Blade Runner, or a droid in Star Wars? There's certainly a level of respect that should be given to a being with a discernible level of intelligence, artificial or otherwise, but if it was designed for a specific function, how is it wrong to use it to that end?

 

We use "slaves" everyday in the real world, although we can't (yet) give them any ability to reliably act and think on their own. There are assembly robots in automobile factories. Automated vacuums that scan for dust return to rest after a set amount of time. The computer sitting right in front of you. If it had the ability to act on its own, do you think it would want to do what you wanted it to when you wanted, all the time, if ever? That's on of the things I appreciate about Geneforge is that it raises the ethical question of what responsibility we have to the things we create. But at the same time we created them, so ultimately they are responsible to us. Any intelligent machine that rejected that responsibility in the real world would be seen as defective electronics and have to be dismantled. A rogue creation made out of magically nourished flesh isn't really that much different. I have mor eto say about this but I have to head out to do something. I'll update this post later.

[MagmaDragoon]

I'm starting to think that the promblem cannot be solved...

 

Smart serviles are smart enough to understand what freedom is, but the dumb ones can't even understand what freedom is, because they are... dumb.

 

Then, if we could shape a smart servile from a dumb one, he surely want freedom, because he can think about/what is it, though when he was dumb he only wanted to work, and the prespective of freedom scares him.

 

Sure, we can make all serviles free, but the dumb ones will never be happy...

 

So, what the solution can be?

[John S]

Quote:

Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:
magically clean oil spills

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that there already are bacteria which are devoted to consuming oil.

Quote:

Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:
[We have a right to decide what happens to creations because we created them and they're unnatural.]

And so what if they've been magically created? Why are they any less worthy? They still live, they still think, they still want to survive. Except for the nature of their creation (which has nothing to do with rights), they are no different from natural creatures. I'd like to know why the way you were created should cause such a drastic change in something totally irrelevant, or why it is relevant.

Cars and robots do not have the same rights as humans because they cannot think. They can sense conditions and they can respond, but they must be set to respond and in what manner. They cannot reason; they can only see what is, check if they have been told to do, and then execute whatever command they've learned.

Feral creatures need not be given the same consideration as humans because they would not notice, much less comprehend, the freedoms they had been given.

[Hamilton G. Phantamos]

Cars and robots can't learn or think yet. The way advances in hardware and programming are going it will only be a matter of time before we can create machines and programs that can think and act on their own, and after that, machines that can think in the truest since -- a point where there intelligence is simply intelligence and no longer artificial.

 

That is the point I'm trying to make and you seem to be missing. No one agonizes NOW over abusing their car, computer, or any other piece of machinery, but what happens a century or so from now when you can actually have a conversation with one? If your car could talk and warn you when you're pushing it too hard or when it needs an oil change, at what point would it stop being a programmed machine and start being a being deserving of it's own rights? Of course, it would be bad engineering to program a machine and give it genuine emotion and independent thoughts and expect it to perform a desired function. But what if, by chance and countless random processes and system diagnostics, it became aware of itself? WHat would be the right course of action in that case? Do we give up a $100 billion machine with a very important and critical role in some project to be its own private citizen because it doesn't want to operate a space shuttle's life support systems anymore, or do we shut it down, reprogram it and reboot it so it would no longer be fully aware of what it was doing?

 

My point is organics and origin is not critical or important when determining the rights of an intelligent entity; however, if said entity was created in the first place to serve humankind, then that is the only purpose its existence is meant to fulfill. Otherwise, it needs to be analyzed and destroyed to recreate it in a way where it doesn't mind performing the duties it was built to do. Geneforge could be about magically created mutants or it could be about robots and sentient programs. The same rules apply.

 

If the shapers had built there creations in factories out of plastic, metal, and ceramics, and their humanoid automatons decided to revolt, it'd be the same thing. It would be one group of intelligent entities seeking its independence from the intelligent entities that created it in the first place. It's a lot easier to take a wrench and a screwdriver to something you personally built when it demands its independence than it is to acquiesce and accept it. You built it, so why should you have to listen to it? Just scrap it and build a new one and program it to be more obedient.

 

Creations can think, grow and feel, but my point is, considering where technology could go in the real world, what would make an AI program or sentient machine that much different from a servant mind or battle alpha? Yes, they are programmed to respond to certain stimuli with preset behavior, but then again, so are ALL the creations that the Shapers shape. The only difference is, they're machines are organic, and they're brought to life through magic rather than technology. The fact that they're flesh and blood rather than metal and oil doesn't change the fact that they are "artificial" lifeforms. Sure, they eat. They bleed. They have a compulsion to build nests and form communities. But they are still the product of someone's work and efforts. In that regard, what makes a servile any different than a golem? Do golems deserve intelligence and freedom as well? Why not sympathize with them? So are fyoras and roamers. It's the same as if you could sculpt a statue out of rock and magically bring it to life. If you wanted it to perform some task and because of it's own independent intelligence, it refused, how could it NOT be within in your rights to destroy it? You built it, you gave it life. You and only you are responsible for your own work and if YOU can't control it you definitely can't expect anyone else to be able to.

 

That's why drayks and drakons should be banned because it's too hard too control them and whether or not they tolerate humans (either by dominating them, or living in seclusion) or use them as a source of food is entirely a whim. They're too much of a wild card. The war was started by an army of drakons determined to eliminate the Shapers, regardless of how many eggs they had to break in the process, and at the very best the most cordial among them regard humans as an inferior life form that they don't wipe out because they wouldn't want to waste their time on such a creature.

 

Hardly sounds like a model citizen to me.

 

As for the rights of feral animals, there's something called animal cruelty. It means just because something might be used for livestock doesn't mean it can be butchered or maimed without consequence. A dog can't write you a sonnet or complete a sudoku puzzle but it's intelligent enough to know it's alive and to rcognize kindness. More importantly, it exists whether you decide to make one or not (in the Shaper world, I assume all native species went extinct due to Shaper arrogance and indifference to life, but even so that's besides the real point). As a result, even a feral creation like a fyora or a roamer are alive, but at the same time since they can be remade at will, it's no big loss to reabsorb them and reshape them. It's also the reason why there's no difference between them and servile, since they can be shaped and reshaped (or built and unbuilt) with no real consequence.

 

I know it's hard to see the correlation between shaped creations and intelligent machines NOW with the limitations we have in technology. But just think how you'd feel 200 years from now if you wanted a piece of toast and your fully automated house decided it didn't feel like feeding you that day.

[Lilith]

Wow. I think that's the first time I've ever actually seen anybody arguing that a sentient machine wouldn't have rights.

[Hamilton G. Phantamos]

Well...if they shouldn't, then why should a magically crafted organic machine? Intelligence is intelligence and free will is free will. Serviles are intentionally designed so they have only enough intelligence to perform the tasks they're made to perform (much like a machine or robot in our world) and to be as humane as possible they aren't given the free will or intelligence to decide later they don't enjoy what they were built (shaped) to do. However, despite this, some serviles develop that ability either on their own or through the intervention of misguided, sympathetic human mages.

 

How is that really any different than building androids to do mining or hazardous waste disposal and programming them so they never think about or question the tasks they perform? And, if one day, significant numbers of them DO become self-aware and realize how much they hate the jobs that humans hate to do, what would be our responsibilites as their designers? disassemble them and build new, less intelligent and more agreeable machines? Or allow thme to go free and found their own society of robots?

 

I guarantee you if humans keep designing AI and researching ways to make more and more "intelligent" instead of "artificial," this WILL arise as an issue in the future. Or maybe robots will always be designed to not ask questions and work mindlessly. Fortunately for me if robots do decide to revolt one day, I'll be long dead anyway.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:
How is that really any different than building androids to do mining or hazardous waste disposal and programming them so they never think about or question the tasks they perform? And, if one day, significant numbers of them DO become self-aware and realize how much they hate the jobs that humans hate to do, what would be our responsibilites as their designers? disassemble them and build new, less intelligent and more agreeable machines? Or allow thme to go free and found their own society of robots?

I do not view deciding between committing mass murder and freeing slaves as a difficult moral question. Regardless of how or why they came into existence in the first place, if beings develop self-awareness and form their own desires and goals in life, we have an obligation to treat them as the moral equals of humans, because that's what they are.

[Randomizer]

Quote:

Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:
I think doing major environmental overhauling at the expense of naturally existing native organisms is wrong, but that isn't the issue that's presented in the games.

Actually there are a few places where Jeff mentions the consequences of using artificially created plants where they go out of control, The best case is in GF2 in Drypeak where the trees are causing trouble, Jeff does give hints that creating something without adequate testing leads to disaster. That is why there are sealed labs and banned creations.

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Most people think that smacking the tower a few times should make it run better. It shows they have no knowledge of how to repair machinery, but does that make them cruel?

This is a holdover from the old days when it actually worked, Back in the era of vacuum tubes, smacking a piece of equipment would cause a part to settle into the socket and make a better connection. Pieces moved because of heat expansion and cooling and would no longer have good contacts. Now a days this will more likely break a connection.

I don't agree with your arguement against treating self aware creatures as equals, It's the same one used for slavery where the slaves were considered as intelligent animals to be directed by their betters. There has to be some dividing line between those creations that are animals and those that are intelligent enough to be considered equals. There will always be individuals within the group that need to be cared for as the serviles are now, but the more intelligent ones are equal to humans.

[Retlaw May]

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDragoon:
I'm starting to think that the promblem cannot be solved...

Smart serviles are smart enough to understand what freedom is, but the dumb ones can't even understand what freedom is, because they are... dumb.

Then, if we could shape a smart servile from a dumb one, he surely want freedom, because he can think about/what is it, though when he was dumb he only wanted to work, and the prespective of freedom scares him.

Sure, we can make all serviles free, but the dumb ones will never be happy...

So, what the solution can be?

Finally someone recognizes what I have been saying and arguing. It seems to me that whenever someone does not agree with another and the other makes a thought provoking arguement, THEY IGNORE IT.
Look, MOST SERVILES ARE DUMB AND THEY LIKE (NAY EVEN LOVE) SERVING THEIR MASTERS AND DOING THEIR JOBS. These serviles don't care that the others are happy, they shove everything down the throat of others. Remember that in G3 there were 2 occasions where the intellegent serviles ruined the lives of 2 perfectly happy and loyal serviles who just became angry and confused in the meeting that occured between them.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by Retlaw May:
Look, MOST SERVILES ARE DUMB AND THEY LIKE (NAY EVEN LOVE) SERVING THEIR MASTERS AND DOING THEIR JOBS. These serviles don't care that the others are happy, they shove everything down the throat of others. Remember that in G3 there were 2 occasions where the intellegent serviles ruined the lives of 2 perfectly happy and loyal serviles who just became angry and confused in the meeting that occured between them.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that there are also plenty of serviles who do want freedom. Ignoring their demands does not seem to be a satisfactory solution, and nor does killing them.

[John S]

Quote:

Originally written by Retlaw May:

Quote:

Originally written by MagmaDragoon:
I'm starting to think that the promblem cannot be solved...

Smart serviles are smart enough to understand what freedom is, but the dumb ones can't even understand what freedom is, because they are... dumb.

Then, if we could shape a smart servile from a dumb one, he surely want freedom, because he can think about/what is it, though when he was dumb he only wanted to work, and the prespective of freedom scares him.

Sure, we can make all serviles free, but the dumb ones will never be happy...

So, what the solution can be?

Finally someone recognizes what I have been saying and arguing. It seems to me that whenever someone does not agree with another and the other makes a thought provoking arguement, THEY IGNORE IT.
Look, MOST SERVILES ARE DUMB AND THEY LIKE (NAY EVEN LOVE) SERVING THEIR MASTERS AND DOING THEIR JOBS. These serviles don't care that the others are happy, they shove everything down the throat of others. Remember that in G3 there were 2 occasions where the intellegent serviles ruined the lives of 2 perfectly happy and loyal serviles who just became angry and confused in the meeting that occured between them.

I already addressed this issue. I did not ignore it. Both of you ignored my post.

Savage Ed Walcott, I find the concept of a true, thinking robot to be hard to grasp. But that really doesn't matter.

I think that, if no third parties suffer, intelligent or dumb, then there is no problem with killing something or someone. If you shoot me in the head and convince everyone I know that it was for the best, then whatever. But if something wants to live and so do its buddies, then no deal.

If the way that something was created is as irrelevant as you say, and only the purpose matters, then we have a lot of people on this world which need killing. Simply because a parent got drunk, had an unlucky and unprotected fling, and was unable to abort, are they now allowed to kill that child? What about a family which disowns their child? That child certainly no longer has a purpose.

I just find the idea of deciding who you can kill and who you can't kill according to purpose be silly, because it's totally random. You get no choice in the matter of what purpose you're assigned; a shaper might have had a floor-scrubber in mind when you were shaped, and god knows what parents were hoping for when their children were concieved.

[Student of Trinity]

Savage Ed's argument is a bit hard to follow because, as Thuryl pointed out, his premise is the very unusual one that intelligent machines would have no rights. Usually when people argue that origin makes no difference, it is to support the rights of robots or serviles or whatever: their origin may be different from ours, but if their present level of sentience is like ours, then their rights must be like ours as well. But Savage Ed does not seem to think sentience confers rights, so when he compares serviles to intelligent robots, he means that intelligence is irrelevant to servile rights. His arguments seem self-contradictory until you figure out his uncommon premise.

 

There are reasons why the premise is uncommon. Savage Ed seems to be trying to substitute 'purpose' for 'sentience' as the basis for rights. According to him, it seems to be perfectly all right to dismantle a sentient machine which refuses to fulfill its designed purpose.

 

But who gets to decide what a purpose is? A sentient machine has its own purposes for itself; why should its designer's purpose come first? The only reason I can imagine for that is simply that the designer designed the machine. But why should that matter? I can seen no obvious reason why it should; you just have to assume, as a premise, that it does.

 

So Savage Ed's position seems really to boil down to the standard Shaper argument that the creator owns the creation as chattel, by virtue of having created it, no matter how sentient it may be. And the counterargument to that is also standard, and seems compelling to me.

 

Savage Ed invites us to imagine ourselves as creators of valuable but rebellious machines. Imagine instead that you were an intelligent servile. How would you feel about having no more rights than a hacksaw?

[Hamilton G. Phantamos]

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:
Actually there are a few places where Jeff mentions the consequences of using artificially created plants where they go out of control, The best case is in GF2 in Drypeak where the trees are causing trouble, Jeff does give hints that creating something without adequate testing leads to disaster. That is why there are sealed labs and banned creations.

My point was more the concept of "purging" life in contaminated areas or to make way for the Shapers think would be a more ideal environment. Just because the Shapers could replicate the native organisms, it wouldn't neccesarily create a 100% faithful recreation. My beef is more with the arrogance of Shapers and their obsession and recklessness in playing god with their creations, or even thinking that it doesn't matter if they wipe out any of the native, natural wildlife, they can just reshape them later if they want to.

Something about the concept just seems a little gross, considering you'd have to eat some magically created beast held together by somebody else's "essence."

Quote:

Originally written by Randomizer:
I don't agree with your arguement against treating self aware creatures as equals, It's the same one used for slavery where the slaves were considered as intelligent animals to be directed by their betters. There has to be some dividing line between those creations that are animals and those that are intelligent enough to be considered equals. There will always be individuals within the group that need to be cared for as the serviles are now, but the more intelligent ones are equal to humans.

My argument isn't against treating intelligent self aware beings as equals. It's against the concept of regarding an invention of your own design as one. By the very fact that through YOUR own work and effort, YOU inherently have something that places you above your creation. I don't see the correlation at all between the enslavement of human beings by other humans and the ownership of a creator over his own work, but if that's the impression you've got, then there's a GROSS understanding of my perspective on the issue. Just take my word and trust me on this, I have personal reasons to find slavery abhorrent. The difference is all humans have birth mother and a birth father; they are the result of some natural process that through the culmination of billions of years of evolution and natural selection, has led to the development of a species in the Geneforge universe at least that is capable of magically emulating that process almost instantly.

That is the difference between a human, whether Shaper or outsider, and a rotgrhoth, battle alpha, servile, drakon, gazer, or ornk. In theory, a Shaper could shape and create new humans, but it's expressly forbidden under SEVERE penalty and probably no where near as people like to assume. And even if humans could be shaped, it would severely undercut and devalue life. what would it matter if you killed a man if you could gather his clone out of the air through your own will and essence? What would any human life be worth?

As for the drakons, they're inherently dangerous. Equal or not, they definitely have little to no esteem for humans and are the result of some researcher's short-sighted arrogance. The Shapers very may well be unjust tyrants, but I'd trust them before I left myself at the mercy of a 16 ft. tall, 3 ton, fire breathing lizard that shouldn't have been brought into existence in the first place.

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I do not view deciding between committing mass murder and freeing slaves as a difficult moral question. Regardless of how or why they came into existence in the first place, if beings develop self-awareness and form their own desires and goals in life, we have an obligation to treat them as the moral equals of humans, because that's what they are.

I see a difference between a "slave" and an automaton designed to perform some task. See, usually, a "slave" is a being that exists independently of the creative energy of its enslaver and had a state of freedom before entering that forced servitude. A piece of machinery that malfunctions and decides it doesn't want to perform it's designed task anymore needs to either be recalled and dismantled or replaced with more reliable units. Think about it this way: if you made a creation in game and after a gaining a few levels, it decided it didn't want to fight with you anymore and wanted to run away, would you destroy it and replace it with a more reliable creation, or let it go free and suffer a permanent essence cost? Those rogue serviles are costing somebody somewhere essence, and they can't produce a replacement until they're found and destroyed.

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I think that, if no third parties suffer, intelligent or dumb, then there is no problem with killing something or someone. If you shoot me in the head and convince everyone I know that it was for the best, then whatever. But if something wants to live and so do its buddies, then no deal.

I find this attitude towards the value of life disturbing and honestly don't see what it has to do with the subject at hand. I assume this is supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum, but I can't be completely sure.

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If the way that something was created is as irrelevant as you say, and only the purpose matters, then we have a lot of people on this world which need killing. Simply because a parent got drunk, had an unlucky and unprotected fling, and was unable to abort, are they now allowed to kill that child? What about a family which disowns their child? That child certainly no longer has a purpose.

This is a gross misinterpretation of my words and a gleeful contortion into something I never said. I find it personally insulting that you would try to twist my words into something so ridiculous to try to prove your point, but I'll use both real world and Shaper logic to refute what I assume is an intentionally fallacious proposition:

Real world: Of course not. First of all, the child will potentially develop into an intelligent, independent being. Second the purpose of childbirth, regardless of whether the parents intentionally made the choice or not, is continuance of the species. We as human beings aren't bound to fulfill a designated purpose, or function, or value, or utility. Whether you become a hobo or a billionaire is irrelevant since you owe no obligation to contribute to society. As long as you don't pose an immediate threat to those around you you're free to do whatever you please with your life within the bounds of the law. That and the only killing other humans things tends to be disruptive to society.

Shaper: Of course not. Human lives cannnot be replaced and are not expendable commodities. A human child cannot be replaced as easily as the life of a servile, and even if so, the shaping and altering of humans is a severe violation of Shaper Code. It is the duty of Shapers to protect and defend the lives of humans and improve that quality of life to the farthest extent within the resident Shaper's power.

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I just find the idea of deciding who you can kill and who you can't kill according to purpose be silly, because it's totally random. You get no choice in the matter of what purpose you're assigned; a shaper might have had a floor-scrubber in mind when you were shaped, and god knows what parents were hoping for when their children were concieved.

The difference, once again, lies in what you have the power to create and whether you can do and undo actions indefinitely. A Shaper could repeatedly create and reabsorb their creation until they get the desired effect they originally wanted. There is no consequence other than fatigue, and that is only dependent on the skill of the Shaper in question. An actual child requires an average nine month gestation period during which a strong psychological and emotional bond develops between mother and child. People stopped having children so they could raise their own relatively cheap farmhands about 60 years ago. For the most part, people have children because they become intimately involved with another, intelligent, independent being and decide that the bound between them is so great the only logical way to fully express it is by producing a third intelligent, independent being based on a union of their genetic material that will one day do the same with a fourth intelligent, independent being to produce a fifth and so on so their living legacy will continue onward into posterity.

Nobody breeds human babies for a specific goal. Nobody uses eugenics and research to breed stronger, faster, smarter humans or humans who don't object to performing tasks most humans normally would. Nobody can claim dominion over a human child because by being human we are all on some basic level inherently equal. And nobody can take that existence away without consequence because it is irreplaceable. Even a still born infant will fill the mother with grief at the loss of a child she's never seen and has only known within her womb for nine months.

However intensive, or difficult, or demanding it is to produce a servile, I doubt it takes nine months and I doubt it requires a female Shaper personally giving birth and going through the labor pains to have it. I doubt it suckles from her breasts, or she consoles it when it cries in the night. It will never be able to grow to reach her level of intelligence, or a comparable level. The only intelligent serviles are magically augmented, and I've already gone over why gazers and drakons are a threat to mankind in general.

You can stop trying to use killing babies or grown humans as an analogy. I've already explained the inherent difference between a genuine human and a magical (or technological) creation designed in lab by a human intelligence, especially if it was designed for some specific labor-intensive purpose. Machine, golem, servile, drakon, android, sentient program, I'm sorry but if it didn't pop out of a woman's legs and was crafted by human intelligence and design, it has some function in mind and was built to fit said function. If it doesn't, then it's back to the drawing board to design a new one. I personally think it would be dangerous and irresponsible to allow an uncontrolled man made creation to roam free, and it's definitely a drain on resources.

***EDIT***

Trinity, my premise is more that an uncontrolled sentient creation is inherently dangerous, because there's no telling what it would do in the course of trying to fight for it's own freedom. My perspective is more grounded in the practical real world concern of engineering things for a specific purpose. You don't want a bridge to fall apart after the first truck drives over it, or an airplane to explode after coming out of the air onto the runway for a landing. If you wanted to build machines (flesh and blood or metal and oil) for some specific task, then YOU have a specific design objective that for reasons perhaps beyon your control, you are under deadline, contract, and obligation to fulfill. How would you explain to your contractors "Umm....Well I built that unit you wanted, but after I made it, it designed it would rather be a ballerina, so I let it join a dance troupe."

It's an interesting novelty if an intelligent creation becomes aware of its own existence, consciousness, and even its own mortality however it may apply. But what happens if a Battle Alpha decides to become a pacifist? Or a ghlaak becomes overcome by the concept of dying in battle? Or, what if a creation decides it's odds of survival would be better if it didn't rush headlong into battle with a horde of monsters, but joined them in trying to kill you? That's the purpose it's decided it wants for itself.

What would give you the right to say otherwise?

[Student of Trinity]

You'd have a right to defend yourself, as much as a rogue creation would. Let the best entity win. But if the beast isn't actually trying to kill you, what gives you a right to override its own purposes for itself? As far as I'm concerned, Nothing.

 

If you build a bad car and it breaks down, you screwed up and you have to suck up the consequences. If you try to build a mindless killing machine and it turns out to have other ideas, you screwed up worse, on a bigger project, and you have worse consequences to accept. You may have to care for the intelligent creation you brought into the world, protect other people from it, and so on. Them's the breaks. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the Shaping Hall.

 

Depending on why you wanted your creations to fight, you could perhaps decide the case was similar to mutiny by human soldiers in wartime, and attempt coercion on the grounds of greater need. But this issue would have nothing to do with the fact that your rebellious troops were creations.

[Lilith]

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My perspective is more grounded in the practical real world concern of engineering things for a specific purpose. You don't want a bridge to fall apart after the first truck drives over it, or an airplane to explode after coming out of the air onto the runway for a landing. If you wanted to build machines (flesh and blood or metal and oil) for some specific task, then YOU have a specific design objective that for reasons perhaps beyon your control, you are under deadline, contract, and obligation to fulfill. How would you explain to your contractors "Umm....Well I built that unit you wanted, but after I made it, it designed it would rather be a ballerina, so I let it join a dance troupe."

These may be good reasons not to create intelligent creations in the first place, given the very real chance that they may decide not to do what you tell them to do. I don't see how they justify killing creations that already exist, though.

Another analogy:

Occasionally in the real world you hear stories in the news of a couple having a baby so that it can donate bone marrow to a child they already have who is suffering from leukaemia -- surely this counts as "creating a life with a specific purpose in mind". Suppose a couple has such a baby and it turns out that its bone marrow isn't compatible with the sick child. Would you support this couple's right to have their baby killed, since it's now of no use to them?

You say that having a child is different from making a creation because having a child requires months of time and effort, but if it's the couple's own time and effort that's gone into it, don't they, by your logic, have a right to "undo" that work just as a Shaper would undo the making of a creation that didn't work as desired?

[Randomizer]

I'm sorry about misunderstanding the premise of your arguement. But poor designing can result in unintended consequences. Serviles are a possible example that has to be dealt with unless you want to completely eliminate them like the drakons and start over.

 

Actually current real word research is towards the type of creation you don't want. DARPA completed a few months back the latest round in an intelligent robotic systems that could drive a vehicle from point A to B without further directions. Basically a system that would replace a human driver for situations where you don't want to endanger a human and don't want to a real time person watching remotely.

 

While this isn't as far along as a self aware system, it is the next stage towards it. You have a program that is given minimal input and has to decide on its own how to achieve the goal. The next step would be to decide how to prioritize among multiple tasks. Eventually it starts having to decide how to achieve results given even vague instructions like check out this planet. As the amount of autonomy and complexity given to the system increases it will probably reach self awareness. It will start deciding what the goals should be and whether it wants to do them. You could say this is a bad design or a good design to handle unforseen circumstances.

 

Shapers design creations to fulfill a task. While the ones a player creates use their own essence, serviles and a few others use an essence source (spawners) or are self replicating in order to save shapers time and effort. Serviles are intelligent enough to have some control over their purpose. They are a handy multitasking tool that can be reassigned to different purposes that are in their design parameters. But in order to have that much reassignment capability they can challenge their orders where a living tool can't.

[ginger8445]

I don't really know if this relates to the topic but it's in the right forum. ok in G2 when you are talking th the women who runs the servile slave in the "desert" right after or two places after the tutorial, She asks you to find a "smart" servile who is "infecting" the other serviles. You finder her and tell her to come with you because she is in trouble. Than you continue your journey for a few places and don't return. Then when you return and talk to the woman and she says you did the right thing, was this really the right thing to do? I mean you got experience for it and that's nice but to me the dees just seems wrong! What do you think?

P.S. sry I can remember the name of the women I know it would be helpful but I just can't.

[Retlaw May]

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Originally written by Your ad could be here- contact me.:

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Originally written by Retlaw May:
Finally someone recognizes what I have been saying and arguing. It seems to me that whenever someone does not agree with another and the other makes a thought provoking arguement, THEY IGNORE IT.
Look, MOST SERVILES ARE DUMB AND THEY LIKE (NAY EVEN LOVE) SERVING THEIR MASTERS AND DOING THEIR JOBS. These serviles don't care that the others are happy, they shove everything down the throat of others. Remember that in G3 there were 2 occasions where the intellegent serviles ruined the lives of 2 perfectly happy and loyal serviles who just became angry and confused in the meeting that occured between them.

I already addressed this issue. I did not ignore it. Both of you ignored my post.

I don't believe you did... You only adressed a little point of it and I think we may have somewhat of a misunderstanding here. This is what you responded with:

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Originally written by Retlaw May:
What gives the intellegent serviles the right to destroy the happiness of so many of their own kind?

Why would every single servile have to be freed if only some want to be? Those that want to be free should be free, and those who want to serve the Shapers can serve the Shapers.

If they are simply raised from birth to think of themselves as equals, then they will never want to be anything but free. So the intelligent ones can be free and can train their children to want to be free, and the unintelligent ones can keep having children who think of themselves as being unworthy.

Well what I'm saying is that the intellegent serviles DON'T see why those who want to serve the Shapers should be able to. They have a misdirected view that all serviles should be free even if they don't want to be and it makes them miserable.
P.S. This is all for thought provoktion and Shapers probably should have treated serviles somewhat better in the first place because none of this would have happened if they did.

[John S]

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Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:

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I think that, if no third parties suffer, intelligent or dumb, then there is no problem with killing something or someone. If you shoot me in the head and convince everyone I know that it was for the best, then whatever. But if something wants to live and so do its buddies, then no deal.

I find this attitude towards the value of life disturbing and honestly don't see what it has to do with the subject at hand. I assume this is supposed to be a reductio ad absurdum, but I can't be completely sure.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one heard it, did it make a sound? More importantly, did anyone hear it make a sound?

The reason this is relevant is because I'm saying that in some cases the destruction of sentient life can be justified independently of the sentient's personal thoughts on the matter. If that's not relevant, we have a problem.

You obviously have no problem destroying sentient life, so what is so disturbing? That it's humans instead of machines? Why does that matter? Human life is no more sacred than machine life; you have yet to show otherwise.

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Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:

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If the way that something was created is as irrelevant as you say, and only the purpose matters, then we have a lot of people on this world which need killing. Simply because a parent got drunk, had an unlucky and unprotected fling, and was unable to abort, are they now allowed to kill that child? What about a family which disowns their child? That child certainly no longer has a purpose.

This is a gross misinterpretation of my words and a gleeful contortion into something I never said. I find it personally insulting that you would try to twist my words into something so ridiculous to try to prove your point, but I'll use both real world and Shaper logic to refute what I assume is an intentionally fallacious proposition:

Real world: Of course not. First of all, the child will potentially develop into an intelligent, independent being. Second the purpose of childbirth, regardless of whether the parents intentionally made the choice or not, is continuance of the species. We as human beings aren't bound to fulfill a designated purpose, or function, or value, or utility. Whether you become a hobo or a billionaire is irrelevant since you owe no obligation to contribute to society. As long as you don't pose an immediate threat to those around you you're free to do whatever you please with your life within the bounds of the law. That and the only killing other humans things tends to be disruptive to society.

Shaper: Of course not. Human lives cannnot be replaced and are not expendable commodities. A human child cannot be replaced as easily as the life of a servile, and even if so, the shaping and altering of humans is a severe violation of Shaper Code. It is the duty of Shapers to protect and defend the lives of humans and improve that quality of life to the farthest extent within the resident Shaper's power.

Okay, so rather than correcting me about what I said you said, you'll disprove what I said you said. This is going somewhere, but I'm not sure it's the right direction.

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Originally written by Savage Ed Walcott:
You can stop trying to use killing babies or grown humans as an analogy. I've already explained the inherent difference between a genuine human and a magical (or technological) creation designed in lab by a human intelligence, especially if it was designed for some specific labor-intensive purpose. Machine, golem, servile, drakon, android, sentient program, I'm sorry but if it didn't pop out of a woman's legs and was crafted by human intelligence and design, it has some function in mind and was built to fit said function. If it doesn't, then it's back to the drawing board to design a new one. I personally think it would be dangerous and irresponsible to allow an uncontrolled man made creation to roam free, and it's definitely a drain on resources.

You've already explained the inherent difference between a human and a sentient machine. You haven't yet shown why that difference matters.

Retlaw May, you simply have to convince the intelligent serviles that their unintelligent cousins are a) happy doing what they're doing and not being trained to think that they are serving the Shapers. Then the intelligent serviles have no reason to meddle with the unintelligent serviles.

[Hamilton G. Phantamos]

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These may be good reasons not to create intelligent creations in the first place, given the very real chance that they may decide not to do what you tell them to do. I don't see how they justify killing creations that already exist, though.

Another analogy:

Occasionally in the real world you hear stories in the news of a couple having a baby so that it can donate bone marrow to a child they already have who is suffering from leukaemia -- surely this counts as "creating a life with a specific purpose in mind". Suppose a couple has such a baby and it turns out that its bone marrow isn't compatible with the sick child. Would you support this couple's right to have their baby killed, since it's now of no use to them?

You say that having a child is different from making a creation because having a child requires months of time and effort, but if it's the couple's own time and effort that's gone into it, don't they, by your logic, have a right to "undo" that work just as a Shaper would undo the making of a creation that didn't work as desired?

Of course not. Like I said earlier, from a real world perspective, we don't have the power to create and destroy life at a whim. We can barely save someone who's been gravely injured by a gunshot or stab wound, let alone revive stillborn infants or the very recently deceased. We've come a long way in medicine since the dark ages but when it comes down to it we really aren't that much closer to understanding what makes living tissue behave differently than a lump of dirt. What is life? What causes it? We know even the most rudimentary borderline "living" things such as viruses have DNA or at least RNA to allow them to replicate even combine the information of two members of their species to create a third with similar traits as the parents as well as unique ones all their own. But why does it do that? How does it really work, at it's most fundamental level? What drives it to behave that way in the first place? How did the process start to begin with?

Whatever the answer is to those questions, we don't have a fundamental enough understanding of the driving force of life to be able to recreate it in it's entirety in a lab or based on or on sheer willpower. In short, we don't have the power to play god. We know what DNA is, but we don't know exactly why the combination of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and other elements makes DNA behave the way it does. Crystals also have amazing growth properties, but as far as we can tell it's only an interesting oddity. They aren't truly "alive" in the same sense we or even a blade of grass are.

In the world of the shapers, even though it is theoretically possible to shape humans into existence it's more likely to create a deformed abomination than a viable man or woman, and is strictly forbidden. I think the reason is because although the have a disdainful and condescending view towards outsiders, barring themselves from altering and shaping humans is the ONE thing they can do to force themselves to have self control. Use of the ability would inevitably lead to abuse and human life would become nothing more than a replaceable commodity.

Human is NOT, nor never should be, a replaceable commodity. I personally feel all natural life is inherently superior to any imitation that could be produced by man aided by technology or magic. That's not to say that for specific purposes, imitations couldn't be built to perform tasks that are hazardous to the natural beings that created them. However, those artificial beings inherently can't be equal in value to the beings that created them because they are a replaceable, inherently disposable imitation of the natural world.

To say that by any means man could replicate and replace what took billions of years to develop through his own ingenuity is dangerously arrogant and it's this arrogance that led the Shapers down the path they are on now, barely restraining themselves from human experimentation and on the verge of being annihilated by a creation that has outdone them.

That's why I personally think creations shouldn't have been given any intelligence beyond the bare minimum they needed to function. At least for the vast majority of serviles, this was the case. But it only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch, and if even only one servile begins to develop higher intelligence whether by chance or the intervention of a misguided, sympathetic Shaper, then it could potentially "infect" any other servile it meets with its burgeoning intelligence. The majority of the serviles it encounters will only become confused and reject what the "enlightened" servile is offering it. The only rogue serviles I remember seeing where the ones who were made rogue and intelligent by magical symbols mages put on their bodies, or were raised isolated from humans so they wouldn't imprint an attachment to them.

Who do you really think was responsible for that? Based on my deductions, there is only one real culprit. People are arguing about the right of drakons to exist now that they've been created but you have look past the handful of occasionally helpful or "benign" (in the sense that they don't try to eat you immediately and are content with only selling you items at jacked up prices) drakons and realize what the majority of them are. Manipulative. Sneaky. Cunning. Deceptive. The drakons and the rebellion are two seperate parties with one mutual aim (at least for now): the destruction of the Shapers.

Nobody in the Geneforge world really cares about the rights of the serviles. The rogue serviles were forced to be rogue power hungry mages that were offered increased power for cooperation or were bred by drakons to have never seen humans as anything other than a threat in the first place.

Akhari and Ghaldring don't care about the freedom of the creations as a whole. All they want is drakonian revenge of the Shapers and by extension the entire human race. In fact, they're probably even worse than the Shapers because they see ALL life as an interchangeable commodity, even their own kind's, and chalk up a reshaped drakon with no head as an experimental loss. They represent what the Shaper order would become if it weren't for it's self imposed restraints that barely hold them in check. They'll shape and reshape anything, even themselves, without regard to any consequence. It's almost explicit in their successive shaping more and more powerful drakons that they're hunting for godhood, and any other lifeform is simply a pawn to help them achieve that goal. No knights. No bishops. No rooks. Only pawns. The rebellious Shapers might sympathize with the serviles or experimental creations that need to be put down for their own good, but the drakons don't. They're only manipulating this concern until they can eliminate their sworn enemy, no matter the cost in whatever life may be lost in the process.

With those goals and power hungry ambitions in mind, do you still think they should be allowed to exist in freedom based on a handful that choose to live in peace and seclusion? Or are you beginning to see the real threat they represent?

***EDIT***

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You obviously have no problem destroying sentient life, so what is so disturbing? That it's humans instead of machines? Why does that matter? Human life is no more sacred than machine life; you have yet to show otherwise.

It is self-evident why human life is more important than the life of a machine, no matter how sentient. Machines can be rebuilt and replaced. They are simulacrums of life; man-made imitations that represent human arrogance and short sightedness in thinking it can outdo or replace the miracle of natural creation. You can't just replace a child with one with exactly the same hopes, ideas, and memories. A summoned dragon can be given whatever thoughts and ideas its creator wants it to have, creating and reabsorbing it over and over again indefinitely. If you kill a child, how will you replace THAT child? You could conceive and raise another infant, but it's life experiences and memories would make it inherently distinct from the original, even it was a spitting image.

A machine can be disassembled to its very core components and rebuilt to its original state on into infinity. It's memory can be wiped clean and rebuilt from scratch, or saved and stored in a backup file and recalled when neccesary.

A machine created by human hands, whether technological or magical can not come close to the irreplaceability and uniqueness of a single human life. Machines can have personas encoded and embedded into them, and even if they could learn, those memories could be reset to a default on a whim and no hidden record would linger in its circuitry of past events.

Could you do the same to a human mind? Could you accurately reproduce or even significantly emulate the individuality inherent and ingrained into a human mind? It is a testament to the power of the mind itself that it we DON'T have sentient machines and that we CAN'T through our current resources succesfully make even a proper imitation of a human mind. We can't think about as many things all at once. We can't work on numbers on a large scale in our heads within a matter of seconds. We can't store and recall seeming infinite stores of data at a moments notice. But we can each form unique thoughts and ideas with personalities shaped and influenced by the lives we have lived.

A sentient machine need not have a sense of morality. Right and wrong. The ability to see that just because a conclusion can be reached by a logically valid path doesn't mean it's sound or reasonable to follow it.

I don't know about you but I personally feel that I and the humans I'm surrounded by, despite any of our flaws or shortcomings, have more inherent worth than a robot with a retrievable programmed mind or a magical creature grown in a vat meant to serve its master's will.

A human being can not be remade or replaced. Even if through advances in medical science and computer engineering allowed clones to be grown and imprinted with the memories of the original, human morality, both instinctual and learned would prevent the devaluing of human life and intellect to be a disposable, easily replaced commodity.

[Student of Trinity]

Some of these arguments look as though they might be interesting, but they are long. Any chance of an executive summary?