Judged By History 2013-08-15

[Boxilar]

Time for reality check for Monica and Shelly, perhaps even some time in the "time-out corner". meanwhile, that's some seriously Goth wallpaper in Phix's chambers!!!

Radical, that ain't wallpaper. Phix wasn't always the calm patient Sphinx you see here. She has a fairly well deserved reputation as a maneater. A reputation that some have not forgotten and that she has spent centuries trying to live down

[kingklash]

Either Phix drops a heavy conclusion to her admonition tomorrow, of our Little Desert Flower comes running in and says, "Aunty Monica, Aunty Shelly! I taught Oscar a new trick!" Much to the delighted squeee-ing of the viewership.

[Julie]

Serious comic is serious...either everyone gets a hug at the end of this lecture, or Paul will take a break from the serious for some hilarity soon.

This is not making sense. Although it would have been heart wrenching to leave the kids at the orphanage, doesn't their adoption now put them in danger of being "executed on the spot"? Since Mr Meadows would probably have a hard time getting past child protection services, I suspect that the orphanage was not planetside and that they were safe there from becoming "known to exist" by humans. But for the adoption to have any meaning, the kids would have to live with Kath in Wapsitown and subject them to all the bigotry and xenophobia that humans express.

I don't think we can assume the orphanage wasn't on Earth. There are plenty of places on Earth that are not overly explored/inhabited/both. As for Kat taking custody of the two girls, well...I'd assume that MiB will be covering for them (given that the transfer of custody took place with the full awareness of Bud and potentially other key members of the group), so I think there isn't much concern for pending executions.

[zachariah]

What's with Shelly? She looks as if sómething is about to break out of her. The least disturbing would be a good cry, but..i dunno..

If Shelly is upset enough she may loose control of her form and right now might not be the best time to do that.

[zachariah]

She didn't say it would be mortals doing the executing.

My impression is that she meant just the opposite... that other paranormals would destroy Castela or Atsali if their existence became known to mortals, in order to "eliminate the evidence" that paranormals exist.

Phix said "We have rules." This may be one of them... remain hidden or else!

Phix's word can be taken both ways but I really think they mean the reaction by humans, not a response by the paranormals to one of them being found. Paranormals need to hang to together or they will have trouble keeping it quiet.

This whole keep it quiet plan has to amount to almost an open secret. How could such a varied and complex subculture exist around the world and not be noticed by a lot of people. The information given shows a lot of different types living freely in the world. Like the sick groupie's Justin has had enough of. The vamps in federal service, and others. I'll bet there are a lot of humans who know about it and just keep their mouth shut around others who don't know. Shelly's father and his family certainly do and they never even told Shelly. I guess as long as she didn't manifest it was better to leave her in the dark. I would still like to see Shelly and her Dad talk about this whole thing and see what he says about it. Especially when Shelly admits she knows Grandma.

[ziggy78eog]

This lecture has been going on for quite a while now; Monica still looks guilty, but I think Shelly is starting to get that restless "we get it already" look. I know Phix is trying to make sure her message sticks, but I think a quick poit to a certain Orphanage would really hit home for those two.

[Prester Fred]

What's with Shelly? She looks as if something is about to break out of her. The least disturbing would be a good cry, but..i dunno..

Lest we forget...Shelly has some serious mommy issues. After losing her mother, she metaphorically kept herself locked in the boiler room for years in order to stay close to her, only coming out upon being assured that "she'll go with you." Then she found out that the mother whose love and care she missed so much had been a fabrication; everything she missed was a lie and the pain of her loss had been deliberately inflicted on her. She lost her mother all over again, and far more thoroughly, because now she can't even take comfort in the memories.

The only mother figure Shelly has left is Phix, and after repeated losses she's going to need her Grammy's approval like a drowning man needs air. This is probably hitting her as hard as "killing" Nudge hit Monica and (actually) killing Monica hit Phix.

So, yeah. Something is already breaking inside her. Her heart.

[Fairportfan]

"...and now come cats!" - "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", by "Cordwainer Smith"

Can't find my copy of When the People Fell to re-read it right now, but i'm pretty sure that, being a Cordwainer Smith story, there' rather more to it.

[shadowinthelight]

Serious comic is serious...either everyone gets a hug at the end of this lecture, or Paul will take a break from the serious for some hilarity soon.

The awkward silence at the end is broken by Phix accidentally passing gas with Monica and Shelly shouting and pointing at her "Dude!".

[Dave]

This lecture has been going on for quite a while now; Monica still looks guilty, but I think Shelly is starting to get that restless "we get it already" look. I know Phix is trying to make sure her message sticks, but I think a quick poit to a certain Orphanage would really hit home for those two.

I see her "look" rather differently. Both yesterday and today, her eyes appear to be welling up with tears. Pablo usually doesn't draw a character's lower eyelids... and what we see in Shelly's eyes looks strikingly like the tears appearing in Jin's eyes when she realized that Alan loved her and hadn't abandoned her after her suicide attempt.

There also appears to be one small tear leaking out of Shelly's right eye.

My gut hunch, looking at her facial expression and body language, is that she's trying very hard not to burst out sobbing. The combination of realizing that she may inadvertently have put the lives of innocents at risk (she's supposed to be a protector sphinx!), and being yelled at and clobbered by her grandmother, is probably a very bitter pill for her.

She's shook, and she's trying to stay at least barely in control. At least, that's how I see it.

[Mark N]

I have been thinking about this for quite some time, What if the masquerade is some type of Prime Directive to allow the humans to evolve without too much interference from other worlds. We know that the Library is a universal access point and was around long before the human race (and probably the Earth) was. That would mean that most (if not all) para-normals are of extraterrestrial (if not extra-dimensional) origin. The MIB here may function in the same way that it's movie (comic book) namesake does, make sure the Human race stays oblivious to the truth until they are evolved enough to handle it as a whole. Remember, one person may be able to deal with the truth, but a mob is a blind scared monster that destroys without thought.
I think that there is a historical precedent to Phix's fear. If history is a good example, whenever they tried to join the human race in the open things always went south, just look at the worlds myths. (I also get the feeling that our FBI Vamps are rarities and most of their kind are selfish monsters)

[Catawampus]

Okay, some people have been asking why the paranormal world would be kept such a secret.

First, a few basic assumptions:

a) There is a sizable society/societies of various types of paranormals that has existed parallel to or mixed in with normal human society for thousands of years. The normal humans outnumber the paranormals by a large margin.

b) Most normal humans know of this paranormal society only through myths and stories, and consider the paranormals to be fiction. (Which brings up another interesting question: how many of these myths and stories are the result of paranormals who broke the rules or were discovered and then had their existence covered up as fiction, and how many are stories intentionally released by the paranormal authorities to serve as “background noise” that will help cover up any unintended discoveries by normal humans? If you constantly release story after story and reference after reference about vampires to the public, then any later reports of actual vampires are likely to get lost and overlooked in the heap.)

c) There is a whole spectrum of survival abilities in the paranormals. On the one end are individuals such as Atsali, who are basically at the same level of strength and squishiness as normal humans. Further along are people such as vampires (possibly stronger than humans, as easily injured as a normal human but able to survive and repair much more physical damage), sphinxes (much stronger and faster than humans, much more difficult to injure, and more able to recover from injury that does happen. . .yet still able to be killed), and finally individuals such as Bud and Brandi (strong enough to go bowling with the moon, unable to be injured or killed unless they allow it). The weaker paranormals are more common than are the stronger ones, the strongest being very few.

d) There are rules, enforced by means not made clear to us, that are intended to keep the normal human society from finding out about the paranormal society and the individuals in it. The paranormals, on the other hand, tend to be familiar with the normal human society.

e) Many, if not most, of the paranormals enjoy interacting with the normal human society in various ways, or at least enjoy some of the results of human society.

So, why would such a system for keeping an entire society hidden from another entire society exist? I can come up with a few different reasons.

First, keep in mind that we only know that the rules exist. We don't know anything at all about who created those rules. We've already seen that paranormals and normal humans often work together to cope with paranormal problems. It's entirely possible that it was the normal humans, not the paranormals, who insisted on keeping paranormal society a secret, and the paranormals are just going along with the decision. Normal humans who grew up in normal human society might not like the idea of the paranormal society being made public; such a revelation would be certain to change normal human society in all sorts of unpredictable ways. A normal human who is in a position of authority within both normal and paranormal societies might not want to rock the boat, given that he's in pretty good circumstances at the time. Who knows what would happen if things got all mixed up? So normal humans could have purely selfish reasons for wanting to keep the status quo. Or they could have more altruistic goals, being afraid of the damage that social upheaval could result in: just look at the joys and fun that resulted from the interactions of different social systems in central Europe in the first half of the 17th century.

Paranormals could have their own reasons. Consider the demons. It was mentioned at one point that the demons would favour the notion of the world grid because it would help keep out powerful paranormals, and thus it would let the demons have more scope to play. Demons could further hinder interference from other paranormals by encouraging their human hosts to insist upon paranormal secrecy. If paranormal society was well known to everybody, then sphinxes could set up offices in the government requiring humans to get an annual demon check-up or something. Sphinxes could wander around shopping malls and schools and sports stadiums, asking questions and looking for misbehaving demons. Making the enforcers of demon law hide in the shadows makes it easier for the demons to get away with bending those laws as they see fit.

The possible reaction of normal human society to the discovery of paranormals could also encourage other paranormals to keep things quiet. Humans do have an unfortunate tendency to try to set fire to anything that confuses or frightens them. That wouldn't be anything other than an annoyance to golems, and sphinxes would be able to take care of themselves in most such situations, but the majority of softer squishy paranormals could have serious difficulties. Those weaker paranormals might very well insist upon secrecy due to the fear of being attacked, and the more powerful paranormals are going along with the idea out of compassion. Sure, the stronger paranormals could try to keep the weaker ones protected from the pitchfork-and-torch wielding mobs, but since the stronger paranormals are less common than the weaker ones, that would be a problem to manage. Either they'd need to keep the weaker paranormals fenced off in paranormal reservations where they'd be safe from normal humans, or else we'd get to see Bud constantly having to poit from place to place to place to place as she keeps getting calls reporting paranormals in potential trouble.

The strong paranormals could try to scare the normal humans into behaving by a show of power, but since when has common sense ever been a sure method of keeping crazy or angry people from starting a fight with somebody bigger than them? There would certainly be plenty of people who would go ahead and try killing or persecuting paranormals in spite of the threat, and then what? Either the strong paranormals' bluff would be called (resulting in people realising that they can get away with attacking paranormals), or else the strong paranormals would have to use that superior strength to fight and probably kill lots of normal humans (a course of action that many of the strong paranormals would likely find distasteful and disturbing). Both options are likely to have very ugly consequences. Much easier to avoid the possible problem by not letting the humans know that there are paranormals at all to be attacked in the first place.

Or perhaps normal humans are a lot more capable than is obvious, and even the strong paranormals are worried by what we could be capable of if we gain the knowledge of the paranormal society. Imagine concentration camps set up to transform thousands of individuals into chimeras, or vampirised armies equipped with poit-guns, or weaponised calendar machines, or Windows 2015 Edition with the new Akashic records editing program (complete with a mail-in rebate for your very own gorgon to keep your computer from overheating).

Also, we've seen that many of the paranormals are living what appear to be perfectly ordinary lives within normal human society. They're probably quite happy to be going off to their job, ordering pizza for dinner, going to the cinema on occasion, and so on. If they're comfortable with their current lives, they could be just as selfish as those earlier normal human authorities in not wanting the status quo threatened and replaced with uncertainty.

For that matter, it could all just be the whim of one of the most powerful paranormals, and everybody goes along with the rules because they are afraid to see what happens if that individual gets angry.

So there are plenty of reasons (probably many more than I was able to come up with off the top of my head there) for the secrecy to exist; who knows what reason or reasons might apply in the universe of Wapsi Square.

As for how the rules are enforced, well, that's something that we also haven't seen much of. We know that there's some sort of equivalent to a court system to deal with rogue demons; that could be applied to rogue paranormals of other types, too, I suppose. We've heard that the MIB work on covering up potential discovery, but nothing yet to show that they work to punish those who break the rules. Phix mentioned that uncovered mortal paranormals could be executed on the spot, but it's unclear whether she was referring to them being killed by panicked normal humans, by panicked paranormals, by some sort of official agency charged with carrying out such killings, or even if she was just exaggerating for effect. Any sort of threat of physical punishment would only be all that effective on the weaker paranormals, anyway. Trying to execute one of the strong yet mortal paranormals could end up causing more damage and commotion than simply letting that paranormal be discovered. One of the strong and unkillable paranormals wouldn't be bothered by the threat of such punishment at all. The only constraints on the strong paranormals would be the ones that Shelly mentioned once to Bud: the fear of how your actions will affect those who you care about, and who care about you.

[Catawampus]

Hmm, that turned into more of an essay than I had intended. I blame the paranormals for that.

Errr, not that they exist, of course.

[Dave]

I have been thinking about this for quite some time, What if the masquerade is some type of Prime Directive to allow the humans to evolve without too much interference from other worlds. We know that the Library is a universal access point and was around long before the human race (and probably the Earth) was. That would mean that most (if not all) para-normals are of extraterrestrial (if not extra-dimensional) origin.

This may also tie in with one of the un-answered "motive" questions that has come up. The sphinxes chose to intervene in humanity's evolution, to the extent that when humans evolved enough for demons to find humans to be acceptable "hosts", the sphinxes took on an apotropaic role and have defended the human race (as a whole) against the demons ever since. Why did they do that? Why did they bother? What are humans to them?

I'm reminded a bit of the interstellar culture which is portrayed in David Brin's "Uplift" universe. Intelligent species adopt "client" species, "uplifting" them from a pre-sentient animal status to true intelligence via genetic engineering. The "client" species are then obliged to provide service to their "patron" species for some period of time (long!) before they're considered socially independent.

One of the rules of this culture (which has been around for billions of years) is that planets must be cared for, and ecosystems conserved. Because the presence of one or more intelligent species on a planet tends to be a disruptive sort of thing (consider how many species have gone extinct since humanity left the Stone Age), the culture requires that planets periodically be vacated, and allowed to "lie fallow" for millions of years. This allows the planetary ecosystem to recover, and new (pre-sapient) species to evolve... thus providing a new round of "uplift fodder". Species which violate the rules, by colonizing or exploiting planets which have been declared fallow, can be punished.

The Uplift universe is not strictly a "goody-goody" culture by any means. Uplifted species compete for power and influence, are known to cheat, have a rather rigid caste system based on how long they've been uplifted and how many client species they have, and are incredibly suspicious and jealous of the rare "wolfling" species which appears to have achieved sapience and technology without having been uplifted. Some even claim that no species other than the first (the semi-mythical Progenitors, IIRC) has ever achieved sapience on its own, and that every other species has been uplifted.

Looked at in this way, Wapsiverse humanity might be seen as a sort of uplift candidate by sphinxes and others, with the demons in the role of "trespassing interlopers upon a fallow planet"?

I'm not specifically advocating the Brin "uplift by genetic manipulation" angle, of course... just suggesting that there may be some sort of interplanetary or interdimensional culture which accepts and encourages the appearance and evolution of new sentient species, and which (through experience) knows that such species do best when allowed to evolve to a certain stage without overt interference.

[kingklash]

Hmm, that turned into more of an essay than I had intended. I blame the paranormals for that.

Errr, not that they exist, of course.

I think your Fornit earned itself a donut.

[KnightDelight]

I remember that story! The cats pretty much showed up the instant the capsule was launched. The coding in their genes was one simple command, something like: "You Will Live For Me" and the evolved felines did. Considering the attackers were something like mutant barbarian technologically-advanced hermaphrodite cavemen who just reached their space age, and wanted to do things to the guy, there didn't seem to be many options.

I found a copy here: http://www.vb-tech.co.za/ebooks/Smith%2 ... %20SF.html

Upon re-reading I see it was a "Life-Bomb" not a "Time-Bomb." He flung the cats back in time through a different mechanism. Still, using the term "Time-Bomb" as a device to send something into the past is an interesting twist on it's usual meaning. I wonder If I read that somewhere too?

[Opus the Poet]

Just a note the monologue for Phix has been edited to read "human" where it used to read "mortal" discovering Atsali's and Castela's existence.

[bmonk]

Not that I'm demanding an answer this decade. I am just yelling at the tv.

But does it respond to you when you yell at it?

He's not a sphinx. As far as I know.

[Dave]

Just a note the monologue for Phix has been edited to read "human" where it used to read "mortal" discovering Atsali's and Castela's existence.

And, read that way, it feels even more strongly to me that Phix is saying that it's the paranormals who would do the executing.

She says "... would be executed on the spot if humans knew of their existence." That's a very definite statement.. she said "would be executed", not "might be executed" or "might be killed". Considering how widely varied humans are, Phix couldn't really be sure that humans learning of Atsali or Castela would immediately execute her.

This really does sound like she's describing one of the "rules" that she mentioned... that it's a policy of the paranormals to execute the "exposed", presumably to protect the Masquerade.

[Fairportfan]

I remember that story! The cats pretty much showed up the instant the capsule was launched. The coding in their genes was one simple command, something like: "You Will Live For Me" and the evolved felines did. Considering the attackers were something like mutant barbarian technologically-advanced hermaphrodite cavemen who just reached their space age, and wanted to do things to the guy, there didn't seem to be many options.

I found a copy here: http://www.vb-tech.co.za/ebooks/Smith%2 ... %20SF.html

Upon re-reading I see it was a "Life-Bomb" not a "Time-Bomb." He flung the cats back in time through a different mechanism. Still, using the term "Time-Bomb" as a device to send something into the past is an interesting twist on it's usual meaning. I wonder If I read that somewhere too?

They wanted to do things to all of humanity. Especially the women.

I re-read it.

And i remembered why, no matter how brilliant Cordwainer Smith's stories are ... no matter how much i love them ... i almost never go back and re-read them.

"The Lady Who Sailed the Soul"

"The Dead Lady of Clown Town"

"The Ballad of Lost C'Mell"

"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons"

"When the People Fell"

"Scanners Live in Vain"

"The Game of Rat and Dragon"

So few stories. And so brilliant.

And so beautiful.

Some kinds of beauty hurt too much to gaze upon.

====================

"This is the day of the year of the promised age. And now come cats!"

"Cordwainer Smith". Sun Yat Sen's godson (He really was.)