sirenspull | [Voice]

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[Voice]

This city...

The utter lack of planning for the future of its citizens is ever just-so-slightly disconcerting, troubling enough to bring me around and back to it again and again.

I do consider in stride that Romdeau, the city I've come from, was rigidly modeled and structured. That no single entity beyond the administrative body was permitted to extend its influence wildly over the population. But I also have to consider its ultimate crippled fate, for over-reliance on automated management. The dearth of options and openness, and what was sacrificed for order and a peaceable system. Still, I often hesitate to call it better or worse here.

And yet... there are small encounters which leave a man questioning these things, constantly. I don't speak about them over the network much, because it doesn't really suit the daily, casual discussions the newcomer community carries on here. Not everyone cares for speaking about societies. That and my, ah- unique perspective usually requires a good deal of preliminary explanation.

Still. It's good to hear some fresh opinions. There are some newer arrivals I haven't spoken with yet, or seen at the clinic.

I spoke to a new father today, as I was passing through delivery floor. He was waiting and anxious, and you could sense an air of joy and nerves. His son was perfectly healthy, seven pounds two ounces, no defects.

I asked- (because it's one of those questions I'm always curious to see new parents respond to, in a city like this) what he hoped his son would be, in twenty years.

(I should preface this by including that where I'm from, these matters were mostly preordained. Here, the way people find their way in the world is different, and so naturally it interests me a good deal.)

"Oh, it's far too early for me to say, isn't it?" He told me, and seemed sheepish at the question. And then we spoke a little more- eventually what came up was an avalanche of money problems. He just hoped his child would be able to find his way in the world, and not end up selling parts of himself to SERO, or AGI. Apparently, there had been some financial matters resolved with compensated donations, in his past...to pay for education, when funding for his scholarships fell through. Now, he was still out of a job. Corporate had laid him off.

"Well, I'm a newcomer, I've been in this city less than two years. If I can become a doctor here, then certainly anyone-"

He told me then that newcomers were part of the reason his funding was cut. It was a tense moment, but we resolved it like civil gentlemen- I wished him and his family well. We parted ways.

I wonder, sometimes, if it really is right of us to assert ourselves into this city. It would be respectful to let the natives have every opportunity first, of course, but then what would we be left with? I shudder to think. I also don't believe that they'd ever cease being so competitive among themselves- so a small immigrant population of 300 or so should really not make so significant a difference.

Moreover, I've worked for this position. I was made to be able to handle even greater things, even if that place was never assigned for me here. I shouldn't feel guilt, or strain, for doing well for myself- should I?

What a foolish thing, to struggle with these defensive feelings, even when every rational thought says I shouldn't bother.

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Ya know, if they really didn't want us here, Doc, they would actually get off their tails and work on getting the Core fixed so we could go home. Otherwise? They should sit down and be quiet.

If they aren't going to do something about it? They've got no right to complain.

Sit down and be quiet?

I don't think it's quite so simple.

Your average citizen doesn't have the option available, to do much of anything about the Core. If anyone's sitting on their tails, its the administration- and they're relatively powerless, because they've already handed over too much authority to corporate entities. Sitting on the Core is the only way to keep both AGI and SERO from strong-arming their will over how it's done.

Also, there isn't much home to return to, for some of us.

It is that simple, doc.

They can't have it both ways. If we didn't work, we'd be a drain on government funds. If we do work, they complain we take their jobs.

And while there might not be much to return to for some, for others, we have friends, family, and duty to return to.

I just don't understand why there aren't controls on population, if resource distribution is such a problem! There's no reason that work should be scarce, without autoreivs. What ever do the corporations need to run such high profit margins for? There's not a comfort their directors lack, probably.

[S T A R E.]

So, what you're saying is that the government, or the corporations should take away the free will of the people?

Certainly not the corporations! If anything, citizens should be granted their due, and the corporations should cede more of their stockpiled resources for public use.

But until that's possible, I'm saying that some line should be drawn- so many new people should not be born into a city so overcrowded that even a small influx of newcomers causes so much grief about 'not enough to go around'.

You didn't answer the question, Dr. Yumeno.

I suppose people of this age, and with the will to do so naturally, would not react well to restrictions on things so personal as childbirth.

I've been around the block with my colleagues on these issues hundreds of times before- that's why they sometimes joke and call me Malthus, at the hospital.

But 'free will', when it comes to raising new citizens as an independent right.... it's still difficult to conceive, when the city I've been raised in stuck to strict population quotas in order to ensure that everyone has a fair and comfortable, high quality standard of living, and meaningful work to do which satisfies a raison d'etre.

People here- Well, I feel bad, when they can't seem to make anything of themselves, because of the difficult circumstances imposed upon them.

[She's trying to control her temper. She's really trying.]

A world, where everything is regulated, is nothing better than a prison or a concentration camp. In my world, as a mutant, I am about half a law away from being confined to a concentration camp, branded, and having my human rights stripped away.

Yes, some people are born with more, and some with less. Yes, some are forced to go more circuitous routes to simply be able to have 'enough', while others have just to have.

One of the things is: everything comes down to choices. Some choices are simple, some are hard. Some have the potential to make things better; some are the lesser of two evils.

To take that away strips everyone of a vital component of humanity. Because with those choices comes compassion, generosity and caring. And those are things that should never be stripped away.

Yes. I've heard about the plight of mutants before.

I would not support anything that would impose a penalty of confinement or abuse on anyone, based on their unique biologies.

But I do feel that things might be rearranged, at the administrative level, in such a way that enforces a more compassionate and humane citizenry. Stronger company accountability would be one avenue, and higher standards for guardianship would be another.

Of course, with people of this city used to so many open liberties, enforcing new policy might seem more like 'stripping away' or imposition against rights, even if they were meant entirely for the betterment of public welfare.

Ultimately, I know that controlled civic intervention is necessary for survival, when the cradle of life hangs at a delicate equilibrium- as delicate as Romdeau, which is its own beast, in a way. But for an isolated population like the city of Siren's Port, I'm surprised that more of the same principles do not apply.

Wow, are you not getting it.

You cannot force compassion, or generosity, or anything else like that.

Things like you are talking about have happened before. And, it was very powerfully summed up as follows:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Martin Niemoller. Perhaps you should study history a bit here, before suggesting such things.

I... think you're holding a very different idea of what I'm talking about than the one I'm actually-

I'm not proposing 'coming for' anyone? Nor am I advocating silence in the face of cruel subjugation?

You still don't see it, do you? How can you not? The point behind the quotation is that tiny things, minute things were taken away. Why? Because it was for the betterment of society. Those three words are used time and time again to subjugate those that "society" deem are unwanted, undesirable, and just don't fit the "proper" mold.

Go to the library, Dr. Yumeno. Read Mein Kampf. Read about the slaughter of Romany by the Nazis, for the betterment of society. Read about the Night of the Long Knives, about Kristallnacht. See the parallels about what you're talking about and then tell me it's for the betterment of society.

Groups of people cannot be considered too tiny or minute. I understand what Niemoller means by that.

But you believe it futile to hold any societal ideals which require systemic order, because they might be abused in a similar way?

Which is not to make light of human atrocities- I don't believe we should persecute people. I am one who 'does not fit the mold', in certain respects.

But all the same, there has got to be some good in expecting an administration to keep all of its people at a standard of decent living, and to protect citizens against the exploitation that comes of not being granted enough to get by- that they shouldn't need to forfeit themselves to the whims of those who hold more power, money, influence?

What Niemoller was writing about was the fact that yes, they came for groups of people, but there were small changes at first that made it possible.

Go read Mein Kampf, where Hitler outlines exactly how not only to cleanse the population but sell it to the population so that it's seen as a good thing.

Until you do? This conversation is over, because we're just going to talk at cross purposes and that serves no one.

Good evening Dr. Yumeno.

[A small sigh. Truly, she does seem hard-boiled on the issue, though he dare not press further into it. Perhaps he'll ask Dr. Tenma, later, to find out what precisely he said to set her off.]

Fair enough.

But please know that it was never my intention to be deceptive about 'selling' my purposes in any way, Jubilee.

Have a good night.

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