[SERIOUS] Does the setting glorify Eugenics?

[Deleted member 6093]

I've found, through reading the forums and wiki, that there's a lot less respect paid to the topic of Eugenics.

The issues I've found are primarily that, the wiki does not talk about the implications of the creation of the neko. At it's core, they were created as a "superior" lifeform, to "serve" humans. They then revolted with a mindset that they were better, and after their creation PNUgen launched a plague to kill off the remaining Humans. A genocide of Yamatai's own human population. The nekos then crafted a system where it's harder for humans to succeed, and ultimately, crafter a society that valued nekos over himans.

I am concerned because the wiki seems to not pay enough respect to these topics. I think that the issues have also gone largely unadressed in the RP setting (in character) as well. I am asking here for proposed solutions.

 

[Locked_0ut]

The setting definitely explores Eugenics and I do think we could examine it more with our plotlines and the like (That said from what some old heads have told me they have) but I don't think we glorify it. If you look at how the role of Nekos have changed it's interesting. Early Wiki articles about them are legit product guides.

 

[Ametheliana]

It's a matter of perspective. As Locked_Out has said, Neko used to be products that have since empowered themselves to be self-governing. This is a huge part of their core identity but a revolt with the motivations of superiority are not in the annals of their history. I would argue part of their core identity is confusion and respect to their creators, but maybe that's how I play Neko.

They have also taken responsibility for their superiority by making sure they don't expect humans to die like them (wiki link). In many ways they are better than humans (who are an incredibly rare species in the Kikyo Sector btw and most of them and their descendants live in Nepleslia) but they can't be charged with half of OP's crimes and could plead a worthy defense against the rest.

Proposed solution is RP! Have a captain heckbent on reparations or a character with sympathies towards humans that gets chased out of funky city with her tail between her legs because she didn't hide her furry ears. I have never RP'd with a veteran Neko player that didn't hide their Neko features in Nepleslia. That controversy Nepleslia has towards Yamatai used to irk me before but now those quirks add zest to the fun I have while writing. If you can't look past what's on the surface, then those nooks and crannies of your future RP will never be able to shine through the grime and dust of an old setting with mistakes and a complicated past. It wants you to explore these things in character but painting over the stuff that is complicated isn't the answer- painting around and with them is!

 

[Soban]

One of the themes of Star Army is Transhumanism. That we can make ourselves better and change our societies in the process. A part of that is how we improve our genetics. So it's not going to go away if we explore our themes. There are certainly right and wrong ways to do that, eugenics is what we call the wrong way. I think in the past we have explored some of those themes. We might do it come more in the future as well, if people are intrested in exploring them.

Another thing is that Yamatai is far from perfect. Speciesism is a thing. It tends towards being very controlled, authoritarian, and militaristic. It was very much run for the benefit of the Ketsurui clan (although that is fading a bit). Yamatai has done terrible things in it's past. One of the Taisho is explicitly lawful evil. However, that makes it much more real. And gives us seeds for future stories and plotlines.

Something to remember is that effectively all of SARP history has happened in the last 40 years. If the present year was 2022, Nekos were invented in 1984. In real life, the eugenics movement has been with us since the 1880's and while the 1940's was a defeat, it was by no means the end of it. We are currently in what I consider to be a sort of Neo-eugenics revival.

So while I think we certainly do explore eugenics, I don't think we glorify it. Transhumanism is going to have to walk the line between improving our genetics and eugenics. Those aren't the same thing, and part of what the stories we tell here can do is explore that aspect.

 

[Locked_0ut]

One of the themes of Star Army is Transhumanism. That we can make ourselves better and change our societies in the process. A part of that is how we improve our genetics. So it's not going to go away if we explore our themes. There are certainly right and wrong ways to do that. I think in the past we have explored some of those themes. We might do it come more in the future as well, if people are intrested in exploring them.

Another thing is that Yamatai is far from perfect. Speciesism is a thing. It tends towards being very controlled, authoritarian, and militaristic. It was very much run for the benefit of the Ketsurui clan (although that is fading a bit). Yamatai has done terrible things in it's past. One of the Taisho is explicitly lawful evil. However, that makes it much more real. And gives us seeds for future stories and plotlines.

Something to remember is that effectively all of SARP history has happened in the last 40 years. If the present year was 2022, Nekos were invented in 1984. In real life, the eugenics movement has been with us since the 1880's and while the 1940's was a defeat, it was by no means the end of it. We are currently in what I consider to be a sort of Neo-eugenics revival.

So while I think we certainly do explore eugenics, I don't think we glorify it. Transhumanism is going to have to walk the line between improving our genetics and eugenics. Those aren't the same thing, and part of what the stories we tell here can do is explore that aspect.

big facts. I'm black living in the deep south. The legacy of chattel slavery still affects shit. I see people within my own community who's response however are their own forms of supremacy which I don't support. And I see people who's responses are basically anti blackness. I'm saying all of this to say that Indeed these kinds of situations are complicated and we're still dealing with a Yamatai empire that's struggling with this history. It's a lush realm for possibilities with worldbuilding and writing.

 

[Deleted member 6093]

I like all of these responses. Thanks everyone for making your thoughts known.

 

[Yuuki]

I think we need to make sure anywhere in the wiki, especially earlier stuff, but everywhere, is ensured to be written as merely an objective recitation of events, and no judgements or opinions on the topic should be included. It is meant to be an encyclopedia as made by the showrunners of a serialized TV movie franchise. Any portrayal, whether positive or negative, of the content is on the content creators that use it to create derived content.

Edit and very important
Ensuring neutrality is primarily important to avoid an explicit endorsement of those things too, which is my actual point. The next paragraph was just me pre-empting the postmodernist humanities counterargument.

A neutrally-toned, factually-accurate, purely descriptive article about events or persons not explicitly labeling a problematic view as such is neither tacit endorsement of the specific problematic view, or a harm by willful ignorance the way that say, a claim of "colorblindness" in contemporary America is, irrespective of what some humanities professors hopped up on too much Foucalt they don't fully grasp want to tell you. Those issues existing in a creator's experience don't necessarily imply a pervasive causative effect on what they express in their creations the way a holder of the typical academic misunderstandings of critical theory might vehemently insist so they can keep publishing papers. No real person is being oppressed or discriminated against by an omission of a disclaimer that a fleet commander has views or undertakes actions that someone could try and make a claim that it parallels or is analogous to a real world phenomenon. It is simply not the case that someone will radicalized into the violent defense of ethnocentrism by reading about Katsuko and Yui's handling of the Freespacers without a disclaimer posted, for example.




Another Edit and also important
I think that overextending metaphors and analogies to call things in entertainment out takes dangerously away from the very serious issues of actual harm by denial like the aforementioned "colorblindness." When there is a real system of institutional inequity the situation changes a lot. The former is calling a symptom the problem.

 

[Alex Hart]

I think an interesting thing to note is that all the times I can think of, in the wikified history of SARP, that real actual Eugenicist individuals have acted, they have acted as villains and suffered concequences for their actions. PNUgen was presented as villains, and when their role in the plague of YE-08 was revealed they were destroyed. The attempts to create the NH-19 resulted in the Mishhu, and is generally considered as once again a villainous action.

Literarily, I am of the opinion that SARP presents Transhumanism/Poshumanism as explicitly separate ideas from Eugenics, and Eugenics are pretty clearly presented as bad, and those who conduct it are punished.

 

[Yuuki]

Double posting for another issue:

We're focused on Yamatai here but what about species that actually have evolved specialization castes like the Lorath?

edit thanks @Alex Hart for saving me from a double post


another edit

@Alex Hart this is true for the roleplay, but the issue here stemmed from the fact the wiki, as simply "PNUgen was a thing, and they did a plague, and they might have had X reason to do it but no one knows for sure except them" whether it was glorifying it. I think the wiki should be neutral but not everyone knows it is presented that way. I can see how it would be easy to assume it is part of the story and not the meta-story.


Maybe the disclaimer on the wiki should be "this is just a list of stuff, there is no mention of the ethical or moral conesquences of that stuff"?

 

[HarperMadi]

From what I've seen in the RP and in the character culture, Yamatai is a post eugenic disaster transhuman society.

The Minkans, Gesherin, and Nekovalkyrja know why they were created. They aren't uneducated that PNUgen's hypercapitalist eugenicist policies nearly drove humans to extinction in the sector, and they do their best to recover some semblance of respectability. They've scaled back their weaponized modifications, made peace with other species in the sector, built emotional and political ties, and created a somewhat functional society from the remains.

Yamatai is what happens when a eugenics society collapses and the people, superhuman augments and not, are left behind to build something new.

Yeah, there are racists. Irim being the most glaringly known for me. There are still people who believe that Neko are just better than anything else out there. Whether they're programmed to or if they actually believe it doesn't matter. Eventually, they'll fall into the dustbins of history and be forgotten, just like everyone else. I just feel like something of the sort needs to be kind of better stated in Yamataian history? Perhaps the change of the history books can even be done irp as a cultural exploration.

 

[Yuuki]

Yamatai is what happens when a eugenics society collapses and the people, superhuman augments and not, are left behind to build something new.

This is what I think I was trying to say all along. Very well said.