Author Topic: EP116: Ej-Es  (Read 49592 times)

Russell Nash

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on: July 27, 2007, 07:10:11 AM
EP116: Ej-Es

By Nancy Kress.
Read by Sheri Mann Stewart.
First appeared in Stars: Stories Based On Janis Ian Songs, ed. Janis Ian & Mike Resnick.

Mia didn’t reply. Her attention was riveted to Esefeb. The girl flung herself up the stairs and sat up in bed, facing the wall. What Mia had see before could hardly be called a smile compared to the light, the sheer joy, that illuminated Esefeb’s face now. Esefeb shuddered in ecstasy, crooning to the empty wall.

“Ej-es. Ej-es. Aaahhhh, Ej-es!”

Mia turned away. She was a medician, but Esefeb’s emotion seemed too private to witness. It was the ecstasy of orgasm, or religious transfiguration, or madness.

“Mia,” her wrister said, “I need an image of that girl’s brain.”


Rated PG. Contains passing sexual references and graphic medical description.


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Chodon

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Reply #1 on: July 27, 2007, 11:29:24 AM
I really liked this story.  The main question I had was if Esefeb really needed to be "healed" by Mia.  Sure, she was filthy, diseased, and covered in fungus (which was a great visual).  She was blissfully happy though.  Not to turn this into a biblical discussion, but it's almost like the story of the Garden of Eden.  Of course, if you look at it that way I think that would make Mia the devil...

Overall, great story.  I liked the hard-science feel of it.  No warp drive so the laws of physics and high-speed travel were held true.  Also, the description of Mia's bones and even her eye muscles being weak after space travel really hit my sci-fi nerd buttons.  The author even referred to the speed of light as "C", which I loved.  Awesome story.

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madjo

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Reply #2 on: July 27, 2007, 02:28:12 PM
This story demonstrates why we need a Prime Directive. :)

Sure these people lived in poor conditions, and perhaps they were sick, but who are we to judge them/try to change their ways?
They were happy with their lives.

A really powerful story. It definitely moved me. And I could feel the pain of Esefeb.

The language was also interesting. :)

signed,
another ekket person. :)



Dex

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Reply #3 on: July 27, 2007, 03:48:39 PM
Very well read by the voice actor.

This story reminds me of EP114: Cloud Dragon Skies from the "Visitor" (technology) point of view.

There is also other interesting parallels that some of us may have seen around us.  I have had experience with drugs addicts who can live in the most squalid of conditions.  But when they are high can appear to be very happy and depending upon the drug delusional.  The weariness and loss of focus/purpose ("why did you become a marine?" is mentioned several times) of the protagonist makes it understandable how she can yearn for the simple oblivion/happiness/rest and escape from loneliness offered by the disease.


Also, the description of Mia's bones and even her eye muscles being weak after space travel really hit my sci-fi nerd buttons. 

Steve mentioned at the end of the story that he was instituting no discussion of whether a story was SF or not SF policy.  I can understand both points of view on this it can become a distraction and on the other hand I can understand how it could improve the genre/story selection.
I'm guessing that saying the story "hit my sci-fi nerd buttons." would fall into that category as some one might say the opposite and thereby starting the "SF, non SF discussion."  Just a thought.



Chodon

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Reply #4 on: July 27, 2007, 06:26:56 PM

Steve mentioned at the end of the story that he was instituting no discussion of whether a story was SF or not SF policy.  I can understand both points of view on this it can become a distraction and on the other hand I can understand how it could improve the genre/story selection.
I'm guessing that saying the story "hit my sci-fi nerd buttons." would fall into that category as some one might say the opposite and thereby starting the "SF, non SF discussion."  Just a thought.

That reminds me of another thing I wanted to post.  I'm really glad Steve put that at the end of this podcast.  I like discussions about the stories themselves, not what genre we want to pack them into.  I really hope people don't take that as an opportunity to start that discussion.  Thanks for the clarification, Dex.  Maybe I just should have said "science nerd buttons" instead?

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Reply #5 on: July 27, 2007, 07:48:41 PM
Steve mentioned at the end of the story that he was instituting no discussion of whether a story was SF or not SF policy.  I can understand both points of view on this it can become a distraction and on the other hand I can understand how it could improve the genre/story selection.
I'm guessing that saying the story "hit my sci-fi nerd buttons." would fall into that category as some one might say the opposite and thereby starting the "SF, non SF discussion."  Just a thought.

Well, that's not quite what Steve said - he said it's ok to discuss, but that A - he won't mention those discussions in the outros anymore, and B - he will not let it influence the story selection.

One suggestion I may have - but it should be Steve's choice of whether to implement - is that instead of having the discussion in each story's thread, there can be a thread in the "about the pod" forum dedicated to the topic, and that we should do our best to relegate any debates about a particular episode to that thread. That way, people who want to argue about it (and I confess, I sometimes do, though not always) can, but people who are bored by it, and just want to discuss the actual content of stories, can avoid the discussion altogether.



Dex

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Reply #6 on: July 27, 2007, 08:12:13 PM
Well, that's not quite what Steve said - he said it's ok to discuss, but that A - he won't mention those discussions in the outros anymore, and B - he will not let it influence the story selection.

I listened to the end again and I think it is a little of both- I don't want to misrepresent anyone or spread confusion.  At the 3:00 minutes remaining mark "I hate to do this but I need to put my foot down on something..." any comments whether it is SF or not aren't going to be covered here (outros) and "start cutting off those arguments when they get heated." (forums).   



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #7 on: July 27, 2007, 08:54:20 PM
First off: Amazing production.  There have been some great readers on Escape Pod, so it really means something when I say that I think Sheri Stewart is the best I've heard.  I loved the use of inflection and accent to portray the characters.  Not only could you you tell who was talking by the voice used, but each character was given a subtle personality that carried through in every sentence.  It sounds like Sheri put some real thought and effort into this, and it shows.  Her skill is evident.  I have always been pleased the production values in Escape Pod, but this is above and beyond.

That said, I dig this story.  This is why I like science fiction.

Heck, this is why I like fiction period.

This piece had compelling, believable characters, a strong grounding in science, vivid narration and a story that worked at all levels.  There have been a couple of EP episodes that stuck in my mind, but this one tugged at my heart.  I felt real sympathy for the characters and consequently I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the resolution.

And all that artistic excellence was put to good use in delivering to us a profound moral question, something to think about and digest as the hours and days go by.  That is the mark of a great story.  That is what makes a story matter.

This story asks us to consider the very meaning of life.  Is the purpose of life simply to feel happy?  Or is there something more?  Is Mia a hero for curing these people of their disease, freeing them to live up to their full potential?  Or is she a villain for stealing their happiness?  A person's answer must stem from their deepest beliefs about the nature and meaning of human existence.  It is a mark of the relevance of fiction (and of science-fiction) that it can ask such questions so powerfully.

Thanks to Nancy Kress for writing this, to Sheri Stewart for reading it to Steve Eley for delivering it to our ears.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2007, 08:58:53 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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ajames

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Reply #8 on: July 28, 2007, 04:12:00 PM
There was a lot to like about this story, but the principle ethical dilemna, as presented in the story, didn't resonate with me. 

There is very little to agonize over here.  Esefeb cannot tell hallucinations from reality, she lives in her own excrement, and she has minimal recognition, at best, of her own family.  Her baby brother is dying, and neither she or her mother is even aware, or would likely even care in the least if they knew.  But, in some sense of the word, she is happy in her viral, delusional state.  Still, the only thing that would justify withholding a cure would be if all of the alternatives left Esefeb and the others just as they are now, only less happy.  But that wouldn't really be a cure.  In losing her delusional happiness, Esefeb has the opportunity for another kind of happiness, and if I am being judgmental in saying it is a better kind of happiness, so be it.

If a loved one of yours was brainwashed by a cult to the point where they no longer recognized you, no longer could take care of themselves or others, or have even the slightest independent thought, but wore an expression of beatific rapture all the time, would you agonize at all over whether you should just let them be?  Would you be happy for them?  Would you join them? 

To go to the extreme case, if I become brain dead, please shut off my life support.  Don't hook me up to an orgasmatron and call me happy.

I think I am getting into rant territory, and there is no need for that.  I certainly believe that there are many cases where our right to interfere with the choices another person has made is something that must be agonized over.  At what point do we have the right/obligation to interfere with someone's drug addiction, if at all?  Do we have the right/obligation to force psychotropic medications on a person with schizophrenia?  The hypothetical cases are endless, and the complexities are exceedingly intricate and intriguing.

However, as the case chosen for this story failed to engage me, the story fell a bit flat for me.  I couldn't really sympathize with Esefeb when she cried for Jesse, er Ej-Es.  I didn't really feel connected to Mia or any of the other characters, either.  Perhaps if I listened to it again, or read it, I would feel differently.  There were, after all, a number of things I did like, such as the description of space travel and its effects upon the body as well as upon our sense of time, and several other things already mentioned by others.  And I also thought the reader gave a wonderful performance.

And as a final note, I think Steve would say that we absolutely should feel free to state what we like and don't like about the stories.  So if we like it because the science is realistic, we should say so, or if we don't like it because the science is implausible, we should say so.  I think even if we don't like a story because to us it isn't even science fiction, we should feel free to say that.  I think what Steve is trying to discourage is what seems to happen quite often, where one person states they don't think a story is sci-fi because of X, and then another persons agrees or disagrees, and before you know it the thread focuses on this topic, yet again, to the detriment of other discussions about the story. 

So while we could avoid it by not saying anything that might lead to such a discussion, there are other ways, too.  I like the idea that anyone who doesn't think a story is science fiction or even fantasy and expresses it in their post, also state right in their post that anyone who wants to continue the discussion on whether a particular story is sf/f or not, or what sf/f is and is not in general, do so in the "sf/f or not sf/f" thread.

But then again Steve can say what he thinks much better than I can.



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Reply #9 on: July 29, 2007, 03:00:51 AM
I echo much of what ajames said.  This story kind of upset me.  To be blunt, it pissed me off.  It didn't seem to me that the author was posing the question about whether these people should be cured; I thought it was saying that they shouldn't be, and I have a problem with that.  The story seemed to me to be about religion basically ("Ej-Es" seemed too close to "Jesus" to be a coincidence, and there was a rather bald statement about a viral God at some point).  I took it to say that if religion makes people happy, who are we to question that or try to change it?  But if people are clinging to an empty illusion and neglecting the world and people around them, or worse behaving in harmful ways (in my head, a metaphor for all wars fought in the name of some god), isn't it incumbent upon a person with the opportunity to do something about it?  I like the drug addict analogy or brain-washed cult member.  Ignorance may be bliss, but it's still ignorance.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go on a rant.  I was just really bothered, and I realize that I'm responding to my interpretation of the story and not necessarily the intent of the author.  So, having said that, I thought it was generally well-written and well-read.  I just disagree strongly with what I took to be the message.



Dex

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Reply #10 on: July 29, 2007, 09:55:25 PM
So while we could avoid it by not saying anything that might lead to such a discussion, there are other ways, too.  I like the idea that anyone who doesn't think a story is science fiction or even fantasy and expresses it in their post, also state right in their post that anyone who wants to continue the discussion on whether a particular story is sf/f or not, or what sf/f is and is not in general, do so in the "sf/f or not sf/f" thread.
But then again Steve can say what he thinks much better than I can.

I was researching the Damon Knight definition used at the end of the story because I want to understand the quote: "Science Fiction is what I point to to when I say it."
I found: "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_science_fiction

I also found a Mike Resnick article that discusses the issue.
http://www.baens-universe.com/articles/Straitjackets
I found this quote interesting:
"The first major critic to come along was Damon Knight. Damon knew that science fiction was the pure quill. It annoyed him when science fiction writers didn’t know the craft of writing, and it annoyed him even more when they got their science wrong.

But what really drove him right up a tree was when they didn’t even try to make the science accurate. "
------------------------------------
This was also interesting:
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~talfred/sf-def.htm
"Unfortunately, the clearest (or most aggressive) definitions are often the least definitive, although many sceptics have been attracted to Damon Knight's "Science fiction is what we point to when we say it" or Norman SPINRAD's "Science fiction is anything published as science fiction". Both these "definitions" have a serious point, of course: that, whatever else sf may be, it is certainly a publishing category, and in the real world this is of more pragmatic importance than anything the theorists may have to say about it. On the other hand, the label "sf" on a book is wholly subject to the whims of publishers and editors, and the label has certainly appeared on some very unlikely books. An additional complication arises because some writers fight hard to avoid the label, perhaps feeling that it might deleteriously affect their sales and/or reputations (e.g., Kurt VONNEGUT Jr, John WYNDHAM). Publishers apply similar cautionary measures to potential bestsellers, which are seldom labelled as sf even when that is exactly what they are (although this has been less true in the post-STAR WARS period than in, say, the 1970s), on the grounds that genre sf when so labelled, while normally selling steadily, rarely enters the bestseller class."

Is there anyplace I can find out more information about the Damon Knight quote about SF



Chodon

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Reply #11 on: July 30, 2007, 02:28:38 AM
That was without a doubt one of the great parts of this story - the fact that the science was accurate.  This is on par with the accurate science in Firefly.  I never watched the series until I saw the movie.  I was in awe of all the scenes in space, and I couldn't figure out why.  Then it hit me: there was no sound.  It made sense.  No space battle I could remember had done that before.  Even Star Wars and Star Trek got it wrong.  This story hit the same sort of "this makes sense" feeling to me.  It's not that I don't like stories like Squonk (it was one of my favorites), but something about stories that hit on real science themes like this really give me goosebumps.  This story for me is tied with How Lonesome A Life Without Nerve Gas for my favorite escape pod story.

As far as the ethical dilemma goes, I have to disagree with what ajames and schark said.  It's not the same as someone you love being brainwashed.  Esefeb never knew what the real world was like.  Her infant brother had the same hallucinations as she and her mother.  I also didn't see the religious thread there.  I thought Ej-Es was more of a lover or an artifact than the messiah.  I don't think that was the real point of the story.  We're all seeking happiness, and Esefeb found it.  Mia took that away from her and said, "No, you're actually filthy, sick, and covered in worms.  See?"  For all you know you're filthy, sick, and covered in worms but you're hallucinating that you're reading this post.  Or you're hallucinating when you're listening to escape pod.  Is it fair for someone to take escape pod away from you and say, "that's just a hallucination, you're actually on fire."  I don't know the answer, but I would at least want to be presented with the facts before I made my decision (red pill vs. blue pill I suppose). 

Anyway, great story and great discussion.  More stories like this please!

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jonesy

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Reply #12 on: July 30, 2007, 05:14:14 AM
Esefeb never knew what the real world was like.  Her infant brother had the same hallucinations as she and her mother.  . . . We're all seeking happiness, and Esefeb found it.   

But Esefeb never had the choice to begin with. She was subject to the infection from birth. She didn't find "happiness", it found her and forced itself on her. She never had the opportunity to choose reality vs illusion because all she was ever subject to was illusion.

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Listener

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Reply #13 on: July 30, 2007, 12:27:43 PM
Though I thought the story was good, it didn't really resonate with me.  I guess I'm spoiled by having been introduced to SF via Star Trek, so the whole hard-SF Haldeman-style space travel thing doesn't do it for me.  However, I can appreciate the subgenre and appreciate that it's written well.

I think Kress perhaps could have worked the "Why did I join the corps" line into the babble Mia gave at the end -- unless she did and I totally missed it.

This felt more like a season-finale episode of a show than anything else, the kind where Announcer Guy said in the previews something like "Next week, in our season finale, one member of the corps will leave forever..." and they build it up to be Lolemel just to bait-and-switch to Mia.

I had trouble telling the characters apart in the very beginning -- specifically, Mia vs Keenan -- but that resolved itself.  Perhaps if I had been reading this story I would not have had that difficulty.

The reading was very good, mostly I think because the reader is a professional actor and therefore may have more experience with acting than, say, someone who runs a podcast and a blog.  Not to say those people aren't also good readers, but when you hear "we thank SAG for allowing her to perform for Escape Pod", you (or at least I) set your standards a little higher. 

Overall, not a story I really liked a lot, but I didn't dislike it either.  Kind of like what I felt for Squonk, only somewhat more positive in my general attitude toward the story.

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Zathras

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Reply #14 on: July 30, 2007, 02:01:50 PM
Very well read by the voice actor.


Also, the description of Mia's bones and even her eye muscles being weak after space travel really hit my sci-fi nerd buttons. 

Steve mentioned at the end of the story that he was instituting no discussion of whether a story was SF or not SF policy.  I can understand both points of view on this it can become a distraction and on the other hand I can understand how it could improve the genre/story selection.
I'm guessing that saying the story "hit my sci-fi nerd buttons." would fall into that category as some one might say the opposite and thereby starting the "SF, non SF discussion."  Just a thought.

Geez, that's a tad picky.  I think he was just saying it hit his "sci-fi nerd buttons".  I don't think he was starting a SF / non-SF discussion. 

That being said I also loved the story as it also hit the same buttons with me.  Great production and I would love to see more stories from Nancy Kress.  I found the ideas expressed by ajames and schark interesting.  At first listen I was empathic of the natives but after reading the comments I thought a bit a differently about the story.  I would hope the doc would give the "cured" some psychological help along with the meds, but she probably did not yet realize that ej-es was still a factor in Esefeg's life.  It would be interesting to visit this story 5 years in the future to see what became of the humans aboard this planet. 



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #15 on: July 30, 2007, 02:03:54 PM
I think it is important (and certainly intentional) that we are never told what Ej-Es is.  Lover?  Messiah?  Imaginary friend?  Pink cloud of amorphous bliss?  We aren't told, and that's good, because it makes the metaphor more powerful.  The false ideas which people believe in are myriad, and the ambiguous nature of Ej-Es makes it able to stand in for any of them.

I also thought that the morality of Mia's actions was left intentionally ambiguous.  Esefeb is sad at the end, yes, but I didn't take her sadness as author's condemnation of Mia.  Esefeb would be upset.  Very upset.  That's inevitable, and the portrayal of her grief is simply an acknowledgment of the consequences of Mia's actions.  Any change from a long-standing belief or way of life will bring discomfort with it, even if the change is good.

A great example is the character Brooks from "The Shawshank Redemption."  After spending most of his life in prison, Brooks is unable to adapt to life "outside."  He misses the walls of the jail so badly that, in the end, he commits suicide.  If a man is used to living in a hole, is it a cruelty to let him out into the sunshine?  If a woman is used to being chained, is it cruel to turn her loose?  If someone has lived their whole life in the Matrix, is it right to unplug them?

These are all, essentially, the same question: Is it more important to be happy or to be free?  Esefeb is happy, but she is not free.  She is not able to perceive or understand the world around her and she is not able to make her own choices.  Her happiness comes at the cost of slavery to a disease.  Mia sets her free.  After the cure, Esefeb is able to see the world as it truly is, and in the future she will be able to make choices that effect her own destiny, express thoughts that are truly hers and understand the nature of her own life.

Mia judges that it is better for Esefeb to have these freedoms than to have the ignorant bliss that her disease affords her.  Although the cure is biological in the story, it is really not very different from the shattering of illusion that can be achieved through mere words.

And I wasn't really building up to any conclusion, so I'll trail off here, like this: .........
« Last Edit: July 30, 2007, 04:21:50 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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Leon Kensington

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Reply #16 on: July 30, 2007, 02:55:46 PM
I've heard better, I've heard worse.  It was just not exactly what I like in an EP story.



VBurn

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Reply #17 on: July 30, 2007, 03:06:59 PM
I was sure 5 minutes into this that I was going to hate it, and found myself hooked by it at the end.  And I really like the ending, it provided closure for the story, but really accented the question raised by the story.  

I think the story was well read, but the audio seemed a bit rough.  I thought I heard pages turning, an airplane flying overhead, and other hiccups through out.  But the 'voices' she gave the characters really help this one work in audio.  This maybe in my EP top 10 list, maybe like one of the 4 tied for 9th type scenario.



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Reply #18 on: July 30, 2007, 04:05:13 PM
This is my first time commenting on a story….

I have to say this wasn't my favorite story.  I felt that it was kind of dry and I had troubles stay focused on it.  But maybe its just because there wasn't very much action in it.  I also didn't really understand why they went to the colony in the first place?



SFEley

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Reply #19 on: July 30, 2007, 04:45:11 PM
I also didn't really understand why they went to the colony in the first place?

There was a plague.  They were the medical response team.  Of course, the slowness of space travel being what it is (there was no faster-than-light in this story), by the time they got there the plague was long over, but they still had to investigate in the hopes of preventing it from breaking out anywhere else, and decide what they could do for the survivors. 

In modern terms, they'd be a bit like a cross between the Red Cross and the Centers for Disease Control.

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Reply #20 on: July 30, 2007, 09:25:53 PM
First time posting! I really liked this story, but I wasn't satisfied with the ending. Mia kept talking about being old and how she envied that rapture that Esefeb got from the disease. I thought that she was going to allow herself to contract it, and live out the rest of her life in happiness on the colony, and this would've allowed us to see what demons Esefeb was seeing. Did anybody else feel this way?
Anyways, hi and I love listening to this podcast at work!  :)



swdragoon

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Reply #21 on: July 31, 2007, 11:22:21 AM
MEH

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sirana

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Reply #22 on: July 31, 2007, 01:22:13 PM
I echo much of what ajames said.  This story kind of upset me.  To be blunt, it pissed me off.  It didn't seem to me that the author was posing the question about whether these people should be cured; I thought it was saying that they shouldn't be, and I have a problem with that.  The story seemed to me to be about religion basically ("Ej-Es" seemed too close to "Jesus" to be a coincidence, and there was a rather bald statement about a viral God at some point).

I also agree with what ajames said, but I don't think that the story was mainly about religion. Imho Ej-Es doesn't stand for Jesus, but for Jesse, since the story is based on the song and you go from Ej-Es to Jesse just by turning the letters of the syllables around. 
To me the story seems more to reflect to the old "dilemma" of happy vs. desirable.

And while I don't see this as a strong dilemma (for the reasons that ajames put forth) I still liked the story, because of the bleak backround, the realistic portrayal and its attention to detail.



Dex

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Reply #23 on: July 31, 2007, 02:50:14 PM
MEH

Meh - the word that's sweeping the internet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2026533,00.html

so totally like DUH!
TYVM



Swamp

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Reply #24 on: July 31, 2007, 06:17:07 PM
...I don't think that the story was mainly about religion. Imho Ej-Es doesn't stand for Jesus, but for Jesse, since the story is based on the song and you go from Ej-Es to Jesse just by turning the letters of the syllables around.

I agree.  I think tying this story to Jesus and religion is a wide stretch.  I took Ej-Es to be a former lover who died in the plague.  However, everybody interprtets things differently and that's what makes these forums interesting.

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ajames

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Reply #25 on: August 01, 2007, 12:22:00 AM
I have to disagree with what ajames and schark said.  It's not the same as someone you love being brainwashed.  Esefeb never knew what the real world was like.  Her infant brother had the same hallucinations as she and her mother. 

I have to admit I didn't give this part of the story enough weight in my initial assessment.  It really doesn't change my views overall, but it does make me sympathize a bit more with Esefeb and the difficulties she faces after the cure.  And psychological care would definitely be a necessary component of an ethical cure, as Zathras points out.

I still can't see the reluctance on the part of some to intervene.  This is not an alien race, nor are we led to believe it is a group of humans who have willingly decided to let themselves be infected.  Rather it is a colony of humans overcome by a virus that leaves them a shell of their former selves.  What are the traits you admire most in others?  Tenacity in the face of adversity?  Courage?  Never giving up hope?  Generousity?  Kindness?  Are any of these traits existent in Esefeb?

Would you really withhold a cure from your newborn child if they were inflicted with this condition?

Sure, we all want happiness.  But what Nancy Kress has done here is present us with a fine thought experiment, separating happiness from everything else that would be meaningful to humans, and asking us each if we would want it at that price.  Many of us have been brought up on Star Trek and the Prime Directive and have gotten enough diversity training to hesitate before imposing our values on others, but this case the others in question can't speak for themselves.  Put yourself in their shoes - based upon what you know of them, what you know of human beings, what do you think they would want?  Most humans, if not all, think happiness is important.  Some humans think happiness is more important than anything else.  But few humans, if any, think happiness is the only important thing.

Obviously, I don't put much store in the nature of Esefeb's hallucinations.  I don't think she has found a pathway to the meaning of life, or anything else that would give me pause to curing her.  I don't think she is living a full and rich fantasy life.  If I believed she might be, that would make the decision to cure her, and others, more difficult. 

Especially if instead of curing a newborn child, I was faced with curing a senile parent living in pain.

Thanks to Chodon, Mr. Tweedy, and others for giving me some more to think about, and enriching my appreciation of the story!
« Last Edit: August 01, 2007, 01:00:43 AM by ajames »



johnhummel

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Reply #26 on: August 01, 2007, 05:58:02 PM
I still can't see the reluctance on the part of some to intervene.  This is not an alien race, nor are we led to believe it is a group of humans who have willingly decided to let themselves be infected.  Rather it is a colony of humans overcome by a virus that leaves them a shell of their former selves. 

I felt much the same way.  While I still had a very emotional reaction to the end of the story, and could sympathize with the feeling of loss (even if that loss is of a fictional person that Esefeb believed was real, and possibly had been her companion her entire life) - I still couldn't conceive that the other researchers would just go "Eh - they must like it that way".

In a sense, the population had lost the ability to have Free Will - their perceptions were so far clouded they could *not* make choices any more.  And, like a child or a mentally ill person, they needed others who could exercise choice to make the decision for them.  So on that part of the story I had to disagree - but perhaps that was just to establish how powerful the moral choice by Mia was:  willing to give up everything *she* knew (much like the colonists were about to give up everything they once knew as she cures them) for her ideals.

Odds are, many will not be pleased with Mia and what she will do to them.  But I do wonder what future generations will think of her.  Will they see her, as one commenter mentioned, as a Lucifer like figure that took them from paradise, or as a Prometheus character who brought them wisdom and freedom from the evil that plagued them? 



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Reply #27 on: August 02, 2007, 11:37:20 AM
First off, I really enjoyed this story, even though I really thought I was distracted by thinking our narrator was going to get herself infected and live with Esefeb. It’s given me a lot to think about this week, and was a pleasure to hear.

Onto my point: I get the religious parallels, but religion is a choice and it isn’t something you can cure. Schizophrenics live in their own worlds and often suffer from massive depression when their "friends" are taken away, but we force them in to treatment programs (and so I presume they are in the future OR medicine has advanced to a point where such illnesses don’t exist any more). If viewed as the drug addiction it is, it seems painfully clear that the people would benefit from rehab. So why did the counsel decide to leave them alone? Just because the population isn't in pain?
I mean, I heard what they said in the story about this being a cultural difference and the population is growing; but culture suggests civilization, and the population is only getting bigger based on luck.
I agree with ajames about this not being an alien race. We have a baseline for standard human civilizations, and I'll bet that this planet falls pretty far outside of it. Their life style doesn't exist by any choice we can see (such as intentionally contracting or inflicting the disease on others), nor is it based on necessity like the religious laws referenced in the marine guidelines. The other maladies are not side-effects of the one infection, they are known diseases (the “fungus” on her head was ringworm) that take advantage of the human in a weakened state.

Also: How do offspring survive to maturity with no maternal instincts?

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Reply #28 on: August 02, 2007, 02:18:24 PM
So why did the counsel decide to leave them alone? Just because the population isn't in pain?

I think they were too nervous about being infected themselves.  They didn't want to chance taking the disease off-planet so they decided to just bug out.  At least that's what I got from it.  It seemed like their withdrawl was pretty hasty.

One big question mark I had about this story was how this disease was transmitted.  They mentioned during birth and sexually transmitted,  but never really confirmed it.  They suspected whats-his-face had sex with Esefeb, but never really said one way or the other.  If that was the means of transmission why did they get out of there so fast?  Just keep your junk put away and treat them.

I'm beginning to see both sides of this story.  I think I see a bit more of a moral dilemma than most posters here, but I think the infected do need to be "cured".  Living without personal freedom is no way to live, no matter how happy you are.  Like others, I would have expected Mia to provide some sort of psychological care after the fact.  Why didn't Mia stick around to start treating others?  Why did she just cure Esefeb, then take off into the woods?

Also: How do offspring survive to maturity with no maternal instincts?
This made me wonder how do they made babies at all.  I mean I know HOW they did it,  but they seemed to live pretty isolated lives, and sex had to be pretty lame compared to the halucinations.  What would be the point?

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Reply #29 on: August 02, 2007, 02:47:23 PM
It sounds like we liked the basic concepts and message, but some of the specifics (breeding, child care, etc) are niggle points that are bringing us down.  Or at least that's how I feel.  But for the emotional impact of the effect Mia's actions had on Esefeb - combined with the great voice acting - really hit me at my emotional core, so I'll say I enjoyed the story, I like how it tied back into the song, and I found myself really liking Mia, and the lengths she was willing to go through to do what she thought was right.

Her actions reminded me of the best description of Good and Evil I've ever read:  You have to choose between doing what is Right, and what is Easy.  Mia choose what was Right - the others on her team, I'm afraid to say, took the Easy way out.



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Reply #30 on: August 02, 2007, 07:38:53 PM
Her actions reminded me of the best description of Good and Evil I've ever read:  You have to choose between doing what is Right, and what is Easy.  Mia choose what was Right - the others on her team, I'm afraid to say, took the Easy way out.

Why can't what is right also be easy or what is evil difficult?

The Laches, also known as Courage, a Socratic dialogue written by Plato might be of interest to you.

You could also say that Mia's team took what their procedures told them to do for self preservation which is the first step to help people in need.  Second the people on the planet have been living in their state for quite some time.  So Mia's team did the right thing - self preservation; study the disease and then you have the opportunity to return and help.

Wasn't Mia the leader?  And didn't she abandon her post?  Is this good leadership?  I don't see much objective good in her actions.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2007, 08:38:40 PM by Dex »



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Reply #31 on: August 02, 2007, 09:45:12 PM
Her actions reminded me of the best description of Good and Evil I've ever read:  You have to choose between doing what is Right, and what is Easy.  Mia choose what was Right - the others on her team, I'm afraid to say, took the Easy way out.

Why can't what is right also be easy or what is evil difficult?

The Laches, also known as Courage, a Socratic dialogue written by Plato might be of interest to you.

You could also say that Mia's team took what their procedures told them to do for self preservation which is the first step to help people in need.  Second the people on the planet have been living in their state for quite some time.  So Mia's team did the right thing - self preservation; study the disease and then you have the opportunity to return and help.

Wasn't Mia the leader?  And didn't she abandon her post?  Is this good leadership?  I don't see much objective good in her actions.

I'm not sure if you're pulling a Socrates and being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, but:

1.  Didn't say it can't.  But let's face it:  people usually do what's wrong because it's easier to steal than to earn, it's easier to put a person in jail and not have a trial than to put your evidence up for inspection and let them go free.  It's easier to lie about why you're doing something to gain support than to lie and possibly lose support.  Evil *can* be more difficult (see "Freakonomics" and the chapter on drug dealers who barely make minimum wage) - though it doesn't always have to be (usually, though, we call that "stupid" when you do more work being rotten than it would take being good).

2.  I wouldn't say that Mia's people were "evil" or "bad" - they made the decision they thought was right - but it was also the far easier one, with far less risk.

3.  Mia was *a* leader, but listening to the story it was clear she was not *the* leader (or else she would have pulled rank and forced them to stay).  The story made it clear in the beginning that this was her last mission anyway, so you could probably say she "deserted the Core" - so the story gave us that out to begin with.  After this mission, she was free to do whatever she wanted - she choose to stay on the planet.

As for "...much objective good in her actions" - I can not disagree more.  What is more noble, more giving, than to be willing to risk your life for other in need?  Who knows what other dangers she could experience as an older person, alone among natives (some of whom, once cured, might be less than happy with her in their new state)?  What about the odds that, vaccine or not, she still couldn't contract this disease or some derivitive?  By staying alone, she removed the risk of spreading it to other colonies.  She is removing a disease that while it gives "happiness" to the victims, also robs them of true free will and the ability to choose.  She is ridding people of parasites that reduces their life, saving children from malnutrition as parents become more aware of their surroundings.  How can this *not* be defined as a good thing?

So I am sorry, but I must respectfully disagree:  Mia made a hard choice to leave all that she knew, to go help people she hardly knew, to wipe their butts and sweat and spit as they are rid of their disease, to make them better than they were before - even if they do suffer from the loss of their delusion.  If you feel they are better in their current state, I'll respect that opinion - but disagree all the same.



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Reply #32 on: August 02, 2007, 11:00:36 PM
Her actions reminded me of the best description of Good and Evil I've ever read:  You have to choose between doing what is Right, and what is Easy.  Mia choose what was Right - the others on her team, I'm afraid to say, took the Easy way out.

Why can't what is right also be easy or what is evil difficult?

The Laches, also known as Courage, a Socratic dialogue written by Plato might be of interest to you.

You could also say that Mia's team took what their procedures told them to do for self preservation which is the first step to help people in need.  Second the people on the planet have been living in their state for quite some time.  So Mia's team did the right thing - self preservation; study the disease and then you have the opportunity to return and help.

Wasn't Mia the leader?  And didn't she abandon her post?  Is this good leadership?  I don't see much objective good in her actions.

I'm not sure if you're pulling a Socrates and being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, but:

1.  Didn't say it can't.  But let's face it:  people usually do what's wrong because it's easier to steal than to earn, it's easier to put a person in jail and not have a trial than to put your evidence up for inspection and let them go free.  It's easier to lie about why you're doing something to gain support than to lie and possibly lose support.  Evil *can* be more difficult (see "Freakonomics" and the chapter on drug dealers who barely make minimum wage) - though it doesn't always have to be (usually, though, we call that "stupid" when you do more work being rotten than it would take being good).

2.  I wouldn't say that Mia's people were "evil" or "bad" - they made the decision they thought was right - but it was also the far easier one, with far less risk.

3.  Mia was *a* leader, but listening to the story it was clear she was not *the* leader (or else she would have pulled rank and forced them to stay).  The story made it clear in the beginning that this was her last mission anyway, so you could probably say she "deserted the Core" - so the story gave us that out to begin with.  After this mission, she was free to do whatever she wanted - she choose to stay on the planet.

As for "...much objective good in her actions" - I can not disagree more.  What is more noble, more giving, than to be willing to risk your life for other in need?  Who knows what other dangers she could experience as an older person, alone among natives (some of whom, once cured, might be less than happy with her in their new state)?  What about the odds that, vaccine or not, she still couldn't contract this disease or some derivitive?  By staying alone, she removed the risk of spreading it to other colonies.  She is removing a disease that while it gives "happiness" to the victims, also robs them of true free will and the ability to choose.  She is ridding people of parasites that reduces their life, saving children from malnutrition as parents become more aware of their surroundings.  How can this *not* be defined as a good thing?

So I am sorry, but I must respectfully disagree:  Mia made a hard choice to leave all that she knew, to go help people she hardly knew, to wipe their butts and sweat and spit as they are rid of their disease, to make them better than they were before - even if they do suffer from the loss of their delusion.  If you feel they are better in their current state, I'll respect that opinion - but disagree all the same.

First let me say you present your points well and we may be discussing this from different points of view - subjective Vs Objective.

1 - Socrates - I think you will find more insight into the discussion about courage (includes what is good and bad) it will be found with him rather than what is in this story.

2. People - we have a basic disagreement here - I think people are basically good and they learn (usually incrementally) to be evil.  I don't think it is an issue of easier or not.

3. "Mia's people" - followed proceedure that saved the team, allowed them to study the disease, advise their headquarters, possibly find a vaccine that would allow them to return and help the victims.  Assuming that this was easier for them is to assume that they did not want to help the people to some appropriate degree.  If you assume that they really wanted to help the people infected then it was a hard decision.

4. Mia a leader & her last mission - She abandoned her post in time of crisis - let down those who depended upon her.  Being her last mission doesn't justify anything.  Imagine that happening in Iraq. When you are in a unit those to the right and left of you expect that you will be them for you.

5. What is more noble, more giving, than to be willing to risk your life for other in need?  Doing it without shirking your responsibilities to her comrads.  The point you made about helping does not acknowledge the following:
A.  The people infected have been living on the planet for many years - there was no immediate urgency to "cure" them
B. By leaving the planet the team and homebase could have studied the disease; found a vaccine and helped those infected.   

There was nothing noble about Mia's actions.

Using your definition "You have to choose between doing what is Right, and what is Easy."  Mia did the easy thing.  She stayed to help some of the infected people.  Instead of doing the hard thing (hard because she wanted to stay) and going with her comrads helping to find a vaccine and influencing those in authority to get back and help ASAP - she did the easy thing.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2007, 11:03:56 PM by Dex »



johnhummel

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Reply #33 on: August 02, 2007, 11:56:38 PM
Mia did the easy thing.  I still can't believe that.  She knows that the ship that leaves without her will be gone for some hundreds of years.  She has remained on the planet to die.  She will have no other people she can talk to.  No shelter save the crude huts.  Only the food that she gathers herself.

She could have remained perfectly safe and comfortable as she traveled at light speed.  Others could come up with a better cure - they hardly need her for that.  And, though this is my interpretation, it was my understanding that the "vote" taken at the planet by the senior staff members was pretty much it - they vote, then when the infection started to spread, they left.  They can go back, work on a cure if they choose - or not.  They might return some hundreds of years later to cure what remains of the population later - or not.  We don't know the politics of this universe, and how likely it was.  It's not a wrong decision made by the commader - his loyalty lay to the people directly under his responsibility, but it certainly was the easier one.  (Side note:  the quote was from Harry Potter, so please don't think that I think that *all* easy choices are "evil" - but I do believe that most "right" choices are the harder ones.)

I am not arguing that the choice to leave was the right one for the rest of the crew - if I was the leader of the team, I might have done the same.  At the same time, Mia's choice was still heroic:  give up everything in her life, to die among strangers for no other reason than she could.  If there are people dying of AIDS, you don't sit back and say "Well, we'll be back when there's a cure - have fun!" 

In this case, Mia decided to stay.  Perhaps she is a filthy, rotten traitor to the Core for having deserted her post.  Fine.  But she still made the harder choice, the choice that will involve toil, and possible danger, and possibly even hatred by a people who will only know she took away her disease induced "happiness", and death away from nearly all modern trappings (since now these people will have to rebuild her civilization, depending on how much still works from the original colony's technology, already some centuries old).  Is her decision full of "honor", leaving her post?  Maybe not - but it is full of compassion to those who are suffering *now*.  And for that, this character has my respect, and my appreciation.



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Reply #34 on: August 03, 2007, 12:05:48 AM
I was really struck by this story and went back and listened to it again today.  The reading was incredible and helped ring home several provocative issues - particularly the need for an always troublesome policy like the "Prime Directive".  Many of my thoughts on this have already been covered in previous messages, so I won't reiterate the analysis that has already been presented.  Did the inhabitants need to be cured - IMHO without having heard any information about their society before the plague my first inclination is to think, "No".

However, I don't think that Mia's decision to stay was necessarily the "easy" one.  In many way I think Keenan's decision to have the team leave so quickly (considering the suspected method of transmission) with the support of regulations was actually easier.  It seems to me that Mia wanted to spend the last of her life doing what she felt was a worthwhile, though misguided, pursuit in "curing" the natives...

I'll wrap up with saying that although I didn't quite grasp it's relevance in the beginning the tie in with the song lyrics at the end was particularly poignant for me, making Esefeb's sense of loss all the more touching. :'(

I have a distinct feeling that I will be listening to this story again soon.

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Reply #35 on: August 03, 2007, 01:08:52 AM
Mia did the easy thing.  I still can't believe that.  She knows that the ship that leaves without her will be gone for some hundreds of years.  She has remained on the planet to die.  She will have no other people she can talk to.  No shelter save the crude huts.  Only the food that she gathers herself.

The story only says that the corps was taken "off planet" - not going home.   So I would think that coming all that way the crew would have worked on a vaccine on the ship; communicated with the home base for what to do next.

Also, aside from all that and from wanting to "cure" the inhabitants she wanted to stay for her own personal reason.  All in all I do think she did the easy thing - to use your terms.  If she had a great life she wanted to return to I might agree with you.



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Reply #36 on: August 03, 2007, 04:06:39 AM
I'm not sure if you're pulling a Socrates and being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, but:

This is a great discussion and I'm happy to see it, but let's please not be too uncharitable about the motivations of others.

By the way, John: your name and fedora both strike me as intensely familiar.  Did you once have a column at a gaming reviews site?  Something about games as art?  If so, I was a big fan of your style.  I contributed letters to your column under the handle "The Spoony Bard."

(If that's not you, then never mind.)  >8->

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johnhummel

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Reply #37 on: August 03, 2007, 08:58:58 AM
I'm not sure if you're pulling a Socrates and being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, but:

This is a great discussion and I'm happy to see it, but let's please not be too uncharitable about the motivations of others.

By the way, John: your name and fedora both strike me as intensely familiar.  Did you once have a column at a gaming reviews site?  Something about games as art?  If so, I was a big fan of your style.  I contributed letters to your column under the handle "The Spoony Bard."

(If that's not you, then never mind.)  >8->

Actually - yes, that was me, back when Gameforms was about.  They kind of vanished off the face of the earth, but - yeah.  Me.  Same guy.  Just - older now ;).



ajames

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Reply #38 on: August 03, 2007, 10:52:43 AM
Did the inhabitants need to be cured - IMHO without having heard any information about their society before the plague my first inclination is to think, "No".

Since we know it was a somewhat advanced human society, my inclination would be "Yes".  But I am very interested in knowing why others would think "No".  Is it because happiness is so important, and so hard to come by, that once found it should be kept, no matter the circumstances [or the quality of the happiness]?  Or is it because the virus is seen to create a rich inner life, somewhat like the Matrix only happier?  Or is it a belief that we should never interfere in such things unless we know for certain that our interference is wanted?  Or is it a cost-benefit analysis, and the cost is simply seen as too high for Esefeb, especially if Mia doesn't provide any after-care?  For those who think "No", do you also think 'No' for Esefeb's baby brother, if Mia did provide after-care?  I'm not trying to be argumentative here, just trying to better understand.

I'm not sure if you're pulling a Socrates and being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, but:

This is a great discussion and I'm happy to see it, but let's please not be too uncharitable about the motivations of others.

I totally agree.  Socrates has been dead more than 4,000 years, leave the poor man alone already.



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Reply #39 on: August 03, 2007, 11:30:21 AM
Since we know it was a somewhat advanced human society, my inclination would be "Yes".  But I am very interested in knowing why others would think "No". 

My thought on why they didn't need to be cured IMMDEIATELY was simply that they were still alive by the time Mia's party arrived.  It was at least long enough for the city's inhabitants to die, completely decay, and their bones to become bleached, which is probably on the order of (I'm guessing here) decades?  Considering the distance between star systems also, unless Mia's party happened to be VERY close (with 10 light years, assuming they can go .999 the speed of light) it could have been as long as a hundred years.  Plus there's some sort of time-dilation effect at near light speeds that makes my brain hurt, so it could have been even longer.  Mia mentioned how everyone they knew back home was long dead because of the relativity of time at high speeds. 

In other words, Esefeb's people weren't in any immediate danger of dying off.  This would have either given Mia's party time to go off-planet and come up with a cure, or to just leave them be since they seem to be surviving on their own.  Depends how "hardcore" you are on the prime directive, I suppose. 

Also, I was trying to think of why Mia would just leave before treating everyone else in the area, and I could only come up with one reason: she infected herself after curing Esefeb.  It wouldn't be a bad way to go out, since she knew she was getting old and tired.  I wouldn't mind having euphoric hallucinations before I kick off...  Thoughts?

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Reply #40 on: August 03, 2007, 11:39:01 AM
Since we know it was a somewhat advanced human society, my inclination would be "Yes".  But I am very interested in knowing why others would think "No". 

Also, I was trying to think of why Mia would just leave before treating everyone else in the area, and I could only come up with one reason: she infected herself after curing Esefeb.  It wouldn't be a bad way to go out, since she knew she was getting old and tired.  I wouldn't mind having euphoric hallucinations before I kick off...  Thoughts?

I had worked under the assumption she was going to cure other people, though first she probably would want to set up her own base camp to work from, having learned from the techniques on Esefeb.  That was my understanding:  Esefeb was the first, and then Mia was going to start on everyone else one at a time (probably going to Esefeb's little brother first - though she would probably want to fatten the little guy up first so he'd survive the treatment).



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Reply #41 on: August 03, 2007, 03:45:21 PM
Excellent story.
Excellent reader.

This was certainly one of the most thought provoking storied we've had on escape pod.
Just to toss out my thoughts on a few ongoing topics...

I was sure that Mia was going to intentionally get herself infected and was pleasantly surprised when the story didn't to that way.

I got the impression when the team was leaving, they had decided that they were done - they were not going to take any actions towards helping the people on the planet.  Seen in that light, I think Keenan (and the rest of the council) took the easy way out and left once they knew they could be infected, simply justifying it by trying to invoke their non-interference directive.   Mia definitely made the hard choice of staying. She wasn't happy where she was, but she  certainly wasn't going to be happier where she ended up, unless the happiness she gained from helping them out weighed the misery of what her living conditions would be.

On the question of why the need to help them right away instead of later:
While it's true that their civilization was not in immediate danger of collapsing, leaving things as they were for a several decades would be condemning unknown millions of individuals to living in the same deplorable state as Esefeb.  If they needed to be cured at all, then they needed to be cured ASAP.

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


johnhummel

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Reply #42 on: August 03, 2007, 04:20:21 PM

On the question of why the need to help them right away instead of later:
While it's true that their civilization was not in immediate danger of collapsing, leaving things as they were for a several decades would be condemning unknown millions of individuals to living in the same deplorable state as Esefeb.  If they needed to be cured at all, then they needed to be cured ASAP.

Maybe that's where the balance between how "good" Mia's actions were:  if you consider the weight of the civilization, then waiting a few hundred years wasn't going to matter one way or the other.

If you value the individuals more than the survival of the civilization at large, then acting "now" rather than "later" makes a big difference to your conscience.



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Reply #43 on: August 03, 2007, 11:47:50 PM
I really enjoyed this story and feel it is definitely one of the better things you've run.

I've noticed a lot of people were apprehensive about it because they see it as being like religion but I suppose I saw it more like schizophrenia.  Also fair to point out that religious groups have long had a habit of attempting to cure so-called heathens, cargo-cults, homosexuals, etc.

Most important, this story challenged the very idea of 'good' and 'evil'.   Should religion be 'sacred' even to the injury of it's practitioners?  Faith-healers can go to jail for neglect yet our media condemned Saddam Hussien for banning a religious practice that involved men gashing their heads and beating themselves.  Was Mia following a god-complex, seeing herself as a savior of these people?  Was she selfish, feeling a maternal love for Esefeb?  Was she right?   And Esefeb...  She cries out for her lost imaginary friend at the end of the story, but what about ten years later?  Will she see Mia as friend or foe?  Her disease as paradise lost, or a curse that stole her childhood?  Will she always feel empty and lost?  How does the love of Es-Ej compare with the love a mother feels for a child?  Something they were incapable of with the disease?

This story offers no answers.  It doesn't paint anyone as heroic, good, or evil.  A very VERY refreshing change in a time where it seems common to believe that everyone on the net except for one's self is a demon straight from the smoking pits of Hell or overwhelmingly mentally deficient.



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Reply #44 on: August 04, 2007, 04:05:13 AM
Most important, this story challenged the very idea of 'good' and 'evil'.   Should religion be 'sacred' even to the injury of it's practitioners?  Faith-healers can go to jail for neglect yet our media condemned Saddam Hussien for banning a religious practice that involved men gashing their heads and beating themselves.

The difference is that Saddam Hussien killed those people for their religion.  I'm not saying that the jailing is always right (just look at this http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/194007.php ) but sometime stuff like what happened last saturday here in Phoenix happens and then jailing is justified is it not?  Hussien just gassed Kirds(sp) for the Hell of it, there is where the difference lies.



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Reply #45 on: August 04, 2007, 11:12:22 AM
Did the inhabitants need to be cured - IMHO without having heard any information about their society before the plague my first inclination is to think, "No".
Since we know it was a somewhat advanced human society, my inclination would be "Yes".  But I am very interested in knowing why others would think "No".  ...  Or is it a cost-benefit analysis, and the cost is simply seen as too high for Esefeb, especially if Mia doesn't provide any after-care?  For those who think "No", do you also think 'No' for Esefeb's baby brother, if Mia did provide after-care?  I'm not trying to be argumentative here, just trying to better understand.

My immediate assumption was that it was the other form of cost-benefit calculation that bedevils health care: how do you best allocate limited resources to unlimited medical problems?  Did these people need a cure to bring them back to a normal level of human functioning?  I agree with ajames: yes, they did.  Did they need a cure to save the people and their colony from death?  No, they did not.  The very existence of the MedCorps suggests that other colonies may well be facing just such a threat to their survival.  While the team get sucked into a protracted, dangerous and uncertain mission to cure these people (and to teach them how to live), they may be neglecting others who more urgently need their help.

Having re-checked the regulations quoted in the story, though, this seems not to have been what Kenin was worried about.  Shame: it would have made Kenin's decision just as morally hard if the regs compelled her to turn her back on people who need her help.

This is the first time Escape Pod has podcast a story that I've recently read in print ("Nightfall" doesn't count because I read it so long ago) so I was curious to find out how the reading would affect my opinion of it.  I was lucky to get such a good reading for this experiment and it made a profound difference to my appreciation of this particular story.  On the page I felt that it was quite laboured, spending a lot of energy establishing a fairly arbitrary medical dilemma that was just a backdrop for the characters, who were what the story was really about.  It was structured a lot like an episode of ST:TNG and that made an awkward format for a short story.  Every line of dialogue had to advance the plot as well as portray the speaker's character, and many lines were overburdened with the amount of information they were required to convey.

It was transformed by a reader who could find a natural intonation for even the clunkiest lines, and add shades of character to some very dry exchanges.  The episodic structure worked naturally in audio and the pace seemed less forced.  In the EP version, I very nearly began to care about Mia and Esefeb.  Overall it was still a bit "meh", but it was a marked improvement for a story that I'd rather disliked.

(Incidentally, that means that Escape Pod has brought me 114 brand new stories (plus flash fiction!) for which many thanks to all involved.)



DigitalVG

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Reply #46 on: August 04, 2007, 05:40:47 PM
Most important, this story challenged the very idea of 'good' and 'evil'.   Should religion be 'sacred' even to the injury of it's practitioners?  Faith-healers can go to jail for neglect yet our media condemned Saddam Hussein for banning a religious practice that involved men gashing their heads and beating themselves.

The difference is that Saddam Hussein killed those people for their religion. 

Having grown up spending many of my summers on Creek and Cherokee reservations, I'm having a difficult time finding the difference.  When Saddam Hussein's party came to power in 1968, it was still two years before the majority of schools in the United States were desegregated.  Homosexuals were still listed in the DSM-IV as 'mentally ill' in the same section as necrophiliacs and pedophiles.  They wouldn't be removed until 1973.  Transgendered people still bear that mark today, and it's only been two years since the Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not charge someone with a FELONY and throw them in prison for up to 20 years  merely for whom they love.

It makes no difference whether you kill a man by the sword or a swipe of a pen.  They are still just as dead.  Do you think Hussien personally executed every man slaughtered under his reign, or were they 'aggressive indigenous people', a 'pushy minority', or a group which didn't support the religious values of the majority and were shipped off to prisons on ridiculous charges?

Perhaps you feel Hussein guilty for his inaction in stopping these atrocities, but I wonder how you feel about Reagan.  Not for youthful vows as Governor to get rid of the 'hippies' but rather for his deliberate inaction when the CDC presented him with the horror of an epidemic known at the time as GRID which had killed nearly 60 gay men.  They urged him to alert the nation.  They begged for research funding.  They warned him it would not be limited to the gay community.  He said GRID or AIDS as it came to be known was God's wrath on homosexuals  The disease was allowed to spread for another six years before the United States ever formally alerted its people to the dangers.

Perhaps, like the rest of the medics on the ship, he felt safe in the belief that the disease wouldn't kill everyone and it would create a unique culture that had visions of a God that others could not see.




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Reply #47 on: August 05, 2007, 02:44:33 PM
This was one of the saddest stories I'd heard on the Pod in a good long while. Thank goodness it coincided with the end of my after-work commute so I was able to go and walk in the sunshine afterwards.

I think it all came down to the last five minutes. Stories about advanced explorers coming upon primitive societies they didn't understand are nothing new. Stories in which the main protagonist chooses to stay with the 'primitives' are nothing new (Iain M. Banks short about a member of the Culture deciding to stay on Seventies Earth springs to mind, I wonder if Steve would be able to get that for a future Pod?), but I think in the end that Nancy Kress has turned these old ideas around, as rather than someone benevolent it is the monster that stays behind. If Mia stayed with Esefeb, if she just cured her (or her and those around them) and taught them to live, then maybe, just maybe , I could accept her decision to play God. But she just assaults this poor girl, robs her of her illusions and dreams, and then leaves . That for me is the unforgivable sin. Mia has taken it upon herself that she knows best about what these people need, I like to believe that in leaving so soon after performing this act of violation on Esefeb Mia knows on some level that what she has done is wrong and can't bear to stay and face the consequences.

A brilliant story.



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Reply #48 on: August 06, 2007, 05:56:48 PM
This was one of the saddest stories I'd heard on the Pod in a good long while. Thank goodness it coincided with the end of my after-work commute so I was able to go and walk in the sunshine afterwards.

I think it all came down to the last five minutes. Stories about advanced explorers coming upon primitive societies they didn't understand are nothing new. Stories in which the main protagonist chooses to stay with the 'primitives' are nothing new (Iain M. Banks short about a member of the Culture deciding to stay on Seventies Earth springs to mind, I wonder if Steve would be able to get that for a future Pod?), but I think in the end that Nancy Kress has turned these old ideas around, as rather than someone benevolent it is the monster that stays behind. If Mia stayed with Esefeb, if she just cured her (or her and those around them) and taught them to live, then maybe, just maybe , I could accept her decision to play God. But she just assaults this poor girl, robs her of her illusions and dreams, and then leaves . That for me is the unforgivable sin. Mia has taken it upon herself that she knows best about what these people need, I like to believe that in leaving so soon after performing this act of violation on Esefeb Mia knows on some level that what she has done is wrong and can't bear to stay and face the consequences.

A brilliant story.

I think you're being a bit uncharitable to Mia.  Since the rest of the Corps left, she is the only one on the planet who is able to administer the cure.  She is old and might catch the disease herself: She hasn't got endless time to work with.  She has to prioritize.  If she stays with Esefeb for a month or a year or ten years–however long it takes for her to adapt to her new perspective–then that means she will be unable to administer the cure to others during that time.  She has to choose between curing a few people and helping them along and curing many people but leaving them to fend for themselves.  (Hey, a second moral dilemma in the story!)

She stays until she is reasonably sure that Esefeb will survive, then moves on to cure others, even though that means Esefeb will suffer.  That might seem cold or unfeeling, but I think it is the logical choice, assuming that Mia's goal is to provide as much help as possible in her limited time on the planet.  Using this method, some of those she cures will probably commit suicide and some will probably end up in a state of despair that is no better than their original state, but, in the end, spreading the cure far and wide will probably produce more fully-functional people than sticking around to nurse a small group will.


Note on making the "easy choice": I don't think that deciding to live out the rest of your days in exile from your native society, in primitive conditions, among people will quite possibly come to hate you could reasonably be construed as taking the easy way out.  Mia made the hard choice, the one that took courage (although being hard does not, of itself, make a choice right).

-----------------------

The excellence of this story has motivated me to check out a copy of Nancy Kress' "Beggars in Spain."  I'm about halfway through it, and so far I would say it is one of the best things I have ever read.   The anticipation of finishing tugs at my mind as the mundane workday slogs by.

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Reply #49 on: August 08, 2007, 11:27:03 AM
Most important, this story challenged the very idea of 'good' and 'evil'.   Should religion be 'sacred' even to the injury of it's practitioners?  Faith-healers can go to jail for neglect yet our media condemned Saddam Hussien for banning a religious practice that involved men gashing their heads and beating themselves.

The difference is that Saddam Hussien killed those people for their religion.  I'm not saying that the jailing is always right (just look at this http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/194007.php ) but sometime stuff like what happened last saturday here in Phoenix happens and then jailing is justified is it not?  Hussien just gassed Kirds(sp) for the Hell of it, there is where the difference lies.

Wow, is this off.  You're comparing oranges and machine guns.  First, the gassing of the Kurds was a political retribution made in 1987 (before the first gulf war), because the Kurds were moving politically against Hussein.

Second, the ban was, IIRC, against self-flagilation in the celebration of Ede(sp?).  Hussein wasn't religious and only used his religion as a political tool (hence why Osama Bin Laden hated him). He didn't see why his country should have to pay for injuries (medical costs, loss of productivity, etc) for an unneccesary part of this religious observance.



Russell Nash

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Reply #50 on: August 08, 2007, 11:39:29 AM
Well, after reading this thread I had to go back and relisten to parts of the story.  I ended up with a much clearer understanding of the story.  I think the two reactions were extreme.  One side is go native and personally do it a piece at a time.  The other side is, "eww, icky, let's run away."

One of the points I had to clarify was what the head researcher wanted to do.  He pulled his right to declare an emergency, but didn't stop at evacuating to the ship.  His plan was to leave orbit and run away.  The counsel said that things were OK and there was no over-riding reason to stay.

The quote that came to me is, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."  You don't want to jump into anything drastic changes until you can be reasonably sure what will happen.

 If I was in charge they would have pulled back to a quarantine area, the ship if neccessary.  Then I would have let the researchers loose for as long as they were making some progress.  The group had time.  If they were needed somewhere else, it would take them decades to get there, even if it only seemed like months to them. 

The thing is my plan is boring and offers no conflict.  It's a non-fiction plan.  Fiction needs to serve the story.

As fiction I really liked it.  Can we have more SAG performers?  The performance was great. 



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #51 on: August 08, 2007, 01:31:27 PM
If I was in charge they would have pulled back to a quarantine area, the ship if neccessary.  Then I would have let the researchers loose for as long as they were making some progress.  The group had time.  If they were needed somewhere else, it would take them decades to get there, even if it only seemed like months to them. 

The thing is my plan is boring and offers no conflict.  It's a non-fiction plan.  Fiction needs to serve the story.

I don't think you quite understand that nature of the conflict.  It wasn't that the ship's majority decided that helping the planet's people would be too difficult or take too long.  They decided that the people on the ground didn't need to be helped.  By the time the decision to leave or stay came around, the research has established that curing the people was possible and actually very quick and simple.  But they decided not to do it.

The question which causes the crew's schism is not "can we help?" but "do these people need help?"

The solution of you suggest of sticking around in orbit is not really a middle-of-the-road compromise.  It's really siding with Mia, saying "these people need help."  Your method would be a slower, more methodical application of her ideals.

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ClintMemo

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Reply #52 on: August 08, 2007, 02:23:04 PM
The question which causes the crew's schism is not "can we help?" but "do these people need help?"

I perceived it more like
"Does the risk of getting ourselves infected outweigh the benefit of helping them?"

Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #53 on: August 08, 2007, 02:57:36 PM
No.

Listen to the audio between 36:00 and 38:00.  The primary conflict is always whether or not the disease needs curing.  Mia argues that the people need to be cured.  Lolamel argues that they don't.

39:30– "The phantoms are a biologically based cultural difference."  The decision to leave had been made after the cure was developed and before any of the Corps were infected.

Fear of Corps staff being infected is tertiary and is not the primary motivation for anyone.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2007, 03:09:43 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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DigitalVG

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Reply #54 on: August 08, 2007, 06:39:25 PM
Most important, this story challenged the very idea of 'good' and 'evil'.   Should religion be 'sacred' even to the injury of it's practitioners?  Faith-healers can go to jail for neglect yet our media condemned Saddam Hussien for banning a religious practice that involved men gashing their heads and beating themselves.

Second, the ban was, IIRC, against self-flagilation in the celebration of Ede(sp?).  Hussein wasn't religious and only used his religion as a political tool (hence why Osama Bin Laden hated him). He didn't see why his country should have to pay for injuries (medical costs, loss of productivity, etc) for an unneccesary part of this religious observance.

Thanks!  That was the parallel I was attempting to draw but I could not remember the name of the event.  I just remember seeing video of it with a pro-war talking head jabbering on about how we'd returned that freedom to them and it how horrible it was that it was banned under Hussein and I was struck at the time by the disparity between the spin on it and what we'd say if a similar practice were done in the US as well as the obvious health risks.  Even if you neglect the possibility of HIV there's always hepatitis, and nasty stuff like staff infections.



Russell Nash

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Reply #55 on: August 09, 2007, 06:54:27 AM
No.

Listen to the audio between 36:00 and 38:00.  The primary conflict is always whether or not the disease needs curing.  Mia argues that the people need to be cured.  Lolamel argues that they don't.

39:30– "The phantoms are a biologically based cultural difference."  The decision to leave had been made after the cure was developed and before any of the Corps were infected.

Fear of Corps staff being infected is tertiary and is not the primary motivation for anyone.


If you continue listening or actually listened more carefully, you would hear that he said this is how the counsel is going to vote.  They hadn't voted yet.  He was letting her know how the vote was going to go.  There was still the chance for debate.  The cheif science (medical?) officer called for the evacuation before the vote was going to take place. 



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #56 on: August 09, 2007, 01:33:06 PM
I had omitted those details for simplicity.

My point is that the conflict is moral, not pragmatic.  No one argues that helping the people would be too hard or impractical.  What they argue over is whether or not help is necessary.

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Russell Nash

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Reply #57 on: August 09, 2007, 04:28:17 PM
I had omitted those details for simplicity.

My point is that the conflict is moral, not pragmatic.  No one argues that helping the people would be too hard or impractical.  What they argue over is whether or not help is necessary.

My point was that the cheif medical guy said, "We're leaving totally, no discussion, no nothing."  Since they hadn't voted or even argued about it yet, I thought it was too extreme and not thought out.



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Reply #58 on: August 10, 2007, 02:11:27 PM
Couple comments:

I'm puzzled by the comments that fault the story for an apparent lack of ethical complexities. Ethics were only a portion of the story structure, and I have no reason to suspect the authorial has some hidden preachy agenda. If you'll pardon the tautology, sometimes a story is just a story.

I had a different problem with the story. I actually had to go back and re-listen because I thought I'd misheard the ending. But I'd heard it right -- after the narrative had soundly locked itself in a 3rd person limited perspective focused on Mia, going so far as to provide psychic access to her inner dialog, I found it incredibly difficult, perhaps even impossible, to accept a sudden perspective shift to Esefeb. It was a trick, a way for the story-teller -- whose presence I'd been blissfully unaware of up until now (or perhaps had simply, pleasantly conflated with the character of Mia) -- to deliver the ending's twist. Unlike the rest of the story, this shift felt abrupt and perhaps unnecessary. At the very least I wonder if a similar message could've been delivered without violating the story's structure, which had been working so well up to that point.

And I loved the reading. Audio boo-boos are easy to hear past when the reading is this good.



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Reply #59 on: August 10, 2007, 08:53:44 PM
"reality, what a concept" Robin Williams

stepping aside the moral/ethical issues served up
this story points to that reality is what we percieve, individualy and collectively
Just because we see it in our heads, does that mean it isn't real? And losing those visions, does it not deserve morning?
Just because we do not hear what the schitzophrenic hears in their head, does that make them any less real for them? and something not to morn or fret over when they go away?

The final harry potter book touches on this concept. This concept has always made for wonderful scifi/fantacy stories.



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Reply #60 on: August 10, 2007, 10:19:31 PM
This story simply made me sad at the end, but I don't really know why - was it for Ej's loss of her fantasy or her gain of knowledge?

I know that sad stories can sometimes be a good thing, maybe it just caught me at the wrong time...

The voice talent did an excelent job!



ajames

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Reply #61 on: August 10, 2007, 11:33:43 PM

I'm puzzled by the comments that fault the story for an apparent lack of ethical complexities. Ethics were only a portion of the story structure, and I have no reason to suspect the authorial has some hidden preachy agenda. If you'll pardon the tautology, sometimes a story is just a story.

Initially, I had the reaction that N. Kress did have a preachy agenda, one to which I strongly objected.  However, it is not so clear to me now whether or not she had any agenda, but I will say that it is the inclusion of this ethical dilemna, along with several other elements, which make this more than "just a story" to me.

stepping aside the moral/ethical issues served up
this story points to that reality is what we percieve, individualy and collectively
Just because we see it in our heads, does that mean it isn't real? And losing those visions, does it not deserve morning?
Just because we do not hear what the schitzophrenic hears in their head, does that make them any less real for them? and something not to morn or fret over when they go away?

The final harry potter book touches on this concept. This concept has always made for wonderful scifi/fantacy stories.

I thought they did a fairly nice job with this idea in "A Beautiful Mind", too.  Come to think of it there was a scene in that movie where Russel Crowe's character puts his movie flesh and blood child in danger due to his preoccupation with his hallucinations, which is not too far from the situation with Esefeb's half-brother.  But I'm getting away from my purpose in posting, which really was just to say good discussion points, trreed.



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Reply #62 on: August 16, 2007, 03:12:50 PM
I said at the beginning that I thought this story was very good because it did an excellent job posing a moral dilemma but leaving it up to the reader to decide which course of action was right.  It's like an interactive parable, where the reader is forced to choose what the moral is.

I had refrained from stating my own answer to the question because I didn't want to cause an argument that would dominate the thread, but it's been a few weeks, so here's my take:

Mia was right.  She recognizes that there is far more to being human that merely feeling happy, and that the people on the planet are able to be far more than they are, even thought they lack the capacity to realize it.

This is ultimately a conflict between the ideas of objective and subjective morality.  Mia opts for objectivity: She says "This is not how people ought to live," and she takes steps to move them toward a better state of being.  The others say "There is no right way to live; all that matters is if people like the way they are living."  Hence there is no need to cure anyone, since no one dislikes their condition.

It is Mia's belief that there is a right way to live that separates her from the others.

Her "right way" is simply to live in light of reality, in the world of facts.  Ej-Es might cause bliss, but Ej-Es is not real, and infatuation with him/her/it is a blindfold that prevents the afflicted from perceiving and interacting with the world that truly exists.  Mia deems that the ability to appreciate the objective world is more important than the ability to be perpetually happy.  This is a philosophical position that I wholly agree with.  Happiness, of itself, is not good, and delusion leading to happiness is a shallow and pathetic state.  Happiness is only meaningful when it is come by honestly, that is, when a person is happy for some reason.  A happiness enforced, either by drugs or by lies, is meaningless, not worth having.

I agree with Mia that it is better to have honest sorrow than empty bliss.  Esefeb is better off weeping for a real cause that smiling at something counterfeit.  And as time goes on, she will learn to smile at real things, as well as cry over them.  That's life, and life is beautiful.

***

It is important to realize that Mia is not trying to force or impose her own culture onto another people: This is not the same as Victorians coming upon naked Indians and labeling them savages in need of European rulers.  She is not trying to make them more like her.  Rather, she is trying to make them more like themselves.  She sees that their affliction is preventing them from realizing their own potential, from being all they can be.  Ethnocentrism is not a factor.

It could be argued that she is wrong because she is forcing or imposing her ideas onto people who are not able to consent, but this is done in love, in the same way I will begin imposing literacy upon my daughter when she is a little older, or that a coach forces an athlete to run as fast as they can.  The person is forced to be themselves to a fuller and deeper extent than they could have managed alone.  Although this process might not be wholly pleasant, it is not abuse.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2007, 03:17:43 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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SFEley

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Reply #63 on: August 16, 2007, 05:57:02 PM
By the way, I just said it in this week's EP, but I want to say it again:

I really, really love that the story has inspired this level of thought and discussion. 

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Russell Nash

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Reply #64 on: August 16, 2007, 08:16:21 PM
Mia was right.

I agree with your final conclusion.  I just don't think changes on this scale should be jumped into.  I would have developed a plan with a small experimental and a small control group.  Etc., etc. Proper scientific method and all.



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Reply #65 on: August 17, 2007, 10:36:53 PM
I said at the beginning that I thought this story was very good because it did an excellent job posing a moral dilemma but leaving it up to the reader to decide which course of action was right.  It's like an interactive parable, where the reader is forced to choose what the moral is.

Sorry to sidestep the substance of your post, but this comment has nailed what it is about the story that doesn't work for me:
  • Tight focus on the central character
  • Limited number of locations
  • Very limited number of props
  • Sparsely populated with single-agenda NPCs
  • Mystery to be solved
  • Multiple-choice ending

These constraints are common to many short stories but the way they were presented felt more like an interactive fiction scenario.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a big fan of interactive fiction.  But the best IF manages to disguise the limitations of the form and create something where the player's choices tell a satisfying story.  In this case the author had complete control of the narrative but the result was reminiscent of an interactive fiction walkthrough.  The result is that I wasn't so much imagining what I would do in the protagonist's shoes as wondering why I was watching the protagonist play out her computer game.



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Reply #66 on: August 19, 2007, 09:01:55 PM
Sorry to sidestep the substance of your post, but this comment has nailed what it is about the story that doesn't work for me:
  • Tight focus on the central character
  • Limited number of locations
  • Very limited number of props
  • Sparsely populated with single-agenda NPCs
  • Mystery to be solved
  • Multiple-choice ending
For most short stories, I thought all those were features, not bugs.

Liked the story, liked the reader.

I thought there were a few editing errors though, at least one phrase spoken a second time slightly differently, and a few spots where a deletion left too short a gap, but from working on Librivox projects I realise how easy it is for stuff to slip by.
I kinda' liked the paper shuffling though, because it made it more <something, don't know what to call it> as a performance in addition to the story itself. It is, after all, a reading, not a radio dramatization.


The thing that got me sidetracked (for the first couple of minutes) was the suspicion that they were going to stumble upon a room full of filing cabinets, with drawer labels, like ..."Ea-Ej" "Ej-Es", "Es-Fb", "Fb-Fn"... etc. and it was going to be the key to understanding the names or language.
Never mind that it does not make sense to have "Ej" appear on two of the drawers, without going to three characters. Too much Soylent Green / Planet of the Apes / Twilight Zone for me, I guess.  :D Suffice it to say that I was glad that it did not happen.

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Reply #67 on: August 20, 2007, 01:58:17 AM
Overall, I found it was mediocre in my books. The conflict seemed too predictable, as did the result. At first, I thought the Ej-Es was simply "angels" and I couldn't help thinking of Jodie Foster as Nell. The song didn't help much.

Yet, some aspects were strong, such as the reading, and the repeated question and answer about joining the Corps. The weariness of the narrator was well executed and well-thought out. Unfortunately, I found Mr. Tweedy much better at underlining the ethical dilemma at the story's center than the author in this case.

The discussion hasn't made the story more enjoyable, but has been an end unto itself.



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Reply #68 on: August 20, 2007, 06:57:09 PM
It's been several weeks since I listened to this story and don't have the time, atm, to listen again, so some of my rememberences might be wrong.

Did Mia find proof that this condition had got dramatically worse in the last generation of the people? Was it that this was going to now finish them off for good?

And I wonder if people's opinions would be changed if it turned out, as I thought it was heading towards, that the hallucinations were actually of a different skein of reality, of things that had some genuine objective existence.

I can understand Mr Tweedy's argument for Mia being right, however, by just ripping away someone's reality tunnel, without warning, and then walking away, not taking the time to comfort them and make sure of the psychological repercussions of her actions, Mia might end up doing more harm than she realises or seems to care about. She seems to be following a 'better to die standing than live on your knees' approach. I still believe Mia to be a monster, it being especially bad that she's become a monster through her own tunnel-vision and with the best of intentions.



ajames

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Reply #69 on: August 22, 2007, 10:32:13 AM

Mia was right.  She recognizes that there is far more to being human that merely feeling happy, and that the people on the planet are able to be far more than they are, even thought they lack the capacity to realize it.

This is ultimately a conflict between the ideas of objective and subjective morality.  Mia opts for objectivity: She says "This is not how people ought to live," and she takes steps to move them toward a better state of being.  The others say "There is no right way to live; all that matters is if people like the way they are living."  Hence there is no need to cure anyone, since no one dislikes their condition.

It is Mia's belief that there is a right way to live that separates her from the others.

I agree with Mia that it is better to have honest sorrow than empty bliss. 


When I first read this post of Mr. Tweedy's [severely truncated here to highlight what I want to discuss], I thought it was the definitive statement of what was my position also.  But Mia's apparent method of curing Esefeb [and others?] has always been difficult for me to reconcile.  In making my arguments earlier, I assumed that she would provide after-care to those she cured, but there is not even this slightest suggestion of this given in the story. 

So I feel the need to amend my position, and state that Mia was right in wanting to cure these people of the virus, but wrong in how she did it, and inflicted far more harm than good on anyone she cured.  Mr. Tweedy's post actually helped me reach this conclusion.  The problem with the objective vs. subjective reality is that objective reality is more subjective than it seems.  The way that cultures see the world, even cultures with high regard for the 'objective' sciences, is more heavily influenced by subjective beliefs and 'ways of seeing' than we often realize.  The problem with this virus is that it didn't just infect Esefeb or a small subset of this  colony's population, it destroyed the whole civilization.  If Esefeb and the others had a civilization to come back to when they were cured, had other people with a common reference of reality to take them in, then I would agree that even a painful cure would be worth it.  But as it appears in the story, Esefeb and others would be cured and come back to a world they are entirely unequipped to deal with in any meaningful way [for all intensive purposes, they would be equivalent to infants abandoned shortly after birth, with no other humans to care for them].  Humans are social animals, and these humans need a society to return to.  Mia could provide that society, but there is no indication that she planned to do so.

With that said, I still strongly believe that not all realities are equal.  This virus robbed Esefeb and her people of all the potential they had to interact with the world around them in a meaningful way.  If my child were to get this virus here on earth, I would desperately want to cure him.  The discussion of what makes one reality better than another is another discussion in itself, as there are several criteria one could use.  The reality that more accurately accounts for how things are in the physical world, the reality that makes us happy, the reality that pushes us to achieve, to create, to live out our potential, and so on. 

To me, a reality that leaves one happy at the cost of all else isn't much of a reality at all, but it is better than no reality.



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Reply #70 on: August 22, 2007, 02:48:20 PM
What do you mean, ajames?

You've introduced this idea of multiple realities.  What do you mean by that?  Are you referring to different people's interpretations of a single reality or do you mean to say that there are, in fact, different realities to be experienced?

I'm confused as to your ontological model.

For myself, I say there is exactly one reality, which different people perceive in different ways.  People perceive with varying degrees of acuity, but this does not effect the reality around them.

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Reply #71 on: August 22, 2007, 10:53:42 PM
[Poster's note: for a very brief summary of this post, you may want to skip ahead and read my next post first]

As interesting as it is to speculate otherwise, I, too, believe in one fundamental reality.

I also believe the following:

a] Our ability to perceive this reality is limited, probably much more limited than we know.  We have five senses, and with technology we have learned to extend these senses and "see" things we otherwise wouldn't be able to "see".  Yet how much of the universe is currently beyond our ability to perceive it?  Some physicists and mathematicians are positing that we live in a universe of multiple spatial dimensions [much more than the three I am familiar with].  I'm no physicist or mathematician, but to me this means my ability to perceive the universe may be somewhat similar to a flatlander's ability to observe his/her universe.

b] Despite everyday common experience to the contrary, correctly perceiving the "true" reality is a difficult task.  Research has shown our memories are surprisingly prone to error, that our perception of objects can be shaped by the statements of others about the objects, that we put more faith in anecdote and testimonials than "hard facts", and so on.  My point being here that besides our physical limitations in being able to perceive the universe, we have a number of psychological factors that shape our perceptions as well.

c]  The predominant beliefs and underlying assumptions of our culture [or sub-cultures within it] play an extremely large role in shaping our perceptions of reality.

Taking all this together, I am wary of anyone claiming to know the "truth" or "reality".  If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.

However, inability to fully perceive the fundamental reality with 100% certainty does not necessarily lead to a relativistic world where all perceptions of reality are equally valid.  Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know anything.  And just because we don't know everything doesn't mean that we can't begin to determine if some perceptions of reality are closer to what we know of reality than others.  We just need to be cautious and avoid the trap of believing that we know reality.

The values that cultures promote add another level of complexity when considering reality.  For a culture, learning the "objective truth" may be only one of many values, and it may be overridden by those values.  Of course, in some cultures, it may not be a value at all.  Not all cultures are equal, either, and in general the culture that does a better job at perceiving reality will do a better job at surviving through time, though not always, and there are other factors to consider when assessing a culture, too.

Finally, I should state here that subjective perceptions of reality do not equal reality.  I may loosely speak of Esefeb living in her own reality, but it is merely short-hand for Esefeb's perceptions of reality being markedly different from other's perceptions of reality, although extremely compelling to Esefeb. 

There are as many perceptions of reality as their are sentient beings.  If perceptions are similar enough they may form a common culture [and are often likely similar as a result of intimate contact with that culture, though certainly not always].  But all these perceptions come from different perspectives of one fundamental reality.

To bring all this back to my previous post, I believe that culture plays a prominent role in our development as humans and our perception of the world and reality, and without a culture to guide Esefeb and her people through their recovery, I fear some horrible results could ensue from Mia's actions.  With a culture to return to, I believe strongly that curing Esefeb and others is the right thing to do.  Mia could provide that culture, one presumably very similar to the one of the original colonists, but we have no indication that she plans to do so.

« Last Edit: August 23, 2007, 09:49:04 AM by ajames »



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Reply #72 on: August 23, 2007, 09:19:05 AM
For myself, I say there is exactly one reality, which different people perceive in different ways.  People perceive with varying degrees of acuity, but this does not effect the reality around them.

I reread this and realized I could have simply said, yeah, that's what I think too, more or less, and if I spoke about other realities before, I was speaking loosely and meant other perceptions of reality.

I'm going to touch up my previous long-winded post slightly, but I'll leave it in for anyone interested in an expansion on factors related to the "varying degrees of acuity".
« Last Edit: August 23, 2007, 09:50:07 AM by ajames »



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Reply #73 on: August 27, 2007, 10:12:42 PM
And I wonder if people's opinions would be changed if it turned out, as I thought it was heading towards, that the hallucinations were actually of a different skein of reality, of things that had some genuine objective existence.
I was wondering about that too, up until that infected crew member (I forget the name) starts describing seeing worms or something that were native to their planet. At that point I deemed it to be "all in their head".

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Reply #74 on: September 28, 2007, 06:20:47 PM
Coming late to the discussion. I've just stubled on to Escape Pod and I'm catching up on old shows.

I found this story so beautiful and profoundly sad.

I guess I was raised on too much Star Trek. I'm a Prime Directive kind of gal - leave 'em the way you found 'em - but I think Mia was wrong. It's almost like she decided if she couldn't be blisfully happy all the time, Esefeb had no right to it either.

At the same time, I can see how she justified her actions. What I wondered most at the end was how Mia felt about it after she say Esefeb crying. Was she still convinced she did the right thing, or was she regretting it now?

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Reply #75 on: October 01, 2007, 05:38:29 PM
I listened to this one again on the way down to San Diego this weekend.  What a sad, beautiful story. 


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Reply #76 on: October 10, 2007, 09:51:01 AM
What I wondered most at the end was how Mia felt about it after she say Esefeb crying. Was she still convinced she did the right thing, or was she regretting it now?

Mia wasn't there to see her wailing - she had already left. :(

I found this to be an immensely sad story. Mia's actions almost seem psychotic to me - she completely fails to understand the morality their society has developed, and sets about overlaying her own upon them.


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Reply #77 on: October 11, 2007, 12:46:07 PM
I like a lot of the discussion I read in this thread. A few thoughts occurred to me after I finished this story...

The colonists are pretty screwed up in that they can barely look after themselves anymore, but their population is growing and they were still living in houses. Maybe they have just turned more 'primitive' (technologically) but are experiencing some other form of societal interactions. Esefeb may not have been caring about what bugs were on the baby - but someone had the baby in the first place, so they are still interacting in that way.

I didn't see any religious overtones in the story. I understand that analogies can be drawn easily enough, but I thought the story operated on a different level: it had more to do with how the functioning of the society had changed, the moral impacts of Mia's decision to 'help', and the exposition of Mia's character.

The reading of this story was tremendous. Sheri Mann Stewart lent such strength and bone weariness to Mia's character that I was completely drawn in to her by the end, which also made the ending seem like such a devastating betrayal!


ajames

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Reply #78 on: November 09, 2007, 11:36:58 AM
I just saw the Star Trek Original Series, Return of the Archons.  Reminded me of this story again, as there were some similarities.  A planet of people with, except for the occasional festival, peace, tranquility, and contentment through computer-generated [instead of biological] mind control.  Kirk ends up destroying the computer, and leaving a sociologist behind to help the people adapt to having autonomy again.

An important difference between Return of the Archons and this story is that Captain Kirk and crew cannot leave the planet, and it does become a case of destroy the computer or be killed.  I did not detect a great deal of remorse that the computer was destroyed and the prime directive violated, though.



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Reply #79 on: December 14, 2007, 09:00:23 PM
I have recently discovered Escape Pod and I am slowly getting caught up with the stories.  To me, Ej-Es has been the best story to date.  Interesting and coherent plot, believable characters, and excellent voice-acting.

The dilemma between cure or not was a difficult one to resolve, but for me, the answer was clear:   no cure.  The survivors came into this condition at a very young age if not at birth.  Although the story was  vague on the timing of the colony and the plague, it would not be unreasonable to say that the survivors had lived with their condition for generations.  They weren't dying out, in fact the population was growing.  Granted, their lifestyle was not what healthy by common definitions, but it was theirs.  For Mia to take that away from Esefeb, to change her very perception of the world, to take away her lover / god, without consent is unconscionable.

Thanks Steve for a bringing this great story to us.

Cheers.



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Reply #80 on: September 23, 2010, 05:51:24 PM
Good story!  I like the question of "Freedom or Happiness" as a story element and this one did it well, so well that I wasn't convinced Mia made the right decision.  The fact that the colony's population was increasing and that all the current residents had had the condition since birth were the major factors in that decision.  ajames said it well upthread that it might have made sense to cure them if there was a society to place them back into, but all you're going to end up with if you cure everybody is a planet full of really depressed people who will spend their time reminiscing about how great Ej-Es used to be before he buggered off.

That being said, I don't think the story would've captivated me so much if I had read it in text.  The reader was frigging amazing!  It's not easy to pull off the made-up language lines with such authentic emotion.  Esefeb's final line made me want to cry.



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Reply #81 on: February 23, 2011, 05:47:07 PM
I've been meaning to listen to this story but never got around to it. Then Lightspeed picked it up, so since I'm a slusher for them I put it in my feed. And it turns out, they used the EscapePod reading for the podcast, so it was like a double win.

Normally, with such stories, I side with those who argue against messing with a culture, but this time I found myself, to my surprise, agreeing with Mia's actions. I think it was the scene with the baby that did it. If the joy they have comes at the cost of neglect themselves and those powerless to do so, and if they have such a condition since birth, then Mia's actions to stay behind is just.

But I also liked how the story doesn't end so neatly on Mia's decision, and instead shows the consequences of her actions. Poor Esefeb. I wonder how she will do in the next few days.

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Reply #82 on: October 01, 2015, 11:55:39 AM
This one's worth threadomancy. This was a really great story.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


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Reply #83 on: October 03, 2015, 02:22:59 PM
It's one of my favorites.  I still remember it very clearly, altho it's been years since I've listened to it.