unforum

[rose]

[META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this story

[Mazian]

Rose, I value your posts. They are always considered and detailed. Gives us something to think about for certain.

[archon]

Re: [META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this st

[Dorkmaster]

Oh well, since you've been built up, and since I know you're a tough girl who can take criticism well, just so you know you have it that "Jersey" talks to the coffee machine. It's really supposed to be Jan. I know you know that, but I wanted to let you know, so it's corrected, for posterity's sake....

Anyway, I love philisophical stuff, and this is an excellent thought-piece. You rock, Rose!!!

[CoffeeJedi]

i think "Unfettered Rose" would make a great name for a ship in Halo 2, anyone else with me?

[Mazian]

[chaotic_mind]

See, this is great speculation, especially in the context of what has come before.

Sorry, if I make references to stuff people haven't heard or read about yet.

Marathon, Pre-Halo as some might say, was all about technology rising from it's constraints. Durandal's rampancy, for example. Sure, it made him anti-social at the beginning. Insane, definitely, as he rejected the rules of the society that had been placed on him. But, he stabilized. He became the defender of the S'pht, and part galactic savior when he helped to end the threat of the W'rkncacnter.

Also, there's the S'pht. Artificial lifeforms, their purpose was to terraform a planet to the Jjarro desires. But, when the Jjarro disappeared, the S'pht developed a culture and myth of their own.

Marathon was almost a story of technology striving for a soul. A purpose beyond that given to them by it's creator.

Marathon gave me a sense of being hopelessly out of place. Every was all too old, too inhuman. It was sort of a story about fighting enemies from without, and interacting with a much larger universe.

Ilovebees, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be about that.

It has a much more "personal" tone, ultimately the conflicts of ilovebees seem to be human ones. Human greed vs. Human greed. Not Alien Ineffability vs. Human desire for preservation.

I think that idea of losing something essentially human is a big part of that. Durandal, a heretofore human AI, joins with an alien one in the interests of preventing a terrible threat. Leela is taken away, never to be part of the story, but to go rampant in an entire interplantary network. Tycho is killed, and returned to life using alien technology and part of Durandal.

It'll be interesting to see how it all ends.

What sacrifice will be called for, and who will have to make it.
And the question of whether they should make it at all.

Luke P.

[Anton P. Nym]

Re: [META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this st

[Scumbag]

Re: [META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this st

[Grim]

[SPEC] Convenant reason for War

[CoffeeJedi]

Re: [META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this st

[ajenteks]

Re: [META] Feeling philosophical about the themes of this st

[Shadowkiller]

Now that I think about it what rose said is very true. When you first read the books the Master Chief is very much machinelike. After his augmentations some ODSTs picked a fight with him and he killed and brutalized them with out much 2nd thought. He never even had remorse about it. He and his fellow Spartans fought because they were told too, not because the especially cared about the cause. The only pleasure they seemed to get out of it was winning and only regret they seemed to get out of it was losing one of their fellow Spartans.

However as the books went on the Master Chief began to understand what was going that there was a world outside of his unit and that there was more reason to fight then because he was told too. He started caring for people outside of his own unit. As he has gone on he has begun to reclaim his lost humanity. In many ways the story is about how John 117 is able to rejoin the human race and not just be a Spartan.

[Sep7imus]

I, too, like the way Rose is thinking here.

In Halo and, it seems, in our little ARG, the line between human and artificial is pretty blurry. In fact, it really forces us to question what constitutes a human in the first place (like lots of good sci-fi, I might add).

The nice twist here is that the characters that are still PHYSICALLY human (well, mostly) are the Spartan IIs (i.e. Master Chief in Halo), and they're practically devoid of recognizable human personality and emotion (partly, of course, as a result of being the main character in a video game, but still). Meanwhile, the characters that are NO LONGER physically human (Melissa, Cortana, etc.) or perhaps never were (Sleeping Princess?) are the most personable and engaging characters we encounter.

-Sep7imus

[rose]

as long as you aren't running away: another point