[FFML] [Fic][Ranma][Pokewomen][Crossover][Dark][Lemon]NoTurningBackPrologue 1

[Juan Pablo Garibotti]

I found the fic interesting. I assumed the over the top personalities and rampant racism and profanity in people of power to be parody, but slightly overdone. I was happy to see it lessen in the later prologues. Sad to see the time skip between prologues 4 and 5, as I as others commented looked forwards to hearing more of Greg and the Bee girl the guys captured. Still hold hope to reading more about them, as I suspect the comment about more messages attributed to Sukebe being transmitted might have been his doing under an alias (might have figured that "Jesus" meant Jim Sukebe with a little thought, he seemed smart).
 
Now, it's not my desire to beat on a dead horse, but during the discussion spawned something caught my eye I wanted to reply to.
> On Sep 2, 2008, at 8:46 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote:> > > --- On Tue, 9/2/08, Jon Rosebaugh <fanfic at inklesspen.com> wrote:> >> For the purposes of this discussion, I am choosing to> >> treat "our> >> rights here in the United States" as a close> >> approximation to "what> >> our rights are, inherently, as a result of being sentient> >> beings".> >> > This is where you err. The world of Pokewomen is, inherently, a far> > different one from the modern United States. Outside of cities, > > there is> > little law save that of the jungle (or desert, or badlands, or > > whatever> > terrain). There *are* creatures that are different from ordinary > > normal> > human beings - while they can think and speak and feel like humans > > when> > sane, they have certain requirements to remain sane.> > > What the deuce does it matter that they are different from "ordinary" > human beings? They are rational, intelligent beings; to borrow a term, > they are 'hnau': http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Transwiki:Hnau> > Once we have understood this, things much simpler. The fact remains > that there are things which MUST NOT BE DONE to hnau and the doing of > these things is what we call a "crime against humanity". Genocide is > still genocide, whether it be directed against a tribe of Indians or a > tribe of wood elves. Anyone who would argue otherwise is a monster.> 
 
I feel you misunderstood what he was saying. Looking at the pokegirl universe, and pokegirls themselves, a few differences between them and humans become evident.
 
First, the fact that they only remain functional so long as they are 'tamed' regularly, as the original "Wild Horses" put it. Second, taming has the additional effect of making the pokegirl submissive to the tamer. The pokegirl is several times stronger than a human, and has an array of supernatural powers, yet after taming they do not attempt to use force even against the cruelest tamers, despite the fact that they would win. While the pokeball's brainwashing has some part in it, it appears to be a reinforcement of an already existing psycological dependence. This is a psycological dependence not found in regular humans. 
 
There are a number of other differences, but I believe these two are the most relevant to the discussion of pokegirl rights (and human rights and responsibilities regarding them).
 
The first, and most important question is, do pokegirls have the right to be sentient? As anyone familiar with the setting knows, a pokegirl's sentience is not an inherent trait. A feral pokegirl is effectively an animal, they can't think. This is a fact widely demonstrated in the setting. Going through the wilderness is dangerous because they'll behave instinctively and if they're territorial they might attack, or if they're hungry or for whatever other reason.
 
The kneejerk reaction is "yes, they have a right to be sentient! After all, noone would dispute the right of a human to keeping their minds." However, giving the entire pokegirl population sentience is impossible. They outnumber humanity, and they each require an taming to go from feral to sentient. If you agree that all pokegirls have a right to be sentient, you'd have to go out and take each and every pokegirl and tame them. You'd then have to keep them tamed, so they don't revert to the feral condition. The pokegirl universe doesn't have te manpower for such an undertaking.
 
I am assuming that if you agree someone has a right, then you agree everyone else has an obligation to ensure that right is protected.
 
The logical conclusion is, then, that you can't afford to give them all the right to sentience. And by points I'll be bringing up later, I'd point out now that given their particular biologies, forcing sentience on them is also immoral.
 
So you are now in the position that you have to decide which pokegirls have a right to sentience. As you mentioned, sentience is the fundamental quality that makes one eligible for a host of other rights. The pokegirls who have a right to be sentient should be treated "as humans", while the ones that don't will have to be given rights between those of a human and those we give animals, because on a practical level that is where they are. They are not sentient, but under a given set of circumstances they might become, and we wouldn't want them to start their life "as humans" with the scars of having being treated as animals before.
 
My own personal view on what would be practicable and moral is that once tamed and sentient, they have a right not to be reduced to animals again. However, this is just the beggining of a mess of rights that will have to necessarily be different to those of humans.
 
So, you have a sentient pokegirl. Humans can go without sex for as long as they wish, and this doesn't result in anything other than some frustration for the individual. A pokegirl that chooses to go without sex will eventually lose her senses, and become a danger to herself and other around. Humans cannot be forced to have sex against their will, not according to western moral values anyway (the ideal we're trying to apply to pokegirls in this exercise). However, by trying to protect this right for pokegirls, we find that we're infringing on everyone else's right to not be endangered. So, should a pokegirl have the same protection against being forced into some form of sexual act that humans have? Again, their biology leads to having to set a number of situations where infringing on the pokegirls rights is ok, meaning they only have the right under a given set of circumstances.
 
Then there's the psychological dependece aspect to consider. In human relationships, two consenting adults can do whatever they want and part ways if things don't work out. Introducing a pokegirl, a relationship now has to have a few caveats. The obvious things are that the human should not "take advantage". However, there are some other aspects to consider, where the human himself needs to be protected. If the relationship doesn't work, and given we've established a right to sentience for the pokegirl, who is supposed to keep her sane until she finds another regular source of taming? Given the psichological dependence (meaning the pokegirl is unlikely to be the source of the breakup), is the human supposed to stick to her forever? I said before humans can't be forced into sexual acts they do not desire. Would this hold water in human-pokegirl relationships? Should the human be expected to keep taming the pokegirl after things went bad, so that the pokegirl doesnt lose her mind or suffer psichological issues?
 
In short, your argument that the biological issues are nonexistant and that as sentient beings pokegirls are entitled to the same rights as any human is simplistic and misses a very big deal of the point. Yes, there are some things which are terrible, but in the human-pokegirl interaction in particular, not even rape is clearcut. There are situations in which forcing a human or pokegirl to have sex even when they don't wish to becomes necessary because pokegirls become attached to humans they sleep with and become dangerous if they don't have sex.
 
The subject is a lot more convoluted, I just meant to bring up some of the more glaring points. I'm certain quite a few fics can be done on just how "pokegirl-human equality" could be constructed in the setting.
_________________________________________________________________
Discover the new Windows Vista
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=windows+vista&mkt=en-US&form=QBRE
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.chez-vrolet.net/pipermail/ffml/attachments/20080906/38cc5577/attachment.htm