3x01, "The Unicorn Evils"

[el_jefe]

Still reading (hey, been busy) but had to pop in with a nitpick: I-90 heads north at Chicago. Across Illinois, Iowa, and points west it's I-80. 90 never touches Iowa soil.

You're right. And they should have taken the 94 after Chicago, that's the way I made that drive (in the opposite direction, I was escaping North Dakota, not going into it).

[will shetterly]

trick, I made a note of that in the tyop thread. Thanks!

[ebony14]

Here's a Question: What happens when Chaz uses the Mirror on the Bug? How would the Anomaly react to having itself reflected back at itself?

That's assuming that the Anomaly is separate enough that you can actually reflect it. Can you reflect, say, cancer? Schizophrenia?

Well, it certainly has some sort of intellect. Whether that is separate from the host's is still difficult to say. Hafidha is the only person still living so far that has anthropomorphized it into something separate from her (the little girl with the gun did, after a fashion, but we have Dr. Frost's tender mercies to thank for that lack of data).

EDIT: I was making a comment aimed at Chaz and Daphne this morning on LJ (ebony14.livejournal.com, if you care), and I checked my friends list to make sure that they were still there. I noticed that Hafs was too, and briefly thought, "Oh shit. Do I need to remove her? She can hack my account!" This has been Ebony's Thursday Morning Friend-Brain/Read-Brain Moment.

[jimsmyth]

I had thought Eddie heard voices, too.  He certainly conceptualized ti as something separate from his 'self'.

Of course, that same conceptualization means that he no longer has access to it for interrogation or research.


Maybe I should take a week or three for rereading, research, and retheorizing?  In some environment conducive to deep thought.  Like a warm beach....

Anyone want to help me write the grant request?

[tylik]

Maybe I should take a week or three for rereading, research, and retheorizing?  In some environment conducive to deep thought.  Like a warm beach....

Anyone want to help me write the grant request?

This grant writing process - I don't think it works the way you seem to think it does...

[Bibliophile]

Thinking about the episode, I noticed a strong similarity between Felicity Tabor and Clemson McCain's mythologies. They both involving purifying/destroying the unpure, while saving those who are pure/virtuous (Demmer, Spencer). And then there's the fact that both use poison...

[Troubadoura]

I just want to say a humongous THANK YOU.

[nebula]

I haven't gone back and read the subway extras again, but I still feel that Chaz's excursions into other people's heads were wrong - no matter how good his intentions. Whether or not the person remembered what the mirror had reflected at them, he still had no right to violate the privacy of other people - especially considering his own reactions to the attempts of others to get under his skin.

I've finally managed to finish the story and I'm not sure I can say I "enjoyed" it - I found it pretty upsetting - but I also found lots to like: I love Brady more each time I read about him for a start. I also think Haf's ask of Chaz to "kill her if necessary" was never a fair promise to ask for. I still believe that there ARE worse fates than death, but I also think that she had no right to ask Chaz to do that.

[MadGastronomer]

I wasn't, BTW, arguing that was he was doing wasn't wrong, just that it was the lesser of two evils. He could violate their privacy and hurt them and get the mirror under control, or go around violating and hurting people regularly, unintentionally, because he couldn't control it. The option he chose involved less total pain and violation.

[nebula]

I wasn't, BTW, arguing that was he was doing wasn't wrong, just that it was the lesser of two evils. He could violate their privacy and hurt them and get the mirror under control, or go around violating and hurting people regularly, unintentionally, because he couldn't control it. The option he chose involved less total pain and violation.

Yes, I can see that, but I'm still struggling with Chaz using people as guinea pigs in experiments without either their knowledge or consent. It's the kind of thing he would have gone ballistic at Reyes about and as a scientist, he must know something about research ethics.

Maybe if he'd asked, he'd have found people willing to let him practice to get it under control? I know he wasn't in the frame of mind to admit to anyone what he was fearing about himself, but he has friends that love him, who may have let him into their heads if only he'd asked.

This episode did mellow me towards Hafs though. I was expecting worse from her after the end of last season (not sure what exactly, but something along the lines of betrayal of trust) and this took me by surprise.

[txanne]

Maybe if he'd asked, he'd have found people willing to let him practice to get it under control? I know he wasn't in the frame of mind to admit to anyone what he was fearing about himself, but he has friends that love him, who may have let him into their heads if only he'd asked.

It was precisely the people who love him that he was most afraid to tell.

[jennygadget]

I've been trying to think of how to say this without making it seem like I don't think the conversation of Chaz's ethics is irrelevant (because I very much think it is relevant) or like I think we can fix the world so that no one ever has to make any tricky ethical decisions again, but...

I think the larger lesson in all this is that Chaz shouldn't have had to be in that situation.  I think this is, in fact, much of what Reyes is fighting for re: going public about Gammas - not leaving people like Chaz feeling like they have no where to turn.  Like the risk of telling in order to get help may cost them their freedom or the love of the people around them.  And then having even more people hurt in the end because of that, because who really is equipped to deal with that alone without hurting someone?

And I think that's also my problem with being angry with Chaz for what he did.  (Not that I'm trying to say anyone else shouldn't feel that way, it's just that for me) While I can look at what he did and objectively know that he didn't make the most ethical decisions, I don't think I could honestly claim that I would do any better.  Or really even be certain that I'd do half as well.  I'm not saying that I don't or can't make judgements about what he did, or that society shouldn't do so, I just have a hard time looking at what he did and thinking "dear god, how could he do that?"  Because the fact that I know that it was wrong doesn't change the fact that I can so easily see how he could have done that and why.  (and vice versa, understanding how he could have gotten to that point doesn't change objectively knowing it was wrong.)

I think, in a lot of ways, it's like the
classic moral dilemma they give to kids about the guy with the sick wife and no money to buy medicine.  Supposedly the only acceptable answers are "no he shouldn't have stolen the medicine" or "yes he should have stolen the medicine"  accompanied by varying justifications.  And I'm pretty sure, as a kid, I would have known that's what they were looking for and answered accordingly.  But I also would have been thinking "aren't there any other options besides A and B?"

And I think that's what a lot of people are trying to ask, but the trick to that is that it's not just up to Chaz to come up with those options - that's all our jobs.

[jimsmyth]

It has been my experience that desperation, and the feeling of having no power to do something breeds really stupid decisions.

Some of which I am still paying off.  Others can't be paid off, and must be lived with. 

[Scedasticity]

Hmm.  There's a part of my brain which likes to randomly fire off outlandish 'what-if' scenarios, one of which is 'What if the people around me could hear what I was thinking?'  And the thing is -- if I'm surrounded by strangers? who I'll probably never see again? who don't know or care who I am? who won't pass the information on in any way?  It doesn't really matter if they can hear what I'm thinking.  I suspect it's part of the reason some people conduct very personal cell phone calls in public (another being that they have forgotten the people around them are not deaf).  If Chaz were reading my mind on the bus or subway or whatever -- not bouncing back at me, just reading -- it'd be kinda creepy, but, well...  If I didn't notice, and it never had any future effect on me, and the information was not passed on or used in a harmful fashion, it wouldn't be a big deal.

It's how my head works, I guess.  When my parents joked about using my room for storage when I went to college, my response was that they could do anything they wanted as long as I couldn't tell the difference when I got back.


In other news, I've been trying to pin down the mirror's different modes:

1. Physical mode -- invisibility and, apparently, a bubble of inaudibility.  (Note his computer was not heard, but didn't disappear.)
2. Read-only -- perception without output.  See Getaway and Opportunity Costs.  Seems to involve an overlay of the target's current mindset and partial train of thought over Chaz's own.  Not exhaustive, or he'd have realized Ron had the ludicrously extensive arsenal.
3. Read-broadcast -- perception and verbal output to anyone in hearing range, speaking as someone else.  We've seen past thoughts (Smoke and Mirrors), present train-of-thought (The Unicorn Evils), and (to me most interestingly) from the target's memory, but speaking as someone other than the target (Not Alone).  The data source is present, but the mirror is reflecting someone who isn't there.
4. Read-reflect -- perception and direct mental reflection-output to the target and to no one else.  Presumed to include mindset, train-or-thought, and/or memories.  Have we seen this, for certain?  If he was outputting in the subway practice it would have had to be this, or it would have been pretty obvious to everyone around.
5. Deflect-reflect -- in reaction to another mental-projection ability.  Dampens or eliminates perception of something deliberately broadcast, and reflects it back on the source (Refining Fire and Smoke and Mirrors).

Thoughts?

[Korvar]

2. Read-only -- perception without output.  See Getaway and Opportunity Costs.  Seems to involve an overlay of the target's current mindset and partial train of thought over Chaz's own.  Not exhaustive, or he'd have realized Ron had the ludicrously extensive arsenal.
3. Read-broadcast -- perception and verbal output to anyone in hearing range, speaking as someone else.  We've seen past thoughts (Smoke and Mirrors), present train-of-thought (The Unicorn Evils), and (to me most interestingly) from the target's memory, but speaking as someone other than the target (Not Alone).  The data source is present, but the mirror is reflecting someone who isn't there.

2+3 could be one and the same - it's just that Chaz isn't censoring what comes out of his mouth.  It seems to happen at times when he's tired or emotional, the same time many of us have blurted out Things We Later Regret.