TFT Snippet #10

thanatos wrote:
RFC did comment upon Merlin being in fact a transgender character in a recent post.

thanatos wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Well, well, it seems that Safeholdian capitalists would soon find out, that their worker's patience is not exactly limitless...


P.S. The first snippet part, IMHO, could be compressed into six words as much: "RFC didn't want gay main character".

(or something is REALLY wrong with Merlin's PICA, because such major thing as person's sexuality rewrite is not "just a small glitch". Since PICA did not have any hormonal system, the shape of body literally could not affect the personality in any way. It's either hardware or software degradation on a dangerous level)

RFC did comment upon Merlin being in fact a transgender character in a recent post. However, there is a comment somewhere around AMF, where Merlin wonder whether Nimue was perhaps a closeted lesbian or that being a male all this time had somehow shifted his orientation as a result. I personally ascribe to the idea, evinced in Asimov's novels on robots, that even if a humaniform positronic brain were placed within an ordinary robot's body, that brain would eventually devolve and become more robotic. In many respects, our physical limitations are what make us human, with gender being a certain type of limitation in form and in function. So Merlin has spent so much type as a man, and that is probably why he is attracted to women rather than men.

BTW, in that same post, RFC had stated that the Writ officially permits homosexuality and explicitly prohibits any sort of laws against it. As such, the church does not prohibit it. Yet because Safehold has no advanced technology, which would grant two men or two women access to a futuristic artificial uterus and gene splicer, local laws prohibit homosexuality because they need people to procreate, something that cannot be done the old fashion way for same-sex couples. It does raise the question of whether Nimue and Merlin, who are now in committed relationships, will be able to construct such medical devices and use them to have children utilizing Nimue's DNA. It would of course limit Merlin to having daughters with Nynian but Nimue and Coryn would not be so limited.

Bluesqueak wrote:
If there are local laws against homosexuality, prejudice has made a come-back.

What is going to be a problem is if somebody notices that even married seijins never have children. Not such a problem with Merlin and Ninian - if I recall correctly, she's at the upper age limit for childbearing anyway, so people are unlikely to wonder why she and Merlin are adopting. It's Nimue and Koryn who've got the 'can't produce kids' problem.

By the way, Nimue tearing her human 'mask' off - as well as being a bit of a Terminator shout-out - has a 'Chekhov's Gun' feel to it. I can't think of anything more likely to make a non Inner Circle Safeholdian scream 'demon'. So, is there going to be a full-on 'Terminator' scene where either Merlin or Nimue is caught in a fire and their 'human' flesh simply burns away? Revealing them as demons?

For what it's worth, the Writ has no prohibitions on homosexuality. In fact, it's not concerned with passing judgment on anyone's sexuality, as long as whatever happens is consensual and everyone involved is of age. Having said that, there is a lot of social pressure against same-sex pairings because of the pressure to "be fruitful and multiply" --- which definitely is enshrined in the Writ. Same-sex marriages/relationships/pairings were frowned upon socially (and prohibited in a handful of particularly repressive [and stupid] secular law codes) because in a pre-technical society they did not and could not produce children. They still happened --- openly, and without Church condemnation --- but they were/are very rare. (For example, at least two members of the Royal college [Dahnel Vyrnyr and Sahmantha Windcastle] have been in an open, recognized same-sex relationship for years [I think that may get mentioned in TFT, though I can't remember for certain].) And when it becomes a significant part of a character in terms of a driving part of that character's personality or social/religious/political situation, I'll tell you about it. Until then, I may or may not; it depends on how the narrative unfolds as I'm writing it.

Dilandu wrote:Problem is, that I couldn't see any way for PICA personality to change sexual orientation - at least without specifically ordering that. As I mentioned above - PICA did not have any hormonal regulation system. In fact, it did not have any regulation system that worked without cognitive control. The PICA systems emulate the hormonal effects for the stored personality, but this is controlled process.

Dilandu wrote:Just "gender shift" of the PICA body should not affect personality sexual preferences, at least unless the system would be specifically ordered to do that. And as we could observe in first book, the system was NOT ordered to do that(otherwise Merlin would not have a "reaction" on naked male bodies during water game).

Dilandu wrote:So the sudden change of Merlin's sexual preferences could not be explained that way. The PICA should not change personality. After all, the main idea behind the autonomous PICA was, that it would be able to reconnect with the owner, without giving him some kind of electronic schizophrenia due to conflicting preferences & sexuality.

Joat42 wrote:

Dilandu wrote:Problem is, that I couldn't see any way for PICA personality to change sexual orientation - at least without specifically ordering that. As I mentioned above - PICA did not have any hormonal regulation system. In fact, it did not have any regulation system that worked without cognitive control. The PICA systems emulate the hormonal effects for the stored personality, but this is controlled process.

The endocrine system has some relevance on sexual preferences and affects the person most during the prenatal period.

Dilandu wrote:Just "gender shift" of the PICA body should not affect personality sexual preferences, at least unless the system would be specifically ordered to do that. And as we could observe in first book, the system was NOT ordered to do that(otherwise Merlin would not have a "reaction" on naked male bodies during water game).

As I understood it, the PICA's "emulation" also emulates the brains plasticity otherwise you would get a PICA-personality that's locked in and never changes. And how you perceive yourself and how you interact with the environment affects your thinking and preferences.

Dilandu wrote:So the sudden change of Merlin's sexual preferences could not be explained that way. The PICA should not change personality. After all, the main idea behind the autonomous PICA was, that it would be able to reconnect with the owner, without giving him some kind of electronic schizophrenia due to conflicting preferences & sexuality.

There was no sudden change, it took place over several years.

And a normal PICA only runs for 10 days before a reset which means there can't be much divergence.

PeterZ wrote:Plasticity may not be a factor in this case because the brain may not have made any significant change in Merlin's case. His base personality was attracted to people NOT the same as he was sexually. That is oriented heterosexually. Change his gender/sex and the brain classifies those he meets differently because of how they are now classed, not because of any changes in the brain.

Dilandu wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Plasticity may not be a factor in this case because the brain may not have made any significant change in Merlin's case. His base personality was attracted to people NOT the same as he was sexually. That is oriented heterosexually. Change his gender/sex and the brain classifies those he meets differently because of how they are now classed, not because of any changes in the brain.

As far as I knew, the sexual orientation did not work like that. Otherwise gender change would immediately lead to the sexual orientation change too - which is not how its worked.