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Old 10-29-2018, 11:44 PM   #91
evileeyore
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Superstitious? We're talking about objectively verifiable magically reanimated corpses and summoned spirits here. The concept of "superstition" doesn't really apply.
No, no, the superstition that the departed (who once was that body) cares.

I mean unless zombification is contagious and causes rampant brain eating. Then yeah, they need to stay down, but that's a health and safety issue.
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Old 10-30-2018, 12:01 AM   #92
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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Superstitious? We're talking about objectively verifiable magically reanimated corpses and summoned spirits here. The concept of "superstition" doesn't really apply.
Yes, the details of the necromancy do kind of matter.
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Old 10-30-2018, 02:00 AM   #93
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
No, no, the superstition that the departed (who once was that body) cares.
Whether it cares or lot, that body retains memories of the person it was because it still has skills of the person it was. There's a bit of that person left. Long before the zombie plague movies there was another kind of zombie horror movie, one that wasn't about the fear of being reduced to a feral animal but rather into an automaton that exists only to take orders. And it looks like the deceased but...isn't.
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Old 10-30-2018, 02:21 AM   #94
johndallman
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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The Black Market is fine with that.
How much of a black market is there, really, in organs?

It's also much easier to extract useful work from a zombified body than it is to match an organ donation victim to a customer and do the transplant. The latter needs substantial medical skills and equipment. Edit: The Chinese issue is due to an unethical government, not an underground market.
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Old 10-30-2018, 03:51 AM   #95
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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Whether it cares or lot, that body retains memories of the person it was because it still has skills of the person it was.
Does it? When did we specify the exact zombie model we're using? I can think of several reasonably plausible zombie models, and which one we're using matters for the ethical questions:
  1. The zombie is the necromancer's remote control puppet; it can do nothing that the necromancer cannot do.
  2. The zombie is animated by something nonhuman with no connection to the original personality of the body.
  3. The zombie is animated by something nonhuman that to some degree imitates the deceased person.
  4. The zombie is animated by the spirit of the deceased person.
To jump into THS doomthread territory, you can think of them as equivalent to the following:
  1. The corpse was turned into a bioshell that is teleoperated.
  2. The corpse was turned into a bioshell that is being run by an NAI, LAI, or SAI with an off the shelf personality.
  3. The corpse was turned into a bioshell that is being run by an NAI, LAI, or SAI shadow of the original personality.
  4. The corpse was turned into a bioshell that is being run by the original person's Ghost.
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Last edited by Anthony; 10-30-2018 at 03:55 AM.
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Old 10-30-2018, 05:37 AM   #96
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

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Originally Posted by edk926 View Post
Yea, cremation is acceptable in a sizable portion of modern society. Many people that have been or will be cremated have no specific religious beliefs attached to it.
It's worth remembering that we were practically into the 20th century before cremation was legalised in the UK, although it had been de-criminalised for a while before that. Sky burial, by contrast, remains illegal which must make life awkward for any Parsee's living here. I'm also told there are places where there are no specific laws against cannibalism. As Herodotus put it "One can see by this what custom can do".

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Whether it cares or lot, that body retains memories of the person it was because it still has skills of the person it was. There's a bit of that person left. Long before the zombie plague movies there was another kind of zombie horror movie, one that wasn't about the fear of being reduced to a feral animal but rather into an automaton that exists only to take orders. And it looks like the deceased but...isn't.
I'm told that the Caribbean legends included an aspect of the fear of not even being able to rest in your grave - being a slave forever.

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Does it? When did we specify the exact zombie model we're using? I can think of several reasonably plausible zombie models, and which one we're using matters for the ethical questions:
  1. The zombie is the necromancer's remote control puppet; it can do nothing that the necromancer cannot do.
  2. The zombie is animated by something nonhuman with no connection to the original personality of the body.
  3. The zombie is animated by something nonhuman that to some degree imitates the deceased person.
  4. The zombie is animated by the spirit of the deceased person.
You could even have questions about the origin of the nonhuman thing in #2 - if it is an artificially created animating force akin to programming a computer, then you're probably less transgressive than if you bind an existing spirit, especially an inherently hostile one (as, for example, in the Laundryverse). I would consider this the difference between zombie and corpse golem...

Last edited by The Colonel; 10-30-2018 at 05:41 AM.
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Old 10-30-2018, 05:45 AM   #97
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Default Re: Kindly Necromancers

Bioshells are still alive though, which just increases the associated horror of the THS setting, as anyone you meet could be just a meat puppet for nonhuman beings with alien motives. The fact that you can be hollowed out from your own body and have it turned into a bioshell by anyone just adds another scoop of horror that the setting. The fact that the people you love can also suffer such a fate just makes it even more horrific.

Imagine a scenario where you go on a month long trip into space. Your significant other greats you passionately when you get back, but there is something off. They laugh at different jokes and they respond differently during sex. Eventually, you start to suspect that you significant other is someone else and, when you confront them with the evidence, they admit the terrible truth that they are not the same person. They are someone who obsessed about you and, when you were off on your trip, they had your significant other kidnapped, turned into a bioshell, and became a ghost so that they could enter the body and become your lover.
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