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Old 02-15-2013, 09:52 AM   #1
vicky_molokh
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Playing Against the Trend: Non-Villainous Anti-PSR, Reactionary etc. Characters

Greetings, all!

I remember a long time ago, in a discussion of forumite stances on Pan-Sapient Rights, one expressed a clearly anti-PSR position, and another commented that this is a good thing to have diverse opinions as opposed to the more uniform abolitionist tendency of the subforum*.

That makes me wonder: just how viable are characters who are clearly anti-PSR, reactionary, realflesh-eating, irrational, or otherwise 'backward', and yet are also clearly not villains / stupid / evil / jerks / BrokenBirds / psychologically damaged / etc.
Whswhs mentioned Gianni as a conservative character (I skimmed some parts, and will be coming back to that page). I also remember a character who just didn't accept non-vertically-hierarchical relationships with other people; but IIRC she was very much shown to be psychologically damaged, so that's not quite what I'm talking about.

In my take on the concept, I came up with a character who just so happens to be perpendicular to the whole PSR. He started out as a corporate-owned bioroid, but, being a social interface / social analyst, enjoyed a rather good life - reasonably high Status and even semi-formal Rank in limited areas combined with being Valuable Property. Between EU banning ownership of sapient persons and his age reaching 20 or so, he gained freedom, but for quite some while considered it not that big a deal. Being treated more seriously as an authority figure was the main thing he liked about it. Long story short, he eventually went for more freelance work, but is still very loyal to his old corp. He also owns an AI and a bioroid, and treats them rather well (keeping the bioroid at his own Status level; bioroid is built as a genuinely happy minion ally in order to drive the point home; AI is off-the-shelf equipment, and doesn't have much in the way of needs/wants/personality). Simply put, he doesn't see abolitionists as inherently Right, but he does see keeping one's sapient property happy as an essential part of its maintenance (just as he would never misuse a microscope in place of a hämmer).
Furthermore, he sees the tendency of properly-built sapient tools to be happy doing their jobs as a very important point, and is outright freaked out by certain models of bioroids that are clearly made not to be. (Yeah, OOC I also share sir_pudding's horror at those.)
He's not a biochauvinist, but still sees bio- stuff as preferable to cyber- (he's a Ghost by now).

Anyway, that's my take, and I'm preparing to join the campaign in about a week. What stories or musings do you have to share about non-negative characters of the sort?

Thanks in advance!

* == Actually, I'm not sure just how uniform it is. But the reply was something like that.
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Last edited by vicky_molokh; 02-15-2013 at 10:26 AM.
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