On Mon, 23 Jul 2001 22:04:43 -0400 "Dana Shilling"
dshilling@worldnet.att.net writes:
Ellynne G. said:
Right at this point, it seems more likely that Cally and Zelda
were not
necessarily clones in the sense of Dolly but that they were
artificially
created twins (compared to actual cloning, it's much simpler to
do
this
with a fertilized egg cell) being raised by their biological
parents. We
can assume _biological_ parents because the image the stone
threw
at
Cally was based not on her memories but on stone's image of her.
Actually I think they retconned the whole cloning bit after
Harvest
of
Kairos was made.
Aw, but why take the easy way out?
However, it seems worth pointing out that, if Cally and Zelda were
clones of someone, there's no mention of the senior or original
version (or even a "Zelda of the XYZ series").
- While Servalan expresses surprise that Frantor is the normal,
biological child of her father, I think Servalan's idea of
family
values
is distorted enough that we could discount most of it in
relation
to her
own culture [,,,]In relation to a
foreign, isolationist culture she's had no contact with except
for
one
rebel, it can be dismissed without supporting evidence.
But Servalan wouldn't have to depend on her own personal knowledge
of Auron; presumably there would be generally known information,
plus the briefing books she would receive as Supreme Commander.
True, but 1) Servalan's briefing on Frantor was incomplete and 2)
This would be far from the first time an important leader on an
important (to her) mission didn't so much as glance through a
culturegram. Given the incomplete success rate on a lot of her
plans, I'm not sure how much homework she does.
Collective care centers beat some of the
options, but they shouldn't be a society's first choice on how
to
raise
large numbers of its population given alternatives.
Assuming for the sake of argument that the nuclear family is the
best way to raise children, Auron might still adopted an inferior
alternative.
There have been several attempts by people adopting various styles
of commune living to adopt a communal child raising style as well.
But, last I checked, they tended to be unsuccessful and were
abandoned pretty quickly. Also, in cases where it was the only
choice (orphanages and such), there's plenty of documentation on the
weaknesses (failure to thrive comes leaping to mind). To
deliberately adopt it as the way of raising a major portion of the
population without arguable need (especially for the Aurons, who
seem to put a high value on warm and fuzzy) seems unlikely. But
then, I tend to see kindergarten as applied social Darwinism, so I
am not unprejudiced.
Me:
And do Auronar
think of Terran h-saps as the same species,
a related species, a different species?
Ellynne:
There's evidence of genetic similarity, but how much
anyone's willing to admit to it seems to vary from episode to
episode.
Avon and Cally have a fair number of children in fanfic, but I'm
not
sure
that Auronar and Terran h.sapiens are interfertile.
I tend to think Aurons were a different subspecies of human at most,
since Cally was acceptable as an organ donor to the Chengans (if she
had a truly separate evolutionary history, farmyard animals would
have been genetically closer and less likely to cause tissue
rejection than she was - not to mention have organs that acted more
like the human ones).
As I said, I think Cally's attitude, along with the others, seems to
fluctuate. Sometimes she seems to consider herself nonhuman and,
other times, she seems to be bothered when the others consider her
too alien. I do agree that Auron Isolationists (and perhaps Aurons
in general?) were likely to play down the relationship or deny it
entirely.
Ellynne
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Ellynne G.