Sorry there’s no hovertext this week. I’m no good at thinking up funny lines when bad stuff happens. Had another death in the family. The comic didn’t predict this death, which is good. My record for precognition in comics is 4 and 3 now, if I recall correctly.
This page is a bit wordy, but it is fast-forwarding over 8 months of time. We’re almost done with this little slice of backstory, and I promise all these revelations are building up to glorious violence later.
↓ Transcript
Roger voiceover: The journal got scattered after that.
Journal: February 9, 2057 -- How did I wind up raising a child that grows at an accelerated rate?
Roger voiceover: Looks like Doctor Fumiaki was too busy with Dahnai to keep his diary straight.
Journal: May 3, 2057 -- Still researching Dahnai's possible lifespan... July 16, 2057 -- Dahnai escaped! She went dancing at a nightclub downtown. Dancing! I have to go to the police station...
Roger voiceover: But most of what happened I had already read about. It's in the history books. Especially that speech Dahnai gave at her hearing...
Journal: October 10, 2057 -- District court is tomorrow. They'll decide whether Dahnai has legal personhood or not. She insists to be allowed to testify on her own behalf.
Dahnai: You must acknowledge that I am alive. You must acknowledge my self-awareness. I am not asking the court to declare me a human being. But the fact that I am a living person? I dare you to look me in the eyes and deny that.
Journal: February 9, 2057 -- How did I wind up raising a child that grows at an accelerated rate?
Roger voiceover: Looks like Doctor Fumiaki was too busy with Dahnai to keep his diary straight.
Journal: May 3, 2057 -- Still researching Dahnai's possible lifespan... July 16, 2057 -- Dahnai escaped! She went dancing at a nightclub downtown. Dancing! I have to go to the police station...
Roger voiceover: But most of what happened I had already read about. It's in the history books. Especially that speech Dahnai gave at her hearing...
Journal: October 10, 2057 -- District court is tomorrow. They'll decide whether Dahnai has legal personhood or not. She insists to be allowed to testify on her own behalf.
Dahnai: You must acknowledge that I am alive. You must acknowledge my self-awareness. I am not asking the court to declare me a human being. But the fact that I am a living person? I dare you to look me in the eyes and deny that.
This reminds me of those machine rights movements that people theorize, should AI ever advance far enough. People tend to think that person=human. If we keep advancing, this challenge is bound to arrive, and we’ll need to go through a whole new cycle to grant non-human rights.
Yep, what to do with posthumans is one of the subthemes of the comic. In 2109 we know that the Genocide Project’s answer is ‘kill them all’. Can a policy like that work forever?
From “Adam’s Task” of Vicky Hearne, we find domestic animals are radically different from wild ones…pigs do not behave like boars, tamed horses are not like the wild ones, dogs do not behave like wolves…a chimpanzee female, wild, Washoe, was taught sign language, then after trying to kill her caretakers several times, was released in the jungle, to die of hunger. she was real bad…but where her university graduate caretakers any more civilized than she was?
Domestic animals are often found to be far superior emotionally and ethically than average humans…especially that “civility” is often sorely lacking in many so-called “civilizations”.
Just think of the immense genocides that seem currents in recent times, behavior that would be rare even in wild animals…
Wild human tribes will kill all their unlucky neighbors…we have seen not so long ago them who pretend to be the ultimate in civil example ruthlessly bomb innocent commuter trains in Serbia with not a single voice in protest…the famous red faced author just mouthing a pious hypocritical speech a couple days ago in Charlotte NC…
With her animal side, Danai is likely more “civilized” than her creators BECAUSE of this animal side…
Correction…not Washoe, but Lucy “Miz Chimpanzee” Temerlin, found dismembered and eaten by other chimps…
Who says she has an animal side? She’s an artificially developed life form, lacking mitochondria. Who says she’s not more of a plant or a mushroom? Or something currently undefined for lack of necessity.
Being a “person”, I say she’s as good or bad as the next guy.
With fur and warm blood, I think Dahnai is at least related to mammals. Perhaps not in the order mammalia, but definitely related.
Ming, I love your wild theories. Sometimes you’re out there in cuckooland, sometimes you’re eerily perceptive, but I love that you’re always thinking about the implications. I usually can’t address your theories because I don’t like to give spoilers, but I’m always delighted when you offer them.
High primates are highly sexed…Lucy Temerlin got in deep trouble due to her…hum…unorthodox tendencies(and overwhelming strength)…Seem Fumiaki is kept pretty busy by Dahnai’s “experiments”, so, as the Chinese say, that should get “interesting”…