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"Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating..." (Part 4: The Best-Laid Plans)
At some time during the night, while some were still sleeping, and some were awake and wandering around the hotel common rooms--a massive explosion rocked the hotel the group was staying in.
Simultaneously, perhaps by lucky chance, or perhaps on purpose, a number of the group was mysteriously teleported away. Specifically, the ones missing were: Fate, Jr., Kang, Superboy, Zouichi, Howard, The Doctor, Lash, Nightwing, Zetta, Dr. Henderson, Rory, Ruffnut, and Sakura.
The problem was that the group likely wouldn't be able to tell from the vaporized common rooms and bedrooms that those particular individuals hadn't been in them when the explosion hit.
[ooc: All subthreads are open.]
Simultaneously, perhaps by lucky chance, or perhaps on purpose, a number of the group was mysteriously teleported away. Specifically, the ones missing were: Fate, Jr., Kang, Superboy, Zouichi, Howard, The Doctor, Lash, Nightwing, Zetta, Dr. Henderson, Rory, Ruffnut, and Sakura.
The problem was that the group likely wouldn't be able to tell from the vaporized common rooms and bedrooms that those particular individuals hadn't been in them when the explosion hit.
[ooc: All subthreads are open.]
no subject
"Good morning," he said politely, inclining his head to those who stood with him. "From what I understand, groups of your crew are going with Councilor Bal Valad or one of our guardsmen in search of information relating to those who went missing at the time of last night's attack. You have my condolences and wishes for good news in their speedy recovery."
He seemed tired, but through that, sincere. That somewhat befuddled air he had around him, as if he wasn't entirely grounded in the here and now, felt almost stronger than the day prior. For lack of better words, it looked as if he'd worked the prior night through. Little wonder why.
"I have reports," he started, then sighed. "Reports from the initial forensic evidence gathered. Most of it's speculative, if the only deaths we were able to confirm were for a young couple unrelated to your crew." He sounded calm, a hint of something in the set of his shoulders, but hard to read. "We should have more by midday, and what leads we've followed will be discussed with your fellow crewmembers. I suggest keeping lines of communication open with them on whatever technology you have available. Should you wish to be supplied with communication devices, I'm happy to oblige."
That being out of the way, he continued on. "For now, I've been asked by my fellow Councilors to escort you to the Clonebank as well as accommodate questions and requests on your behalf as much as we possibly can. If you'd follow me..."
There was a nice vehicle waiting outside.
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Unless the Doctor had just decided to walk off, and stay out all night, there had to be a chance they were alive. All of them.
"Thank you," Daniel said. It was curt, and mostly habit to even try at being polite at the moment, but Daniel found it difficult to be all that sympathetic to Kanner's weariness. This was probably a massive pain in terms of their PR and negotiations for him, especially since they had a lot to gain from them. "We'll be fine with our own devices."
The archaeologist looked around with growing impatience. They had people missing out there and what was either terrorism or some seriously failed assassination attempts. They also couldn't drop the rest of the investigation either, and Daniel intended to follow through digging. As much as he appreciate their investigation, he really preferred they run their own concurrently, in regards to the attack. Daniel could think of more than one set of people they could have easily pissed off on both sides, and there could easily be third parties than benefited from the conflict. And not to mention those on the crew who would be out for blood after this. Sleep was the least of anyone's problems.
What was with this about a young couple? For the building being riddled by blasts, he was surprised there weren't more casualties. How close had they been? And... had they been killed because they just happened to stay in the hotel housing diplomats?
When they got to the vehicle, Daniel paused, looking it over. He guessed it was nice, but, to be honest, he would have preferred to walk. It would have given him more of a chance to take note of the city and the people, instead of being shuttled past it without a chance to poke around... which was probably the point. "So, tell me, when did you first implement cloning? What lead up to the technology being developed and utilized that way?"
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Bombing as a cover for a kidnapping? Possible, but still unlikely.
The government setting up the CLF was a possibility, but negotiations were south, but not beyond repair. Framing the CLF for murder would've helped their case, but not garanteed the crew's assistance. Plus they'd know the bombs wouldn't kill Kon. That stunt reeked of desperation, yet they wouldn't be in a desperate situation thus far.
So, two prime suspects, but neither one neatly fits. Each had something to gain, Did that mean there was something they were overlooking?
"You can answer Dr. Jackson's question momentarily," Lex decided to interject. The history less could wait for a moment. "For now, I'm curious, outside of the CLF, have there been any other groups that've been causing problems?"
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Out of respect for Lex's request, he answered his questions first, a slight nod of his head to Daniel in order to let the other man know he wasn't forgetting what he'd said in the least. "A few, after a fashion," Kanner admitted, not particularly perturbed. "If by problems you mean been attracting media attention. People have been protesting rates and revisitation of older stories in the Feelies lately. I hear they were quite inconvenienced when watching the news in theatre was more exciting than any of the current releases."
His smile was small and mirthless. It was a stark contrast. He meant it to be.
"Outside groups haven't made themselves official. There are rebels who aren't strictly part of the CLF, if you won't find much evidence of those here in this city. Others, yes. It hasn't been an issue here in Megalopis."
Which was a succint answer to Lex's question, even as the door to their vehicle was held open for them. Kanner went in first. It was luxurious, but far more understated than the majority of what they'd been shown so far on Galilee, when it came to personal environments.
"Cloning was implemented initially over, ah, over five thousand years ago. Much more of a history lesson than most think on these days, if the perfection of technologies and techniques have only improved over time. Why the technology was used is a bit lost to history now," he said, looking at all their faces in turn. "Some claims deal with fears about artificial intelligences and highly mechanized worlds having a different sort of inherent danger that took away from the human experiences, such as it is. Others state it was toying with a form of lesser godhood, which we know as ridiculous now. The benefits have all come in healing, long before we saw true widening of ability in the cloning field. There was a time where the majority of cloning was acutally in parts, and you still find subdivisions of our industry devoted solely to part regeneration and cloning for offworld customers. On our world, too."
He sat back, sitting stiff and awkward like he wasn't sure he wanted to be there, talking with them -- or like he was distracted by something he hadn't officially discussed. "I can send you a file on the approved histories, the one who've made it through the Universities with guaranteed primary sources. Some secondary as well, but as a scholar," he said quietly, "I find the most favor in hearing from those in a time as far as what that time meant to them, and what progress was."
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They had split up into other groups, some of which had gone with law enforcement instead. They would be investigating the very same thing, and Daniel would be surprised if Lex's question hadn't occurred to them either. Which left them doing the same thing or traveling the same line. It didn't make sense to do it like that. It was like three people trying to open a locked door the same way and failing each time.... which also happened to generally be what Einstein had to say about insanity. Following another angle could easily give them a new insight, some other point of view or understanding of what might lead up to this, more so than asking the question that would probably come up in the other groups.
Daniel waited until Kanner finished. Approved histories. Just what he was afraid of and exactly what he didn't want if he could help it: while it was fine alongside other works, being limited to just those wasn't going to help. Interesting that they didn't even know why it had been originally developed though. Just different rumors and claims.
"I'm sorry to hear it. It's a shame when knowledge is lost like in that way." Daniel looked a little green at the thought of effectively harvesting a person for their organs. Really? Was this what they were trying to acquire for themselves? "I'd appreciate anything on the matter, especially the records left from that time period. Everything actually," not just the ones that passed a censor or board. He still had a hard time believing that there wasn't a war or anything in five thousand years. Preferably something closer to the time when cloning came into inception.
"This CLF and the other groups can't have been the first time someone's protested this technology. Like you said, people thought it was like playing at being gods," Daniel went on after a moment. "To be honest, I'm surprised to hear that it's taken five thousand years for anything to come into a major conflict." Nor was it usual.
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"I'm more interested in your technology than your history, however."
Let this Daniel fellow interpret that as he would. She didn't care if she rode over his petty interest in culture. Who needed to understand mon-keigh culture? It was virtually the same, no matter where you were.
"How do you provide replacement organs and so forth?"
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But who?
"Not to mention that all of your clones have a rather limited life span. Is this also true for the replacement organs you grow?" Planned obsolescence was something implemented by many manufacturers. You want to build something that would last for a while, but not for forever, because you want your customers to come back and buy another one eventually.
Having an organ that worked perfectly, but needed to be replaced once every several years or so? That would be a rather shrewd way of ensuring customer loyalty. Not to mention controlling the population, if one were so inclined. He had to admire that.
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He sat back, looking out one of the windows before turning his focus back to those sitting with him in the vehicle. "You'll actually find the answer to our coping with mutations and data loss in those files. It's been an ongoing field of study for centuries by now. The more you learn, the more you realize there is still left to learn."
A brief smile, as if this thought in and of itself was pleasing. "Doesn't make up for knowledge lost in other areas, if our scientific records are better kept. Different groups prioritizing diffrent knowledge subsets." One financial, the other more social. "If you'd like a hard-copy of files, I can put a request in, likely have them by this evening. The Universities tend to work with us when we ask them to." Like in loaning materials.
Kanner folded his hands into his lap. "People thought that, yes. Inevitably people always do. Yet you're looking for programs to object, or the people those programs support? At a certain point, quality of life standards plateaued, leaving the average person better off than they'd ever been historically." Implying what -- who would protest? And what would they be protesting?
Or agreeing with Ildraniath.
"General procedure is to clone individual organs themselves. The organ's life-span partly depends on use from the individual, but an average would be close to fifty years. Depending on the organ. If you search for 'Organ Replacement Plans' on my device, you'll see what some of the top companies offer these days. I'm told it's impressive." A small tug of his lips upward. "I tend to agree."
What it did mean, when you had a population that lived this long, was organ replacement happened fairly regularly. And organ abuse... well, one didn't worry too much on their poor habits. They didn't need to.
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Daniel scanned the information, more than willing to let the others handle the technical aspects. "Both. I'm sure there was friction before the quality of life standards plateaued, just as there were plenty who embraced the technology off the bat. Surely there were ethical concerns before the technology became available to everyone and before the quality of life jump. And, as the past few days have shown, they haven't exactly died out."
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"Impressive."
Not quite as impressive as the Eldar's ability to use psychic power to stimulate healing and regrowth, of course, but better than some of what passed for medical science among the mon-keigh.
"Whatever does the most good for the most people, I suppose. A rather standard view of large societal change. Not uncommon. However... it would seem the bulk of the populace simply haven't bothered to protest before now. And if they have, it is not evident. I cannot particularly blame them, if they all enjoy high standards of living.... Although decadence and excess have their own prices."
She knew that too well. Like most humans, this culture was to undisciplined in many areas.
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"How did you end up becoming a Councilor, if you don't mind my asking?"
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He nodded to Ildraniath, acknowledging her point. "There's always a trade-off. Historically and culturally speaking." He felt honest, or honest enough, in what he was currently saying. He'd even been truthful in his statement as to the how of him being in this position -- he had spent far too much campaigning.
The next part is half true... or more, blurry. Like he understood more than he was saying. "Ethical concerns had a way of falling in front of concerns over economy in the last few centuries. Most of them started in science sectors, surprisingly. The general population had a movement before asking if it was right to delegate all labor to clones, as part of a health movement." Of all things. "A small number of people moved to a more rural farmland area, buying up land from the growers for the farms, and spent roughly twenty-three years attempting to support themselves on their own. They only lasted that long before a final accident with an archaic recreated farming machine took off the leader's leg. Her family brought her back to the nearest regeneration facility, and after that, the group ran with minimal additional clone labor."
Go figure.
"Reality isn't as idyllic as they'd believed." A ghost of a smile.
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Sure, the bulk of the population didn't appear to protest. And why should they? They got what they wanted, at little or no cost to themselves. It tended to work that way back on Earth. How many people went through life, with all the amenities, conveniences, all bought on the exploitation of others? And most of them probably didn't even know it. And even if there had been anything more significant in terms of protests, Daniel was sure they weren't going to hear about it. Propaganda and PR.
"No, it never is," he had to agree. The fact that they were sitting here, investigating a new form slavery said it all. Economy, wealth making ethical concerns taking a backseat. He wasn't surprised.
Daniel kept flipping through the packet. His eyes moved behind his glasses, reading quickly. He just flipped a page, seemingly completely engrossed when he spoke again. "Councillor Allin mentioned earlier that you've had to decommission and retire clones because of the resistance. What exactly does that entail?"