If tomorrow a machine, pill, therapy came out that just got rid of Taint and Aberrations totally, no negative side effects. Would you do it?

I have been a Nova for several months and I notice the range of how we as a people view Taint is as broad and diverse as we are as a race.

I know this subject may start a firestorm here but I risk it because I truly want personal views on it.

"Aberrations" are merely the external evidence of our evolution. I would no sooner divest myself of my starfield or my new voice than I would willingly give up my thumbs.

As for "taint": if one wishes to simply be rid of it without understanding it, one is wasting his/her/its node. What you call "taint", I call a unique capacity for accelerated self-improvement.

I hated my aberrations at first. Not just because of the inconvience of them but the reaction they caused in people. However since then I have accepted them as part of who I am. Those who care for me helped me a lot with me accepting myself and I thank them for that.

Now as fast as taint goes. You can quickly eat yourself up with it. I know I can. I don't embrace it or reject it. It is just the razors edge I and others tend to walk.

Really, few of these "side effects" of our evolution are at all useful. In fact, many of them are encumbrances, not only when dealing with others, but simply as a physical or mental handicap. For example, I know there are cases of dependancy on a certain substance or energy source, or a specific vulnerability or increased allergic reaction. Surely that kind of thing is not a favourable expression of our progress, is it?

I know I'd fix my eyes if I could.

It don't hafta be favorable to be useful. Taint let's us get more powerful more faster. Not that's I'd know, I'm your everyday glowboy, but hell, it worked for some of yous.

Keep my abilities and stop flickering all the damned time? Hell yes.

Well, but for those that it helped get stronger, "no negative side effects" would surely mean not losing any of that power by losing the mutations associated with gaining it.

I would have no part is such a drug. The particular nature of my own evolution is a part of who I am. If you take away the costs of greater power of pushing limits, what is it that you gain? Nothing can truly be gained without risk.

I ain't gonna waste my time putting false hope into such a drug, let alone answer some fantasy question about it.

Spare me this "evolution" bullshit.

And the rest of ya quit whining about allergies, and discomfort, oh "fix my eyes", oh "I wanna not flicker anymore"... you are what you are, and we are what we are... I hate what I am, but I never burden others with my complaints.

Accept what you are, or toss yourself from a god damn cliff. An if yer preachin that evolution bullshit, aim for the rocks on yer way down.

Nice false dichotomy. Think much?

For the first few months after I lost control of my transformation I probably would have said yes. These days I wouldn't. It can be a pain, I have to constantly be careful not to crush something or step on someone's foot. God forbid if I fell down on someone. But I've realized that it's not so hard to deal with anymore. I've had a lot of practice so now I don't even think about it, it just comes naturally.

I do think that there should be research into this. As long as it was safe and somebody wanted to use it, then I say go for it.

Everything has a price, especially power.

~Noir

We are members of a subrace which is better adapted to the environment than our father race. I mean, even the enhanced metabolism and resistance that all novas get makes them better. Why not use the correct term for it? Just because Terats say "evolution" too? Doesn't mean they're not right (in that, limited, aspect).

And in the context of this discussion, which is about the actions we would take in the hypothetical situation that there was a risk-free method to eliminate the unfortunate side-effects provoked by our evolution, we are simply answering the question proposed, hardly "whining", which, I think, would involve saying something of a rather more negative tone without being asked it. Like "I hate what I am", for example.

Not to state (or restate) the obvious, but treating all quantum-related changes as something to be embraced is as equally shortsighted as treating all such changes as a bad thing. In my experience it seems that most groups that are the most vocal about quantum, aberrancy, and the like tend to fall on the two extremes of the spectrum. Shame that things tends to have turned out that way.

Oh sure Singularity I agree. If we stick to the taint is evolution concept some of us are the next step in advancement and others are not only evolutionary dead ends but evolutionary train wrecks.

Well, I thought about this question a bit then I talked it over with a colleague. Here's how she put it:
If we could bring children into the world without the pain, effort, and risks of pregnancy ... with no ill effects, would we? Hell yes.

As long as we lose nothing, my answer would be yes. The problem is that we don't know what taint is about. Until then, amputating it without concerns for the long term consequences is foolhardy, unless the aberration greatly imperils the novas life. Better to live and learn, if possible.

Thank you all for your input. It is as diverse and insightful as I had hoped!

It is interesting to me that we are almost upon our second decade of dealing with Taint and Quantum yet despite our power and intellects we have not bridged this chasm on way or another.

But in a way it is understandable. When we have Novas who clearly suffer from their aberration like Sloppy Joe, Angel of Bones or Lepper on one hand. On the other perfection in body in the form of Mal, Pax or Geisha.

It really makes me consider that like ourselves each case of Quantum Backlash needs to be viewed as unique as the individual it has happened to. Maybe no general treatment or philosphy can apply to us. I still hold hope that there is something we can do to help those of us who are suffering.

Absolutely not.

I would not.

Simple reason too. To remove the taint, you would have to remove our talent as well. Because the power and the cost come hand in hand.

I would not give up my node out of vanity. There is a trade, a balance if you will, that comes with taint.

Hell, I shouldn't be calling it taint. It's who we ARE. Perhaps this is our growth as a Nova. Our growth as a race.

Those that lose themselves in the madness that comes with it are weeded out, and those that learn to manage it and mold it to their true self continue on. It's only evolution.

L'évolution? Unto each is given a task and a burden which alone theirs to bear.

Predestiny?

Sorry. That violates alot of the physics I know.

Getting pidgeon holed by your actions though is something I do know. We make our own fate.

Ooooooh, do tell. Which of the physics are you speaking of???

Actually, physics support predestiny. In fact, all deterministic science does, as it works on the basis that there is only one possible consequence to each action, and so, there are no two possible outcomes to a situation, and everything that happens was determined by whatever action came first, and was the cause of all other things.

Well, if our universe was built like a gearwork Babbage's machine, then yes. But remember, there is just not YOUR influence on the events around you.

Chaos theory, explains a good amount of how no matter how much control you try to exert on your day-to-day activity, the more chance there is your best laid plans fail.

Simple controls, like where you're going to step next, when you take that next breath, when your heart beats again, the small things... those are set up in a cause-effect that is hard to interrupt.

Now, trying to juggle several stocks in the exchange, while trying to leverage a buyout AND attempt a hostile takeover with resources taken from both... such a plan is quite risky, and if one facet goes wrong, the whole matrix collapses.

Once you start thinking in more than 5 iterations deep... You start to realize that Mathematics alone might not explain why some things happen, or why when A, B, and C occur, you sometimes don't get D, but Z.

Not to try to start an arguement here, but the fact is there is, in our reality, too many variables to excuse trying to predict if I'll eat a chicago-style chili dog at 3:45pm while humming ode to joy because I found a new way to focus photons for a laser projector.

Try calculating the odds that I do that. Just by my mentioning it, I might have caused an observer's paradox. Not to mention, I could have stripped my free will for one action at that moment. Because I've entered a Yes/No decision tree that may trigger a series of events that will effect me later. One would think by not doing so, I would show free will through rebellion, but you see, I like Chili-dogs, and I'm a sucker for Beethoven.

But I am not working on a new photon focussing array.

So by my declaration it is a false statement.

Therefor I have made an impossible forumula, because a variable is not able to be calculated due to falsehood.

Now, what if, tomorrow, I somehow think of this idea and figure a way to build it?

Due to my work, I miss my 3:45pm appointment with a succulent, delicious, precious chili-dog. Not exactly to my detriment, because I have a new toy to invent, and I would probably humming along as I do so.

Then again, I might take a break, and all three will fall into place.

Now you see the reality of it?

Thing is, I might not do any of the array. I might hum Mozart, while eating a piece of shrimp tempura from a local sushi bar, and be thinking of how to get some stuff up to the Moon.

If I have thoroughly given anyone a nose bleed, you're welcome.

Pardonnez-moi for the misunderstanding. Nothing is said of predestiny. It was said that each is given a task and burden alone to bear. What choices are made are freely made. To be a magician of the carnaval predicting what those choices will be was not discussed. Physics are another matter entièrement.

Okay. But I do that sort of thing every moment of every day. 5 iterations? Try a thousand.

Back to the original point...

If I could be guaranteed that turning my skin back into something that resembled human skin would not have any affect on my various quantum abilities, I would take the pill in a heartbeat. I'm rather tired of living in a sandpaper shell, but not so much as to risk losing - among other things - the increased insight that I have gained by way of my node.

Hah. And take out all the fun of a day? I'd do that, but then I would be bored 90% of the time, the other ten percent I would be... flabberghasted on how inaccurate my calculation was for a certain scenario.

I'd rather calculate MY actions, for they are the easiest to control. Adn the easiest to adapt to a changing environment.

And Sandcaster, while I see the sand skin as an inconvenience now, perhaps a few years down the road you might think differently.

Then again, I welcome my latest change. Because I wonder what it will bring next.

Mind if I butt in, Sandcaster? I noticed we seem to have similar views on the topic, but I'm not speaking for you.


Endeavor, I'm going to guess that you've liked your physical aberrations because they seem to be what you wanted anyway. Guess what, not everyone gets aberrations that reflect some secret inner desire or fantasy. Some of us draw the stinky end of the stick and get stuck with undesirable and annoying aberrations that complicate our lives unnecessarily and add nothing to our enjoyment of life.

And yes, to quote an obscure Sci-fi character who addressed the topic of stinky sticks, I took it, but that sure as hell doesn't mean I like it.

You find a way to love flickering in and out of total transparency constantly. I'm sick of it.

I agree with Flicker on this, Endeavor. I realize that I got extremely lucky with my aberrations. Funny hair and eyes are nothing big.

I'm also lucky in another way - apparently, I am under-aberrated for my level of taint. Which makes me happy.

But I understand that I'm unusual in that aspect. So don't tell others that all they have to do is buck up and some day they'll like it, because they won't. Some things you just don't learn to love.

That was a rather well put out and mostly correct explanation, Endeavor, but it was mostly about mathematics, not physics. You are completely correct in saying that we cannot predict what will happen, for sure, in almost any scenario. So many variables go into the calculations that not even the most gifted nova can read all of them with the precision required.

But the fact that we can't predict a sole result doesn't mean that there isn't one. In fact, if we somehow, someday, get the capacity to get the precise values for all the variables and make all the calculations involved precisely, there will be one, and only one, correct result. This is true unless you claim that the very way modern science is set up is incorrect (a valid position as well, I'm sure). But, fact is, science, in its labor of describing reality with mathematics, supports one-cause, one-effect predestiny, even though we don't know WHAT is predestined.

As a being who channels quantum, I can't believe that you know nothing of quantum uncertainty. In short, the more we know about the position of a particle, the less we know about its vector, and vice-versa. It's because the certainty of those two variables are inversely related in the quantum equation that describes the whole mess.

So, we can't ever know exactly where every atom in the universe is and where it's going, so we cannot predict the future, either.

It means we all have free will, really.

All of this is on the OpNet. It's good reading.

No. We can never predict the future. I think I mentioned that. My point is, just because we cannot predict the future, deos not mean there is not one definite future.

And certain quantum powers would seem to be able to violate the Uncertainty Principle, by "seeing" speed and position without needing to bounce other particles off the object of study.

Uhm... *Raises his hand*
I can predict the future..

I will go for the Baked goods. It had immediate and effective uses as someone who worries about the effect of doughnuts on the health of police officers.

The future is not predestined, not the way I precieve it. We make choices and are effected by other people's choices. The choices of the past echo into our present and continue on into our possible futures.

I hear that a lot, and it's wrong.

It's not that the act of observation disturbs the particle, it's that mathematically speaking, there is no way to know both position and vector at the same time with certainty. The certainty of position and the certainty of vector are inversely related (that means one is over the division sign, and the other is below it), so that the more you know one, the less you know the other.

It's not a matter of building a better microscope or anything like that. It's a fundamental tenet of reality itself that both of these values cannot simultaneously be known with certainty.

The Novas who appear to be doing this are not. They're channeling quantum to create that effect, but what is actually happening must be something else, because they'd be breaking reality. Reality is not like the sound barrier or the speed of light. Reality is what we're all stuck with, and it cannot be dismissed or bypassed.

So can I, it's real fucking easy: the stock market will experience a change of some kind. There, I predicted the future and I'll be right.

In all seriousness, furball (and you others with the fun "look at the end of the book" abilities), quantum tricks don't always catch everything. There's plenty of shit your future radar ain't catching. Most of it might not be important, tho'...