Dissertation of a Homo-Nano and the usage of Notum:

[_________Deaddreamer]

Much like the oil conservation of the 20th and 21st century, we have a very limited supply of notum on this planet. For some of us involved, the Homo-nano, it is vital to our continued existance. We were originally engineered from the very lifeblood of the soil and all contained herein. Since the shipments of the blood of Rubi-Ka are being sent offworld, we take from this planet and give nothing in return. We can never leave, or starve from the air we breathe, the water we drink, the notum that runs through and around us. With the clans dealing with galactic trade, as well as the vast shipments sent off by Omni-Tek, we as a race get dimished on a daily and weekly basis. What other options do we have left? When this planet has been sucked dry, we will starve, bereft of the notum we subsist on. We are dependant, addicted, and what will happen? Will there be another Rubi-Ka out there? Will we be able to find another home planet once it has been truly turned into a wasteland? I am petionting for a little bit of reason out there, a little voice hopefully that will be heard in the screaming cacophany between Clan and Corporation alike. I ask that all Homo-Nanos, clan and corporate alike, take a moment to think. This will have grave consequences if we cannot look to the future, if we do not concern ourselves with the future of our offspring.

Please let all of our voices form in the harmony of reason, speak up and be heard.

[_________Dr. Firenza]

Yes, that was by design. When the Nano was introduced with its dependency on the particulate notum in the air, the argument was simple - when the notum is exhausted, so is the usefulness of the Homo Nano. And I'm of the opinion that a great deal of notum is wasted on maintaining the Homo Nano as it is. Especially on the clan side; those breakaway Homo Nanos ought to be put to productive work or terminated and their notum extracted and sold for the benefit of the corporation.

[_________Deaddreamer]

So typical is this of the short-sightedness and wastefulness of the overbreed. To sacrifice the lives and potential for the almighty profit margins that we are better equipped to provide than our 'root' breed. You speak so highly of yourself as being the most versatile and adaptable, yet all I see is the brutality and simple-mindedness inherent. We, the Nano Homo, are much more adept in thought and logic, where only your brutish physical traits allow you to do nothing but stagnate and create only more specialized races to perform the work that you cannot accomplish individually. We are not the dogs that guard your house, we are the machinery that wire everything that you depend on together, making it faster, simpler for simpler minds, and more trafficable. It is this that those in our numbers have made an exodus to Jobe, as I am on the verge of doing so as well. Especially if this close-minded, wastrel, and even thoughtless expenditure of one limitless potentiality for another lesser and finite resource continues.

How far hast thou strayed, Doctor?

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.


How so, the good doctor, with his hipocratic oath, be so hypocritical?

[_________Dr. Firenza]

Well put. But let me reply without using up so much precious oxygen...

If Homo Nano is such a brilliant 'creation' (read: product) then why is it designed to become obsolete? Why not follow me offplanet for a lively discussion of this - oh, I'm sorry, you'll die if you leave the planet. By design.

Were you actually a human being, as the oath states, and not something not-quite human that we designed and made - after plenty of failures, by the way, I suppose I should be weeping over all those petri dishes and sterile containment units - then perhaps your high-moraled recitation of the hippocratic oath would make sense. But you're not natural, you have no natural rights, you're a product made to fill an industrial need because robots can't handle nano work so well on their own and its cheaper to lose a few biologicals than to waste parts that have to be imported at enormous expense from offplanet.

Really the only manufactured race I can stand is the Opifex, only because they seem to be nearly as sly and cruel genetically as I am by choice. Nanos are by an large a pack of egotistical crybabies and the Atrox are fine until they start trying to force some thoughts through their vestigal brains. But you all suit your purpose, by design.

The reality is that the entire oath can be summed up in Hippocrates' ancient statement: "Do no harm". I leave the definition of harm up to Dr. Rita Prestine and Mr. Philip Ross, and in the pursuit of it, I just do my job. And I suggest you would feel a great deal more satisfied if you did the same.

[_________Deaddreamer]

This argument may actually be valid if we were the equivalent of genetically altered monkeys. However, our strains are taken from something that has intelligence, culture, as well as life essence that can transfer from one body to another. If you would consider this, and if 'death is not permanent', you yourself would be a 'product' of an insurance terminal. A product, without which, you would have been permanently and irrevocably dead. If you would imagine this, on any other planet, dying become irrevocable and undeniably, non-existent. This is a dependence that you have on the Notum here. Mitochondria expire without the assistance of our nanobots and in the absence, of which, in this planet's abundance, you would expire, just simply with more time between. Also, there is more than just that. We live in the same compartments that you call home, we are not allowed to walk about without decent clothing, we are, as a part of Omni-Tek; offered wages, allowed free will, and have the same potential in advancement as any offshoot breed as you are, my fellow employee. If it were the will of Omni-Tek that all of the produced food is sent off-planet, and only those of the upper echelon were allowed to eat, wouldn't you be put in the same position? Would there be a public outcry from every solitus, opifex, nano, and atrox? Absolutely without doubt.

After all, "Do no Harm" can be defined in many ways. To do no harm either by action or inaction are one in the same. This is harm done. This is harm done to an entire race, engineered, manufactured, or developed, that are one in the same as homo solitus. We are an improvement, moreover, a specialization on the root breed. We have the same genetic structure, more so than any other creation by Omni-Tek. If it weren't for the intervention of ICC, this shortsighted and simple-minded bigotry would go unchecked. Of all the races that could have been considered egotistical, I would have to say that it was the Solitus, claiming that they were superior in the fact that they themselves were not manufactured.

As far as performing my task, I perform it well and with the return payment that I receive from it. It is not the task at hand, it is the future of not only my employment, by my own existence. Perhaps you might be able to see past your own nose and see the what your fellow humans think.

[_________Dr. Firenza]

Well put, Nano, I must admit. Though the insurance terminal doesn't produce me, it merely replicates a copy of my biohousing...but this is a semantic argument. Your human DNA contributors were human, but you are not, any more than bioengineered insulin-producing bacteria are in any way equivalent to their E. Coli progenitors.

1) if only the executives could eat, then I assure you, I'd do all I could to be an executive.

2) if nanotech is what you need, then develop a way to embed it in your system, or find another planet with it. Surely Rubi-ka can't be a geological anomaly of THAT magnitude, that notum can't be found somewhere else if there were simply enough prospectors searching the galaxy for it.

[_________Deaddreamer]

If it does replicate your biohousing, then of course it would have source material in order to produce it from. However, it does not take a major portion of your original structure to create it. Since it would take a sample of blood, a mnemonic pattern of your brain, and a few other bits and pieces here and there, this would entail that on a cellular level you are no different from E.Coli yourself. Once again, more semantics and wordplay. But the differentiation is in more than just a cellular level, even on the atomic level, we are composed of the same particles. The difference here is the cells working together with their own specialization (e.g. striated heart muscles, neural tissue, optic nerves, etc.) that define a community of cells, as a living being. This puts us on the level of all animals. Now, in addition to this, all of humankind is distinguished from the wild animal kingdom as having free will and being able to act even against natural instinct. This is not a religious discussion, but a simple fact of biogenetics. Dogs dream, but they bark at strangers instinctively. We view strangers with caution, but we still interact with them, regardless of initial impression. This even separates us from the mutated miscarriages that have been wandering about the outskirts of every town.

1) if only the executives could eat, then I assure you, I'd do all I could to be an executive.

In this instance, becoming an executive is NOT an option. The positions are already filled, you will forever be passed up for promotion, never appreciated, and will eventually starve. This scenario would be inevitable and you are consistently told that you will die malnourished with the countless others.

This may be something that would be impossible to place yourself into because either you are too egotistical to assume that Omni-Tek would do such a thing to your breed, or you really are that naive.

2) if nanotech is what you need, then develop a way to embed it in your system, or find another planet with it. Surely Rubi-ka can't be a geological anomaly of THAT magnitude, that notum can't be found somewhere else if there were simply enough prospectors searching the galaxy for it.

Why would SOL banking, then, instead of trying to take it from OT, go out exploring themselves? They are certainly not frugal if they are so dependent upon the product themselves.

That is a pipe dream and an uncertain future. I am either wise enough (or just plain bitter) to feel that there is some saving grace to this universe. I know what is current and real. That current and real does not look too terribly promising, and if that is how you think it will turn out, perhaps you won't ever understand nor try to understand the fear and doubt of others.

As an aside, cruelty has it's consequences, either immediate or near future. This has always been evident as the cause in "civil" wars. Cruelty is also rooted deeply in lack of perspective, inability to understand, and unjustifiable ignorance. I do not sanction the methods nor the credo that the clans purport to, as Omni-Tek is the rightful holder to the lease on Rubi-Ka, but what happens to this homeworld to millions will be a concern after the lease is up. This is very much like Great Britain's hold on Hong Kong in the late 20th century.

There is far too much uncertainty here for this topic to be internally unquestionable.

[_________Dr. Firenza]

This is really becoming a fascinating discussion. Some points to consider:

The insurance booths replicate using a high-velocity cloning system not terribly different from a pure cloning procedure. Now, if they took my biomaterial sample and created a homo nano body for me, that would be one thing, but they essentially grow an exact copy of me from the source material I provide. It's a semantic argument, of course, and I do like the point you hint on about the connection between humankind (and nanokind, and atroxkind and opifexkind for that matter) and the animal kingdom - since you reference dogs I'm certain you're talking about the natural animals and not so much about the manufactured ones here on Rubi-Ka. And yes, you can take that one step further, as Saint Deepak once explained in his Holy Books of Success, to look at things on a molecular level is to see no boundaries at all between where my fingertips end and the keypad begins. In one sense we are all part of the universe and connected inextricably to it.

However I still maintain that does not make all the parts of the universe equal to one another. The body needs the brain more than it needs the little toe. And when it comes to manufactured, copyrighted species like yours, every authority in the galaxy agrees that ownership rights ultimately belong to the corporate designers, and not to the products themselves. Otherwise there would be no financial security and no business sense behind creating a breed to serve a given purpose. To coin the old software analogy, Homo Nano is not open source.

That's not to say that you shouldn't have rights that protect you from exploitation, or that grant you certain 'human' freedoms. Omni-Tek has no quarrel with that. The only quarrel we really have is that homo nano was engineered to be locked on this planet, and any protest against that fact will fall on deaf ears. You may as well shake your fist at god for not giving any of us the ability to live in a volcano or in the vacuum of space.

I do find it refreshing that you assume I think in the same species-track of thought that you have. My egotism has nothing to do with my species, and everything to do with my individual talents and skills. The rest of Homo Solitus can figure out their own destiny. I, unlike you, refuse to assume that the destiny of my species is the same as my personal destiny. I make fate, it doesn't make me. You should adopt the same personal philosophy, and who knows - perhaps you can be the one to invent a nano-rebreather unit that frees the nano species from the planet. But if you do, don't tell anyone it was me who inspired you to do so. I'll deny it unequivocally.

[_________Deaddreamer]

Actually, the argument for the high-velocity cloning system only creates a host body and that a very unexplainable life essence transfers over to the host organism. This is clearly stated historically, and would not be something to be so easily disregarded as in the fact that all hominids carry this. It is also in the fact that homo-nanos (atrox, opifex, as well as solitus) are permitted to use these devices that it would seem to me we are still either considered assets or something to that degree.

Yes, we are all interconnected, however, I feel that you seem to be less aware of where your fingertips end and where our continued existance begins.

However, perhaps you would wish to consider this as well... Omni-Tek treated their miners in the same way as they would their "assets" or "closed-source races" as you so dismissingly put it. In the eyes of the corporation, it is C.Y.A. and there is little room for discussion either way.

Either way, that is not here nor there. I am not looking to shake my fist at some nameless clockwinder, I am not asking something unreasonable to live in a volcano or other some-such nonsense. This is my home. This is where I was born, where I wish to raise my children, this is where I wish to grow old with my life-partner, and this is where I will eventually die. This is no volcano, but it certainly makes me hot under the collar to think that sometime soon it will be unbearable to live here all due to a real, tangible, and (somewhat) reasonable purpetrator.

The main reason why you can separate your destiny from the fate of others lies in the fact that even though you were "engineered" to die, it was more dependant upon time and strain, not by dependance on your environment. I do not have a decision in this matter, though I have a cure for the cancer that will eventually eat away my species.

As far as that nano-rebreather unit, here is my justification for not doing so:

I am sure that the nano-rebreather would help me out, greatly, when going offworld, but there would be time taken to refill the breather, make sure the levels were correct, and have a steady and well cached supply in a safe place to prevent it from being stolen. Now, multiply this times ten-thousand, and you have the whole sum and race depending on these rebreathers. On top of this, with Rubi-Ka's supplies drained, there will be no more sources of notum capable of sustaining an entire planet's worth of 'nanos.



I gather that you had decided to become a doctor because you hadn't the patience for nanotech, the philosophical bent as a metaphysicist, nor the vision of a beaurocrat.

Although the most I can say for this discussion is that you have been a little less dismissive than our initial parlee, but my opening arguement was thus:

Notum comes from the roots of this planet. Cut the roots from underneath any plant, and the plant dies. There is more in this planet's ecology than you can imagine, and for us, there is no "Muad'dib".

[_________Dr. Firenza]

Notum is a limited resource, that is true, but like the oil 'crisis' of the late 20th century, the resource is not nearly so limited as the bleeding hearts would have you believe. The expense is not in the rarity of the product, but simply in the cost of obtaining it and processing it into something useful. On Earth and the inner systems, notum is worth a great deal - so expensive, in fact, that the use of nanotechnology outside the body is still limited and costly. Here on rubi ka, it is so plentiful that it can often be found lying around on the ground or wedged in the teeth of a grass snake. Water is a more precious commodity here. And Notum is the lifeblood of Omnitek, the sole source of its primacy among the megacorporations. It is to our benefit to make it seem as though the supply is limited, while at the same time controlling an almost inexhaustable supply of the material.

The truth of the matter is that if we exhausted every existing mine we would still have ten thousand times more notum left to tap on this planet. Our terraformed enclave is smaller than ancient Scotland, and this planet is similar to the size of earth - surely from your schoolbooks you understand how small Scotland was. And none of the mines show any signs of running dry.

Besides which, like the average bleeding heart, you never paused to consider how notum is formed in the first place, and our research indicates it's being created naturally much more rapidly than we can even mine it.

The roots are ten thousand times the size of the tree. The export of notum is what keeps us all alive. Notum export creates continued employment, continued food and water, continued healthcare and entertainment. The notum we sell is replaced by lifegiving supplies and services, and if the notum stopped leaving the planet, none of us could live for long. Rubi-Ka, our home, is a worthless sandpile where life exists and is paid for by the single resource we have. Stop the flow of notum and you stop life on Rubi-Ka - it simply isn't cost effective otherwise.

With that in mind I'm eager to hear about your solution to the 'cancer' which is in fact the sole source of your employment, food and shelter.

And I became a doctor because I not only have the intellect of a nanotechnician, but also the ability to do something practical with my knowledge besides waste it on turgid, unreadable religious tracts such as the Mostly Inaccurate Prophecies of Frank Herbert, or complain about how those meanie Homo Solitus were so mean in creating you in the first place because a million years from now there won't be a speck of notum left. Life is so unfair, isn't it? How dare you question why I became a doctor?