Darkover
Archangel
- Jul 29, 2021
- 5,569
The cruelty lies in the combination of powerlessness and responsibility: you're held accountable for surviving in a vessel you didn't choose, didn't design, and can't fully control—punished for failure, but denied autonomy.
It is the deepest kind of injustice:
To be made conscious within a body that can suffer—
To feel everything, but control almost nothing.
Because to be enslaved inside a machine you have no control over is to exist in a state of pure vulnerability—to be bound to pain, limitation, and decay with no means of escape, no say in the terms, and no power to alter the machinery from within.
It's cruel because:
You didn't choose the body you were thrust into it—this fragile, decaying biological machine—with its random genetics, built-in needs, and countless failure points. You didn't pick its flaws, yet you're punished for them every day. Hunger, exhaustion, illness, aging, injury—they all come whether you want them or not.
You didn't design its rules the body operates by blind chemical processes. Hormones, instincts, and pain signals dictate your emotions and behaviors. You may want peace, clarity, or purpose, but your own hardware can sabotage you with depression, anxiety, cravings, or fatigue. You're trapped in a system that overrides your will.
You can't exit voluntarily you're not allowed to leave the machine without stigma, fear, or violence. Society forbids suicide. Religion condemns it. Medicine tries to stop it. So you're forced to endure, day after day, a ride you didn't ask to board.
It breaks down and turns against you over time, the machine deteriorates. Your joints ache, your mind fogs, your senses dull. Your own body becomes hostile—a prison that sags, betrays, and suffocates you. And there's no reset button. No off switch. Just decay.
You're punished for failing to maintain it if your machine falters—if it's injured, neurodivergent, or chronically ill—you're cast aside by society. You can't work. You can't connect. You're blamed for not keeping up, even though you didn't build the machine or set its maintenance schedule.
There's no manual, no mastery you wake up inside a complex biological system without an instruction manual. You must guess how to survive. You can barely understand your own mind, let alone reprogram it. You're not the engineer—you're the occupant, struggling in the dark.
To be held accountable for a vessel you didn't build.
To be made conscious in a system that can destroy you at any time.
To feel deep, unbearable pain and be told it's your job to fix it—without the tools, without the map, and without the power.
what true autonomy would mean: not just being aware of your suffering, but having the agency to stop it. To open the machine, diagnose the problem, and fix it—whether it's physical pain, emotional trauma, decaying tissue, or a broken sense of purpose.
An ideal condition would allow:
Full internal access – See everything: neurons, synapses, memories, organs, code. Understand your own architecture as clearly as a mechanic understands an engine.
Editable structure – Modify what's broken. Rewire pain pathways, regenerate damaged cells, clear out the rot. Replace what's obsolete. Heal what hurts.
It is the deepest kind of injustice:
To be made conscious within a body that can suffer—
To feel everything, but control almost nothing.
Because to be enslaved inside a machine you have no control over is to exist in a state of pure vulnerability—to be bound to pain, limitation, and decay with no means of escape, no say in the terms, and no power to alter the machinery from within.
It's cruel because:
You didn't choose the body you were thrust into it—this fragile, decaying biological machine—with its random genetics, built-in needs, and countless failure points. You didn't pick its flaws, yet you're punished for them every day. Hunger, exhaustion, illness, aging, injury—they all come whether you want them or not.
You didn't design its rules the body operates by blind chemical processes. Hormones, instincts, and pain signals dictate your emotions and behaviors. You may want peace, clarity, or purpose, but your own hardware can sabotage you with depression, anxiety, cravings, or fatigue. You're trapped in a system that overrides your will.
You can't exit voluntarily you're not allowed to leave the machine without stigma, fear, or violence. Society forbids suicide. Religion condemns it. Medicine tries to stop it. So you're forced to endure, day after day, a ride you didn't ask to board.
It breaks down and turns against you over time, the machine deteriorates. Your joints ache, your mind fogs, your senses dull. Your own body becomes hostile—a prison that sags, betrays, and suffocates you. And there's no reset button. No off switch. Just decay.
You're punished for failing to maintain it if your machine falters—if it's injured, neurodivergent, or chronically ill—you're cast aside by society. You can't work. You can't connect. You're blamed for not keeping up, even though you didn't build the machine or set its maintenance schedule.
There's no manual, no mastery you wake up inside a complex biological system without an instruction manual. You must guess how to survive. You can barely understand your own mind, let alone reprogram it. You're not the engineer—you're the occupant, struggling in the dark.
To be held accountable for a vessel you didn't build.
To be made conscious in a system that can destroy you at any time.
To feel deep, unbearable pain and be told it's your job to fix it—without the tools, without the map, and without the power.
what true autonomy would mean: not just being aware of your suffering, but having the agency to stop it. To open the machine, diagnose the problem, and fix it—whether it's physical pain, emotional trauma, decaying tissue, or a broken sense of purpose.
An ideal condition would allow:
Full internal access – See everything: neurons, synapses, memories, organs, code. Understand your own architecture as clearly as a mechanic understands an engine.
Editable structure – Modify what's broken. Rewire pain pathways, regenerate damaged cells, clear out the rot. Replace what's obsolete. Heal what hurts.
