Cogenitor

[JiNX-01]

Guy Gardener said:
HA! But it wasn't involuntary! The Cogenitor didn't know that refusal was an option and she didn't know that it wasn't supposed to dislike being used. It just wasn't part of it's world. You might as well be using a hammer to screw a screw. The Cogenitor did what it was told because it was raised to think like a thing which did what it was told with out remorse or a second thought like a well trained dog or horse.

Perhaps the better term would be "consensual." In order to give consent, a person must know that the alternative -- refusal -- is an option that will be respected.

Charles didn't even have the right to decide to take some time off to go mountain climbing, nevermind refusing to help others conceive children it would never see.

 

[Guy Gardener]

1. Of or relating to a reflexive response of one body structure following stimulation of another, such as the concurrent constriction of one pupil in response to light shined in the other.

2. Of or relating to involuntary movement of a body part accompanying voluntary movement of another.

Even "mutually consensual" doesn't tap the matter. It wanted to perform it's duties. Just because there was no option, doesn't mean the choice was any less valid.

 

[3D Master]

Guy Gardener said:
The dehumanizing(don't pick! Dealienizing? Get the )(&* out of town!) of the Cogenitor constructed a mindset incapable of being tortured or offended. Ignorance is bliss. This was a societal device invented to protect the Cogenitor from feeling used, and protect everyone else from the guilt of using the Cogenitor.

It was Trip who gave her the apple.

Trip is the snake and the Nissian Politisocioengineers behind the scenes who we do not see, are God

Once more showing that god is a sickening bastard and the snake is the good guy.

bluedana said:

And that's exactly what's happening with the Cogenitor. It'll be used as a sex slave for the rest of its life.

Where is the evidence for this proposition? I don't remember any dialogue establishing that the Cogenitor's contribution to reproduction was sexual, or that it was a sex slave.

Right, because being locked away to do other's peoples biddings while having no choice in her own life at all equals being nice and free.

And explain to me, exactly, how reproduction can be done without sex involved.

Guy Gardener said:
I'm not apologizing.

I'm stating for a fact how they thought. Whether by our standards it is wrong or right. It was made abundantly clear thoughout the episode that the Vissians didn't know that what they were doing was immoral or wrong, just like some of us think it's ridiculous to consider eating meat is murder and the cigarette advertising targeting children is tollerable.

And thus, asylum should have been granted.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If the Vissians were smart, thinking about the big picture, not only should they have allowed the asylum, but they should have exiled "Charlie" because (pun intended) they were going to be fucked if all the other Cogenitors got smart to this sort of thinking... Which is another reason they should have killed her.

Eddie Murphy said something exactly about this in his stand up movie Delirious co-written by Bob Saggat... About how he would never risk having his fortune "halved" by a messy divorce with an uppity American woman... That if he was going (I Just started laughing uncontrollably because I remembered who he is currently divorcing!!! Scary Spice from the Spice Girls!) to get married, he was going to go into the deepest darkest blackest heart of the African Jungle and find one of those "BushBitches" with the wood in their bottom lip and a bone through their nose and they've never seen a credit card in their life before and would...You get the point, but as the joke continues, his wife who had never used an indoor toilet before starts reading Cosmo and going to lunch with all the other Beverly Hills wives and also demands a divorce and wants half his money...

Keeping a slave to remain a slave is difficult, but it helps if the law is on your side.

 

[bluedana]

And explain to me, exactly, how reproduction can be done without sex involved.

In vitro fertilization.

The process of reproduction involves much more than the sex act - and sexual intercourse isn't even required anymore (see: IVF). Many women could not sustain a pregnancy without daily injections of progesterone, a hormone, for the first 12 weeks. Perhaps the Cogenitor provided a source of a vital hormone or enzyme like progesterone. Or perhaps it was a surrogate for the embryo. We aren't told, and so we don't know. That it was a sex slave is a big assumption.

Right, because being locked away to do other's peoples biddings while having no choice in her own life at all equals being nice and free.

I did not say that it was nice and free. I said it would not necessarily meet the requirements of persecution for asylum under current law. That's different from freedom.

 

[3D Master]

bluedana said:

And explain to me, exactly, how reproduction can be done without sex involved.

In vitro fertilization.

The process of reproduction involves much more than the sex act - and sexual intercourse isn't even required anymore (see: IVF). Many women could not sustain a pregnancy without daily injections of progesterone, a hormone, for the first 12 weeks. Perhaps the Cogenitor provided a source of a vital hormone or enzyme like progesterone. Or perhaps it was a surrogate for the embryo. We aren't told, and so we don't know. That it was a sex slave is a big assumption.

Right, because before that species had technology they still used In Vitro Fertil-... oh, wait a minute, no technology.

In fact, if it was IVF, then the couple wouldn't need the Cogenitor would it? Same with the hormone. They would just need the hormone and a needle. The Cogentior's would be locked up in a cage, fed, have tubes hooked up to their arms and backs to extract the required components.

The fact that the family actually NEEDS the COGENITOR to be THERE, tells you it is not any of that. It's sex, plain and simple. You're just trying to limit the horror put upon the cogenitors to make the species and Archer's decision seem less nasty.

Right, because being locked away to do other's peoples biddings while having no choice in her own life at all equals being nice and free.

I did not say that it was nice and free. I said it would not necessarily meet the requirements of persecution for asylum under current law. That's different from freedom.

Then current asylum law needs some severe changing. Being locked up, and used as a slave their entire lives - aka not free - SHOULD be considered an unacceptable level of abuse that asylum must be granted.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The in vitro is a good point.

Obviously not what was happening here, but why is "%2 of the population are Cogenitors" dancing about in my head? There would have been a technological option. Whatever the Cogenitor bought to the party, unless it carried the baby, must have been able to have been transformed into a lubricant or shot, otherwise the population would be dying out if it was space faring and stretching out across planet after planet that %2 of a larger and larger population became a more and more unworkable ratio... Maybe the Cogenitor is just what the rich and pompous natural childbirth people got to use, otherwise poor people low on the totem would never be able to breed as the population got bigger and the Cogenitors got scarcer which would lead to a serious class/civil war.

 

[bluedana]

Interesting point, Guy. I think maybe whatever the Cogenitor contributed couldn't be replicated. Even in human reproduction, there's only so much science can do; the rest is cross your fingers and pray. Thirty years after the first IVF baby, the success rate for a full term baby isn't anywhere near 100%, even under "perfect" conditions. The tiny number of Cogenitors versus the general population adds to the Vissians' sense of desperation about having it, and the tragedy of its death. I've seen what can happen to people who try IVF over and over, trying to conceive; I can't imagine what your mindset would be if you had to wait forever to get one chance.

 

[Guy Gardener]

What about cloning? Surely they could make Cogenitors?

If it was meat built for this sex act by genegineers who could not guarantee that it had a soul, rather than a person stripped of identity to accept a life less vibrant? And even if this Cogenitor wasn't a clone... The idea is not too out of left field if they have the technology.

O, I wasn't until now suggesting that they replicate the Cogenitors contribution, but like with sperm, it's farmed. Surely milking a Cogenitor and sending it's issue to every side of the empire simultaneously is more efficient then sending the actual Cogenitor to one couple at a time?