This Side Of Paradise message

[BillJ]

It's defining enslavement to include addiction or any blissful acceptance of being controlled by an outside element with no free will or moral agency.

So, largely, what we already have on this world…

 

[Christopher]

It's defining enslavement to include addiction or any blissful acceptance of being controlled by an outside element with no free will or moral agency.

I guess I chose the word poorly, then. The point I was trying to make is that the original script portrayed the spores as a controlling sentience rather than a mindless intoxicant as the final episode implies. That does make a difference. I've seen people suggest that Omicron Ceti III could've been used as a way to cure disease and injury, just getting people mad enough to break free when they're healed. If the part about the spores being sentient had been left in, it would be clearer why submission to their mind control would be seen as an unacceptable tradeoff for restored health.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Because it's the principle of the thing, you mean? Allowing it for even a moment would defeat the purpose of being healed, which is to continue to live life healthily and genuinely happily in freedom.

So then the effect of mind control would outlast your healing and your supposed liberty from their effects, as one cannot be sure if or when they will re-assert control somehow. Meaning the presence of the spores are in and of themselves a parasitic illness - something which doesn't belong and wasn't asked for.