Birthright

This story was posted in 2010, in another blog:

• "Birthright"
  Drifting at the Edge of Time and Space (February 19, 2010)

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Despite the stories you've seen, there never were very many Voini. Like any alter, each Voin was expensive to grow.

Also, unlike the Gung Yan, Voini had earned an unpleasant reputation during the recent wars.

Between limited production, judgments after the Suspension and 'Voin hunts,' there are now perhaps only a few dozen surviving Voini.

Perhaps it is best this way.

As great a cliché as this will seem, Voini were designed to be the "ideal soldiers." Not mindless killing machines. Soldiers. Again, please: forget the stories you've seen. Those are fiction. Intended for entertainment.

Traits were carefully selected for each batch of Voini, carefully chosen for a particular set of tasks. All had average or better intelligence, most were above the 50th percentile in strength, and Voini pilots in particular had almost inhumanly fast reaction times. No Voin, despite their reputation, were given to unpredictable outbursts of homicidal fury.

I believe I understand how the victors viewed the Voini. Units of four or eight apparently-identical men, armed and moving with the speed and precision of the finest athlete, carrying out a military objective - of which you were the target? Yes, that could be frightening.

And it is an all-too-human habit to ascribe frightful attributes to that which we fear.

So, yes: I believe I understand how the victors viewed the Voini. I believe I understand the reasoning behind the post-Suspension judgments: although I do not agree with each one.

But I hope that someday, as the passions of this age fade, my brothers and I will be regarded in a kinder light.

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Bioethics, my take:

• "Regeneration: Getting Closer to Growing Lost Organs"
  (August 29, 2014)
• "Mutant Mosquitoes and a Made-to-Order Cancer Treatment"
  (June 13, 2014)
• "Getting a Grip About Dr. Moreau, Pigs, and Human Dignity"
  (February 14, 2014)
• "Spears, Dogs, and Artificial Organisms"
  (November 22, 2013)
• "Fifth Column Fruit Flies and Return of the Immortal Chicken Heart"
  (August 9, 2013)