Flip – Afterword

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Flip – Afterword

by Maeryn Lamonte
Copyright © 2019

Part of the 2019-01 Reader Retention Story Contest

Make sure you read chapter 11 before looking at this. There are some spoilers.

This was one of those organic stories. The seeds of it came to me some time ago as the result of a comment exchange from a BCTS member who told me she has Klinefelter syndrome. I did some research into it and started wondering what might happen if it might be possible to separate the male and female aspects and copy the rest. From this Phil/Philippa sprung into existence.

After that, the story took on a life of its own. It seemed natural that Wiesner would have ideas on how to use Phil’s special abilities, and that he would be a good guy. The first mission came out of the blue, as so many things did in this story. With the Wexler raid, I still didn’t have much of an idea what he was after, so the concept of a fairly generic multi-use invention filled the gap. I didn’t know Phillip was going to get caught there until it happened.

After that the confusion over who was the good guy just rose out of the mess. The authorities who arrested Phil were going to put themselves over as the good guys and cast Wiesner into the role of villain, and that’s where things get messy.

I’m often reminded of a conversation between Granny Weatherwax and The Quite Reverend Mightily-Praiseworthy-Are-Ye-Who-Exalteth-Om Oats in Carpe Jugulm:

Oats: “It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of grey.”

Granny: “Nope.”

Oats: “Pardon?”

Granny:“There’s no greys, only white that’s got grubby.

I love the quote, and in context (talking about sin) I find I agree with it, I believe there is an absolute expression of good and evil. The problem is, when dealing with people, we are all some shade of ‘white that’s got grubby’ and deciding who to side with becomes difficult when you allow yourself to think about it — the reason in my mind why most people choose not to.

Deus ex Machina wasn’t even a glimmer of a thought when I started the story. I hate the use of Deus ex Machina in stories — just lazy writing in my mind — but I liked the idea of a real life Deus ex working to make things right in the world, and it seemed likely that Wiesner would not be working alone. Besides, in order to be truly one of the good guys, he’d have to accept the limitations of the human condition and accept the need for accountability in his actions. I see Wiesner as someone who tends to view the world in black and white. People like this have a tendency, once they have seen something they regard as white, to be unable to consider anything that challenges it, hence the need for others to balance him out. I think that’s what Phil saw and liked in him: the capacity to acknowledge his own flaws and deal with them.

The issue of world population entering into the story was news to me as much it was to Phillip when Wiesner explained it to him in the car. Once that was in place, the nature of what Phil had to steal on his third mission became clear. I didn’t expect him to get burned on the way in, and when it happened, I didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. I didn’t expect there to be monster hybrid dogs in the lab, although once they were there, Louie was a must. I did write in a bit where Phil asks Wiesner about the possibility of the fertility virus crossing into other species, and worrying about the affect this would have on endangered primates like orangutans, but there were a number of times when the writing lost direction and I had to go back to a couple of forks and pick up again. In the rewrite, there was never an option to put the question back in without it seeming forced.

I had no solution for Phil’s burns when it turned out that they weren’t going to heal completely. I’m grateful that Wiesner did, and I guess the outcome was somewhat inevitable once it was put on the table.

The whole world population problem thing ran away with me a bit. It was never intended to be such a big part of the story, but the more I found myself wrestling with it, the more Phil struggled too. Personally, if I had the same choice to make, I’m not sure how well I’d do. The logical side of me knows that something has to be done if my grandchildren (one so far, but I’m hoping for more) are going to grow up in a world worth living in. The emotional side feels that allowing even a well intentioned group of individuals — especially a specific demographic that doesn’t represent the whole world population — to make decisions like this isn’t right. My muse wouldn’t tell me what he chose, and even now I don’t know. That being said, I don’t feel that outcome is important to the story. What is is that Phillip/Philippa/Faith managed to use his/her unique blend of male and female to reach a conclusion that felt right to him. Like Wiesner and Stacey, I trust his instincts more than my own, so I imagine the future will turn out alright.

On the subject of the blend, it seems evident to me that we all have elements of female and male inside of us. Perhaps the blend is a little more even within the LGBT community, but society pushes us into moulds which means we don’t have much of a chance to express the full spectrum. Phil/Philippa did have it, so was able to apply both the intuitive female side — capable of taking a large number of complex factors and combining them into a group of feelings — and the pragmatic male side — able to focus on individual aspects and reflect on them logically without allowing personal feelings to influence the outcome — to work his way to a solution that neither side could reach on its own. I hope you are able to trust Phil as much as I and accept that he made the best decision.

I wrote a short story a while ago entitled Scout that alludes to a similar idea of mixed male and female in a personality allowing for a more rounded approach to solving problems. It’s a lot short and differs quite a bit from this effort. Up to you if give it a try.

As to what happens next, my Muse isn’t saying much. A story is only ever a segment of a person’s life, and this is where this one ends. The lovely thing about stories, though, is that you can continue them in your own imagination. Me, I imagine Faith and Stacey will marry (matching wedding dresses, but then that’s just me) and settle into what appears on the outside to be a same sex marriage; this is the twenty-first century after all. I imagine both of them will eventually be invited to join Deus ex, and that Faith at least will apply herself to her studies and become a leading biologist or geneticist. In the future I imagine she may even work alongside Dr Wiesner on some other project (without putting himself or anyone else in danger). I don’t know if Stacey will have any children, or if this will become common around the world, but I imagine she and Faith will be happy. I imagine Philippa will remain under the surface most of the time and only makes occasional appearances other than her nightly visits. Faith may continue to use her to make decisions that his male side can’t sort on its own, but overall I imagine he’s choosing to grow old with his wife, and that Philippa will only start to emerge later. What she will experience or achieve in the life she has I cannot imagine. A young and vivacious woman with an old man’s experience and knowledge strikes me as an exciting adventure, albeit one that will inevitably start with a painful loss. I hope she will be okay.

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Comments

The choice between Scylla and Charybdis.

Monique S's picture

Neither really is inviting and death is inevitable, at least if nobody finds a third way. May be the best way woud be to let nature come up with its own solution?

Monique S

Flip

A great story with a tough subject added to it. The more civilisation the more people we can support, the more fragile things become. A very difficult decision. Thank you for a great thought provoking story.

Time is the longest distance to your destination.

The ending is right

As far as the story goes, the ending is exactly right, I think. Unless you come up with a really nice continuation, I don't think the choice needs to be settled. The conflict of the story itself is resolved. The population crisis is really just a plot device in context, a macguffin so to speak. What Faith chooses doesn't affect the resolution of the conflict, which is primarily between Deus Ex and the "authorities" and how Faith fits in. Don't get me wrong, the population thing is a real concern, but as far as this story goes, it's a secondary issue. The population crisis could be replaced with some other major societal problem and the overall story would play out basically the same.

On the subject of population, though, this solution, while possibly better than the Finger Snap™, would be just as pointless. Even if the anti-fertility agent isn't counteracted, the end result would probably be the same. After all, the one percent who do have children would likely pass on whatever factor made them immune to the anti-fertility agent in the first place, and would probably have more children on average than they otherwise would have on average. And, since this would have to be in place for long enough that an entire generation of people has substantially fewer children, it would mean that after a generation or two, a much larger (and growing) fraction of everyone of reproductive age would likely be carrying the immunity factor. Basically, the anti-fertility agent would almost certainly be a one time temporary solution and would need to be redeveloped if it were to be used again in the future.

The dramatic reduction in birth rate brought on by this anti-fertility agent would also cause massive economic and social disruption that might not seem obvious at first glance. It would leave an aging population with fewer and fewer people of working age available to support it. We're already seeing some of that now where many nations have exactly this problem in the absence of immigration. This leads to fewer resources being available to care for an increasingly large proprotion of elders, and infrastructure maintenance becomes problematic. Indeed, the Finger Snap™ would actually be less problematic since it theoretically reduced the population evenly across all demographics which would avoid the demographic inversion.

Sure, this disruption would reduce the population dramatically over the space of a few decades, but it's not clear that doing so would result in a better situation for the "survivors" than a simple population cull due to war, famine, disease, etc. Indeed, a sudden population reduction could potentially lead to all of that on its own. What is reasonably certain if you look through the fundamentals is that it would lead to a systems collapse which would likely return the world to largely insular nations with more local economies, something akin to the late Bronze Age collapse.

There is also some evidence that the world population is already starting to stabilize. There's a reasonable argument that a fair amount of the massive population increase is simply due to reduced child mortality and people living longer over the past century or two (consider the number of people living into their 80s and 90s these days). Once that wave of longer-lived people starts dying off due to old age (something that's already underway), we'll have a better idea what the actual population growth rate due to fertility looks like. Of course, this is happening at different times in different parts of the world with Africa bringing up the rear, but it does seem to be happening there too.

All told, I expect the "third solution" of letting "nature" take its course while putting resources into the other issues (like polution, greenhouse gas emissions, resource depletion, etc.) is probably going to be the best result. Which is good, since it's the default if we take no deliberate action.

Of course, all of that could potentially lead to some good conflicts regardless of Faith's choice.

Thanos

Beoca's picture

Thanos

can't remember

Maddy Bell's picture

The title but there's a Heinlein novel on those lines.

I Will Fear No Evil rings a bell

Mads


image7.1.jpg    

Madeline Anafrid Bell

I can't believe I missed this one

I have a book token to spend, so will have to hunt this out. I've always loved Heinlein (except maybe for his pulp stuff) and I don't recall ever reading this. I think he was the first author I read who experimented with gender-flexibility. I remember a scene from stranger in a strange land where the Martian (I think he was) is disguised in a nurses uniform and comments on the strange feel of the second skin (tights/pantyhose) on his legs. I'm sure I remember other bits from other stories too, but maybe I'm imagining things.

Thanks for commenting.

M

Maeryn Lamonte, the girl inside

I have deeply missed your stories,

Wendy Jean's picture

As I have said I credit them giving me the courage to transition instead of committing suicide like my younger brother, I finished raising his kids. Family is very important to me, important enough to choose life when my dysphoria threatened to overwhelm me. The family issue is one of the reasons I avoid stories about the center, what the government did to those kids was evil in my life philosophy. The business killed their mothers and suffered no consequences, and every one of the kids lost their family. So good and evil can be very subjective in the extreme. To me family is everything.

I really enjoyed Flip to the max.

About USB Memory Sticks...

You know that USB stick that was tossed in the sea at the end of Chapter 11?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47135528

It turns out USB sticks are pretty hard to destroy. Sandisk touted one of theirs that was recovered from a house fire. And the article above, from the BBC, tells us of a memory stick that was apparently somehow introduced into the food chain and ended up in seal poop after probably being swallowed by a fish which was then eaten by a seal. Still full of holiday pics!

Right and wrong?

Jamie Lee's picture

Besides being a nicely written story it is a very thought provoking one too. Even thought the subject running through the story dealt with obtaining material for turning on the gene in humans which control conception, the morality of doing it raced right along side.

Along with the above two subjects was another with has been used by many in the past to justify their actions, the end justifies the means. This saying is used to some extent today by politicians and those appointed to represent others. Or by those who take over control of a country by force.

Right and wrong, who decides which is which? Politicians, or those appointed, look at things and decide something is the right thing to do because many agree with the action. But is it right or wrong, just because more agree with it than disagree?

Eminent domain can be used to acquire land which is deemed in the best interest of everyone. But is it right or wrong, even though many agree or disagree.

The DeM determined what they were doing was in the best interest of the entire world, but were they right? Keen disagreed with what was done when Phillip was caught that first time, so he would likely disagree with what the DeM was doing. His view was of only his country and nothing else. And might this be the overall problem, a me factor? Only being interested in my little part of the world? And if it doesn't affect me then "I don't care."

Extending what Wiesner and the DeM were wanting to do, it can be seen there being many investigations started to explain the drop in birth rates by women who have nothing physically wrong with them. Given the degree to which the investigations would be conducted, genes would be something that would be inspected. And when it was found some women have a gene turned on while others don't, someone might gain an insight that something was introduced to cause the change. And since the one facility where the material was kept would know of this particular effect, they would then know another group was involved.

Other side affects would result once births declined, affects that would hit the rich and poor, those needing workers, those selling the products, and everyone in between. And of every belief.

People who've become addicted to something sometimes have others who intervene in order to force the person to get "clean." Is what the DeM doing anything less? Don't they have the best interests of the world in mind? It's done on small scales every day, so why not on a global scale? The world is addicted to the familiar so maybe it's time to stear it onto a new path?

Others have feelings too.