Kevin's Watch

...the guttergangs were too entrenched to be rooted out by anything short of complete cataclysm or absolute tyranny. And the development of the Gap drive made their existence more secure rather than less.

[Explanation of how access to other distant planetary systems gave humanity more resources to play with and extended both the life of the parasitic guttergangs and the human society hosting them.]

It was easy to believe that guttergangs would eventually rule the Earth.

Savor Dam wrote:Sorry, gents. Neither is correct...although you do leave some threads worth pulling on.

Cord Hurn: What an intriguing concept. If Holt were to allow the Aminon access to Earth to mutate the guttergangs or were to round the gangmembers up and ship them to forbidden space for that purpose, I suspect he'd probably really weaken his power base. Even if the GCES averted their eyes, I can't imagine... It would be as if some current national leader were to adopt policies (like abolishing healthcare, enacting skewed tax policies, or undercutting environmental regulations) that primarily hurt his nominal popular base. Such a thing could never happen, nu?

Sorus wrote:The UMCP stepped up their recruitment after first contact with the Amnion. People who might not have previously considered joining the military (including kids in the guttergangs or kids who would have ended up there) became more patriotic in the face of potential alien invasion.

Avatar wrote:The old "unite people with an external enemy" trick huh?

--A

In the ADAHGA chapter [i]Ancillary Documentation - Guttergangs[/i], SRD wrote:It was easy to believe that guttergangs would eventually rule the Earth.

This entire societal equation was altered, however, by contact with the Amnion. The discovery of a fundamental, insidious, and above all external threat to humankind's existence turned the tide of history against the guttergangs.

The effects of this discovery were not simple. Obviously, the struggle for the survival of the race would take place hundreds or thousands of light-years away and would be carried on by the forces of the infrastructure. The fate of humankind would be decided elsewhere: the guttergangs would live or die with their host. By the ordinary laws of parasitism, therefore, neither society nor the guttergangs had any reason to change. Yet the knowledge of an enemy they could not see and would never have to fight changed the guttergangs profoundly.

They did not suddenly discover patriotism, of course. They did not put aside their clenched internecine attack on all social structures outside their own for the sake of humankind's greater good. Nevertheless, they were human beings - genophobic to the core. [snip]

By degrees too small to be measured, too small even to be noticed in the short term, the guttergangs began to erode.

This process took any number of forms. As one crude example, thanks to the Amnion, the appetite of the UMCP for young bodies was as intense as, and inherently more comfortable than, the guttergangs'. Active recruitment by the police gave the hungry youth of Earth a choice distinct from the more passive, as well as more brutal, accretion of the guttergangs.

Or a more subtle instance: hating and fearing the Amnion, the ordinary people of Earth - the natural prey of the guttergangs - had less hatred and fear to spare for those gangs. Therefore in complex, almost undefinable ways, the guttergangs began to lose their mystique, their attraction for the lost and disenfranchised of the planet. In comparison to the Amnion, the gangs were perceived as more bearable, more manageable, more normal; therefore less threatenting to humankind - and less appealing to humankind's downtrodden. Over time no human enterprise could oppose - or remain unchanged by - this kind of perceptual shift.

Slowly, across the decades, genophopia united humankind against its common foe.

Cynics saw this turning of the tide as a demonstration that prejudice was the only true survival instinct humanity had left. Less cynical observers had trouble deciding whether to be grateful or terrified.

This process took any number of forms. As one crude example, thanks to the Amnion, the appetite of the UMCP for young bodies was as intense as, and inherently more comfortable than, the guttergangs'. Active recruitment by the police gave the hungry youth of Earth a choice distinct from the more passive, as well as more brutal, accretion of the guttergangs.

Or a more subtle instance: hating and fearing the Amnion, the ordinary people of Earth - the natural prey of the guttergangs - had less hatred and fear to spare for those gangs. Therefore in complex, almost undefinable ways, the guttergangs began to lose their mystique, their attraction for the lost and disenfranchised of the planet. In comparison to the Amnion, the gangs were perceived as more bearable, more manageable, more normal; therefore less threatenting to humankind - and less appealing to humankind's downtrodden. Over time no human enterprise could oppose - or remain unchanged by - this kind of perceptual shift.

Sorus wrote:Would say, North Korea trade their enemies (or even their own citizens) to the Amnion in exchange for weapons and technology...