vacantlook
Super Moderator
Jan said:
I (still) haven't read the telepath trilogy, so I don't know if this is there addressed, but... I wonder if Bester would think the end justified the means if the means were his own death.
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EpDis: The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father
- Thread starter vacantlook
- Start date
I (still) haven't read the telepath trilogy, so I don't know if this is there addressed, but... I wonder if Bester would think the end justified the means if the means were his own death.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
And as long as Bester and those he approves of are running the telepaths.
Regards,
Joe
KoshFan
Regular
I don't quite buy this, Joe. Surely there were plenty of P1s and P0s (to coin a ranking for the likes of Ivanova) running around. Yeah, they weren't really involved in the Corps -- just monitored, maybe given the sleepers -- but they would still count as Teeps, and I'd think that there would be lots of them, with the genes only just barely expressing.
A_M_Swallow
Regular
Lyta's mother was a P2, as a child she was kicked out of the Psi Corps to be brought up by mundane members of the Alexander family.
[SPOILER]
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Bester did kill the girl Psi Cop. In the third telepath book she make the mistake of helping Bester create a new identity.[/SPOILER]
[SPOILER]
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Bester did kill the girl Psi Cop. In the third telepath book she make the mistake of helping Bester create a new identity.[/SPOILER]
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PillowRock
Regular
I'm more inclined to agree with KF on this one. (Although I would probably call full mundanes P 0's and give Ivanova a P 1/2, or something similar. It just seems to me that a rank of 0 ought to really mean Zero.)
My guess for most likely distribution would be more like the right half of a bell curve.
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crazyhorse
Anarchist
I can't open the vspoiler box.Why not?
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
1. Don't call me "Shirley"
2. I'm not sure what you're basing the "surely" on.
Nearly all other characteristics in the human population that are either determined or heavily influenced by genes show the distribution I'm suggesting. Geniuses are rare and so are simpletons. The vast majority of the population falls in between the two extremes. Even other selected or self-selected non-genetic groups the same pattern is visible. The number players in the NBA who are great and the number of players who just barely play well enough to keep their jobs are both very small. The number of good but unspectacular players is much smaller. 3. I agree, Ivanova would be a P 0.5 or something. P0 would be a mundane - and yes, mundanes vastly outnumber all teeps, but they aren't part of the teep bell curve.
Regards,
Joe
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
???? I'm not even seeing a spoiler box. I just see the tags, some line breaks and Andrew's text. I've added old fashioned "count down" numbers so those who see what I do can avoid the spoiler. I'm not sure why that isn't working or isn't working properly. I'll need to check with Antony.
Regards,
Joe
PillowRock
Regular
However, on the "barely play well enough to keep their jobs" end, a *key* part of that is "in the NBA".
There are lots more players that are very similar, but were the last cuts, or are playing overseas, or are still playing in college, or decided that they were better off starting their coaching careers than being the last guy on the bench, or whatever. When somebody gets injured the teams can always come up with 13th and 14th players that are not a significant drop off from the 12th (although there may be a significant drop in the overall team when the one who got hurt was one of the top couple of players).
That's a case where the distribution in the overall population really is much closer to being the right half of a bell curve than to a complete bell curve. Remember that what you're claiming to be left side tail of this bell curve would have been the same guys who were in the fatter part of the curve in college. Where did the rest of that population disappear to when the turned 22? They're still out there; they just didn't get an NBA job. (And going back further, the same guys that you're claiming are the left tail of the distribution were out in the *right* tail in high school.)
Now, in the case of B5 universe telepaths:
The direction that human evolution appears to be going, I would expect that eventually the distribution of telepathic power in the population would end up being a bell curve. I just don't see the time period that we have been watching as being nearly enough generations removed from active teeps being initially discovered to be there. There's still way too much mixing of mundane and teep genetics, as evidenced by the widespread advertising to the mundane population to bring children in for testing. The peak of the curve may well be a little above the minimum (ignoring the spike at 0 / mundane), but I can't see it being anything close to evenly balanced on both sides ...... yet (come back in one or two hundred thousand years).
KoshFan
Regular
Yes, sir.
2. I'm not sure what you're basing the "surely" on.
I think I see our differences here. You are examining telepaths as their own population, whereas I am examining them as a small part of the larger human population. So the way I've been looking at it, there's really only half of a bell curve, with the immense bulge being located at P0 or human-normal, then tapering down to the few hundred P12s (and Lyta as an outlier).
Your way of looking at it makes sense too -- from a different set of premises. I think we need more data before we figure out who's correct.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Since I was originally responding to hyp's point about P10s being rare (which obviously meant "rare within Psi Corps") I naturally meant my bell curve comment to apply to the subset of the population that consists of teeps, not the entire population of Humans. If you're talking about the distribution of different levels of telepathic ability it seemed obvious to me that you would exclude people who, by definition, don't have any telepathic ability. That's precisely why I used the example of NBA player in my later post Granted I also mentioned intelligence in an example using the entire human population, but notice the difference: Intelligence is a defining Human trait. All Humans posses it to one degree or another, so it makes sense to include all Humans in examining the distribution of degrees of intelligence. All Humans in the B5 universe do not have telepathic abilities, so it makes no sense to include the non-teeps in an examination of the distribution of telepathic ability. You'll distort the results badly, in fact. Similarly it would make no sense to include every Human being alive or every Human being who has ever played basketball in examining the distribution of talent within the NBA.
But it is clear now that this was all much more obvious inside my own head than it was in my posts. Sorry.
I'm sure he would. There's nothing in Bester's nature that suggests he's a coward. He's even honorable, by his own slightly twisted lights. I'm sure Bester would willingly, even happily lay down his life for "his" teeps if that was absolutely necessary. (If the only way of stopping Edgar's teep virus involved Bester strapping a nuke to his back and landing on Edgar's roof, I don't doubt that he'd do it.) The problem is that Bester places such a high value on his own talents and abilities that to his way of thinking there aren't a lot of things that could happen to Teeps that would be worse than the loss of Bester himself. Thus he's willing to sacrifice others to not because he's afraid of death, but because he's afraid of what will happen to "his" teeps when he's gone. He sees the period he lives in as one critical to "homo superior" and himself as a key historical figure who will help usher in the Age of the Telepath.
Regards,
Joe
But it is clear now that this was all much more obvious inside my own head than it was in my posts.
Sorry. I'm sure he would. There's nothing in Bester's nature that suggests he's a coward. He's even honorable, by his own slightly twisted lights. I'm sure Bester would willingly, even happily lay down his life for "his" teeps if that was absolutely necessary. (If the only way of stopping Edgar's teep virus involved Bester strapping a nuke to his back and landing on Edgar's roof, I don't doubt that he'd do it.) The problem is that Bester places such a high value on his own talents and abilities that to his way of thinking there aren't a lot of things that could happen to Teeps that would be worse than the loss of Bester himself.
Thus he's willing to sacrifice others to not because he's afraid of death, but because he's afraid of what will happen to "his" teeps when he's gone. He sees the period he lives in as one critical to "homo superior" and himself as a key historical figure who will help usher in the Age of the Telepath. Regards,
Joe
KoshFan
Regular
So here's the next question: how are we classifying those people with the telepathic gene but no actual telepathic abilities? We know from G'Kar that the Narns still have the genes kicking around, just not strong enough to express as actual telepaths (and, totally off-topic: do the Narns ever get their telepaths back?). Presumably the humans have a similar situation going.
Elipsis
Regular
It's always interesting to see what threads go on and on... you people continue to surprise me.
I actually wasn't particularly impressed with this episode. I thought it was actually going to be an entire episode centering around Bester (and was hoping for this), but once we get to B5 its the same old same old, and did this episode even have a B plot? We've already seen that sometimes Bester is right, so there was no need to demonstrate that, and this episode didn't do anything new or interesting for me. (Other than the logo.)
I actually wasn't particularly impressed with this episode. I thought it was actually going to be an entire episode centering around Bester (and was hoping for this), but once we get to B5 its the same old same old, and did this episode even have a B plot? We've already seen that sometimes Bester is right, so there was no need to demonstrate that, and this episode didn't do anything new or interesting for me. (Other than the logo.)
hypatia
Regular
You didn't find it interesting to see a Bester trip from the other point of view? From the intern's perspective, Bester was really treated like crap. And the "mundanes" did act pretty mundane. And you get to see Bester acting kindly, something we don't really see at any other time in the series.
It also showed Bester receiving some teen adoration, which probably no one would have guessed. And it showed a lovely young woman, sweet and charming, casually (even eagerly) toss a man out into hyperspace. Under that sweet, innocent exterior, the corps had already done its job well (dehumanizing the mundane population).
For me it was the interaction between the girl and Bester that made the episode. But, as always, different folks like/dislike different episodes of the show.
It also showed Bester receiving some teen adoration, which probably no one would have guessed. And it showed a lovely young woman, sweet and charming, casually (even eagerly) toss a man out into hyperspace. Under that sweet, innocent exterior, the corps had already done its job well (dehumanizing the mundane population).
For me it was the interaction between the girl and Bester that made the episode. But, as always, different folks like/dislike different episodes of the show.
hypatia
Regular
But Vir's wife was controlling and manipulative. Bester's female intern was simply in complete adoration of him. Also the intern's actions could be explained/understood as a young woman's typical behavior (apart from the extent to which she'd already been conditioned to think of mundanes as inhuman). Vir's potential wife was far too old to be going through that phase in life.
Both had been completely conditioned to see this one type of "person" as being no more than an annoying pest to be eliminated. And both did anticipate the approval of the one they were out to impress. But as character types, I admit I don't see them as being the same at all. One of the frightening and disturbing things about the girl was how young she was to be already so callous about life. Vir's wife had had decades to become that way.
But good observation. Both certainly felt that killing would be an excellent way to "prove themselves" to the one they adored.
Both had been completely conditioned to see this one type of "person" as being no more than an annoying pest to be eliminated. And both did anticipate the approval of the one they were out to impress. But as character types, I admit I don't see them as being the same at all. One of the frightening and disturbing things about the girl was how young she was to be already so callous about life. Vir's wife had had decades to become that way.
But good observation. Both certainly felt that killing would be an excellent way to "prove themselves" to the one they adored.
hypatia
Regular
O.K. Two decades then, give or take. She'd certainly been raised since birth to think that way.
What's the average age a psychic is identified? I remember the one episode where the girl seemed only a bit younger than Vir's potential wife when she was discovered. I forget if any are discovered at birth. One commercial seemed to indicate maybe 12 or so was a likely age to see an emergence, right?
A lot less "programming" time. But obviously their programming is quite effective.
What's the average age a psychic is identified? I remember the one episode where the girl seemed only a bit younger than Vir's potential wife when she was discovered. I forget if any are discovered at birth. One commercial seemed to indicate maybe 12 or so was a likely age to see an emergence, right?
A lot less "programming" time. But obviously their programming is quite effective.
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A_M_Swallow
Regular
The young girl who becomes a telepath is Alisa Beldon in "Legacies". I suspect the character was 12 but the actress was older.
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