skygiants

UH HUH.

Now, okay. Becca has pointed out that the person may in fact have never actually been a person with a mind of their own, but may just be a sort of fabricated empty vessel for ambulatory livestreaming purposes. If so, I still have questions, including "are we SURE there's no personhood in there?" but I would be willing to accept that Destry doesn't. But the book really unclear on this subject, and I think it's one it's important to be clear about, actually! Especially in a book that's billing itself as concerned with ethical behavior and crafting a more just future and expanding the definition of who counts as a person!

Anyway, yes, she says it's not a debate and he has to get off the land, he says "no can do" and makes a comment about how moose jerky would be tasty, and she shoots him between the eyes and tells herself that okay, killing is supposed to be a last resort for a ranger, but he was threatening WHISTLE [her moose friend] so obviously she simply had no choice!

...The ethical underpinnings of this particular set of choices and justifications may yet be examined, I guess, but have not so far, by the end of the chapter. (I read on a bit more tonight.) She's just been concerned with dealing with the carbon load and thinking to herself that ha! he thought this was a Pleistocene environment! even though it's OBVIOUSLY mostly Devonian! because there are synapsids with sail backs wandering around?? even though there are ALSO angiosperm trees including conifers, and ravens, and hares and squirrels and foxes, not to mention the sapient moose, and honestly this is the first mention we've had of anything that wouldn't fit right into Earth's Pleistocene and we don't see any gorgonopsids or whatever onscreen, at least so far. So I'm also waiting to see if the Devonian synapsids ever come up again or if they only existed for the space of a gotcha. We'll see! Or we won't, depending on how much of this I make it through!