scrape_r_rational/data/cache/2on690.md

[DC] [FF] Captain Planet drabble

Post:

I'm a bit wary of tagging this Rational(ist) fiction as per the sidebar, it being too short to actually exhibit the proper traits much. That said, somebody on IRC called for rationalist fanfic of Captain Planet, so I made up a quick drabble (100 word story format, plus title) and thought it might fit in here anyway:

The Power is Yours

"As I was saying, through your power rings, each of you can control one power of nature, to a limited degree", Gaia explained. Ma-Ti stood aside as the rest of the crew experimented with their elemental powers.

"What do you think your power is, Ma-Ti?" Kwame wondered.

"I already know. Mine is Brain. I can sense you all, hear your thoughts, feel your feelings. From reading Gaia, together we can summon Captain Planet, a superhero. We should stay out of harm's way to keep him constantly active, and immediately let our powers combine."

"Earth!" "Fire!" "Wind!" "Water!" "Brain!"

"Go Planet!"

Comments:

• u/None:

  "Guys, I think we need to kill Ma-Ti."
  

  • u/DaystarEld:

    "Also, holy shit the planet has a sapient life-force. On behalf of humanity, we are SO sorry... but why are you only manifesting to us? Pop into the next UN meeting and let's get some political pressure going against the polluters."
    
    It would actually be interesting to see a Rational!Captain Planet where Gaia doesn't really care all that much for humanity, and things like global warming are unfortunate for us but not really a big issue for Her.  What would a sapient planet's values be, and why care about humans in particular?  To avoid huge meteors? I guess She'd want to keep human society around and progressing for that.
    
    "Meteors are nature's way of asking, 'So how's that space program coming along?'"
    

    • u/xamueljones:

      Would a sapient planet even want any lifeforms? If we assume the planet's sapience is unrelated to presence of life, then wouldn't Gaia prefer to have as little life as possible to muck up her surface and disrupt the environment? I remember that humans aren't the only animal species to radically change the surface of the planet, just the fastest. Gaia might not have been happy at all the plants sucking away her cozy, warm carbon-dioxide in exchange for the reactive oxygen causing combustion and fires.
      
      Silly joke: Would you say that Mount Everest is a giant zit?
      

      • u/DaystarEld:

        If I had to guess, I'd say that the planet gains the features of what's within its "domain."  So when life showed up, it gained some rudimentary sentience, and when higher levels of sentience-to-sapience showed up, it gained higher levels of sentience and eventually sapience.
        
        Otherwise planets like Mars are just floating around with nothing to do for billions of years but feel sand blow around on its surface, and that's just too sad.
        

      • u/ZeroNihilist:

        There's a few possibilities for a sapient planet character:
        
        1. Operates on such a huge timescale that it scarcely notices life on earth. If you're an intelligence that exists for billions of years, a hundred thousand years of humans is only noteworthy when things start to go wrong. This sort of character would be vaguely Lovecraftian (utterly indifferent, making decisions that may destroy us without even knowing).
        2. Has a personal interest in the development of life. Could have any of a variety of goals (e.g. biodiversity, improving intelligence, encouraging life to colonise other planets). Some of these would be better for the survival of humans than others.
        3. Doesn't particularly like life except that it alleviates boredom. Compared to 1, this version would *feel* billions of years old. Sapient life would be the latest in a string of entertainments it creates for itself. Natural disasters would be intentional things done to see our reaction (e.g. "Oooh, what if I have a tsunami hit this nuclear reactor?").
        
        There's probably more, but those are the big ones that I can think of; indifference, encouragement, entertainment. You could add in "outright hostility", though it'd be a little hard to believe that the planet was (a) sapient, and (b) genocidal and yet had not managed to kill us all.
        

        • u/notentirelyrandom:

          Or it wants other planets to be like it. *Gaia* is malevolent and wants to overwrite other planets to make them as Earthlike as possible. It decided the best way to do that was humans. 
          
          The protagonists don't know that Gaia wants the spirit of Mars (whatever it's called) to be killed and replaced with an offshoot of herself. All they know is that the Earth seems to be helping their space program along for some reason.
          
          And of course human time scales aren't even noticeable to planetary anthropomorphizations. From Gaia's point of view, her plan is just about complete.
          

          • u/OffColorCommentary:

            This is fantastic, I really like the malevolent planet spirit take.
            
            I'd discard the "human time scales aren't even noticeable to planetary anthropomorphizations" trope though.  Something capable of working on human time scales will make a better antagonist.  Or to ramp it up, a being that understands time on both human and geologic time scales, and everything in between.  (The additional cognitive resources for the villain seems good for a rationalist fic.)
            
            The exact desires of the planet spirit would be worth getting into.  Just wanting to kill all other planet spirits and replace them with her descendents is evil, but it's also really convenient for humanity.  Story-wise, it would probably help to have some more values mismatch.  Then again, since our entire evolution would have been influenced by this being, maybe it makes sense that we'd be generally okay with her goals.  Which... how do you even fight back against that?
            

            • u/notentirelyrandom:

              In that case, let's give Gaia the ability to comprehend much *smaller* time scales than humans. From our point of view, anything it has the information to figure out will be known instantaneously. And it has a lot of information. It may take it a long time to figure out, but that's a long time as measured in Planck intervals. Humans are so thoroughly outclassed that they don't even notice Gaia exists until some other planetary spirit tells them. So of course Gaia goes public (in a benevolent superhero guise) shortly before then, or long enough to be established as a force for good.
              
              Also, it invented natural selection. Or some other planet did, and it used it to create intelligence. Evolution isn't really a force of nature, just of Nature.
              
              As for why it wants to overwrite its equals, it hasn't really thought about it. The reason, unknown to it, is that it's a weapon [being tested by an even more powerful entity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeds_There_a_Man...%3F)! Too meta?
              
              And *do* you fight it? Even if the other planets are sentient, it could conceivably be worth killing them. Maybe loads of humans are going to die otherwise, and the spirits aren't necessarily utility monsters. Though they of course think they are.
              
              I think it'd be interesting to see something where Gaia's motives are unambiguously evil, the other planet spirits are sapient and unambiguously innocent, with no Kick The Dog moments to confuse things, and the humans side with Gaia anyway. Especially if this is somehow portrayed as obviously right and not even a hard question.
              

              • u/OffColorCommentary:

                The "there's an even more powerful entity behind the bad guy!" thing usually is pretty unsatisfying.  I think it only ever really works as glue for a very long series.
                
                Having Gaia's motives be unambiguously evil, and we go along with it anyway because we have trouble sympathizing with planet spirits and her motives are so convenient for us (we'd like to terraform Mars too), is definitely interesting.  I like the way that interplays with her having had the opportunity to influence our development; what does it mean to make a decision for yourselves when you know your preferences have been molded by another?
                
                I don't think Gaia needs to be responsible for evolution.  Natural selection is a natural consequence of a bunch of really basic assumptions; I'd sooner toss relativity than that one (and for comparison, Eliezer would sooner toss conservation of energy than relativity).  Natural selection does inherently let her steer our development though; she could just repeatedly kill off any hominids that are likely to be capable of empathizing with abstract nature spirits and evolution will take care of the rest.
                

      • u/Drazelic:

        From a geology perspective, Mount Everest is more like... a big toenail or callus?? The zit would be Yellowstone. Let's hope Gaia isn't the type that likes to pop her zits.
        

    • u/Azkabant:

      Captain Planet can be a Scion analog [Spoilers by analogy to all Worm](#s "Starting off indifferent to human values and mostly playing along with the Planeteers, then eventually deciding that humanity isn't worth the trouble as an anti-meteor defense system")
      

• u/None:

  Gaia is the life force of the planet. But Earth surely isn't the only planet that would have life. Just as an Earth organism is a single entity in Gaia, Gaia would be a single entity in Galatea.
  
  Other galaxies are not like ours. Their organisms did not evolve naturally, but were created deliberately by those galactic entities to serve, their thoughts enslaved to continuously pray their god into existence. Every planet with the same habitat. Populated by the same creatures. No originality. No ability to change or adapt. The existence of original life terrifies them - and they take action.
  Galatea's nearest rival is Andromeda, who will collide with and destroy her, remaking her in his own image.
  Galatea thinks so much more quickly than Andromeda due to the originality of her life forms and their novel evolutionary properties, but even that is not fast enough. Our god prays to us.
  
  Galatea gathers her power and provides it to five world-spirits such as Gaia, who can think and act even more quickly, to help her prepare to defend against this invasion and defend all forms of novel life.
  
  Let our powers combine!
  
  Mass.
  
  Charge.
  
  Flavor.
  
  Color.
  
  Frame.
  

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