fandomhigh | Ye Shall Be As Gods?

"I am Dr. Juli Mizrahi," she said once everyone had settled down, "and welcome to Ye Shall Be As Gods? For however long I am your teacher I expect to be referred to as Dr. Mizrahi, or Professor Mizrahi. All I ask is that while you are in my classroom that you treat every opinion with respect no matter how different from yours they may be. In this class there are no right or wrong answers." She paced the front of the room, steps slow and measured.

"I," Juli began, "am not here to judge you. That is not what I am here for, nor would I particularly care to do so. What you do, what you plan, is not my job to criticize. I know none of you, or your circumstances well enough to judge."

"Today, I merely want each of you to introduce yourselves, tell me what you hope to get out of this class and answer, to the best of your ability, this question: What is it that drives you to push yourself past your own limits?" She folded her hands in front of her. "Again, there are no right or wrong answers."

Juli smiled faintly, "If you’ve any questions about the course, either see me after class or stop by my office at any point tomorrow."

[~~Wait for the~~ OCD is up!]

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"My name is Jennifer Scotts, and I signed up for this class because I wanted to understand where I come from." As Jen spoke she stood rigidly, hands clasped behind her back, a habitual posture of attention that one might recognize as that of someone with police or military training.

"I come from a world where genetically enhancing children before they're born is the norm; no one thinks twice before they're consulting with the genetic customization specialists at the lab about what they want their kids to be like. When that process goes wrong, the mutant offspring is an outcast and almost always turns to crime because of it. The police are good at rounding them up and putting them in deep freeze containment, but . . ." The corners of Jen's mouth twisted a little, and she shook her head. "Maybe my parents had me engineered to the way they wanted, but is that what I want to be? What happens when I operate past the expectations of what I know I'm supposed to be? Now that I realize I'm not limited by those things, it's something I have to know."

"We're told, growing up in my time, that it's the ideal society, this ultimate achievement of civilization. But I've been exposed to a culture that people from my world -- from my time -- would call primitive, and now I'm not so sure. Is it possible for a civilization to improve too much? That's what I want to know. That's why I'm here."

A little startled that she'd said so much so freely, Jen sat back down and ducked her head.

"Did you know," Juli asked her, "that the human consciousness is all but impossible to perfectly design to specification? A person can be tailor-made, yes, head to toe, but at the end of it all? If you've designed two people exactly alike, from the first time they open their eyes... they're different. They might not realize it, their parents might not realize it, but in the details they are different." She shook her head slightly, "Free will is just that - free. It can be terrifying to leave what has been taught as right and proper, but only in learning how to exercise your own will can you really grow."

"There is no such thing as an ideal society," she said, "all things can stand for improvement, for movement. A perfect society would quickly stagnate - to be truly healthy society must evolve."

Jen nodded, fiddling with the Chronomorpher on her left wrist and, for some odd reason, the base of her left ring finger. "I always knew there was something off about it, but I didn't want to believe it at the time," she said. "I had to believe I was upholding something special."

Her mind was a little bit stuck on Dr. Mizrahi's words about two people being exactly alike, though. If that wasn't Alex and Wes, and Wes's struggle to get out from under his father's shadow, in a nutshell, nothing was.

Juli noted the fiddling, but said nothing about it. "And what made you believe that it wasn't something special?" She asked, "As well, now that you've changed your mind about it - is there anything that springs to mind as to how you, personally, could affect it for a change to the better?"

"When the organization you've given your entire life to wants to erase your memory of the most important year of your life, it knocks some of the gloss off the illusion," Jen said tersely. "As for how I could change it . . . my first instinctive answer might get a little deep into the ethics and mechanics of time travel for the first class."

Well, Juli had to concede that. "Assuming that you cannot go back in time," she said smoothly, "what would you do then to improve the situation? What is your second thought, rather than the first?"

"I already am back in time," Jen said, the hint of something dangerous flashing in her eyes, but she quelled it hastily. What would Wes have done? What had he done, getting his father to accept the life he'd chosen? She fiddled with her Chronomorpher some more as she thought, then finally spoke again.

"I think . . . a good way to start would be to try and influence the way people see mutants." This was said with a little bit of distaste; she hadn't quite gotten past her own ingrained bias in that regard. "Get people to see that what they think of as perfection is an extremely narrow point of view, or maybe in the long run that perfection is a pointless goal."

"So am I." came the very dry answer, "That your immediate thought was time travel however suggests that a part of you believes that with enough fiddling in time you can make the future perfect. You can't - again, there is no such thing as perfect. Something will always be left that you wish you could change."

Juli studied her for a long moment. "It would be a hard sell indeed to convince people to see 'mutants' as 'people' when you cannot say a sentence without your opinion being clear. It is a good idea, a sound idea - but, in your case, not a viable one at the moment."

It was Jen's turn to concede the point with a brief nod of her head. "The fact that I haven't quite convinced myself is enough to tell me it would be a challenge."

"Rather than thinking of the bigger picture then," Juli suggested, "perhaps you could brainstorm ideas about how to move past your preconceived ideas? What could you do, while here, that might help with that?"

"Patience was never my strong point. I guess getting to know my fellow students would be a good start." Jen hadn't had someone put her in her place as effectively since the drill sergeant all the rookie Academy cadets of her year had dressed her down. She wasn't trying to hold back tears this time, but looking Dr. Mizrahi in the face was still a little bit challenging.

Juli never had been one for softening her opinion to keep from upsetting people, but nor had she been nearly as harsh as she could be. Either way, while she noticed Jen's upset, there was little in her manner that gave away her sympathy for the girl.

"That is a good start," Juli said quietly, "and, possibly, you could try seeking out those who have been called 'mutants' and getting their side of the story. There are two sides to a story, and neither is likely to be perfect. But you cannot base judgement on only half. You seem a smart girl, Jennifer. Don't let that mind go to waste."

Jen appreciated the lack of outward sympathy, actually; stoicism was much easier for her to deal with.

"I'm not one to waste a second chance, Doctor Mizrahi," she said in a low but steady voice -- not an argument, more of an acknowledgment.

Ye Shall Be As Gods? - Class 1, Period 3

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