fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, September 9, 2nd period]

"As you might remember from the syllabus I handed out last week," Anakin said as he leaned against his desk, "today's topic is lying. In Fandom, where multiple timelines meet and mingle, lying can be a terribly complex subject."

He gazed around the room. "We have students here from different centuries who by stepping foot onto the island learn immediately about electricity, electronics and reality television. Depending on societies they arrive from, they could learn about guns--or even the very concept of war--and change their worlds irrevocably."

Anakin began pacing. "Sometimes the situation is even more specific. Several years ago, a student arrived here who I knew--but I knew him as a Jedi Master I'd met when I was a small child. I also knew that his death, at least in my timeline, had been a violent one. A teacher I had used to say that the future is constantly in motion, but my experience with multiple timelines seems to show that certain large, galaxy changing events tend to stay constant. Did I have an obligation to tell this student about his future? Or do I respect his timeline and his ability to make his own decisions?"

He sat back down. "The questions today are these: if you have knowledge of the future, what parts would you lie about--even through omission--from someone further behind in the timeline? And if you met someone from your future, would you want to know anything about what you might face someday? Would you respect them for not telling you everything? Or even anything?"

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//I do have knowledge of th'future events of a few people I've run into, at least so far,// Jonothon admitted. //But none of them have ever really asked about any of it. I wouldn't know what good telling them any of it might do, at any rate. Why haunt them with possibilities, if it turns out there's nothing to be done to change any of it?//

Anakin nodded. "And by running headlong into the future intent on changing things, you can make things much worse," he said.

Not that he'd ever done such a thing. Twice. Ahem.

Jono considered that for a moment, and then gave a nod, perhaps a touch uneasily.

//And if you've been in th'past, and saw an opportunity to circumvent something... big. If only for a short while. And if you happened to act on that without thinking,// he said, hedging in on something that he'd done at one point more by reflex than anything. //Come to think of it, and all.//

Never mind that the fact that he'd been involved in a diamond heist at the time was a bit ethically unsound all on its own, there...

//Would that be so terrible?//

Jono, you're contradicting yourself, now.

"It depends," Anakin said thoughtfully. "I've never gone back in time like that, but I'd think that by shifting something in the past, you might go back to a completely different future."

//Nothing has changed, so far as I can tell,// Jono admitted, thus taking his question clear out of the realm of hypothetical, screw it. //But that only pulls completely alternate realities into the question from there, I suppose.//

Anakin nodded. "There was a Force technique called flow-walking," he said, though he only knew of it in the hypothetical, "where you could go back to the past. Your interactions didn't change anything except in your own memories."

//Perhaps,// Jono replied, shifting his weight a little in his seat. //I suppose time will tell what effect it might have had on th'timeline of th'person whose present I was in at th'time.//

"That's the other kicker," Anakin said sympathetically. "When you tell them, or change something, you keep waiting to see if it shifts anything for better or worse."

"Would you tell them if they asked?" Azula asked, curious.

//I suppose that would depend on the situation,// Jono replied, after a moment's thought. //Saying something like, 'yes, someday I'll work with you,' is one thing. Telling a person about something that might haunt them for years or even decades... That would be bloody unfair to them, I think.//

That depended on point of view. Being unfair to people was something she excelled in if it suited her purposes.

But she was curious. "Never ever? What if that person was an enemy? Would you tell them that they would suffer a gruesome end?"

Jono's eyebrows quirked up at that.

//To what end? If they're an enemy, I don't know that I'd want to give them th'warning, either. People tend to do terrible things out of spite, when they know that they've got nothing left to lose.//

"True or they would just laugh." Azula shrugged. "But if they were smart they would use that information against you. No matter, I was simply curious."

Ethics [Thursday, September 9, 2nd period]

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