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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The mention of saving someone from death had derailed William's thoughts a little. He found himself thinking not of the question precisely, but what he would do if offered the chance to travel back to his childhood, with what he knew now of concussions. Could he have saved his mother's life?

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then forced himself to re-focus on the actual question that had been asked.

"I think, if I were directly asked, I could not lie to someone," Will admitted. "On the other hand, as you say, it is important to respect another's ability to make their own decisions. I would not offer such advice freely in regards to trivial matters. But if it were to save a life- I would."

Anakin nodded. "Would it be any life, or would it have to be someone you cared for?" he asked. "While here you might learn of cataclysmic future events. Screaming about them in your time period would brand you insane."

"There are often warning signs that precede such cataclysmic events, at least when they are acts of nature," Will pointed out. "If the right people could be persuaded to heed those signs more carefully, then disaster could be- well, perhaps not averted, but prepared for."

"What about diseases or war?" Anakin replied.

"The science of inoculation has seen some vast improvements in the last century," Will said by way of answering the first part of the question. "And as for war- that would be rather more difficult, since while there are certainly key events that could avert a war, such as preventing assassinations and the like, I don't have the connections to make such things possible." Which isn't to say he wouldn't try, but he probably would stop short of screaming on street corners about it, yeah.

"Fair enough," Anakin said with a nod. "It's very difficult to track back exactly where something slow moving and terrible starts."

Ethics [Thursday, September 9, 2nd period]

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