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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"As I understand it," William said with a bit of a smile, "I am in my future already. I have done all I can since arriving here to learn about the leaps in scientific discovery made since my own time, though I suppose that's not quite the same as learning things about things that will happen to me specifically," he acknowledged. "I'd be curious, certainly, as I do have a rather overwhelming desire to know things. And this person from my future, they would have been brought to my present for a reason- perhaps that reason is to share a specific piece of knowledge."

"And what if they were here merely by coincidence?" Anakin replied. "Or don't you believe in coincidences?"

"I don't as such," William replied. "If the occurrence of an unlikely event is truly a coincidence, then it would happen in exactly the same manner regardless of the specific actions of any involved parties in any number of permutations of possible events. Which calls in to question the issue of agency and free will, as well as renders this entire discussion rather moot, as trying to change events would have no effect."

Anakin smiled. "True, which would make it rather hard on the person telling the bad news."

Ethics [Thursday, September 9, 2nd period]

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