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Death in Sindome PART DEUX
It's not about one person.

Back to the original intent of the first 'Death in Sindome' post.

There is an epidemic lately of players deciding that their characters would suicide, for some benefit to their next clone.

Are you really RPing like your character has this kind of brass and disregard for the self preservation instinct? Guess what, they don't.

Are you really RPing like your character is motivated by the kind of heroism which motivates people to go on suicide missions for the good of others? Guess what, they don't.

Are you really RPing like clone-suicide is actually likely to benefit your character's next clone and change the IC situation? Guess what, if I see this, and I don't feel like the motivation and courage is plausible, it will make the IC situation worse, not better.

The human instinct for self preservation and avoiding self harm is the strongest one there is. If I don't think your character has the force of will to do what you're making them do, it's an IC and an OOC issue which will be addressed ICly. Have fun with that.

When I was maybe 19 or 20, I was motivated to rip off my roommate who had fronted me some drugs and I was supposed to sell them and give him the money. I didn't want to pay back, and I had actually already spent the money, so I decided I'd fake a robbery. I wrapped half a brick in a towel and tried to beat myself about the eye with it to look like my story was legit.

I couldn't do it.

I just *could not make myself* hit myself in the eye with a brick. Not for a stupid shitty reason like this, anyway. Not even considering what was likely to happen when my drug dealer roommate found out I had ripped him off. If someone else brings it, that's one thing, but willing oneself to self harm can't happen without some pretty extreme motivation, and "beating someone else to it" isn't a strong motivator.

I know what's likely to come up. We're likely to hear about how there are people who manage to self harm IRL all the time. There are people who manage to suicide IRL all the time.

These are not arguments to support the IC decision to deliberately die and walk off happy in a new clone. People who achieve those things IRL are motivated by much more than... [[the IC reasons I've been seeing]] and the people who achieve this IRL are not capable of acting on some of the IC reasons I've been seeing.

If you RP sending your character into certain death, and it looks like they're doing it for convenience, or if they don't have a RP track record which makes it look like they're capable of world-saving heroism, or if they aren't ICly suicidal from depression, or if they aren't ICly neurotic from ongoing suffering, I just don't see the themeliness or the realism in a RP decision like this.

If the cloning 'safety net' existed IRL, I don't believe it would positively impact the will to overcome visceral gut instinct against acting against one's own health and very life, because the instinct is (as I said elsewhere) is 3d6 orders of magnitude stronger than any intellectual consideration.

If anyone wants to hear how the RL drugdeal story went, I'll tell it.

I understand the death stuff, truly. But, I'm just going to put in here that sometimes it's the difference between dying to change or affect something and perming your character because the game is so restrictive for you that you can't even have fun anymore and logging in feels like a chore you do.

I admit to doing something on shaky grounds but, the next time I tried something, I tried to make sure I had as much IC justification as I could for it. Though, my specific situation is mentioned here in one of the lines so, I suppose it may not have been enough for you in particular and, I understand. Maybe it -wasn't- enough.

As a player it's hard for me to just want to to hide my character away from death constantly. Especially when there isn't any/enough IC info or action coming in from other characters that could improve the situation for my own character. So, my character continues to hide and hide and hide and all I do is log in for my time and try to rally the nonexistent troops or try to plot or plan to no avail. And, nothing comes to fruition because I am so firmly IC that I am trapped in a box with my character and both of us are in a cage because we can't -do- anything about what is going on for one reason or another. Or integral characters haven't been active enough etcetera etcetera.

I don't agree with just dying to get the RP over with and get back to MOOsex. But, I will say that I feel there are some cases where it's easier to die than to be trapped in a box. Giving your character a self-imposed agoraphobia because they can't affect the situation and the player ending up despising their character because it's just not fun to live in the box.

I don't have the experience of a GM or in tabletop games. My OOC plotting and planning tend not to be as clean and awesome and neat as someone with experience in storytelling. It's not always well thought out and maybe I'm not entirely intelligent enough to get my character out of situations. There are going to be some bumps and bruises. But, I'd rather have some fun as a player than hide in a box with my character for the rest of my time.

In the end, sorry if my OOC justification just wasn't enough. Sometimes living in constant fear of dying is worse than dying itself.

The thing with suicide is that for most people, it takes a definite effort to even consider suicide, let alone do it.

Even with clones and knowing you'll likely come back, one might be upset and in a way, joke about it, but not really honestly consider it.

Also, as a player, I abhor that some people are so flippant with suicide in game. It's upsetting, especially if it gets splattered all over sic. Would you be so flippant in real life? A very good majority of people wouldn't.

I do understand it happens, but do consider RP-wise, how the character you're playing would actually handle the situation. The character has a life of it's own and goals as well as ideals and how they conduct themselves in life.

On another note, if you haven't read up on part one, here you go:

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/open-discussion/theme/killing-off-your-character-127/

https://web.archive.org/web/20090523055101/http://www.sindome.org/thescroll/

The archive link has a few posts. Scroll down to Three Ways to Die.

That's it, Crafty.

I feel like these clone-suicides are happening because it's the best idea the player has. But the character doesn't go around thinking "I have a free life" like it's PacMan.

This also spreads into people getting the shit beaten out of them and going to a pub for a pint. The character's health says "deadly wounded" or "mortally injured" and people just act like it is a flesh wound.

Furthermore, people have their ass kicked and act like they still can argue with their assailant... To the point they need to be killed to 'get' the lesson...

Iiiiinteresting. I think I personally disagree with the "it's not themely" argument, though. "Death is nothing but a monetary setback" fits really well into the theme. There are a lot of implications to cloning, and cool things you can do with it if you do treat it "flippantly." For example, somewhere around the boards is the idea that messengers can update, be given sensitive information to deliver, and then killed off so that they don't remember the message they were sent to deliver. Then there are the religious implications of Eternalism. I'm surprised that there aren't more stories of fanatic Eternalists killing themselves and buying new clones over and over again, to bring them closer to Jesus, or of Eternalists going on holy killing sprees to force people closer to Jesus, for their own good.
There is in-game content, call it 'scripture' if you will, where you can learn the Eternalist take on this.
I think that's another side to death here that maybe causes players to distance themselves from the severity of the 'impact' it should cause in their character's lives. It's extra serious roleplay, and can be really taxing for some people. It's easier to reason away how bad it is, and that might make it easier for them to accept it as something that 'just happens', or that dying is simple.
So, someone did ask about the rest of my pathetic drug-deal story above. To recap:

"When I was maybe 19 or 20, I was motivated to rip off my roommate who had fronted me some drugs and I was supposed to sell them and give him the money. I didn't want to pay back, and I had actually already spent the money, so I decided I'd fake a robbery. I wrapped half a brick in a towel and tried to beat myself about the eye with it to look like my story was legit."

"I couldn't do it. I just *could not make myself* hit myself in the eye with a brick."

"If anyone wants to hear how the RL drugdeal story went, I'll tell it."

So what happened?

Many (like 20) attempts to get my arm swinging toward my own face, only resulted in me managing to tap myself on the upper edge of my cheekbone near the corner of my eye. Completely painless because I just couldn't will myself to bash it any harder. But 20 light bonks on the cheekbone near the corner of my eye must have mashed a whole bunch of capillaries, accumulatively, because three hours later someone asked me what the HOLY SHIT FUCK had happened to my FACE. I had the most incredible black eye I've ever had in my life, before or since, and one of the top three most intense ones I've ever seen on anyone, ever.

I wasn't aware I had it, even when my friend told me I had a shiner, so I protested and denied it, he thought I was just playing dumb and actually backed up my story to my drugdealer roommate later: "Dude, he totally didn't want to admit to getting beat up and ripped off." So I fooled him long enough to get myself out of town.

What happened after that was, I tried hitchhiking somewhere else, had no money, got arrested trying to sell even more drugs in a city I had never been in before, and wound up spending three weeks in jail (couldn't afford any bail) in a state I had never been in before, and this was the result of my brilliant idea.

All's well that ends well: I don't do stuff like that anymore :)

Hope you enjoyed the story.

i hear death is just a speedbump in the road of life

sini used to come out of the vats half an inch taller every time she cloned because of a glitch in her clone code.

then she'd be hitting her head on things all week.

As Johnny will attest, Genetek doesn't make mistakes or wouldn't let a mistake like this pass through the system. So try not to work any 'problems with your clone' into your RP, please and thanks. :-)
Complications with your clone could be psychosomatic. Just because they say nothing's wrong with your body doesn't mean your character can't think there is--however irrational it may be. Of course, that doesn't mean your arms will fall off suddenly. -_-
Complications with your clone could be psychosomatic. Just because they say nothing's wrong with your body doesn't mean your character can't think there is--however irrational it may be. Of course, that doesn't mean your arms will fall off suddenly. -_-
Except DCD, apparently that's an error that slips through Genetek's careful hands.
Still no response to stryder's comment? I think it's quite apt. DCD is a major flaw in the clone that Cerberus is saying Johnny says couldn't happen since they don't let major mistakes like that through?

Why does Genetek let DCD happen if they won't let mistakes happen in cloning? If things like DCD are able to slip past their QA processes, why would much more trivial mistakes on clones like a small difference in height somehow be not possible?

I'm only responding to this for new players in regards to DCD since though there wasn't a question stated, new players may not have gotten to the Lore page for cloning yet before reading this thread.

Check out the Lore section on Cloning: http://www.sindome.org/wiki/index.php/Cloning

"Cloned genetic data is copied and re-copied, often in a cycle which degrades the quality of the DNA. This problem manifests as a Degenerative Clone Disorder (DCD). The disorder is mainly a deterioration, or a degeneration of the actual genetic material."

"Cloned genetic data is copied and re-copied, often in a cycle which degrades the quality of the DNA. This problem manifests as a Degenerative Clone Disorder (DCD). The disorder is mainly a deterioration, or a degeneration of the actual genetic material."

Now I'm not attempting to start any argument or anything like that but look at plausibility. If your DNA can get so degraded to the point that it literally begins to unravel in a way that is not repairable by Genetek, would it not make sense that before you get to the stage of such unstable DNA small weird quirks might pop up? Freckle on the wrong side, middle finger slightly shorter than pinky finger, lost a half an inch. Splash of grey through otherwise normal brown hair? These would be "early warning signs" of degraded DNA, as the imperfect DNA would not be repairable that has caused the change. If it was, why wouldn't they just keep your DNA at tip top shape so it could never slip into DCD?

And by "not repairable" I mean that once you have DCD, you will always have DCD, even if it doesn't result in your death.
DCD is a degenerative disease. According to Wikipedia:

"Degenerative disease is the result of a continous process based on degenerative cell changes, affecting tissues or organs will increasingly deteriorate over time, whether due to normal bodily wear or lifestyle choices such as exercise or eating habits"

It is something that takes time and while it can be seen on a number of cells on your body, so do cancer cells sprout every once in a while. While this doesn't mean you have cancer, it also doesn't mean you have DCD. Those cells usually get destroyed by the body's own immune system. Only when something goes out of control it gets serious.

Since ICly the rate is under 0.01% of activated clones this isn't a real issue for Genetek and is under its error margin. It also is considered a degenerative disease (see above) that is triggered by different issues during the cloning process. Since there is also a treatment they scan you for a high number of mutated cells and give a report on every cloning.

But cases of wrong height, becoming mute/deaf/blind aren't in the error margin and shouldn't be roleplayed. The clone is a healthy copy of your scanned data with optional scar and tattoo permanence. The only point where it fails today is the 0.01% of cases where DCD is developed by the host and the next clone activation brings the illness full strength.

fwiw that character didnt clone at genetek
BUMP.
This ending from Soma shows a view of cloning and death that I agree with. Seems to jive with Sindome's view as well.
Soma is so wonderful for this.