[i]Incoming message from Cutter[/i] So I showed up about 15 minutes ago. I took Dr. Maxwell's advice on getting an unmodified splicer, up to a point: nanotats are non-negotiable. I'm enjoying the attention I'm getting with them. I don't think anybody realizes they're not old-fashioned subdermal ink, and it's taking me every ounce of self-control to avoid rapidly moving them across my body. This is a sorry excuse for a bioconservative hangout. There's no baton-slapping Jovian thugs on patrol for 'transhuman trouble,' or good ol'fashioned 'hunt the synth' contests. I'm sure that the packaged food in the confection stands came from a nano-fab maker. There's a neo-primitivist stand selling handcrafted goods. "All of our products are nano-free!" their sign reads. Toolkits, artwork, and assorted trinkets can be bought for credits. The lack of mass-production makes even the same types of items look distinctive. One thermos has a shiny copper casing, the other a silver sheen with acid-etched signatures indicating the name of the producer and date of creation. I actually find this beautiful in a way: it has something lacking in the consumer-culture inner system, a distinctive and personalized creativity more akin to the scum barges. They wouldn't view this last bit as a compliment, but I do mean it: if you're in Luna, toss a few credits their way and get yourself some merchandise. There's a woman selling XP in a non-simspace kiosk, the recordings are all in tiny blobjects. I had to double-check that it wasn't an AR illusion, I can actually interact with the table. I better stop now, I'm getting weird looks. She's part of something called the Anti-Forking Union. The XPs are documentaries. Now this is a very interesting subject. There are few things as controversial and open to personhood debates as forking. Even in Autonomist space there are many significant opinions on the issue, but most of those pertain to the 'equality' of beta forks and consent to re-merging. It would be interesting to see an alternative opinion from inner system scholars still living under a government. It's about this crazy brinker fuck who ran a torture palace of his own delta forks out of an asteroid in the Main Belt before meeting an untimely end at the hands of plasma-happy anarchists. That is their entire argument against forking. I suppose gut-driven fear has its place in arguments, but the bias of the narrator just oozes through. I'll upload it to the Mesh next time I visit the Outer System: this thing has to be seen to be believed. An interesting point of note is that most panels are meant to be "flat-friendly." There are free ectos to lend to convention-goers. Physical signs and kiosks are surprisingly common here, and a few pieces of merchandice have software stored in button-operated blobjects. Back to more positive news, I attended my first speech in the convention. The speaker was Hu Jiayi, a blogger notable for her exoplanet excursions beyond the Martian Gate. I always knew that the Consortium was up to no good, but I was truly surprised at the reckless devastation of foreign planets. We already fucked up Earth's atmosphere even before the Fall, and we're doing the same to these new worlds. Mrs. Hu estimated that over 3,500 types of life-forms went extinct as a result of gatecrashing and terraforming efforts, oftentimes even before learning of their existence! I'm honestly not that much into ecologist movements, but the thought of how easy it is to destroy life even accidentally makes it a little understandable why bioconservatives are so afraid of us. I'll be back with more updates, news, and future weirdness!

[i]Incoming message from Cutter[/i] [center][b]Louis Crane's Panel[/center][/b] Louis Crane was sharing a panel with representatives of the Martian Worker's Guild, discussing the benefits of puppet socks and teleoperations over re-sleeving. Crane and the Guild are the moderate faction of bioconservatives, willing to take the lesser of two evils if it helps further their cause. Why puppet socks? Well, the Guild formed from a public protest of Ruster miners close to working off their debt. Their hypercorp employer instituted a new policy to cut costs on food, air, and water by requiring workers to re-sleeve into synthmorphs. This was met with fierce resistance, and the story spread across the Mesh faster than the corp censors could contain it. Eventually a compromise was reached, where the workers still used the synthmorphs, but only during work hours and remotely operated. They still kept their biomorphs, and the hypercorp could still reap a nice profit from synthmorph labor. I naturally prefer doing things the Autonomist way (violent rebellion), but the incident brought up discussion in the Martian Mesh of teleoperations over re-sleeving. The hypercorps are still too stingy to hand out biomorphs like candy, but they also care about good publicity and appearing reasonable when it comes to worker's rights. The more extreme bioconservatives rightly view this as a weak compromise which won't really do much to curb corporate abuse in the long run, but if it means less workers being re-sleeved than the Guild and the biocons are all for it. [center][b]Biocon Synths?![/b][/center] But what does synthmorph rights have to do with bioconservatism? Well, the issue's quite complicated. Fear of being re-sleeved into a machine is a prominent fear, but it doesn't explain the sympathy. Bioconservatism actually has traction among many Lunar synthmorphs. The biocon synths are disproportionately Fall infugees from Old Earth Nations which did not have the full array of transhuman technologies. Faced with culture shock and re-sleeved in an artificial construct, many understandably developed apprehension towards transhuman technology's negative aspects. Double if they were put into indentured servitude. There is more understanding towards infomorphs and the re-sleeved among these groups, in that autonomy over one's own body can be suddenly taken away in the Inner System. While the Jovians can afford to be all high and mighty, exalting in their "pure original Earth bodies" and never having to worry about forced re-sleeving, such haughty attitudes will get you rejected as an anti-social asshole among the biocon synths. Given the strong bonds of community and Old Earth identity, those lucky enough to resleeve into a biomorph still have a connection to their synthmorph brethren. While not necessarily following the "Steel and Proud!" line of some synthmorph rights groups, it is bioconservatism without necessarily being biochauvinism. Discrimination against 'the clanking masses' is systemic and endemic in Lunar society, even among non-bioconservatives. To be in a synthmorph is viewed like a curse: there's a widespread belief that synthmorphs are easier for the TITANs to take over, and the New Mumbai disaster only inflamed fears. Somebody who remains within a synthmorph when they have the opportunity to choose otherwise is viewed as insane. The acceptance of synthmorphs at BioCon was quite a hot issue last year. It is pretty hypocritical to extend open arms to non-biocon attendees while rebuffing ideological comrades in different morphs (through no fault of their own). Even though Louis Crane and his supporters convinced BioCon to adopt anti-discrimination measures against synthmorphs in regards to panel set-ups and hosting (uplifts and AGIs still need not apply), there is still an elephant in the room about this issue. Most people, myself included, assumed the case morphs at the convention were outsiders coming to gawk at the biocons. The discussion of synthmorph rights in a bioconservative context focuses mainly on anti-hypercorp policies regarding indentured servitude, corporate control over cortical stacks, and forced re-sleeving as opposed to the rights of morphological freedom and societal integration. The biocon synths for the most part want to return to a sense of normalcy in their own way, and obtaining a biomorph body (preferably as genetically close to their original as possible) is considered the best road forward. [i]Damn, all this nuance and deep thinking is unlike me. I'm heading out to get shit-faced back on the barge for a few hours. I may or may not come back to the 'Con tomorrow. They've certainly got me intrigued, and I will admit it has been fun. I never thought I'd say that about biocons![/i]