Shlock Mercenary

One of the reasons Schlock Mercenary is one of my favourite stories ever, is that while presenting itself as space opera fluff, it detours into some really interesting worldbuilding[1].

For instance, suppose someone goes back in time and kills a famous dictator, and changes history. We've lots of books about what it looks like to them. But what does it look like to you? Do they just disappear, never to be seen hence, nor at the point in history they were aiming for? Do you just disappear? Does you history change to be what it would be in world where the dictator wasn't born, but you were? If so, what exactly does that mean for you to "become" someone else with absolutely no continuity of existence?[2]

Are there other examples of this? The closest I can think of is a GRR Martin short story where it comes up, but isn't resolved.

[1] Although I think like most ongoing works, it is a little hampered by retrofitting the universe as first conceived into a more consistent model.

[2] Subject to the obvious qualifications of "what does X mean in time travel" means something like "how do commonly conceived and written about versions of how time travel would work deal with this question, if it all? are there any relevant speculations on what it would mean? is the question meaningful or not?" not "dismiss the question out of hand because it's pointless to speculate about how fictional physics would work." If you think it's pointless to speculate about fictional physics then don't, but I hate to break it to you, there's a whole genre of fiction about it, and a respectable science too.

Ambivalent ethics in Dollhouse

In Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, there is an illegal organisation where people can volunteer to have their memory wiped and spend five years working there being reprogrammed for whatever role they need someone for (assassin, lover, midwife, etc), and at the end have their original memory be restored and be given a giant pay-off.

Right from the first episode, this is clearly presented as horrendously unethical. Many of the subjects are coerced into it and don't volunteer at all, and even if they do, it's not at all clear that they really understand what they might end up doing, other than just being told "it might be anything".

It suggests that even if people did know and consented of their own free will, it would probably still be wrong, simply because it's so susceptible to abuse (eg. there's no oversight, and no way to retract your consent later). Although it leaves open the possibility that if it were handled fairly, it might be justifiable.

It also muddies the water slightly by showing viewpoint characters with realistic, understandable, human motivations, participating in something unethical for money. People who have read any Shakespeare, or ever glanced at the finance pages of a major newspaper, can hardly be surprised by this. It is in general more revealing to see unethical things otherwise normal people do, rather than having a fight between godo people and demons of pure evil. But some people are understandably upset it shows unethical things without coming right out and making it clear it's unethical, and I'm sure some people don't see it as unethical.

But what I especially wanted to talk about today was the way many of the missions are presented. They don't come right out and say it, but there's an unspoken understanding -- both within the story, amongst the people running this dollhouse, and outside the story, amongst the people producing the series -- that the dolls aren't programmed to do things beyond some moral limit.

They are programmed as perfect romantic companions (including sex), but only with people you can imagine someone liking, even if they're not very sexually charismatic, not with people who seem unbearably creepy (even though they would presumably pay more).

They're explicitly programmed as sexual dominants, but not as submissives.

They perform risky missions, but not suicidal ones.

Now, as I say, what they DO do is very unethical to start with. But I'm interested in the very different ways people react to the difference. Some people feel it partially validates the dollhouse: yes, they're unethical, but they also do care for their charges somewhat.

Others feel it undermines the whole series: that the dolls are in general being put in completely unforgiveable situations, and the series depicting only marginally-glamorous ones, rather than up-front-repugnant ones is just disguising -- without mitigating -- the harm.