#instance exocolonist

[purrplecatart]

[juteanworld]

What made the Vertumna Group so marginalized on Earth?

Aside from the mandatory assimilation, it was the genetic augments (Continued from the previous post on exo-history)

I have a theory connecting why Dr. Instance became a Vertumnan that connects to (at least one reason) why the Vertumna Group was so marginalized that also is what gives Aunt Seedent so much grief, like having to care over children that have augments like *pyrokinesis*

Dr Instance's wanted to experiment with genetic augments in a way that no scientific department or research institute would let her, so she ended up with the Vertumna Group who had an aligned (sci-fi-esque) "vision", and I think that is partially what got them cast out from society at large, I think (not sure if that was explicitly stated in the humanities lessons but it seems plausible to me at least)

by extension that is then why the Chief Steward has to deal with children that can cast fireball (but, in a sci-fi way)

The many big ethical *concerns* the "respectable" scientists and bureaucracies would have about human genetic experiments as is only got amplified ten- if not hundred-fold by Dr Instance wanting to pioneer a technology to give babies specific augments that were hardly proven to be fully safe yet, and that was for the more benign and harmless-seeming ones like the calm implant where she might have gotten some supporters

But the other superhuman attributes did not go over well, and the animal DNA stuff fully made her a total persona non grata, forever unwelcome with any academic and public institution of note, with even many transhumanists not wanting to side with her (some people of the "I don't want to cure cancer, I want to turn people into dinosaurs" mentality probably liked the idea but would likely only say so in secret)

That she had stolen the machine to create genetic augments with didn’t exactly help either, of course.

The whole legitimate ethics and safety question aside most people in society and especially politicians and many other leaders would condemn it in the harshest possible terms, and either sincerely or opportunistically declare people supporting such a technology one of the biggest threats to humanity, with many more bioconservative centrists and left-wingers joining in on the criticism, even if less vitriolic.

This would isolate the Vertumna Group members a lot and would incentivize the development of their own culture, especially as keeping their own original culture would just become hard, especially if you are the only one with it in the group.

This would have really pushed the cultural separation and assimilation into a new culture forward, like it might have started with the reasons I gave above, as a hard choice (seeing it as the Lesser Evil compared to what some expected to happen), but at that point it kind of might have become almost inevitable.

Notably, though, only one adult had an augment before the Stratospheric took off, Tonin. This seems to show that augments weren’t really widely available until after launch, which means that no one wanted to wait for the technology to be ready and used to have their opinion on it, and that a lot of people and movements might have tried to prevent it from ever being completed and used at all.

As for how Tonin got his augment (and possibly where Dr. Instance stole the technology from), @pariahgraph had some thoughts on that:

“I have my own headcanons on why Tonin is the only enhanced person. Tonin was stolen from a military facility being used to research enhancements for military use by a defector to the Vertumna group when he was a toddler. Because if the tech was out there you know people would be doing unethical military shit with it"

Which I think is possible, if the military doesn't actually agree with the public government position that it's too big a risk. That of course would make the government totally hypocritical but that's nothing new!

With all that, it's not a surprise no one likes to talk about Earth much.

Although it’s not like all augments would be equally welcome among all Vertumnans either, as Pariahgraph explains:

“Considering Anne is in charge of feeding the colony AND all the childcare she should have a LOT more clout than she does

Anne should be allowed to throw a chair at Instance once a year with zero repercussions for some of those enhancements! PYROKINESIS?

Genuinely Instance should have to pull childcare shifts! Then she might think twice about some of those augments. My headcanon is that every single creche worker hates her guts.

Anne should be two people, it's no wonder she's textually an alcoholic!”

[nymphomaniaaa]

Old woman yuri🙏

[namidragons]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Video Game) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Instance (I Was A Teenage Exocolonist)/Original Non-Binary Character Characters: Instance (I Was a Teenage Exocolonist), Original Non-Binary Character Additional Tags: Arguing, Bad Parenting, Slap Slap Kiss Summary:

Theatrical brings a concern to their department head. Instance quite frankly does not want to hear it.

Things get a bit weird

[theomenroom]

as the sole mental health professional on a spaceship light-hours from earth for years, literally everyone else on the ship was a current, former, or prospective client of besk's, from launch day forward.

given that the ship was full of traumatized people already (look at the life on earth timelines, or, hell, just the fact that flulu lost a leg in combat), and that they were doing something stressful and isolating and new, probably every adult on that ship had been through besk's office at some point in the first few years. sooner, if they had any process of regular psychological screening that wasn't delegated to congruence.

if she was going to have a social life, it would be by befriending her clients in a way that stretches the bonds of therapeutic ethics. if she were to have a love life, it would involve sleeping with a client.

no wonder she was lonely! no wonder she was pining after someone she left behind on earth!

she thought having the twins would make her less lonely because that way there'd be a person (two people, but judging by their names i think she found out she was having twins after becoming pregnant) she'd have a pre-existing relationship with so that they couldn't be her clients.

her very obvious cries for help (developing a drinking problem, naming her son after depression, and that's just the ones that are visible in hindsight to people who were five or six when she died) went unheeded because she very likely didn't have the kind of close friends that anyone else on the ship had, and everyone else was used to delegating mental health to someone else. and she was that someone else.

speaking of, i don't really buy the popular interpretation that besk and instance were close (either as a couple or as friends). i get why people ship them; instance is the person who talks the most about besk other than the twins, and they're tangent's two parental figures, but i think the second explains the first. besk looms large in instance's mind because the child she is mentoring/raising is besk's. instance doesn't need to have been close to besk to be what she is to tangent (a thing i've explored my opinions about elsewhere). it makes more sense if instance and besk had a mutual professional respect, but the version of besk i'm suggesting looking for here didn't have any friends on board.

the twins take after her tendency to isolate; dys by running away and tangent by pushing everyone else away, but in both cases they're isolating and in both cases they want someone to find them (dys shows this when he shows sol the drainpipe; tangent has her tendency to seek instance's praise).

dys's tendency to be unflinchingly consistent in his ethical stance toward vertumna's natural world might be him taking after her, but without the social bonds leading him to relate to other humans in the same way (he was kinda abandoned after tangent came under instance's influence), leading to the events of glow 18.

besk was under an entirely unique kind of stress. her former clients (every other adult on the ship) would remain her former clients even if she retired (and that's assuming they accepted her retirement). she couldn't take a break from the fact that everyone around her were her clients. from looking at her kids' friends and wondering how many years she had until they'd be crossing the door to her office.

the vertumna group set her up for failure by choosing to have only one mental health professional around without a lightspeed lag measured in hours for a group of any size at all, and again by selecting someone who didn't bring any family or partners with her for the job. and she paid the price for it, tang and dys got left to pick up the pieces, and the lesson the adults seem to have taken from it is "don't be a counselor"

[pandorisnova]

When you talk about your dreams too much in Exocolonist

[iamverprost]

pov: your daughter just started a relationship in the workplace (deep down you think she made a good damn choice but you have to keep up your appearance)

i'm sorry to repost this but tumblr messed up with my acc :(

[vertumnanaturalis]

Tangent, 35

Tang, 35: Something is wrong but you don't know what

“It’s normal to feel a certain level of confusion after being unconscious for so long,” Is what she started with, motioning to turn off the screens of the medbed. “, especially combined with all the sudden changes in your daily life.

"However, I’m not seeing anything unexpected, medically speaking; your cranial injury appears to have healed without complication, and you aren’t displaying any physiological or neurological signs that have me worried.”

Tangent nodded along to the conversation, but she was having a hard time paying attention with her usual gusto. Everything around her was tinged in a lingering haze of half-familiarity that was hard to ignore. 

Instance must’ve noticed, because her voice grew soft, uncomfortably unusually soft, unfamiliar-familiar, the feeling of wrinkled hands soft around hers, telling her something true and awful and inescapable and she didn’t WANT it to be real and it made Tangent’s eyes start to water and-

“... My suggestion would be to focus on resting and recovering right now - Body and mind. I know you won’t enjoy it, but…” 

-And it wasn’t real. A ghost of a memory of a memory, gone before she could even begin to guess what she could be remembering. But it wasn’t real. 

Not real like the seat underneath her, or the too-bright ( unfamiliar-familiar, comforting, but annoying, but warm, but- ) light pouring in from the alien suns, or the look of steely concern barely concealed on her mentor's face.

“I…” Tangent had a hard time remembering how to use her tongue. Was her voice always this high pitched? “... I understand, Chief Engineer Instance, thank you.”

It was a bad lie, one Instance clearly didn’t believe, but at least it was a bad lie she wasn’t challenged on.

Her arms and legs still felt too small for her body.