The Slacktiverse

Remember how I said everyone's crunch time hit at the same time?  Remember how I said this would probably end up being a low post week?  Well that applies to the yet to be started deconstruction round up as well.  So instead I give you a hastily produced effort at looking at a traditional fictional convention from a different perspective.

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So you've just been turned into a zombie.  You're slower, your fine motor skills are lacking, you can neither speak nor sign, your walk is a sort of shamble, but that doesn't bother you, does it?  Because suddenly everything is so clear to you, finally, at last, you understand what this was all about all along.

The answers to questions that you never thought to ask when you were one them come so easily to you now.  Before you took the next step in the evolution of the species did you ever ask why there was never any infighting amoung zombies?  Did you ever ask why a lone zombie might be hiding in a darkened room or stay facing away from lower beings so that they couldn't see it's bloodstained mouth and would mistake it for one of them, yet while in a group no effort would me made at self preservation or subterfuge, only at making sure that some part of the swarm broke the line and delivered the "infection", such a small word for so wonderful a thing, to the other side?

You understand now, don't you?  You're part of something larger than yourself.  You have a higher purpose.  In a group you realize that the survival of the group is more important than your own survival, but alone you have to carry the purpose on your own shoulders, and thus must take more precautions.

You understand why we have to stop them.  They're not just a food item, would that it were that simple.  They're a dangerous and unpredictable food item.  In a fair fight they'd lose, so they don't fight fair.  Guns and bombs and technologies thrown against us when we are content with what nature gave us.

Any attempt to uplift them, to give to them the purpose you have been given, is met with violence.

They wish to exterminate us, the genocidal maniacs, and so we must fight back.  Convert them to our side or eat them, but make sure they're no longer a threat.

So wrapped up are they in their petty concerns that they never think of us as anything but something to be destroyed just because we're not like them.  And we're not like them.  We get things done, we work together.  We would never ruin each others lives for bits of paper.  We would never throw others of our kind to the curb to get ahead ourselves.

We are united by common purpose and absolute loyalty.  Think back to before you changed.  Remember the doubt and uncertainty, never being sure if you could trust those around you?  Remember wondering what everyone's agenda was?  Remember how limiting that was?  Never being sure that your allies were really your allies?  Never being sure that you were all on the same side.

Compare it to now.  You know no other zombie will betray you.  You know that we're all in this together.  We are all equal, we are all one.  United by our higher purpose, our next step toward a more perfect species.

For thousands of years humanity was forced to rely on technology to compensate for it's inherent weaknesses, but no longer.  We've crossed a threshold where we no longer need anything but what our bodies provide.  We are the future.

But also remember, also remember the revulsion you felt back when you were one of them.  When your mind had yet to be expanded and you were hampered by a short shortsightedness of metaphorical vision greater than your current shortsightedness of physical vision.  Remember how you saw us as monsters to be wiped out, disgusting and subhuman.  Remember how racist you were then.  How horribly opposed you were to change and how violent your urges against us were.  Remember the unthinking murderous response to us.

Remember these things because they're what makes coexistence impossible.  Some don't remember.  They shamble up to or passed the lower humans and quickly learn that there is no possibility of truce.  Unless the first shot lands in the head, then they don't have time to learn.

It is true that the first response of most zombies is to try to pass on the gift or, in rarer cases, to feed (the transformation tends to leave one feeling hungry) so there are definitely times when our side strikes first, so to speak, and the response to this gift, or attempted gift, is often a bullet to the brainpan, squish.

But more often the first shot is fired by the other side.  Sometimes from such a distance the zombie never saw it coming.  We don't have to threaten them to be attacked by them.  They are threatened by our very existence.  Their objective is to wipe us from the face of the earth.

After which they'll no doubt sink back into their petty infighting, class war, international war, racism, sexism, homophobia, oppressing whoever they can whenever they can.

But we will not go quietly into that night.  We will fight their attempted genocide of us tooth and nail.  And if we succeed then true egalitarian will reign supreme for all time.  For in us there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for we are all equal, we are all one.  Imagine no religion, no country, no possessions, nothing to kill or die for.  You don't have to imagine, it's already here.  But those who pervert nature with their technology are trying to destroy all that.  They're trying to kill us all, and they make no secret of it.

Why?  Because we no longer speak their language?  A small price to pay for the gift.  Because we look different?  You'll never see a zombie judging someone by their looks.  Because we're an acceptable target and they're always ready to lash out at one of those?  Not good enough.

They fight us with a thousand slings and arrows, they fire bullets from far away, they use fire stolen from the gods against us, they stab and they slice, they bomb, perhaps even nuclear.  We meet them with nothing but what nature gave to us.

We will not be destroyed.  We will not be exterminated.  We are not some pest to be wiped out.

So you've just been turned into a zombie, and now you understand.  We all welcome you as one of us.  We don't judge you, we don't create artificial divisions, we don't carry with us prejudice.  We welcome you as our equal because we are all the same here.  You are our equal, and we are yours, and united by common purpose we will defeat the genocidal maniacs who seek to wipe us out.

Welcome to the community of equals.  Welcome to a place without prejudice.  Welcome to a family that will never cast you out, never betray you, never present one face to you and another behind your back.  Welcome to a place where the answer to, "Can't we all just get along," is a resounding, "Yes!"

Before you were given the gift you probably looked down on us.  You looked at our slow speed, outside of short quick bursts, and found it comical.  You looked at our poor coordination and found it limiting.  You looked at our inability to speak or sign and found it a sign that nothing was going on in our minds.  You probably saw us as subhuman.

But now that you're here, don't those things seem like such small prices to pay?

So you've just been turned into a zombie.  Welcome to the new mother nature.  No more petty bickering.