Ranma Al'Thor:  You're going to get this one twice--I forgot to change 
the @#$%$! address bar after I hit reply.  Apologies.

Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 11:23:04 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Ranma Al'Thor" <ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu>
To: fanfic@fanfic.com
Subject: Re: [FFML] SM and immortality , was Stagnant SMoon Writing

On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Aivars Liepa wrote:

Mark Doherty wrote:

Actually, it's a point I don't think I've ever seen raised in 

Crystal

Tokyo fanfics. What was Endymion's words?: "Most people were given
immortality" or something along those lines. If people didn't need
doctors anymore, due to the ginzuisho, how would Ami feel? Sure, 

she

can do other scientific stuff, but medicine certainly appears to
be her dream(not her only one, since she delayed a scholarship to
do some senshi-ing). ... what can a doctor do in a city of
immortals? I've seen a couple of fics where the future Sailor Venus
goes nuts, but not Mercury. That would be curious.

	Immortality may not mean perfect health and invincibility.

Quite.  My own impression was that it simply meant 'no aging'.  You're
certainly not invincible (or the Black Moon Family wouldn't have had a
chance against Crystal Tokyo) or invulnerable.

Im not sure about how it was meant into the SM, but
IMHO, immortals still may have the troubles with health,
the doctors are meant from. And even if theyr bodies is
perfect, what about their minds? All the mental 
problems?

Indeed immortality brings its own mental problems, like the potential 

for

centuries of boredom.

This problem is a major theme of Vampire: the Masquerade:  Once you've 
lived for several centuries, how do you keep interested in doing 
anything?  One answer has been for the Elder Vampires to become 
increasingly perverse, trying to regain some sense of ``shock'' to their 
(very) jaded pallettes.

Also, what if CT is *not* stagnant?  If their society continues to 
evolve, would not the oldest inhabitants eventually become out-of 
-touch?  After all, how many of you have grandparents who can program a 
VCR, or surf the Web?  Imagine what it would be like to be around trying 
to deal with the technology that was created fifteen generations after 
you were born....

	And also, if only to bring in the comical 
element - there was a fairytale about goddess who
fall in love with mortal, and asked the main God
to grant him immortality. Yet she forgot to ask
Forever_Youth, and poor lover turned old, lost his
mind and at the end turned into light...

The old greek myth about grasshoppers is similar.  The poor guy had to
eventually be turned into a grasshopper because he was so withered and
bent, but couldn't die...

See also Gulliver's Travels--One of the islands he encounters (I think 
it's in book 3) has a race of immortals, all sitting around, drooling in 
their laps. 

One last question:  Since the inhabitants of CT seem to reproduce and 
achieve maturity before the age-lock kicks in, wouldn't that mean that 
there would eventually be a bit of a population problem?  Historically, 
overpopluation can only be corrected by:  Famine, plague, 
expansion/colonization (not that this leads to war), or massive 
executions.  In short--the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse. 

Cheery thought, ne?

---Freemage

John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

       Priss smiled.  "This is Admiral Priscilla S. Asagiri of House
Serenity.  Request permission to help you kick some giant monster
ass.  So did this thing crawl out of your garbage can or what, sis?  It
looks like some leftovers evolved into a new life form."

--Dance of Shiva, Chapter 19.

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