Another year, another perversion of the human form. Upwell's Soul Prisons

As a cosmetic surgeon and dentist, I am no stranger to the variety of modifications that the citizens of New Eden choose to perform upon their bodies. I practised in the Federation for a few years after all, and saw all sorts of… things…

And as a Faithful, I am familiar with the joys and miracles of modern genetics that enable such absolute delights as the Takmahl Mass Cloning Device, and the various other forms of mass-production of cloned beings, Abominations or otherwise.

But today I read that Upwell uses encryption to imprison the infomorphs of their “workforce”, and prevent them from leaving their employment contracts, save on Upwell’s terms.

Well that’s just beyond the line, in my opinion. Imprisoning the soul is a step too far. Chains to control someone’s body ? TCMCs to control their mind ? And now, encrypted infomorphs to chain their very spirit ? Unconscionable, I say.

My cousin will undoubtedly have some archaeological parallel to make, probably Jovian hubris or something equally banal.

In any case, I, for one, condemn Upwell’s behaviour in this way, and would not be at all surprised should it blow back in their face.

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Upwell seem to have taken the leap from property theft and intellectual piracy, to outright soul trading. How long until we learn that they keep copies of people’s psyches? Even if someone manages to escape the chains of their contract, who’s to say Upwell won’t just retain a copy of them, do a little psycho-surgery or revert to a previous backup, and put the person to work again in some black site?

I wonder, do any of these people ever meet someone who seems so very much like themselves? To the point where they would swear they met a doppleganger?

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I do not see how soul imprisonment is occurring here. Whether the soul is present when there is no living copy of a person — only data — is an open theological question, but I don’t see how it matters much whether the data is encrypted or clear. Of course, when there is a living copy of the person, the soul would be connected to that whether or not the backup is encrypted.

The implications of this are both fascinating and horrifying.

Proprietary people. Hm.

It does seem like a form of selling one’s self into slavery, or at least indentured servitude, doesn’t it? “We provided you a new life. However, until you fulfill your contract, your life is ours.”

Even assuming no bad-faith trickery by Upwell it seems a little like some story where someone sells their soul for eternal life. I wonder what the terms are once the contract’s finished.

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Typically, when leaving corporate employment, you are expected to return all corporate-issued equipment, branded clothing, and any other corporate-issued property.

Now what happens when your soul is corporate-issued property, hmmm ?

And for the trade, they don’t even get the apocalyptic power we did.

Second class immortality I say.

How can Upwell be imprisoning “the soul” when the word soul is translated from a word that means “breathing being” / “breath” ?
In any case, Upwell will quickly find that a “soul” isn’t so easily imprisoned regardless of the technology available, take it from a former Sebiestor slave!

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Dr. Valate, that “what happens” is pretty much self-invalidating for the same reason it would be shocking if the pattern held. Corporations-- especially corporations on recruitment drives-- tend not to go for the easy kind of mustache-twirling villainy. It’s lousy PR, and this situation’s queasy enough without it.

They tend to go for the kind that they can make a principled-sounding presentation about that might make you want to strangle them but takes a long, well-researched paper to refute. And then nobody reads the paper and some awful policy just becomes accepted daily reality.

That’s probably more where this is heading.

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Really not sure why everyone is panicking over this. It’s pretty standard practice and entirely benign to everyone but malicious actors.

Taayusaka employs infomorph encryption for a number of our cloned personnel using corporate equipment or working off an accrued debt. It’s really not that big of a deal.

Normalizing slavery is awesome. We are all slavers now.

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So, yes, in fact. But that’s hardly new, most all societies use state-sanctioned slavery of various sorts, though few call it that, and because of this and the fact that in most cases, is is part of the criminal justice system, most people do not object to it.

That doesn’t say anything about if it is moral or not, of course. And many would argue, and perhaps reasonably so, that forced labor as part of penal servitude is dramatically different from heritable chattel slavery.

But yes, slavery in various forms is hardly unheard of outside the Amarr Empire and various criminal groups, despite all that we look down upon the Amarr for their practices.

Of course, none of that that makes non-consensual forms of slavery right.

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This, if it is used to hold a psyche in a form of slavery, is a new kind of awful.

At least, if you’re unfortunate enough to be held captive by the Empire or one of the pirates… you can die, and be free.

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It is a well known fact that whatever technology people invent, first three uses will be porn, weapons, and slavery, though not always in that order.

This has sadly not proved an exception.

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