Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Well this thread got interesting....

Who wrote the book where Corran had his otter encounter ?

 

Stackpole.

Spoken from experience, I assume.

 

There's a filthy joke in here.

 

Isn't there always ?

 

Transposing this from the ETE thread...

But on that topic (ableism), I struggle with the notion of disabled characters in SW--because between genomics, prosthetics, and so on, there's a very reasonable argument to be made that they're basically nonexistent. It's great to see random outliers like Ton Phanan (and I think there's a lot of room for creative reinterpretations of the "disabled" paradigm), but the only reason I can see for a SW character in, say, a wheelchair, is if major economic disadvantage is a substantial part of their backstory--spinal repair in the GFFA should be tantamount to getting braces IRL.

 

Of course unless they are currently recovering between treatments (like Cliegg Lars, though it seems he died before he could get a prosthetic) or they are people like this guy.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Weston_Warsheld

Anyone else with disabling injuries we have seen seems to really have gone cyborg ( I can really only recall http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stroth who did not get his arm fixed), though I wonder if there are some people who refuse for religious or moral reasons since cyborgs are despised by many (just ask Valance the Hunter about that).

An interesting side note here is Tiranga the Hutt who did indeed suffer a terrible spinal cord injure in his youth and thus is not only stunted but also partly paralyzed, some of the other Hutts thus view him as an abomination to be killed, which is why Tiranga joined a Smuggler organization that works against Hutt interests.

 

Physical disabilities I can see as being for the most part eradicated in some form or another, but unless the GFFA has the best health insurance EVAR, then I can also see it becoming very, very, even prohibitively expensive. Those of the lower economic classes may not have access to the best doctors the galaxy can offer. For example, cloned organs are very expensive, and Zuckuss not only couldn't afford the $50,000 price tag, but he would need to circumvent the law just to get new lungs, as even medicinal cloning was outlawed.

That being said, the cost of repairing spinal chord damage isn't cheap. And if the damage is within the brain, then with the prevalence of mental illness and how it's largely untreated or still stuck in outdated methods (the only actual "treatment" I can recall offhand are shock therapy (used as torture for the most part) and lobotomy (torture again)), it's a fair assumption to note that the brain still isn't fully-understood.

Once again, even if it were, cost would come into play. Someone has to pay for all those cybernetics.

 

That's actually an interesting point in that some minorities can't really be represented because of the mechanics of the fiction they're in. There's nothing that presupposes all the races can't exist in Star Wars, but in most cases cyborg parts/amazing scientific feats can fix and erase the problems that make disabled people not able-bodied.

An interesting question then would be can you cover those same kinds of problems that disabled people face, while also covering the issues and themes that arise from becoming a cyborg?

Are Darth Vader and General Grievous the perfect representation of a disabled character who can kick all the ass?

 

Tenel Ka Djo refused to get a prosthetic arm

 

Worlds in the Ringali Shell are at least mentioned to have public health care, so seems to be another one of those "it really sucks to life in the wrong place of the SW galaxy" things and cyborg prosthetics are usually listed as rather cheap, 2400 Credits (including the operation) for a foot or 3000 for a hand. Plus military does seem to give them out for "free" as we see on Luke, Hobbie and various Imperials.

Though since I just have the guide at hand it can go very wrong....

Being an Alien properly makes it even harder for him, Empire and all.

There seem to be some "cyborg" brain treatments, like that one politician on Bakura got to prevent him from going senile, on the other hand there is Lobot who just had part of his brain cut out to make him more compliant as part of his punishment.

 

Coruscant, touted as the jewel of the galaxy, is a cesspool.

Brain mapping is one thing, as the brain is pretty much figured out. However, problems arise when the brain throws a brand new wrench right into the works. In a galaxy full of diverse brains and pathologies, there's still very much room for error. What treatment may work for one person may not work for another person, and species biology comes into play with pharmaceuticals that may do nothing for one, work for another, and still kill another.

Though, this tends to be mostly the fault of the writer, as "cybernetic implants" are a magical cure-all that doesn't need to be explained. Senility has many causes, and I can only think of a few ways that a "cyborg" implant would help with that; a medicine pump to administer drugs right to the source or some type of stimulant device. Unless it's pumping out new neural pathways to make up for ones lost by lesions or prion conditions, then "cyborg" takes the equivalent of "it's magic, I don't have to explain it."

That being said, perhaps it would do authors well to explore the disabled and ill aspects of galactic society. They don't need to be the primary focus, but an aside here and there would help to further shape the healthcare system.

It would also prevent topics like that speculative topic that went off the rails within the first few posts. Max should've stopped by here, first, if he wanted to discuss diversity.

 

But we're dealing with technology 25 millennia ahead of ours--if we're totally realistic, I think people would be immortal robots by that point, but even allowing for all the GFFA's necessary anachronisms, I see no reason to think basic repair of anything is exorbitantly expensive. What makes the most sense to me is a sliding scale wherein a clunky cybernetic spine (or arm, or eye, or whatever) is a relatively cheap outpatient procedure, again, along the lines of braces--but if you're well-to-do, you can get a lifelike prosthetic like Luke's, or if you're really wealthy, get the bad chunk cloned. That advances the science sufficiently but still allows for the disparities we see (and all the juicy dramatic potential), and the prejudice against cyborgs--it's not a moral objection, but classism. "Man, look at that tacky eye piece Valance got! I hear his parents are poor."

 

Much like marijuana, the GFFA should legalize medical cloning.

 

Well, do we know for a fact that they haven't? I'm not totally clear on that.

 

You could show a character getting up in the morning and attaching their prosthetics as part of their routine, like brushing their teeth or pulling boots on.

If Kanans right arm is a prosthetic, we might see him without it at some point.





Dude might have a stump under there.

 

In the EU was there ever a downside to cloned organs or appendanges ?

 

Neither am I. During the Empire era, it was made pretty clear (at least in OPF and a few sourcebooks) that medical cloning was illegal. However, we know that Palpatine and Thrawn had clones on hand, and the squicky lungs in Death Troopers may have been cloned. For research and general duplicity, there was cloning going on, but for the general public, it was outlawed.

That may have since changed with the rise of the New Republic, but off the top of my head, references to cloning that I've seen or remember were usually renegade projects by outlaw scientists or stuff done in secret.

 

Oh, man, I hadn't even considered that! I would feel so much better about his Cable Arm if it was a prosthetic.

 

In some cases it seems to be religious objection also

 

Cloneing in general was legal until the Empire banned it for none Imperial projects, so if you could afford it, it probably was available.

Not that I know, though given how expensive it is described as they would properly go out of their way to avoid compatibility and rejection issues.

Interesting enough it does actually kind of come up in Scoundrels were various people assume Eanjer is poor because he got cheap implants designed for an Alien after his accident.

 

If there is one thing we know about Jedi swordsmen it is that they tend to wind up as amputees. For a defeated Jedi in hiding to have lost his fighting arm makes a lot of sense. That strapping across the body really looks to me like it could be providing support to hold on a removable prosthetic limb. And it makes more than enough sense that people in setting might not want permanently implanted metal. And the people making the show are clearly a bunch of hippies so having a one armed hero seems like the sort of thing they would do.

(There is a famously one armed presenter on the BBCs childrens channel CBeeBies. I've seen a number of dads comment that she is, er, one of the few things that makes watching the channel with their offspring more bearable. Perhaps not perfect, but I think she has done a fair bit to raise the stock of people missing limbs in the UK.

)

 

I was thinking about this the other day in regards to myself, since I belong to only one minority. As an atheist, I can't exactly expect a lot of counterparts in the GFFA, since the Force clearly does exist and their have been a few pretty solid hints of the existence of some kind of divine beings associated with it.

In fact, the only atheist characters I could think of are Yuuzhan Vong like Nom Anor and Mezhan Kwaad, who obviously aren't exactly the best representatives for well-adjusted and good people.