[Public | Audio]I've mentioned a friend I once had. He was an idealist and possessed a sense of honor worthy of Pythias or Regulus, a man that would keep his word even if it led to his own destruction
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That's why I wrote the letter then, and wouldn't now. But it doesn't change the validity of the statement.
You spoke highly of your people. Let me tell you about mine as I knew them.
A scientist by the name of Paul Museveni was a follower of the ideals of Nietzsche, who wanted to create the Übermensch. He went to a world with about 3,000 followers. 3,000 brilliant minds and individuals of exceptional ability who all donated their DNA, their research, their architecture, and their collected knowledge into the formation of their dream.
The Nietzscheans I know are pioneers, scholar, warriors, and poets. We were all taught the virtues of enlightened self-interest, to recall our parents not only for their DNA but for their accomplishments. To love our children because they are as much us as a hand or a leg. They're the future personified.
Our Prides were more than nation-states. They were families that appreciated each other for their attributes, and within those families the members, no matter how distantly related, cared for each other. They knew they shared each other's blood. They knew that despite being individuals, they could accomplish great things together.
It was quite a disappointment to know that the Übermensch could once again become that stunted, primitive and savage view of what humans feared them to be.
Nietzsche felt that humanity, at it's base, had core drives. Civilization is what you used to temper those drives, and you established your own morals to function within that civilization. That the civilization gave them both work and safety when they only wanted to play and eat and waste time. The reason you remain in touch with your animal heritage, why you don't disregard it, isn't so that your justified in greed and lust. It's so that you know when those urges are unnecessary, and when they can help you be happy with others.
Those base feelings became a driving force. They weren't human. They were at best simian. Predators that hunt and dominate in troupes. You would be well-advised mind your people so they don't stray down the same path. Those primitive, destructive instincts aren't meant to be negative, they're there to help you love and survive, but they're dangerous when justified by "civilized" leaders.
A remarkably harsh indictment against your own people.
Time Lord culture has been stable for a billion years. If the war with the Daleks couldn't turn us into savages, I doubt there's much of anything in the universe that could short of active genetic distortion. [Narvin still has a strangely blinded view of the so-called "civilized" behaviour of the Time Lords during the war for a man who supported and helped carry out President Rassilon's edicts of executions at home and atrocities abroad.]
You must admit it would be disappointing, to invest your life, your survival into something you knew could be greater. A force that could save civilization itself. Only to see it become nothing but callous and murderous and trampling over the known worlds.
[He's guessing that from Brax that Narvin is also taking the comfortable ignorance is bliss route there.] You didn't see the end of the war. I suspect that if it drove my warden to the unimaginable savagery of destroying his own planet, a man more interested in adventure and handing out sweets, what would it have done for everyone else? Perhaps it's better you weren't there until the end. At least here you've a chance to deal with it with a shred of civilization.
[Narvin's on a long cruise down DeNial. And the Doctor is such a convenient scapegoat] Don't make the mistake of thinking that your warden is all innocence and light. The Doctor may seem a harmless, absent-minded adventurer, but he's no stranger to killing and has little love for his home planet. He's a renegade and an outcast. His actions can't be used as any sort of gauge of the Time Lords' psychological state.
I can at least tell that he has no love for killing, either. Something I don't necessarily agree with, but his stance is rather obvious. The resistance to whatever is inside of him, that instinct I referred to, is there. Even if he has his short-comings when it comes to being civilized.
[Rhade might attack him in the night and cut his hair. This is a definite and real risk.]
No. The Doctor...isn't a natural killer. Or if he is, it's buried deeply indeed. [It's hard for Narvin to admit even that much, because it punctures his mental image of the Doctor who destroyed Gallifrey as a wild and ruthless genocidal maniac.]
Still, he's a terrible representation of a proper Time Lord.
[Narvin would help in this scheme. That hair might be hiding an alien threat somewhere inside the masses of curls.]
You spoke highly of your people. Let me tell you about mine as I knew them.
A scientist by the name of Paul Museveni was a follower of the ideals of Nietzsche, who wanted to create the Übermensch. He went to a world with about 3,000 followers. 3,000 brilliant minds and individuals of exceptional ability who all donated their DNA, their research, their architecture, and their collected knowledge into the formation of their dream.
The Nietzscheans I know are pioneers, scholar, warriors, and poets. We were all taught the virtues of enlightened self-interest, to recall our parents not only for their DNA but for their accomplishments. To love our children because they are as much us as a hand or a leg. They're the future personified.
Our Prides were more than nation-states. They were families that appreciated each other for their attributes, and within those families the members, no matter how distantly related, cared for each other. They knew they shared each other's blood. They knew that despite being individuals, they could accomplish great things together.
It was quite a disappointment to know that the Übermensch could once again become that stunted, primitive and savage view of what humans feared them to be.
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Reply
Nietzsche felt that humanity, at it's base, had core drives. Civilization is what you used to temper those drives, and you established your own morals to function within that civilization. That the civilization gave them both work and safety when they only wanted to play and eat and waste time. The reason you remain in touch with your animal heritage, why you don't disregard it, isn't so that your justified in greed and lust. It's so that you know when those urges are unnecessary, and when they can help you be happy with others.
Those base feelings became a driving force. They weren't human. They were at best simian. Predators that hunt and dominate in troupes. You would be well-advised mind your people so they don't stray down the same path. Those primitive, destructive instincts aren't meant to be negative, they're there to help you love and survive, but they're dangerous when justified by "civilized" leaders.
Reply
Time Lord culture has been stable for a billion years. If the war with the Daleks couldn't turn us into savages, I doubt there's much of anything in the universe that could short of active genetic distortion. [Narvin still has a strangely blinded view of the so-called "civilized" behaviour of the Time Lords during the war for a man who supported and helped carry out President Rassilon's edicts of executions at home and atrocities abroad.]
Reply
[He's guessing that from Brax that Narvin is also taking the comfortable ignorance is bliss route there.] You didn't see the end of the war. I suspect that if it drove my warden to the unimaginable savagery of destroying his own planet, a man more interested in adventure and handing out sweets, what would it have done for everyone else? Perhaps it's better you weren't there until the end. At least here you've a chance to deal with it with a shred of civilization.
Reply
[Narvin's on a long cruise down DeNial. And the Doctor is such a convenient scapegoat] Don't make the mistake of thinking that your warden is all innocence and light. The Doctor may seem a harmless, absent-minded adventurer, but he's no stranger to killing and has little love for his home planet. He's a renegade and an outcast. His actions can't be used as any sort of gauge of the Time Lords' psychological state.
Reply
[Rhade might attack him in the night and cut his hair. This is a definite and real risk.]
Reply
Still, he's a terrible representation of a proper Time Lord.
[Narvin would help in this scheme. That hair might be hiding an alien threat somewhere inside the masses of curls.]
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