Our protagonists are Sherkaner Underhill (mad scientist extraordinaire), Gen. Victory Smith (an oophase military prodigy, and Underhill's wife), and Sgt. Hrunkner Unnberby (an engineer, and Underhill and Smith's friend and comrade from the Great War). After the war, Underhill and Smith deliberately conceive children out of phase. Underhill is motivated by a zeal for progress: a champion of plans to use the new discovery of atomic power to keep civilization running while the sun is off, he reasons that the anti-oophase taboo will be unnecessary in the new world they're building. Smith seems motivated to pass on her oophase legacy to her children, and give them a more supportive environment than the one she faced.
-Unnerby is horrified.
+Unnerby is horrified, but tries to keep his disapproval to himself, so as not to poison the relationship. Besides being old war friends, Underhill and Smith depend on Unnerby for peacetime engineering work, preparing for the coming nuclear age. Underhill and Smith name one of their younger children after Unnerby ("Little Hrunk").
+Still, there are tensions. When Unnerby visits Underhill's home and meets the children, Underhill expresses a wish that Unnerby had visited earlier, prompting the latter to acknowledge the elephant in the room:
-Every improvement is a necessarily a change, but _not every change is an improvement_.
+> Unnerby started to make some weak excuse, stopped. He just couldn't pretend anymore. Besides, Sherkaner was so much easier to face than the General. "You know why I didn't come before, Sherk. In fact, I wouldn't be here now if General Smith hadn't given me explicit orders. I'd follow her through Hell, you know that. But she wants more. She wants acceptance of your perversions. I—You two have such beautiful children, Sherk. How could you do such a thing to them?"
+Underhill is resolute.
-> Unnerby started to make some weak excuse, stopped. He just couldn't pretend anymore. Besides, Sherkaner was so much easier to face than the General. "You know why I didn't come before, Sherk. In fact, I wouldn't be here now if General Smith hadn't given me explicit orders. I'd follow her through Hell, you know that. But she wants more. She wants acceptance of your perversions. I—You two have such beautiful children, Sherk. How could you do such a thing to them?"
+[TODO—
+ * children's Science hour
+ * One of the children, Brent, is intellectually challenged.
+ * children are kidnapped, Hrunker's remark causes Smith to grim trigger him
+ * years later, Smith admits that she feels about living through the dark as he does
+]
+
+Every improvement is a necessarily a change, but _not every change is an improvement_.
projects / Ultimately_Untrue_Thought.git / blobdiff