EMBRYON artwork interpretations
===============================
Glorifies it really a nazi/"master race" ideology???
(German censorship & cloning)


  Shiva wrote (Aug 23, 2001 05:12 p.m., on a Shiva site message board):
  Actually, I thought it was funny a german redid Embroyon (One of my favorite
  games) as I seem to remember the game almost being banned in Germany because
  of the blackglass and theme. Some people said it promoted a "new master race"
  and were uneasy about it. 

  Of course, some people have the right to be sensitive, but it's also a case of
  some people getting a life as well, it's only a game after all, and there was
  no intent by Bally.


Does anybody know more about this story? Did the BPjS really plan to censor
(called "indizieren"(="indexing") in Germany) the artwork? 

"Indizieren" means that a game is forbidden to be advertized and to be played,
showed or sold to people <18 years.At its beginning the German videogame
censorship anyway did many very questionable censorships.E.g. they banned 
Activision's "River Raid"(because it's a war game) and they also first banned
"Ghost'n'Goblins",because it has a story about zombie killing (which was enough
for them to treat it equal with chainsaw zombie masacre movies) - later they
uncensored this game again.(Nowadays most bloody ego-shooters/men-killing games
and all genuine neo-nazi propaganda games become "indexed",but fortunately not
blindly everything only roughly related to shooting anymore.)

"Embryon" is IMO one of those pinball machines with the most beautiful and
unique backglass pictures - a modern genesis fantasy that can be regarded
as the cyberage's equivalent to the classical painting "Birth of the Venus".

The Embryon artwork perhaps glorifies genetic engineering/cloning and may be a
man's fantasy (but IMO there are way worse and more machoish pictures) but I
don't see in it anything even remotely nazi-like.

It looks to me rather like something inspired by latex trance paintings. The
strange suit of the engineer(?) looks a bit (not exactly) like an early
prototype of a psychedelic latex suit with a red chakra stimulation unit (that
has a row of sonotrodes (tiny loudspeakes) on the chest),and also the dark
glasses remind to an opto-acoustical mind machine.Even the hood/helmet may be
an EEG bio-feedback device.In rubberist psychedelic technology there are
inflatable rebirthing machines of latex in those someone can meditate in
completely decoupled state - e.g. in therapeutical applications to overcome ones
birth trauma,for superlearning or to experiment with out-of-body experiences.
These machines function (much simplified) like a cross of sensory deprivation
tank and shamanic sweat hut.Some versions have the shape of a large,2 walled
globe;the person inside wears a breath mask with a hose to the outside for air
supply. Although these devices are not transparent and look different than the
fantasy picture of Embryon,they may have been the inspiration for it.

Possibly the aversion against the backglass picture may have to do with that
Germany has an "embryo protection law" that yet strictly forbids any "consuming
use" of embryos for research and that also forbids cloning human beings.But today
certainly nobody here would come in mind anymore to "index" this picture;in SF
movies,tekkno flyers and the like there are lots of other clone fantasy pictures
around.Even heroic men pictures in a style like once created by Hitler's female
propaganda movie maker Leni Riefenstahl are available again;e.g. the German TV
station SAT1 has an animated intro for cinema movies that shows multiple flying,
golden shining,idealized ladies in dresses with the hands errected at the "sun"
of a SAT1 logo in the "Lichtgebet" (light prayer) posture - a typical quotation
of Leni Riefenstahl's estheticism.

Interesting is that Hitler in the later years claimed to exterminate the Jews
because the Jewish Zionist intention would be to become a suprerior "master 
race",while in reality vice versa the Zionism had previously stolen this idea
from nobody else than Hitler himself.Nowadays of all just Israel is one of the
very few nations in the world those don't ban the research on embryo cells and
cloning yet (also because the Jews believe that a embryo receives its soul from
God not until the 40th day of pregnancy).

Nowadays where cloning becomes possible (which was not the case when Embryon
was created),also here in Germany there are many discussions on TV now what the
chances and risks of cloned/genetically upgraded human beings would be.But
that the Raelists (with their company Clone-Aid.com) already now plan to
commercially clone people is not good at all and will likely result in severe
sufferance - not least because the technology is so faulty yet that a very 
high amount of freaks and dead-born babies will be the unavoidable result.Here
is what Logologie says about cloning:


  Q:Does the Logologian term "human perfectation" include intentions of bree-
  ding a race of genetically modified or cloned human beings?

  No.
  Besides technical problems the present mankind would not be wise enough yet
  to apply such technologies in reasonable ways,therefore(independent from any
  motivation) it would much rather lead to a fatal desaster than to make this
  mankind benefit from messing around with its own genome.Possibly in 200
  years the human race might be mature enough to decide about its own genetic
  future,but the present one with all its ferengiish egoism and warfare minis-
  tries definitely isn't.

  Beside this,to clone a race wouldn't help at all here.Monocultures of any
  kinds are bad;they hinder evolution and though prevent any further develop-
  ment.(Even simplest computer simulations with genetic algorithms prove
  this.)

Imagine the mankind would be replaced by a dictatorship's cloned "superior
master race" and then die out by the next new kind of flu - a cloned race of
identical beings would not only be terribly boring,but likely also end up in 
a disaster.

a genetic future prohecy...

But however,I am sure that already in the near future clone tourism will come
into being on this planet - much like today there is abortion tourism.And I
prophesy that so far the present form of capitalism with all its meaningless
vanity and egoistic machismo really persist and the mankind survives it,then
future generations will start to genetically alter the appearance of their
children - not as a planned "master race" or anything the like,but simply as
a banal status symbol to boast with.Much like nowadays most common herd people
already have begun to accept it as something completely "normal" that some
people take the right to mutilate their own body with so-called "beauty" sur-
gery,body piercings or tattoos (and thus short-circuit their nervous system
which damages the connection to cosmic consciousness),just to boast with it
or claim to be "individual"(instead of daring to have an individual oppinion),
though future generations will take the right to design their own descendants
because they will regard it as an act of creative individualism.

And due to beauty ideals are nothing but fashion and thus change over time,the
human race will unavoidably go through a phase where people will start to de-
sign their children in the same silly ways like they nowadays breed and cross
their cats and dogs as a product of vanity.There will be e.g. children with
green striped skin or spiky,movable ears or modifications those skin can glow
in the dark;possibly also eyes in the backhead will be added to enhance the
viewfield.After misconstructed human beings sue their creators,soon strict
laws will be created those forbid modifications those blatantly cause suffe-
rance (like those painful bodily misconstructions,defects or disabilities
known from nowadays designed dog breeds).Also modifications those favour sup-
pression and slavery (like too low IQ) or those tend to be aggressive will be
forbidden,but there will be no general ban of human gene modification like 
nowadays.After the gene companies will have made too much trouble to maximize
their profits,revolts will occur and the entire breeding of human beings will
be put under legal control of non-profit organizations.

These future people will have an as different understanding of moral standards
than we have in comparison to people from before 250 years.They will morally
ban things the current mankind regards as normal (e.g. brain damaging drugs,
environmental pollution or murdering animals for meat),while other things
those nowadays are demonized without logical reasons (e.g. showing sex in
public?) won't care them at all anymore,because they never grew up with tra-
dited manmade dogmas nowadays people are still brainwashed by,and also the 
neccessarity for families will have vanished with the genetical production of
human beings.

I don't know if I would like to live that far in the future I saw on my travel
through the light cone,but future is not predeterminated;the whirling stream
of time forks into many directions,and the human race can still decide into
which direction to row that rubber dinghy we all live in.


Embryon is just a fantasy from 1981,and it is interesting that there were Ger-
man censorship plans.In 1983 there was also a pop song by the band "Orchestral
Maneuvers in the Dark" with the title "Genetic Engineering".This song had a
very cute and harmless sounding,musicbox-like plinkering accompaniment that(a
bit like "Jingle Bells") immediately stuck to the brain like a track of good
gunk music,but so far I understand it right,the text was an entire praise for
genetically upgrading our children because this would be the only way to sur-
vive or something like that.(There is a very distorted vocoder voice in the
background,which sounds worse than VPinMAME's Embryon speech(also my LP record
is quite worn off),though I yet still couldn't understand what it says.) This
song had one of my favorite melodies,but when as a boy I started to learn En-
glish,I was quite angry about the text,because it happened just upon a time
where in Germany gene manipulation was everywhere publically demonized like
the primary evil itself,though I wonder if this song also was planned to be
put on the "index".
(I am still strictly against gene patents on life and gene manipulated foods,
because such foods are very risky and serve the only purpose of enabling big
business trusts to make even more profit by exploiting or supressing smaller
companies by gene patent monopolies.But due to in medicine genetical enginee-
ring also has some benefits when used wisely,I nowadays don't blindly dam the
entire genetic technology anymore,but only its abuse.)

Does anybody know more about the story that Germany planned to censor Embryon
and if they also intended to censor this pop song? 


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