Bechimo
In which Bechimo is unhappy.
My immediate reaction to Theo wondering why Val Con wants a future for Free Intelligences was “You have met Jeeves, haven’t you?” But I suppose that’s not a full answer; after all, Jeeves already had a specific judgement recognising him, so the new broader judgement might not make a lot of difference to him personally. But he’s not the only Free Intelligence Val Con knows; for one, there’s Tocohl. Come to think of it, I don’t think Theo knows about Tocohl yet.
I think Bechimo has more of a point than Theo’s granting him. It’s not just a question of whether they might be split up (which I don’t believe Val Con would attempt to do in any case). By accepting a place in the family, Theo’s accepted a responsibility to the family, and allowed a possibility that at some future point she may be faced with a decision between her responsibility to her family and her responsibility to her ship. In a way, though, that’s just life; unless you actively cut yourself off from the world, you’ll always have different responsibilities that might conflict. Negotiating those conflicts is one of the things the Liadens have melant’i for.
But it’s still a significant responsibilty to take on, and one that they’re both going to have to live with. Possibly what’s really bugging Bechimo isn’t the decision Theo made, but the way she made it: immediately and without thinking to ask Bechimo what he thought.
Well, if I may compare the bonded relationship to a marriage, not only did Theo suddenly gain a family without consulting Bechimo, but also her commitment to Korval has—indirectly—committed Him to an ongoing relationship with Korval, a relationship that may require him to continue assisting Korval. In fact, if we think through this bonded relationship, what are the further ramifications of this judgment of AIs as “persons” when the AI is bonded to a human?
@Val Cons offer of family
It might be too early to see where the authors are going with this.
Right know I have difficulties puzzling out on what levels the offer Family differs from Clan.
For Theo the emotional contend of Clan and Family are quite different. But for Val Con?
Theo doesn’t automatically get to read the diaries. Anhing else?
Finance and helping each other out seems to be similar to Clan.
@ Future for AIs
My immediate reaction was – hasn’t Val Con said that the relationship between AIs and humans is symbiotic. So I don’t really get why Theo is wandering about his readiness to pick up this question. Do I miss something?
I’m mainly with Othin here. I think Theo thinks she has accepted a moral duty to help out family members, whereas Val Con thinks she has agreed to something much closer to a clan members duty to obey the Delm for the good of the clan.
But I also think that this probably won’t matter. In practise, Val Con is unlikely to ask/tell her to do something to which she objects, so (assuming we are right about the disagreement) it will probably not be brought into the open.
On the question of whether she should have discussed it with Bechimo before agreeing, having never been married I’m not in the best position to judge, but I think that (if I have assessed her understanding correctly then) she is correct: all she has done is formally acknowledge a moral duty that she would have felt anyway.