Saber Marionette Discussion: What is Mesopotamia's gender?

I remember the great BakaMattSu once mentioning, that one of fanfiction authors he knew once referred to Mesopotamia as female in his or her fanfictional story, while the general opinion it seems to be that Mesopotamia is a male. I’ve made a bit of thinking about Mesopotamia’s gender, and now I’ve decided to bring this question into an open discussion, along with some of my thoughts about this question.

The thoughts that support Mesopotamia being a male:
Mesopotamia loves Lorelei. Assuming that Mesopotamia is “straight” (Ano… it fells kinda weird to use this word in reference to a spaceship, but…), this hints at Mesopotamia being a male.

The thoughts that support Mesopotamia being a female:
Maiden Circuits were initially designed not to create Mesopotamia’s “lover”, but to create an operational system for Mesopotamia, i.e. something like a personality for Mesopotamia. It is logical to assume that Mesopotamia was at least supposed to have a female consciousness/intelligence if Maiden Circuits were designed to create a personality for Mesopotamia.

Unfortunately, that’s about all that I can think of at the moment. I know, both these arguments sounds somewhat weak, but right now I cannot think of arguments that would hold water any better. Either way, what are your thoughts about this matter, people?

 

If anyone wondering, it wasn't me who voted for Mesopotamia being a female, it was an anonymous vote. Personally I am still withholding my vote as I am still in doubt whether Mesopotamia is a male or a female. Either way, in my first SMJ-related fanfictional story, I refer to Mesopotamia as to a male, although I can definately see the possibility that Mesopotamia is a female.

 

Ops!.. Sorry, about this, Baka! I've never visited "Mesopotamia" or "Mesopotamia V" thread until now, and thus, I didn't know that the discussion about Mesopotamia's gender is already going. Feel free to lock this thread of mine if you you wish so, Baka.

 

Female!

I vote for Messy to be female. I base my opinion on the Saber Marionette J original novels (the storyline is different from the anime - see Hanami's saber marionette world for a summary), where Lorelei is actually a marionette who bears mesopotamia's maiden circuit.

In this story, Mesopotamia wondered if anyone could really love a machine. So she spread many maiden circuits (she was the first) over the world. If a man was found who loved any maiden circuit marionette, Mesopotamia would find a reason to live, so she would recreate Lorelei from one of Lorelei's brain cells that were left.

And therefore, my vote is: "female".

 

Well, the most obvious is that the Mesopotamia is male, after all, he chose Lorelei as his lover . And later, at the end of Saber Marionette J, Lime, Cherry, and Bloodberry have to take her place as Mesopotamia's lover , and so, the obvious conclusion is that Mesopotamia is male. That is, unless she's a lesbian. Or, Mesopotamia can be considered an it, as it is a machine built by human hands. Of course with this idea, Lime, Cherry, Bloodberry, and all the other marionettes must be considered it as well.

All in all, I think it's a matter of personal opinion, go with what you believe, and let nothing change that. That goes for everything, not merely the subject of Mesopotamia's gender. Always stick with your beliefs, unless they are proven dead wrong.

 

Mesopotamia is 'it'

Yes, Mesopotamia loves Lorelei but that goesn't make it male. Are every women lovers male? Certainly not.
Maiden circuits makes complete Mesopotamia, but without them, Messy's neither male or female

 

And, you know, Mesopotamia is referred to as 'it' several times in the canon material.

Ie. Otaru: Shogun-sama, I don't think I have the whole picture here. Didn't the Mesopotamia BLOW UP 300 years ago?
Baiko (as Hikozaemon) : No. It lives.

There are others, too. Unfortunately, I cannot change my vote.

 

Mesopotamia is neither...

Ahhh, k. I guess I'll throw in my few cents here. Nothing like the senseless rambles of a long winded bastage to brighten up your day, huh?

Mesopotamia is neither a male or a female. It is simply a self aware entity. The evidence you provided, trying to prove one way over the other, is circumstantial at best. Allow me to explain...

True statement. However, Mesopotamia NEVER RECEIVED these enhancements. It never received Lorelei's traits. It was born a conscious A.I., a computer program based upon logic and reason. It was still learning what emotions were, it was still growing. How can something like that be a 'male' or a 'female'? The creators gave us no indication of what Mesopotamia acted like, or what it did prior to the accident, so trying to base any assumptions prior to the accident is simply making up your own little story and trying to pawn it off as the blessed truth.

This is about what we DO know-

#1 - It was designed to carry Lorelei's strongest virtues as an add-on to its base programming, and to help it learn about its own emotions, but it NEVER received them. It went ballistic above Terra II prior to her completion of the circuits.

#2 - It wasn't very old. It was implied that Meso was a 'new' creation by the child genius Lorelei.

Why do I bring up that second point? I'll tell you in a minute. But first lemme try and wrap up this part about the maiden circuits.

One might argue that at the end of SMJ it absorbs the hearts into its own programming, finally receiving the traits Lorelei originally planned for it.

The only problem with that is (obviously...) the circuits Lorelei originally had in mind and the circuits that were actually BUILT were two different things. Lorelei wanted to imbue her A.I. with the gifts of Virtue, Motherhood and Innocence. That's what the original purpose of the Maiden Circuits were. But she never actually built them. It was the men on Terra II who created the actual circuits themselves.

You can bet your next paycheck they sure as hell weren't designing the maiden circuits to give Mesopotamia "Virtue, Motherhood and Innocence". The purpose of the circuits changed. Instead they were meant to actually REPLACE Lorelei. They weren't an Add-On to its programming, they weren't some "Emotional Expansion Pack", they were designed to replace a living, breathing human being. Hence they never gave any 'traits' to the mainframe, swinging it one way or the other. They were simply replacing the irreplaceable. Sure Lorelei may have designed the maiden circuits, but she never built the final versions.

Now about my above statement- Mesopotamia wasn't very old. It was implied that Meso was a 'new' creation by the child genius Lorelei.

"Wait!" You might say, "Didn't you say that trying to base any assumptions prior to the accident is simply making up your own little story? You're doing that very thing right now!! We don't actually KNOW its age at all!! LOL"

Toot! Toot!

Look! Here comes the Logic Train! Next stop, you!

Lets think about this- Lorelei is a child genius... CHILD genius. Let's go out on a limb and say she's 17 or 18 at most when everything goes down. Any older and she wouldn't be a child genius any more, right? She'd just be a 'genius'.

Ok, Lorelei is 18 years old. Well, she DID CREATE the Mesopotamian A.I., right? We all know that. So that means that Mesopotamia could not POSSIBLY be any older than 18 years MAX.

No, being realistic, I don’t think Lorelei was programming Artificial A.I.'s while she was still soiling her diapers (Please, I hope no one tries to argue this point...). In fact I doubt she would even be PROFICIENT at a computer until she was at least 5 or 6.

Ok, so worst case scenario Mesopotamia can now be as old as 14 when everything goes to hell. That's assuming she writes the A.I. programming at the age of 6.

Highly Unlikely.

I would date Lorelei's age at ATLEAST 12 before she finished with the first run of the programming. Being realistic here, she IS designing the world’s first self aware computer program. That's a lotta code, man. It's not something that can be easily done, even by someone of her caliber.

My best guess is that Lorelei would have finished designing Meso at around the age of 16 or so, and assuming she's 18 in the series, that gives us roughly two years on Mesopotamia before it goes nuts.

Now WHY would I go to ALL this trouble to argue this point? Because it proves this next point invalid.

Great, the world's first A.I. is a Lesbian... Christian fundamentalists rise up against Lorelei and the company that produced her, Liberals and Conservatives fight a messy war over this 'new moral turf', and the end of the world follows soon after. No wonder there was such a mass exodus to leave Earth behind.

Nah, I don't think so. In fact I don’t think Mesopotamia chose Lorelei to be its lover AT ALL. It's scary how everyone just seems to jump onto that conclusion. Think about it man, Lorelei created Mesopotamia. It's only two to four, MAYBE six years old AT MOST. Mesopotamia is a child.

Lorelei is it's mother.

Now to say that it chose her as its lover would mean the first self aware A.I. in the world is not only a 'lesbian', but an incestuous one at that.

:sad:

No, Mesopotamia is a child, and it saw Lorelei as its mother. When the child saw that its mother might leave it, it threw a temper tantrum, and stole its mother for itself. Now, one can't say that after three hundred years that puppy love for its mother couldn't have evolved into something greater, but that's a little beyond the scope (As well as icky). The point is Mesopotamia didn't steal Lorelei away because it was a 'rogue Lesbian A.I., having naughty thoughts about its mother' or what ever craziness is blossoming left and right here. It was a child grasping for its mama. It saw its Mama was going to leave it, and it became scared.

Ever see a child some mother loses in the Mall? The kid is bawling his or her eyes out because he/she is genuinely scared that its mother is never going to come back to it. He's/She's afraid that he/she has lost her forever.

Now imagine how Mesopotamia felt, when they arrived at Terra II.

It was a terrified little baby. Male or Female, it doesn't matter. It makes no difference.

Lust doesn't drive everything.


FINALLY, I feel this last point is worth bringing up. Once more, let's go to the final episode of SMJ.

Spoiler: Cherry's, Bloodberry's, and Lime's last words before giving their hearts away

Cherry: “…Mesopotamia… Human males were meant to bond with human females… And machines were
meant to bond with other machines…"

Bloodberry: "We are the only ones who can ease your loneliness and truly accept your love…”

Lime: “Please stop being so mad… Please forgive everyone on Terra II. In exchange we’ll give
our hearts to you…”

Human males with Human Females, machines with machines. They use the ambiguous term 'machines', not 'Male Machines and Female Machines', like they did with humans. That in itself suggests that they consider Mesopotamia an 'it' rather than a 'he' or a 'she'.

Not the strongest argument out there, but it's one worth bringing up.


Mesopotamia HAS no personality, it never received one. It is simply a self aware entity, yearning for the love of its mother. There is no real evidence that suggests that it is either a male or a female. It's actions are of a child- no more, no less. It chose Lorelei because it was a terrified baby holding stubbornly onto its mother. Like I said, any other evidence is circumstantial at best. The series doesn't give us a solid answer, so we gotta go with what we know, and what makes the most sense.

Right?

I haven't even read the sister thread BakaMattsu posted up above. I hope I'm not ripping off of anyone's idea in THAT thread.


Take it easy all,

~The Wert

 

Wow!!!!

Very good point in there!

I had already come to the conclusion that Mesopotamia was like a baby... aware only of its mother... therefore it shouldn't be held accountable for the death of all the passengers etc etc.

I wanted to make a fic of this idea, entitled "The Mesopotamia's trial", as a sequel of my 3rd fic "Second Chance".

But I never got to write it.

 

Ok, I have more time now to write something better than my previous post.

Mesopotamia already had it's operational system, including awareness, memory, perception, etc., even emotions. It only hadn't defined personality, which Maiden Circuits were intended to give.

I can't see how emotions came into here. How emotions can determine gender? It really doesn't matter, emotions are the same for both genders.

I think it's very implicit in the series, she wasn't the ONLY creator, but she was the one who most contributed to it. We are the base for her technology, we already have 'smart' AIs. Lorelei made the big jump in the research.

I don't think so. What is a child? Childhood, teenage, aldult are three phases that affect us humans. This phases are merely biological consecuences, intended to be for develop a complete human from a single cell. To, at least, emulate these processes, is necessary a very hard work (excluding it's useless). I think it's obvious, Messy and the marionettes have no phases, or only one phase, but it doesn't have a name. What we see is the maturity and the experience the get through the series.

What makes us see marionettes as females? Their Maiden Circuits. Without them (think on Lime), they're not different to other marionettes, they're just androids. As was said before, Maiden Circuits give personality to Mesopotamia. So, without them, it has no gender.
So I stand with Lorelei being loved by a neutral being.

Many questions here have something in common.I think this link fits in this thread: Why the Mesopatamia Really Went Insane
What do you think about this version?
Gimme Cheese Iyast!!!!

 

BakaMattSu knows how to argue!

Ok, wow. This will be my longest post yet. BakaMattSu presented several excellent points. It looks like I gotta stand up and defend myself now.

Body parts and physical characteristics help us to determine the gender of a newborn. What develops in the mind afterward is above and beyond the scope. There are some people who feel that emotionally they are another gender (Drag Queens are a 'tame' example). Does that mean they really are what they think they are? Well, that goes into base topics I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

The point is we identify newborn due to its physical characteristics. Mesopotamia does not have these characteristics. It is cold steel. It, like a newborn, must develop its own emotions over time (as you so put). With no defining physical characteristics and the emotions of a newborn still learning about itself and still maturing, Meso is simply a conscious A.I. What's more is that as a child grows chemical reactions in the body (tetosterone and estrogen to name a few) play a key role in the sculpting of the mind and personality. Meso has none of these. In all actuality it could swing either way. It could be a man, or it could be a woman.

Thank god you found this quote. I was looking for this flashback for a while and I couldn’t find it. Figures it was near the end…

You bring up a good point. She wasn’t the only one who worked on it.

Well, that makes perfect sense. None of man’s greatest achievements were done by one man or woman alone.

However she was still in charge with basic theory and design. Basic Theory being the… well… theory. Basic theory covers the basic ground work upon which the rest of the project is built upon. Basic Theory is “This is how it should work, like this… like this… and like this… So if we carry out our plans in this manner, we should be successful.”

As for Design? Well that’s pretty self explanatory. She was in charge of how everything about the physical aspects of Mesopotamia would come together. She was in charge of its “Design”, I’m not sure how much better I can explain that.

Also, she only said she was IN CHARGE of basic theory and design. Goodness knows if she contributed a hand in any other aspects of its construction.

I think the most driving argument is that even Ieyasu, one of her own co-workers, considers her to be its creator. Since she was in charge of both basic theory and design, I would have to agree as well. She was the one who was it’s “official” creator. Based upon her character, I would say her reply was just her being modest.

…Of course, that’s only my opinion.

Ok, first off let’s look at the line above the quote you used in that argument.

My argument wasn’t that they weren’t Maiden Circuits. It was that (as you put it) their application changed.

One might say that by absorbing the maiden circuits at the end of the first season Mesopotamia finally received the gifts intended for it to receive by Lorelei, there by swinging its gender over to “female”. That by absorbing the maiden circuits like Lorelei originally intended to do, and by imbuing it with her views on ‘Motherhood’, ‘Virtue’, and ‘Innocence’, Meso would become like Lorelei, or at least become female.

But, as you so pointed out, the APPLICATION of the maiden circuits changed. They no longer imbued Meso with those attributes, they (instead) created a silicon copy of Lorelei.

So, even though it absorbed the maiden circuits like intended, it still remains in the middle ground as to which gender it really is. It never received the attributes. THAT was the point of that little ramble.

However I also disagree with the rest of your statement. Though this might be a little beyond the scope, here’s what I have to say about it. I guess you weren’t convincing enough. ^^;

That’s a good argument and the reference to New Texas seems to solidify it. However I don’t think you give her Co-Researchers credit where it’s due. Ieyasu and Faust didn’t work along side of her because of their looks. I do not believe that it would be out of their grasp to modify the maiden circuits from Lorelei’s original design. As a matter of fact, they would have HAD to, because by using her original design they wouldn’t have created the separate Lorelei personality like they wanted, they would have simply added the traits like HER original design called for them to do. New Texas’ problem was that they took the design changes a little TOO far. With something as radical as that design, it was no wonder something along the lines screwed up.

If you still want to argue Ieyasu’s ability to change the circuit to the new design consider this: Could he have really built and maintained something as complicated as those maiden circuits without a thorough knowledge of the circuits and how they ran? Building is one thing, I’ll give you that. Anyone can build something if they follow the plans. But to troubleshoot for design flaws and natural problems that would arise from either the construction process or impurities in the elements they used to build the circuits requires detailed knowledge of the circuits and how they work. I can tell you from experience that it is IMPOSSIBLE to build something as complicated and as delicate as the maiden circuits without something screwing up along the line ESPECIALLY if it’s the FIRST one’s they ever made. Remember, Lorelei didn’t make them. She never got an opportunity to. It was the men below who created the first circuits. Human error and other odd happenstance can NEVER be factored out of things like this, right?





…Continued in next post.

 

BakaMattSu STILL knows how to argue!!

And then there’s this argument. A good point, once again, however personal experience tells me that this is untrue as well.

I am a mechanic on board an Aircraft Carrier. One of my jobs is operating and maintaining high output, turbine generators. I know them inside and out. They are my babies. If something goes wrong, I can tell what it is and how to fix it, because that’s what I was trained to do- That’s what I learned to do.

Now let’s say that, for whatever reason, I had to go to a submarine engine room and do maintenance on THEIR generators. Subs have different (smaller and more compact) generators than those on board an Aircraft Carrier, but the basic design and theory behind them, remain the same. Despite their differences I would be able to do that maintenance on the new generator because of my experiences behind the older ones. They still have all the same systems to receive the steam, spin the turbine, condense the steam and send the water back to where it came from. While different in size and applications the two generators are still turbine generators.

Lorelei would be the same way. Despite the differences behind the design of her own maiden circuit and the ones intended to replace her, she would still be able to deduce her way through the differences and do the job of fixing the broken heart.

BUT WAIT!! Before you go on and say “That’s poppycock! There’s a difference between something as delicate as a Maiden Circuit and something as large and as clumsy as a generator!!” there’s one more point that I would like to bring up.

If I WERE working on the new generator and I came across something that I didn’t understand and could not figure out, I can always go to a tech manual and look up the original design schematics and technical documents on the Generator.

Lorelei would be the same way. If Ieyasu kept the personalities and construction information of Tamasaburo and Baiko (Baiken?! Gaaagh… Too much Guilty Gear…) for Lorelei to rebuild them with, what makes you think he didn’t keep the original maiden circuit design schematics and technical information stored away as well? What makes you think FAUST didn’t do the same thing? What would happen if something happened to Tiger, Luchs or Panta? How would he be able to repair them (or replace them if need be) if he scrapped his own original design documents. Lorelei was the master designer behind the maiden circuits, so she would be the obvious choice to fix Tiger. Otherwise Faust would have to do it himself.


But enough of that… Moving on.

Umm… That was a little sarcasm on my part. To be blunt, I was just trying to be obnoxious and take the idea all the way to the extreme. I’d call it satire, but there was no big, final, point to be had. I was just having a little fun. ;P

Hah! That’s a good point. Noted, my friend. It’s hard to argue with that. However you still leave the possibility of Mesopotamia being a jealous child open by this statement later on…

There’s the possibility the Ieyasu might have been wrong in his assumption, but that would be a matter of pure opinion, and would hold no weight what-so-ever.

So, Mesopotamia may have actually stolen her away as a lover, but the fact that it was a child yearning for its mother “Cannot be dismissed so freely without hard evidence to refute it.” The road goes two ways my friend.

Wow, this is a strong rebuttal, and it threatens to bring down my entire argument… But not quite. There are several factors that dictated why Messie COULDN’T mature as fast as Lime. They are as follows:

Lime was born her emotions in a relatively stable state.

Her programming was different than Mesopotamia. Lime was DESIGNED to mature for a very specific reason. Mesopotamia was not.

Mesopotamia couldn’t ‘mature’ like Lime and her sisters did. She was ‘upgraded’.

Once more I go back to the quote you brought up before.

Lime didn’t need these upgrades to mature and become human like Meso did, and as such she matured, on her own, at a very accelerated pace. Her emotions were VERY stable compared to Meso. Did she kill Bloodberry, Cherry and all of Japoness to keep Otaru for herself?

Lime’s emotions are what caused her to mature so quickly. No one can argue that. Meso did not have those emotions. It was still learning how to cope with them, hence the instabilities. Messie was a prototype unit. They were still figuring out how to create a more perfect A.I. Messie never received those upgrades that would have made her like Lime and her Sisters. In the end that quote above says it all- Messie was different than a human being on a mental level. How about Lime, Cherry, and Bloodberry? It was repeated more than once in the series that, quite indeed, they really ARE human (on the inside).

So, you see, Messie was not Lime. It needed upgrades to begin to really mature like Lime did. Messie didn’t have Lime’s stable emotions, or the blind love she received from Otaru. Furthermore, Messie was not DESIGNED to mature as quickly as Lime did. It appears its designers wanted to control its maturity at THEIR pace by adding programs when they saw fit. As such, it may have been even YOUNGER than even I had guessed.

Good God, Baka, that was an awesome rebuttal. Kudos, man.

Damn near everyone considered Lorelei to be its creator, even her co-workers. Bill Gates is considered the ‘creator’ (or father if you want to go along those lines) of Microsoft. Did he DESIGN MS-DOS all by himself? No, he had a crew working behind him as well, just like Lorelei.

…Actually he didn’t create DOS at all. He ‘bought’ the program from a few people he knew in college, slapped his own label on it and sold it to IBM. WINDOWS was his brainchild though…

…But that is WAAAAAAY beyond the scope.



...Concluded on next post.

 

BakaMattSu is STILL arguing?! That's dedication!

Ummm…. That was me making fun of myself once again… You’re right, of course. Why couldn’t Messie be ANYTHING? Your following statement only solidified your argument.

I agree 100%. There’s nothing to swing it one way or the other. My whole point was that it seemed to be the most logical that rather than lusting after Lorelei, it was like a child yearning for its mother. Any ‘lust’, or the whole “Lover” relationship, would have blossomed afterwards.

Remember, Messie was an emotional mess, so we still cannot discount the fact that maybe it really did want its mother as a lover and as well as a companion. With it’s emotions as unstable as it were it could have very well been a very jealous, very ‘naughty’ child, who was afraid of losing the object of its ‘love’ (however twisted that love might have been) and ‘desire’.

Every star we see in the sky is a distant sun. There’s only a minute FRACTION of them that have planetary orbitals, and even an even SMALLER fraction of those would have a planetoid suitable for sustaining life as we know it. It’s really a “one in a billion” shot to find a habitable planet. I think Terra II was their best bet, and I bet Messie thought the same way. As you can see, life went on just fine on Terra II, despite the plasma storms.

WHOA!! Back it up here man. I’m making no such statement.

What I was saying was that it appeared that almost everyone assumed that Messie took Lorelei to be its lover. Well, to be a lover there’s a certain degree of Lust involved. I’m sure someone can argue that last statement till they’re blue in the face… But that’s not the point.

I was trying to point out that “Lust isn’t the only emotion that drives everyone’s actions”, and that a more reasonable alternative would be Messie taking Lorelei in because it was a child who was afraid of losing its mother. This has nothing to do with lesbianism, please don’t send me hate mail. oO;

I agree, man.

Ugh, to go back into this would ignite that debate about ‘what is human’ and ‘were they really women’ ect. ect.

I’ll just say that no where in the series is Meso ‘presented as’ or ‘referred to as’ a male or a female. It is simply a machine. That’s the whole reason we’re arguing about it here.

Ok, that was poor wording on my part. I apologize. Meso does not have a personality like a HUMAN. It doesn’t have one like Lime, Tiger, Otaru, any of them. Without a human personality how can we judge what gender it is? It makes it difficult. That’s why I’m trying to use facts and logic to build my argument that it never had an opportunity to become male OR female, and thus it is an ‘it’.

Lorelei didn’t consider Messie to be her child. Messie was a project she put her life into developing. Why would she have a ‘mother/child’ bond with something she didn’t consider her own child?

Messie however, due to its age, maturity, unstable emotions and actions, lends me to believe that it was no more than a child throwing a tantrum. Messie had the bond, not Lorelei.

Once more I ask, Who’s to say that after three hundred years Messie DIDN’T mature and learn to grow on its own, even with out the emotions and modifications Lime and her sisters had? Three hundred years is a long time.

Thankee! And I as well, BakaMattSu.

I tried to address each and every issue here, and I hope I didn’t pull any cheap “Dodge the bullet” tricks here and there.

My whole point has been Messie never had a chance to swing one way or the other- to become male or female. And that its actions, that may have seemed like something that would suggest a man behind the glass eye of the A.I., were more akin to a child throwing a temper tantrum- Therefore NOT indicative of it being a male OR a female. ‘Lust’ has no factor, because a male OR a female can lust. A male and a female can also have a female ‘lover’. Instead I draw my argument based upon Meso’s age, which still appears to be rather young, and it’s lack of defining personality traits that make it a male or a female.

Whew. Sorry for all the long wordage. ^^;

 

Attributes... maturing...

I remember there was this case of a boy who was raised by his mother and she dressed him like a girl... so he ended up with terrible personality disorders.

BUT... this is my point: Parents influence on personality. A LOT. Reminds me of that saying that "all girls want to marry their fathers". Anyway.

A mother teaches her daughter how a woman should be. By example, the girl learns from her mother. So she *acquires* her mother's habits... virtues and defects.

So, perhaps the maiden circuits were an example of "implanting" Lorelei's personality on the Mesopotamia. It's the only way to teach a machine about what a woman should be.

Perhaps, if the maiden circuit had been put in a child's body. (And then upgrading the body later to reflect the personality maduration of the circuit), that would be a way.

But the mesopotamia couldn't actually feel anything. Its senses were limited. So here's a theory of why the maiden circuits were designed.

How did the maiden circuits mature? By feeding them with emotions. It would be a simple case of transference... the maiden circuits were INTERMEDIARIES between the love of the mother, (or father ? in this case Otaru), and the recipient (the Mesopotamia).

However, each one was designed to focus on one aspect. To receive those emotions from a different viewpoint. A "real" woman would perceive these three different viewpoints, the whole contributing to her final personality.

So, what the Mesopotamia needed, wasn't exactly a copy of Lorelei, but instead, the feedback of what a woman like Lorelei would have lived.

And then the Mesopotamia would BECOME a woman. In the full sense - at least, emotionally.

Of course, being a fast process, it had to have its consequences.

So, maybe the question isn't whether the Mesopotamia *is* male or female. But rather about what the Mesopotamia was INTENDED to be.

A child is neither a man nor a woman... it's a boy, or a girl. And regarding Bakamattsu's comments about kids loving their mothers... well, we have the Edipus complex, explained to us thousands of times by Freud - don't we?

So, I agree with ... whoever brought this up. The mesopotamia is a child.

 

Rally My Brothers!!

It's good to see, at least I'm not alone on this. ^^; That's a relief...

I understand where you are coming from. The maiden circuits were designed to give Mesopotamia, Lorelei's 'Virtue', 'Motherhood', and 'Innocence'. However that is not what the maiden circuits that were actually built were meant to do.

Yes, the original's "were an example of "implanting" Lorelei's personality on the Mesopotamia. It's the only way to teach a machine about what a woman should be.", right?

But the maiden circuits we all know and love served a differenct purpose in the end. They were to 'replace' Lorelei, not imbue Mesopotamia with her virtues. That was what the big stink was all about.

If THAT'S the case then I would have to say that Messie was INTENDED to be female, because it would have been female personality traits she would have been recieving. 'Motherhood' isn't really a strong trait for most men...

As frightening as that sounds... that's actually a valid point. The Edipus complex is not unheard of and considering Messie's unstable emotions, that might very well have been the case (As much as I hate the idea...). Ugh... :sad:

~the wert

 

Re: Edipus Complex

Killing your father and marrying your mother....

now THAT sounds a lot like the Mesopotamia, doesn't it?

Bloodberry: Yup. That's her.