#both A and Winnie's parental situations map to real kinds of people I've known

[artbyblastweave]

After three chapters, one of my big takeaways is that Seek seems really conceptually interested in parents and parenting.

You've got A, raised by parents whose superficial commitment to A's self-determination and self-identification are completely undercut by the invasive dystopian cyberware they use to control them, coupled with the (what I believe to be the) implication that the double edged sword of the post-scarcity future is that A's only reason to exist is that their parents wanted a child- spending their entire childhood being shot down any time they express interest in a career path that could give their life meaning outside of that. All of which feels like the logical terminal point of parenting as a vanity thing. Then you've got Winnifred, whose parents are vastly more involved, attentive, and invested- but in a way that goes hand in hand with a sometimes-uncomfortable spiritual and ideological investment, which in turn manifests as a regiment of full-body invasive modifications so that their child can perpetuate and participate in their culture and lifestyle.

Then you've got Orion, whose "birth" is his much more metaphorical escape from the cryopod (complete with associated womb imagery); out of the three he's arguably the most "liberated" from the context of the people who chose to create him or put him in this situation- popping out of his "womb" with imprinted skills and knowledge and only vague memories- but given the overall survival-horror nature of his situation that's not actually any kind of improvement. (It would frankly dovetail incredibly well with the theory I've seen that it's actually an Onboard who's taken control of a braindead human- total hands off parenting, he was put in this situation by entities that don't even realize he's alive.)

All of which is circling and circling around the central reality of parenting, which is that it's not just something that happens, it's a choice, any way you choose to go about it's a choice. And in our current context there's only really a couple ways to make that choice and they're all a few degrees off from each other anyway, so it fades into the background. But in a society with advanced enough technology that you've really got options, the fact that you're making any choice at all- and the resultant horrible consequences every possible choice will have for your kid- becomes way way more visible. Truly, a web serial aligned with my heartfelt belief that We Are Never Getting Out Of Here