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From above you, coolant trickles down onto your cerebral tip. Its a little acidic and painful. The womanfolk forced all ships to have more safety features; you liked the old coolant more. You liked the way it burnt; and it smelt more virile and manly.
Shaking off the pain and faitgue, you look around the bridge to see all the components and viewscreens knocked over, your fellow Esaal knocked out or killed; a few roll around in pain. You don't regret coming here; to get revenge on the Hegemonic scum for their treachery. You know the womanfolk or the computers or anyone else would call you stupid. They all think you're stupid, but you know better. You think you might just be the smartest race in the whole universe.
The menfolk Esaal, and yourself, you have in mind a certain concept; a certain way to embody and live one's life. There are other terms for it, but you've always just called it the dichotomy between the <span class="mu-i">modern man</span> and the <span class="mu-i">primitive man</span>. The primitive man, the traditional man, the honest man; this is the natural state that you and all Men should be. It was your birthright, your most happy state. Looking out into the world with virgin eyes that see things as they are; a rock is a rock, not a collection of atoms and molecules. Your enemies are to be defeated, women are to be won in conquest; where one's own strength and instincts give meaning to the struggle of life. You fight when you feel as you should fight, and run when you feel you should run, and be friends with those you like and be enemies with those you do not; and all is simple and beautiful in the world. But at a certain point, where learning and technology and social complexity arrise, where an invisible line is crossed and the primitive man becomes the <span class="mu-i">modern</span> man.
The modern man does not see the world and life as a challenge to be overcome, but various interlocking systems to be exploited. Friends are no longer just people in your tribe; but social obligations and connections. Conflicts are not one with strength and gumption and the warrior spirit, but through manipulation and subtle game-state maximizations. Just like how the robots think. Imagine the mental disease of a person who willingly thinks like a machine; allowing insults to their face as the calculated risk and response is too high. Whose only plan and lust for life is a maximization of their status; if it be thru wealth or accumulation of power not born from their own hand but from layers of obfuscation and creation of social systems to further cement themselves in their rule. The modern man is a state machine, playing the “game” for points, completely seperated from the instincts and happiness of the natural world regardless of their level of technology. The modern man seeks profit for the sake of it; there is no happiness in his victory. Only the slow crushing of pragmatism.
