No One, Anyone, Someone

I enjoy listening to Start of the Week, a podcast from BBC Radio 4 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4. This week there was a woman who has written about identity and how computers affect our identity. We can be no one, just responding to the screen; we can anyone, one of us interchangeable with another; we can be someone, an individual. She also spoke about silicon in the brain and how the brain is able to interface with nano technology. I can't do it now, but it seems a direction to go in when thinking about Star. At some level, Star is not a no one, just a response. Star is more intended to be an anyone, one runner easily substituted for another. As I imagine Star's education, it is clear that this is not entirely true. Its teachers recognized the individuality of all the androgynes, yet there was the programand each runner must complete it. Star was, forgive the pun, a star pupil. What Star experiences now, after having been declared surplus and going out on its own, is becoming someone. Star did that in its own context of both runner and member of The Race. Now Star needs to develop an identity which is all its own without its lifelong touchstones. Being human, in name only, will not be enough.

Old Kelly can help here. She is a Kellen, a race I know nothing about. She has been imprisoned for a very, very long time, so long no one remembers why. Yet Old Kelly has retained her sanity and her identity. She has much to teach Star. What I have to figure out is what Star does for her.