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Rationales for the Dirty Pair's skimpy outfits: An essay circa 2000, pt.1
🕑 Added 2019-10-10 13:00:03 +0000 UTCStumbled across this slightly puzzling document t'other day on an old flash drive, so I thought I'd post it here. This appears to be a long, rambling justification written circa 2000 for drawing hawt, mostly nekkid young folks in my own notably idiosyncratic version of the Dirty Pair's universe; note that all the material that follows was worked up (or ripped off!) on my own, and has little or nothing to do with the original DP milieu from the Haruka Takachiho books or anime adaptations. In fact, you'll likely see some of these concepts addressed in future SF projects of mine; come to think of it, some of these ideas were already used in 1997's Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone one-shot.
Here goes:
“WHY THE HELL DO THEY DRESS LIKE THAT?” (An attempt to rationalize the Dirty Pair’s scantily clad lifestyle; plus, fashion trends for the 22nd century!)
Needless to say, the Lovely Angels’ choice of what appear to be chrome bikinis as “work uniforms” tends to incite reactions of either contempt or lust from most people they encounter (on planets, at least, as we shall see); also, depicting this choice of clothing tends get the artist of the book a similar range of reactions from the readership…
Anyway, in the following semi-coherent essay, I’ll try to establish the fact that the DP’s skimpy attire is neither unusual nor provocative within the context of the culture they hail from! Really!
In the Dirty Pair’s 22nd-century milieu (AD 2141, to be exact), set in the galaxy-wide “human diaspora” made possible by faster-than-light travel, only about a dozen or so Earth-like “garden planets” exist… and even these worlds are (relatively) sparsely settled, due to biosphere restrictions and such. The overwhelming majority of humanity lives not on these terraformed worlds, but rather on “billions and billions” of habitats out in space. (More likely “millions and millions,” but that sounds less Sagan-esque…)
These come in two main varieties… The most common type, “built-into” habitats, are derived from existing astronomical bodies of all shapes and sizes, from planetary satellites (i.e. moons) on down to comets and asteroids. Initial populations tend to dwell in crater-based pressurized “biosphere” colonies, but over time, as mining for vital resources continues, settlement expands inside the micro-world’s increasingly hollowed-out body as well. Somewhat less common are the so-called “assembled” habitats, which are entirely artificial “space constructions”; these range from modest habitats like inflatable “bubble worlds” (actually, hundreds of bubble ecospheres nested inside a larger, water-shielded balloon) and more familiar, Tinkertoy-looking “space station” constructs to more grandiose feats of engineering like kilometers-long “O’Neill cylinders” and equally gargantuan “Bernal spheres,” both of whose host populations live on the inner surface of their rotating structures.
Hope I didn’t lose anybody with the previous bit o’ technojargon… Anyway, the point here is that much, or most, of humankind lives in entirely artificial environments which bear little resemblance to life on Earth (or any other terraformed planet)… And this reality very distinctly affects human cultures and lifestyles… and modes of dress.
For one thing, in space habitat ecospheres (or on board spaceships, for that matter), there is no such thing as weather. Spacefaring cultures live in the ultimate form of climate-controlled environment, where there is generally no wind, no rain, no snow, no storms or precipitation of any kind (though there would be minor, fan-induced “breezes” for air circulation); ambient temperature, humidity, UV level and so on are all completely under human control. Thus, part of the normal rationale for clothing, protection from the elements, goes right out the window… or perhaps out the airlock, more appropriately. (I should note, however, that certain ecospheres could be set up to mimic particular Earth-like climates, such as burning deserts, stifling rain forests, frigid tundra or even aquatic environments, presumably to serve as ecological preserves for Earth-derived plants and animals; most human habitats, of course, aren’t designed to be so deliberately hostile.)
Next, let’s examine the issue of gravity. While certain structures like O’Neill cylinders are designed to spin in order to produce artificial gravity, the majority of human habitats exist almost entirely in a condition of near-freefall “microgravity.” Such a state allows for much less massive and rigid construction, for habitation in three dimensions, for experience of the “miracle of flight” and so on. The major drawbacks of microgravity, namely the resulting skeletal deterioration and muscular atrophy, are dealt with in several different ways: A) heavy-duty programs of electrical stimulation are used to maintain muscular fitness and combat bone decalcification; B) special “gymnasium” ring- or wheel-like structures, rotated at various speeds to simulate different levels of gravity, are built into most habs, so space-dwellers can effectively “work out under heavy gravity”; and, C) more recently, genetically upgraded humans like Kei and Yuri have been engineered for immunity to the condition of “disuse osteoporosis” that microgravity normally inflicts on the human skeleton.
So, we’ve established that most “spacers” live in a microgravitational condition. Yay. But what does that mean, damn it? Well, it means that a lot of clothing styles originating from an Earth-normal gravity well aren’t very useful in such a state of freefall. Long, loose skirts would come wackily adrift. Terran business suits, and especially ties, would look very goofy indeed in microgravity. Many fashions grounded in gravity would either bag up weirdly, just plain float away, or snag dangerously on protrusions in a gravity-free environment. So, for pragmatic reasons, clothing in space would tend to be either fairly tight (to stay in place), or fairly skimpy (to minimize snagging, drifting, etc.). The main reason to wear clothes would be to have (velcro-sealed) pockets for storing stuff… Hey, look, kids! I’ve discovered a rationale for exploitation! Yay!
Two footnotes on the gravity issue… First, it should be pointed out that spacers are actually exposed to considerable varieties of gravitational levels, not just microgravity. In addition to the higher-gee rotating “exercise minihabitats” mentioned earlier (which may well be where much of the plumbing is located, as activities like bathing and, ahem, defecation are a damn sight easier in Earth-like gravity), people who travel anywhere, whether by spaceship, mass driver or orbital shuttle, are potentially exposed to very high gee levels during acceleration. Spacers, due to their genetic tweaking and high-gee workouts, may well handle these acceleration forces better than planetary humans; in any event, they’ll certainly be used to wild variations in gee level as a part of everyday life.
Second, since about AD 2136 (five years ago, in the DP milieu), the technology of artificial Gravitational Manipulation (or “GM”) has become available to the public, albeit currently at exorbitant cost. GM-field generators, which can induce or negate gravity at will, were initially used to negate acceleration forces in spacecraft (“I can pull fifty gees while juggling! Whoa!”), but have dispersed throughout the human diaspora for other purposes…
A third component in spacefaring cultures’ fashion trends is a mixed bag of psychological factors… First off, the Dirty Pair are part of a monstrously large, artificially induced population explosion designed to spread humanity throughout space, dispersing homo sapiens sapiens in such numbers that no single disaster can wipe out the entire species. Most of the members of this billions-strong generation have been genetically engineered for survival in space; common “genetic upgrade” traits include massively boosted disease resistance, hyperefficient metabolisms, improved muscular structure, the previously mentioned immunity to freefall atrophy, and so on. Kei and Yuri, as products of the so-called “Lucien program” of genetic manipulation, possess hundreds more minor improvements… and they’re considered only mildly augmented by spacefaring standards.
One “constellation” of genetic traits, however, is common to almost all of the different programs of genetic upgrading: namely, that of “idealization” of somatotype (body, that is) and physiognomy (face). Yes, folks, these gene-tweaked kids are almost invariably very, very attractive indeed; every boy a lean, chiseled, well-endowed stud, every girl a lithe, hardbodied babe-and-a-half. Of course, the “ideal” form of face and body actually vary quite a bit from culture to culture (and upgrade program to upgrade program), so the overall population isn’t quite as monotonous as the cast of a typical WB teenpop show… Nonetheless, “normal humans” venturing into space are generally disconcerted by the eerily high level of “hotness” in a space habitat’s citizenry.
Also, the mind-bogglingly huge “Baby Boom” that produced the Dirty Pair and their gene-tweaked ilk has achieved demographic domination of spacefaring humanity; the majority of human settlers in space, particularly out on the frontiers of space colonization, are members of the DP’s vast generation. They’re young members, too, as the bulk of the Baby Boom’s constituents are no older than their mid-twenties (in Earth years). Kei and Yuri, at age nineteen, are squarely in the middle of this demographic curve. (Incidentally, most of these kids weren’t carried to term, but were germinated in artificial wombs, leading others to pejoratively refer to them as “vatbabies” or worse.)
So, let’s review. Space habitats are climate-controlled, so the protective value of clothing is nonexistent. Microgravity dominates, so tight and/or skimpy clothing would be the rule. Finally, space habs are demographically dominated by a single, billions-strong Baby Boom generation of gorgeous, genetically superior young people, a scenario almost exponentially more severe than present-day issues of youth-culture dominance. Put this all together, and you have a recipe for fashion trends and clothing choices guaranteed to shock and appall “normal” (that is, planet-dwelling and non-upgraded) humans!
Whether out of practicality, or out of youthful (generation-wide) sensuality, or out of a desire to “epater la bourgeoisie” of planetary humanity, most spacer cultures would adopt clothing styles that old-school Terrans would find outrageously provocative and daring. Clothing, worn by spacers primarily for ornamental and decorative purposes, serves as a reminder of the separateness of their culture from planetary norms, as a badge of how more adventurous, unburdened and freethinking they are compared to their “dirt-nibbling” brethren. Also, needless to say, there’s a strong sexual component to this attitude, with spacer fashion not only making (cruelly) clear how physically superior they are to “normal” people, but reveling in the display of taut, young, gene-tweaked flesh to others of their generation. Some spacer cultures, I should note, might try to retain more modest cultural lifestyles… though, for example, I’m not quite sure how women would dress under microgravity Islamic law.
(Bonus conspiracy theory: Perhaps the resultant overt sexualization of spacefaring culture is a fiendishly clever scheme, designed to ensure high levels of sexual propagation of the (genetically upgraded) species by keepin’ the young folks all het up, underdressed and oversexed! Diabolically clever, isn’t it? Alas, however, 22nd-century birth control methods are incredibly advanced and efficient, which would tend to undermine this theory a tad...)
So, the overwhelming majority of spacers would, in their youthful, glorious billions, tend to be scantily or tightly attired. Or, come to think of it, they might not be attired at all; if you don’t need clothing for storing items (as in pockets), and you don’t want clothing for decoration, you might just eschew clothing altogether. Nudity, as a result, would be far, far more common in spacefaring cultures than in planetary ones! Whoohoo! Welcome to the nudist space colony!
Anyway, this widening cultural (and, to some degree, generational) gap between spacefaring and planetary civilizations has, not surprisingly, led to the formation of prejudices and stereotypes about each other. Spacers are viewed by planet-dwellers as nubile young amoralists, genetically godlike of body but demonic of spirit, dressed solely to shock and appall, prone to rampant sexual promiscuity and all kinds of depraved debauchery. Needless to say, the spacebred “upgrade youth” is a fantasy figure par excellence in planetary folklore (not to mention planetary pornography). Spacers, in return, perceive “dirt-nibblers” as inhibited, reactionary, and laughably inflexible (of mind or body), as well as physically inferior, fat, ugly, “weak in the gene,” and so on. Needless to say, planet-dwelling humans don’t appear very often in spacer pornography, save as foils to the spacers’ own unmatched youth and beauty.
And so, here come the Lovely Angels, sailing head-on into this seething morass of mutual prejudice and misunderstanding while sporting their skimpy “chrome bikini” outfits. By standards of spacefaring culture, their clothing is neither particularly provocative nor impractical. Of course, planetary humans don’t judge their “shocking, sexist and exploitative exposure of flesh” by spacer standards, and thus get all upset (and possibly aroused). In theory, to be more polite, Kei and Yuri might dress more appropriately to suit whatever culture they’re visiting (and indeed, this sometimes happens); but, by and large, full of the arrogance of youth and the tyranny of beauty and all that, they usually choose to dress any goddamned way they want to. (“The problem isn’t with what's on my body, dirt-nibbler, the problem is with what's in your head.”) Outraged planet-dwellers should be glad that they were considerate enough to wear clothes at all, rather than going about in only holsters and boots… (Well, maybe not.)
Note, by the way, that as of the Dirty Pair: Run from the Future miniseries, I’ve given myself some “wiggle room” on the issue of the Lovely Angels’ scant little costumes. These are now revealed to be made of “smartcloth”, a computer-controlled nanofoam material capable of morphing itself into clothing of any kind by altering its colloidal structure, radically changing its density by aeration, etc. Thus, their seemingly skimpy bikini-like outfits can quickly reconfigure themselves into situation-appropriate clothing, from party dresses and ersatz “bizsuits” to aquatic gear and even temporary spacesuits! Welcome to the future, kids! In fact, in Terminator 2 “liquid metal” fashion, their “smartsuits” are stored as fluids in containers of various sizes: 20 oz. for the standard morphable “chrome bikini” size, three liters for larger-mass versions capable of forming heavy armor, and so on.
So there you have it, folks. The way that Kei and Yuri dress really isn’t that big a deal, at least from their frame of cultural reference. Really! Finally, as this section of my semi-coherent essay comes to an end, I’d like to add one thing in closing to all the close-minded, easily offended, insufferably prudish “dirt-nibblers” out there: NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAA NYAA.*
(*Or, if you prefer: “PPHHHLIBT”, approximating the sound of a so-called “Bronx cheer.”)
Next time around, I'll post the second half of this rambling document, which rattles off a long list of possible fashions and sartorial oddities for the 22nd century.
Comments
Moondai
Love this sort of world building!!
KranberriJam
I love this kind of stuff!!!!! <3
PixelThis
Wow, that's a lot of words
Burninator
Hey, essay’s neat, and I have a few thoughts (=1200+ words worth of obnoxious continuity wangery and stream-of-consciousness rambling). 1. According to the Flatiron Magazine piece you did contemporaneously to this essay, Kei was born and probably raised on a terraformed world, not a habitat of any sort, so she isn’t actually a spacer. “Birth Date and Place: December 27, 2121. Terraformed gas-giant moonlet Niogi” (Ok, admittedly this one might just be a definitional issue, with “terraformed”=”converted into built-in habitat”, but Yuri’s place of birth is specified as being an asteroid habitat and not a terraformed asteroid) 2. The beginning-of-issue blurbs through Fatal specifically mention “more than 3000 worlds terraformed and colonized” in the UG, though with the same “it depends what the meaning of terraformed is” caveat. 3. Cory Emerson is a Lucien upgrade, probably not all that much older than the Angels, went to college presumably with other similarly-aged genemods, and travels widely as a reporter. I can easily buy that she’s somewhat of the disapproving, stuffed-shirt type and doesn’t like Kei and Yuri’s fashion choices, but why, given that she would have seen a large number of her peers making similar or more daring ones, does she seem shocked by them? 4. If the neurovirus from Fatal was ineffective against upgrades, and upgrades are an overwhelming majority among the spacer boom majority, then why would it be so widely effective against the sort of people to be dead-enders at a countercultural shebang like Kei ‘N Yuri Con, who would seem to be more likely to be from that spacer boom generation? (Could make sense that the con attracted truckloads of pervy planetsiders, though, but wouldn’t there at least be a sizable number of unaffected people when the virus kicked in?) 5. Any consideration for how the downstream ripple effects of the Nanoclysm scrambled things? (I’m assuming for these purposes that it wasn’t just something the Central Computer made up for simulation purposes and that the depictions and descriptions of the event in Sim Hell are largely accurate; the way that particular story’s framed makes assumptions of “reality” a bit dodgy. Also, I do have to account for Shasti’s little Planetary Republic of Mars Envoy disguise from Run From The Future if the nanoviruses really ripped up the “inner solar system”, which would include Mars; presumably, claiming to represent a nonexistent planet would draw awkward questions and Shasti’s clearly sharp enough not to do that. My No-Prize explanation would be one of: 1. Actual Nanoclysm never made it to Mars; the news shots from inside the sim in Sim Hell were just of panicked rioting and the definition of “inner solar system” used is nonstandard.{Honestly, it’s probably this one, boring though it is.} 2. Planetary Republic of Mars actually refers to some other planet presumably named after the original.{“Mars 2: Electric Boogaloo”} 3. Some sort of government-in-exile situation) After all, best projections we have would peg the human population as of 2071 at ~9-12 billion, so the “8 billion” that died in the immediate disaster probably reflected at least 2/3 of the human population wiped out in a stroke. I imagine there were more deaths and disruption from rioting, confusion, and opportunism elsewhere as well. Whole thing likely created a nasty generational bottleneck at the time(skewed badly by the differences between those who had chosen to leave Earth and those who wouldn’t have been able or interested), and might be exacerbating the generational/cultural differences in 2141, as it’s quite possible, even probable, that the Spacer Boom generation is the first one since the nanoclysm to know only the stable, rebuilt version of humanity and have no memories of the long-term chaos and hardships the ‘clysm and its aftereffects wrought. Baby Boomers vs the generation who lived through the Great Depression/WWII writ grande size. 6. Also, there are two other issues with the fabled “battle bikinis”. 1. Why is the 3WA, as a planetary-based bureaucratic governmental organization (not a tribe exactly known for being “with it”), OK with the Lovely Angels’ choice in uniform (with official logos no less)? 2. Kei and Yuri face different practicalities than your average spacer; your average spacer presumably isn’t regularly being shot at and thus can ignore armor value in their sartorial decisions. Only in-comic explanation I can find seems to be more or less that the Lovely Angels fancy themselves invincible(“We almost never get shot or anything”) and thus don’t bother with “lame-o” armor unless they feel like wearing a full hardsuit or the like(because everyone knows that chicks dig giant robots). Hell, if the theory I’ve heard floating around the ‘net is correct, Kei and Yuri are subconscious probability manipulators(forcing events so that they 1. Live and 2. Succeed in their mission, with the disasters either coming from some sort of compensating effect or because they believe that disasters will happen) on a level where Kei’s occasional claims to goddesshood are unwittingly a lot closer to cold hard fact for both of them than she might realize, and thus they really don’t need armor.(Fatal’s events under this theory are explained by the collision between Yuri 1’s ability to cheat death and Yuri 2’s copied ability to always succeed at her mission, which is to kill Yuri 1, causing both a weird outcome and even more ridiculous destruction than usual through the “unstoppable force meets immovable object” effect. The vague mentions of a “theory that explains why catastrophe always dogs their high heels” from Sleet and his “partner” in Fatal could feed into this as well, or at least indicate that the BTR thinks something like that could be going on even if they’re wrong.) Alternatively, could also just be the theory you mentioned in a letter column once that any armor short of a hardsuit has little more than psychological value against the sort of high test weaponry that circulates in the DPVerse, so “why not wear a bikini?”. 7. There’s another issue with the whole reproduction conspiracy thing besides birth control, but fear not, I have devised a shiny new conspiracy theory to replace it. Problem is, my understanding of genetic modification is that most genetically modified organisms don’t “breed true”; i.e. Lucien + Lucien ≠ Lucien. Worse, I think there’d be a high chance that babymaking au naturale among the seriously genetically modified could lead to severe issues in the offspring from pairing of recessive genes desirable in singleton form but disastrous in the pair and the like, to the point where genemods are likely “path locked” into needing assistive technologies for both them and their descendants unto the proverbial seventh generation to effectively(or possibly at all, sterilization is not an impossible outcome of certain types of genetic modification) reproduce. So, my conspiracy theory is that 3WA/the UG secretly promote a certain amount of low grade anti-upgrade sentiment among the planet-bound in order to make sure that a reasonable chunk of humanity shuns genetic modification and are thus capable of reproducing on their own should some horrible disaster cut off access to genetic modification technology somehow, lest the species go extinct. (Also has the benefit of maintaining some additional pools of genetic diversity that might be valuable someday.) Heck, maybe the 3WA are the ones feeding those spacer fashion trends through weaponized memes or the like in order to annoy baseliners into staying that way.(Maybe that’s why they let Kei and Yuri wear those “uniforms”) In conclusion, please write more Lovely Angels stuff someday soon. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
Aidenke
Believe it or not, having some thought and logic behind things really does make scenarios that much better. It's a subtle bit of world-building, but it makes the whole world feel more cohesive to see the level of thought that's gone into the design choices.
Tim Price
I was thinking of RFTF in the cultural differences section, so it would make sense that this essay came first. Very interesting.
PixelThis
Interesting read. I agree that most typical fashion doesn't make sense in a micro-gravity environment... though today's yoga pants and t-shirts would probably work just fine, but if you don't have to dress for climate then I imagine clothing would move into just a comfort and decoration role.
Adam Warren
The second half of the piece goes into concrete (if ultra-tech) ideas for fashions in this setting. In fact, I think the essay might predate RUN FROM THE FUTURE, as several of its concepts were used quite directly in that miniseries. (I probably tacked on the RFTF reference years afterward, in a later draft.)
TF Commando
How much more do you have of this sort of essay? It's definitely interesting, especially on the contrasts and conflicts between planet-side residents and the space habitat ones. Most of the stories took place on planets... Plague of Angels was on a typical colony cylinder. Only Run from the Future stands out for its unusual space habitat.
Dave Van Domelen
A) Baby boom? More like Baby Nuke. B) I read the original DP light novel back in college, and the author went out of his way to point out that the skimpy bikinis were worn under a full bodysuit made of transparent armor material (possibly ripped off from the suits in Rocannon's World, I'm thinking). But he didn't really address why they didn't wear more modest clothing OVER the skinsuit. ;)
Alan Phillips
Reading this essay reminded me of the genetically engineered Abh from the anime series "Crest of the Stars" (or "Seikai no Senki" in Japanese) The Abh are actually quite similar in many respects to the spacer culture described here (though they tend to dress more modestly). What's also interesting is how the Spacer/Planetbound divide mirrors the split between urban and rural cultures. As for religion, I suspect most spacers would look dimly on what they would consider primitive superstitions. OK yeah, its essentially justifying why the DP wear bikinis but at least its a reasonable and grounded justification. :D PS: since Emp and Spooky wore DP outfits in a drawing, maybe have the DP try wearing Emp's suit?
Ruth and Darrin Sutherland
Fun read! 😀
