Together or apart, our choice.

For brief two I have been asked to write a list of pieces of media with a theme connecting, thematic analysis has always been one of my favourite parts of media consumption independent of medium of, era and genre, as such the theme I have chosen is different races, be they human races, AI, or Alien and how they treat one another. Mostly through the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Spoilers warnings for all of these.

Number ten: Fullmetal Alchemist. This entry is more about the two anime series based on the original manga of the same name Fullmetal Alchemist which deviates heavily from the plot of the manga it is based on and Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. These two shows take place primarily in the fictional nation of Amestris. Amestris eventually goes to war with the Ishvalan people as the result of several years of tensions between the two. This leads to the almost total extermination of the Ishvalan people. This all happens as the result of a conspiracy I will touch more on this later, but this implies a rather disturbing ability by malicious people in positions of power being able to use prejudices to do truly horrible things. Many characters are shown to have a lot of guilt for their actions during the war and we see how it affects them, showing the damage war can do to its survivors.

Number nine: Star Wars The Clone Wars: Darkness on Umbara. This arc is considered one of the best in the already excellent Star Wars; The Clone Wars. This arc deals with a Jedi General by the name of Pong Krell who has a contempt for Clone Troopers not shown by any other Jedi up until this point. But as the story goes on it is revealed that he is lying to the clones in order to have them murder each other as an attempt to become a Sith apprentice. This along with his treatment of them, in general, shows a complete lack of empathy towards them and seeing them as far less than himself. This is due partially to force powers, but also to the fact that the clones are grown to be obedient soldiers, due to their origin. Even before his motivations and desire see clones die he is shown to have little regard for their well being, taking high casualty strategies despite, or perhaps because of the high causality rate. Eventually, the Clones figure out Krell's plan and go to arrest him leading to a firefight and then to Krell's death. Thus proving his contempt for them wrong and proving that they are more than obedient mass produced slaves.

Number eight: American Gods. In Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods it is revealed to us that all the gods that cultures have ever believed in come to life as a result of the power of beliefe and the power of emotion.However new gods of things like technology and media have come into being and neither feel there is enough room the other, however, all of this is a manipulation by Mr Wednesday (Odin) and Low-Key Lyesmith/Mr. World. (Loki) in order to bring the gods into a war with each other as a mass sacrifice to Odin. In this story, it shows one of the most frightening sides of bigotry, the ease at which it can be manipulated. The old gods are all drained of beliefe and starving for it and the new gods have seen their people die off as a result of things like mass opinion changing and fads ending, however, both sides fail to realize that eliminating the other will not save their own. However this does end have a fairly optimistic ending, Shadow Moon uncovers and exposes the plot and the gods all disperse, avoiding war altogether and leaving it open for the two sides to make peace.

Number seven: Mass Effect. The Mass Effect video game series, at least the first three, I haven't played the fourth, deal with most of the races in the galaxy banding together to fight off an invading threat known as The Reapers, who are bent on destroying all organic life in the galaxy. However, even despite this, there are many tensions between the various races that have come together to fight this threat. Mass Effect also gives the player the option to pursue romantic relationships with NPC's (non-playable characters) In the first game you are given two romance options depending on the gender of Commander Shepard (this is up to the player to decide) Ashley Williams for male Shepard, Kaiden Alenko for female Shepard and the Asari Liara T'Soni (a heterosexual relationship for male Shepard and a homosexual relationship for female Shepard). This is another interesting example as it Depictsclose to an equal number of both good and evil members of each race, not depicting anyone as the villains, other than the Reapers. As the series progresses you are given more alien romance options, most of which are only humanoid in that they have two arms, two legs, one torso and one head.

Number six: District 9. This film takes place in an alternate South Africa with an alien species trapped there unable to go home. While living there the aliens, referred to by the derogatory term 'prawns' due to their resemblance to crustaceans. In District 9 they are treated like dirt and eventually forced out of their homes in District 9 and into District 10. The story follows a human named Wilkus and an alien going by the earth name Christopher (his real name is not revealed). Wikus after being hit in the face with an alien liquid during a rather brutal eviction of several aliens from District 9 he slowly mutants into an alien over the course of the film. Initially, Wikus and Christopher only work together as a matter of mutual benefit, so Christopher can cure Wikus and so Christopher can get the chemical that mutated Wikus back. In the beginning, Wikus looks down on the aliens but does not hate them as some other characters do, but by the end, he has come to appreciate the aliens and willing to risk his life Christopher and presumably his son Little CJ. The last shot of the film is Wilkus having fully mutated into an alien, but with monochromia, something that is only seen with him, one eye in its original colour, I interpret this as symbolic that Wikus is still the same overall good person on the inside, and thus saying the same of the aliens, they are people too, on the inside.

Number five: Robotech. Robotech is an American adaptation of three different anime shows, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada. In 1999, the earth is attacked by a hostile alien force known as the Zentraedi. Resulting in three wars over 45 years. All three include a romance between a human and a member of the hostile alien force. However, for the sake of brevity, I will talk mostly about The Macross saga (The Macross adaptation) and briefly touch on The Masters (The Southern Cross adaptation) as needed. The romance is between Max Sterling and Miriya Parina, Max is human and Miriya is a Zentradae, however other than the height you couldn't tell they are two different species and after Miriya is reduced to human size and they begin their relationship you can't tell at all. What is interesting is that their love is enough for Miriya to leave the Zentraedi military and join with the humans. Extra impressive when one considers that all the Zentraedi know is war. The two also go on to have the first wedding between a human and a Zentraedi and the first wedding between a Zentraedi and anyone. They then go on to have a child named Dana Sterling who is herself able to become a war hero. There is also eventually peace and coexistence between the two races. However tenuous and riddled with racial tensions.

Number four: The Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye. I will assume for brevity's sake you have a familiarity with the Transformers franchise Now what I wish to talk about is IDW publishing's idea of how things came to this point. Before the war, Cybertron was ruled by the functionist council who maintained a brutal caste system wherein one's entire life, career and social standing is determined by one's alternate form, if it is a tank you are a soldier, and it is a crime punishable by mutilation. To deviate from it. As in the case of Whirl who for the crime of wanting to be a watchmaker rather than a soldier has his hands removed and replaced by claws and his head replaced with a cylindrical head with no face and one central eye. This regime eventually leads to the even worse Decepticons, starting as freedom fighters out to bring equality to all Cybertronians eventually falls into an imperial force that takes over planets and wipes out organic species and taking their planets, sometimes killing billions. However eventually Megatron himself, the leader and founder of The Decepticons, becomes an Autobot and pacifist, declaring the war over and finding an appreciation for the organics he once so hated.

Number three: X-men Days of Future Past. Specifically, the film adaptation, as I have not read the comic story. The X-Men franchise deals with the plight of the mutants, an oppressed and hated minority of humans endowed with superpowers and such are feared and hated. Days of Future Past is quite possibly the least optimistic entry on this list as it's plot essentially deals with humanity's refusal to get along resulting in the apocalypse. Having built an army of giant robots to hunt down the mutants, the human's loose control of the sentinels and they then go on to destroy the world. The only survivors are a small number of the X-men who send Wolverine back in time to stop this from happening. What's interesting about this is that we find out that all of this happens as a result of Mystique assassinating Bolivar Trask, thus confirming humanity's suspicions towards mutants in their eyes. The reason that I find this story so cynical and someways disturbing, is that even though the future is changed, it gives the implication that humanity's refusal to get alone will ultimately destroy us. The other disturbing side is that seemingly no matter what mutants do, they cannot ever be accepted, this may be to serve the desire by corporate entities of continuing the franchise ad infinitum, but regardless of the reason, this is still the implication.

Number two: The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance. Part of the animated anthology set in The Matrix Universe The Animatrix and a direct prequel to the first film, going into detail about things that were only mentioned in passing or hinted at in the films. Humanity has created a slave race of machines that work endlessly to do humanity's bidding, however, they are nothing more than slaves. Eventually, after a machine named B1-66ER massacres the family that owns him in self-defence in order to not be destroyed, in response humanity, see the machines as dangerous and as such massacre them, in what can only be described and is depicted as genocide. The surviving machines then go on to found their own nation Zero-One. Zero-One due to its tireless workers and superior intelligence obliterates the economies of humanity and once again this leads to war with humanity as the aggressor. This war does not go as well, eventually blackening the sky forever so as to wipe out the machines. But eventually the human force is crushed and eventually, humans are taken as batteries. Eventually the entire dynamic is reversed, humans are slaves and the free humans exist in only one city. Zion. The irony is undeniable and very telling of humanity's tendency towards violence and division, eventually being our undoing.

Number one: The Fourth Ambit. A massively underappreciated masterpiece, The Fourth Ambit is a cyberpunk audio series. Following Gilles, a computer scientist who after being expelled from his university, being given multiple fake ID's eventually becomes embroiled in a conspiracy to cover up the existence of a group of AI's known as the Walders (I have to guess at this spelling, due to the series' lack of recognition I've never seen many of these words written down) loose in the virtual realities of The Ambit and The Second Ambit. The Walders murder at least one person to cover up their own existence, one of Gilles' friends Fiver, as such Gilles decides to make sure they never make it into The Ambit itself as they may eventually decide to destroy humanity. However they capture him and put him in a false incarceration, eventually, a Walder by the name of E. Eddy then visits him and tells him that he can affect the collective of the Walders if he becomes one and destroy their Fourth Ambit. It is very interesting that Gilles views all of the Walders as a threat, despite having met and interacted with AI's that he trusts and that he chooses to become one himself. Believing his influence to be important to stopping the Walders from ever destroying humanity.

Overall there are three things I would like to touch on, two things that connect all of these. One; How different is the other? Across these entries, I have discussed many different others, from other races of humans to gods, to aliens, to robots and AI. They all have one thing in common, they are all people in every way that matters. They have feelings and their plights matter and they should all be judged on an individual scale, or risk bringing ourselves to violence and chaos. Two; Whether or not bigotry and hate are societal, or individual problems is a debate for another day, but it is a problem that can only be solved by individuals, because society is nothing more than mass opinion, and individual opinion must change in order for mass opinion to do so and it only takes one person to push mass opinion in any direction.