YouWillBeAssimilated vs.: Assimilation Plot

So the IP thread on Assimilation Plot was thrown for a loop by someone pointing out that this trope is not You Will Be Assimilated. Guess which one is "any plot involving the assimilation of others" before reading the tropes? Answer: Assimilation Plot is specifically caused by a Well-Intentioned Extremist who thinks everyone would be better off. The other is about an Assimilation Plot for any reason.

Here are the questions I think should come into play here:

1) Is there any The Same But More Specific going on here? Given the healthy number of examples, probably not, but it bears some thought.

2) Should there be any name shuffling/tinkering? I don't know if there's any misuse; my guess is yes, but the question is how much.

Given that Assimilation Plot doesn't even mention You Will Be Assimilated in its description, I believe there is something that may need fixing here, but I wanted to bounce it off everyone before proceeding.

Either merge them or rename Assimilation Plot (Instrumentality was a fitting name but a spoiler and misleading to those who don't know Neon Genesis Evangelion and know Instrumentality Of Mankind so we'd need something else) and adjust the examples to fit the description. I'd suggest a merge though

I'd say merge the two under Assimilation Plot and then write the description as a Type 1/2 to draw a distinction between the You Will Be Assimilated meaning and original AP meaning, with the examples divided accordingly.

edited 12th Jun '11 7:15:05 AM by Willbyr

Assimilation Plot has far and away the better usage stats.

By the way, this is a demonstration of how a trope title that is the name of a thing is better than a trope name that resembles dialog.

I think part of the problem was the two different variants of the word "plot", one being in universe one being what goes on in the authors head.

Oooh, I just reread the tropes in question, and this just got more complicated. Y'see, the IP thread was also mistaken about the definition of You Will Be Assimilated! It specifically says it's about the villain. The description further claims the "plot" is on Assimilation Plot - but as we just noted, that is reserved for only specific motives.

So there currently is no trope for Assimilation Plots with evil motives!

edited 12th Jun '11 5:13:49 PM by Leaper

That's exactly why the suggestion is out there to make Assimilation Plot the overall trope name, so we can cover all the angles that such a plot can take. Eddie's stat about the traffic makes that even more sound of a plan.

Created crowner here. Feel free to monkey with the options; I'm vaguely dissatisfied with them myself.

I also note, given Fast Eddie's comment, that You Will Be Assimilated might be a problem. I made a separate crowner for that trope here; might start off a new thread about this, but I'm including it here to show both are being addressed.

As the one who brought this up originally, I have to say that I am now very confused.

...

I agree that making Assimilation Plot Exactly What It Says on the Tin is a good idea, though.

Perhaps motive isn't the essential trait of this trope. I suggested in the trope discussion that Assimilation Plot describe any attempt to rid humanity of the differences between individuals. Here's what I said in the discussion:

I think the naming controversy stems from this trope not being about one thing, rather it treats many related tropes under the same title. I see four tropes (or subtropes), all of which describe a story in which humanity moves (or is being threatened with moving) from a situation of Many Minds, Many Bodies to:

1. One Mind, Many Bodies: i.e., the Hive Mind like Star Trek's Borg
2. Many Identical Minds, Many Bodies: i.e., The Evils of Free Will and the Cybermen of Dr Who
3. One Mind, One Body: i.e., the Human Instrumentality Project of Neon Genesis Evangelion
4. Many Minds, One Body: i.e., Split Personality but with cooperative rather than competing personalities. I can't think of an example for this one, but it involves individuals retaining some form of individuality while constituting a singular entity (like the form of Nirvana mentioned on the main page and like how a growing number of brain scientists view the human mind working)

As currently described, Assimilation Plot does not distinguish between these. I believe, especially given the original name of this article and the existence of pages for the first two, that this page was supposed to describe the third variation (One Mind, One Body). Perhaps this page could be kept as a Super-Trope encompassing the four variations listed above while Instrumentality is changed from a redirect to a page describing variation 3.

How about renaming Assimilation Plot to Global Assimilation?

The crowner has been going since June and now its August. We have a clear winner in the first option. Who wants to rewrite the main article?

Not anymore. They're tied in votes as of right now and the second has the higher ratio.

edited 10th Aug '11 4:07:59 AM by Willbyr

Now the 'expand' option has both the higher ratio and more votes.

Nine days later the gap widens. Now I feel confident in say we have a winner. Let's start the discussion on motives.

Hello? Is anyone still reading this thread?

I locked up the crowner. Feel free to start the expansion.

I can think of three motives right now

1. Well Intention Extermist, as it exists right now

2. A God Am I motive, where the villian seeks to create a Hive Mind just to make themselves the Hive Queen.

3. For Science!! They do it just to see what will happen.

4. Other. To this day I'm not really sure what was going on in Evangelion, but I think it was Gendo wanted to get Yui back and STEELE wanted to be gods, or something. Anyway, this last one would be for werid things.

edited 11th Sep '11 12:26:04 AM by ChaoticNovelist

An addendum to your second motive: the villain creates the situation so that he can rescue the Mind Hived/Hive Minded humans and be seen as their savior, kind of like Makuta in the second Bionicle movie.

Where would the Borg fit in? Or would they not at all (which would be a potential problem)?

If you ask me, the Borg would be either type 1 (if they genuinely believe that the best fate for everyone is to be assimilated into the master race) or type 2 (if they just want to control the galaxy). Another addendum might be needed, though, or the wording simply changed to something like

2. A God Am I or For The Evulz motive, where for one of a list of reasons, a villain specifically initiates the Assimilation Plot.

3 with its For Science! motive could be merged into this as well. Or, better yet, the page simply lists all the various motives for Assimilation Plots, including the already mentioned Well-Intentioned Extremist, A God Am I, For Science!, in addition to some others like For The Evulz, Omnicidal Maniac who wants to mentally exterminate everything, and Gone Horribly Wrong/Right, where the Assimilation Plot is an accident. The Other category for stuff like Neon Genesis (did anyone understand anything that happened in that show?) and strange items.

I just came up with a new issue. I just pulled this quote from the quote page:

->"The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal." —>— Kurt Vonnegut, "Harrison Bergeron"

The reason being that the main page specifically states that supernatural methods or Phlebotinum are used to make everyone equal; in Vonnegut's story, this is not the case. However, it is identical in every other particular to an Assimilation Plot. I think this is a major hole that needs to be fixed.

I'd support a super trope. Incidentally, I actually independently was working on a YKTTW for where a character seeks to assimilate, destroy and replace on a universal scale, here.

That sounds more like Dystopian equality which is seperate from this. That is mundane while this trope is supernatural. There's no real assimilation going on in that book; cultural assimilation maybe but that's not what we're talking about

Is there anything more to do or can we lock this thread?