question:  At the age of eleven, Martin recognizes
context: No one, least of all Martin, could dispute that a man's life should be guarded by his kin—but by those who hadn't been born yet? Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's mother disappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. As for his father, Martin had never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides of soldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country in successive waves and bought or taken the women. "He's dissatisfied with the current social order and killing you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it. One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been coming to school. Martin had to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a step without hearing "Fancy Pants!" Martin was told to call him Uncle Raymond. Martin was never left alone for a minute. The adults obviously figured that if a one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must be something pretty wrong with him. There was no devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants of normal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot of them were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth. When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian had promised five years before. We're virtually the same people ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred odd years of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it?" I don't mean in the now for me, but the now for you," Martin explained laboriously. "I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult," Raymond said, "but if you will persist in these childish interruptions—" "I'm sorry," Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any of his descendants.
output:  the descendants are immature and ill-equipped to deal in matters of practicality and common sense.
options:  Conrad is the enemy, and the only way to keep the future generation safe is to fight him to the death if it comes to it.  the descendants are on to something with the way they live in the future.  the descendants are really the instrument of Conrad, and they are there to do his bidding.  the descendants are immature and ill-equipped to deal in matters of practicality and common sense.