dravanicide | IC Inbox (Snowblind)

Mr. Estinien, consider if someone you think of as a good person, a kind and helpful person, were to be threatened by someone else for seemingly no reason or for anything that they have any control over. Would you simply say nothing, or would you warn that person that that kind of behavior is unacceptable and there will be consequences if they do it again?

Luna hasn't hurt anyone, she's not planning to. The fact that you feel the need to threaten someone like that says far more about your character than it does about mine when I'm just telling you not to do it again to her or any other robots here who are just trying to get on with their lives and escape along with the rest of us. Luna might not be the only robot here. If you try what you did on her with anyone else, I'll also see to contacting your superior. I already know beating it into your head isn't going to be effective, so that's the viable alternative I have.

Edited 2016-08-31 20:59 (UTC)

Had I done this towards a good person, I might see your point. However, as it stands, I did no such thing.

[With slight amusement:]

If you wish to speak to Aymeric, I suggest you do so. If you think such idle threats will waver any such future threats I may make to the robot of your questionable fancy, you are overestimating how much I concern myself with the conversation such will inspire.

I love her, and she's my friend. If you want to tell me a woman who dreams, who emotes, who feels pain, who eats like all of us, who has a life and a history, a name, hopes, ambitions, and goals, isn't a person, then I'm not sure what you would consider a person, sir. Is it because she's made of metal, not bone? Is every living thing in your world made of the exact same thing?

I will confess that it puts on a convincing display, and that you have fallen for it like a fool. That you would have such intimate feelings for the machine bespeaks well of its maker and his talents, or mayhap your depravity.

A person is born, not created, and whilst living creatures in Eorzea vary greatly, they all share something at their core: a soul. A machine has no such thing, though I have heard some are powered by aether, 'tis not the same.

How do you know in her universe that machines aren't instilled with a soul? That there isn't a god who looks down, sees what's been made, and places one there. This is what I mean about getting trapped into your own universe's rules, Mr. Estinien. There is no one like Luna in my world.

Where I come from, robots are all just objects, machines. She is so much more than that, though. What are the qualities that define a soul? I can almost guarantee you she'll have them or I'll be able to find someone here who was born who doesn't if you can actually name them.

I greatly have my doubts of that, that some deity would look at men who wish to play god and grant their creation the same pulse of life they had granted them. If you've proof of such happenings, I would consider such, but you speak of hopeful claptrap and naught more.

A soul is not so easily quantified, you should know this. Any man born has a soul, 'tis what breathes life into him, what makes his existence be. Little is it measured by such frivolous things as qualities of a character. Your desperation to prove its personhood ill becomes you, and the others who follow a similar path.

What breathes life into a person is a set of lungs and electrical impulses through his nervous system that tell his body what involuntary actions to take at birth. If you'd like proof of a nervous system, that I could show you with a dissection on one of the bodies in the mass grave to the north.

Luna has died and been revived here. She's suffered the same symptoms as all of us for radiation poisoning. She has our same limitations for the cold and food. She is a person in every quantifiable way, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I understand that this is a difficult concept for you to grasp because of the limitations of your own universe, but all of the information and proof is there for you.

When it "dies", if not for the resurrection process here, would its consciousness find itself among the firmament? I think not. We revive, it merely gets fixed. Not unlike a broken blade reforged, but little do we go around giving pronouns to swords or claiming it being a person.

If you think such blathering will convince me, you are mistaken and wasting both of our time. Whilst I freely admit that such anatomical details elude me—medical fields are not my forte and your world has advancements where mine does not—it changes naught. A soul is still required for life in men, in beasts, even in gods.

But not a machine.

Mr. Estinien, has it occurred to you that you're not actually flesh and bone anymore? You may, in fact, be riding around in a false body with your memories overlaid on it. We watched Haurchefant's entire body be dissolved. It's in the public record that's been linked multiple times. But he's here now. How is that possible if his body wasn't replaced?

[So maybe he's just using some scare tactics now, but dammit if he can't get this man to empathize with Luna's plight.]

This isn't meant to scare you, but to make a point. Even if all of that were true, if this isn't the body that once housed your soul, would you still be a person? What if it's only the memories of you that they've copied over and left the man that you were back in the universe where he belongs? Are you still a person, then?

I'd be a shade of the person I once was, which speaks more of me and the others, than it does for Luna.

[Oh what's that? he said her name!]

Point being, it's still a machine back whence it came from, while you and I are not. If they are placing our souls, or fragments of such, in new bodies, it changes not my argument.

Edited 2016-08-31 22:19 (UTC)

[He did say her name. John makes note of that. Perhaps he's getting through to an extent.]

Mr. Estinien, you and I are, regardless, biological machines. Our components are organic, but we both function the same way Luna does. We both require energy. Our wiring is through our nervous system. We're 'programmed' with certain reflexes at birth and develop new ones through a standard process of growth and development.

When is a soul inserted into a body in your world? When do you talk about it happening? Is it at conception? What about for miscarriages before a woman even knows she's pregnant? Was a soul lost? Is it only once a baby is actually out in the world? Some people would argue that's too late for a soul to come in, and why is there a sudden switch flipped only at birth?

Conception is the consensus. If a baby is lost due to miscarriage, we pray that the soul finds its way to heaven. I claim not to be an expert when it comes to souls and aether, but I know enough that they exist, that they are absolutely needed for life.

Though how they manifest can be different depending on the being, but every being born that lives through such has one.

[Which... explains some views on still births, for example. Also, seeing as he's lugging around the physical manifestation of a soul, or half of one, he's very reasonably convinced in his argument for souls. Especially when this one has existed for a veritable eternity.]

And where do souls come from, according to your religion? Your deity? Is my soul the result of your deity? If we don't hail from the same universe. I believe in a higher power, too. But I think a soul is something a person develops as they become aware of themselves. I think it would be very possible for someone like Luna to develop a soul in my world based on the beliefs I hold.

How is that less valid when your beliefs are based just as much in simple faith?

Belief is one thing, hard facts are another. Have you proof of such? Of souls spawning well after a man is born without one?

Whilst we have our beliefs of where souls may go once a man dies, or what deital influences they have received in life, there is physical proof that souls are not merely developed after one is born. For example: Dravanians. Their souls manifest in their eyes, 'tis the key to their formidable power as well, which they have from the moment they hatch. Whilst ours are far more internal than that, we follow similar rules.

Where souls originate is up to debate, there are those whom claim they know better than others, those who spend their lives researching such topics. I am not one of them.

[He is not Sharlayan, and he won't pretend to be. There's a lot of his own faith in this topic, but there is also evidence as well.]

Edited 2016-08-31 22:57 (UTC)

We don't have physical souls where I'm from, Mr. Estinien. We have no proof of deities beyond the wonder of the world around us. My world has no magic. Everything is faith and belief if you're going to hold any religious conviction. But I'll say this again: This is not your universe. It's not your world. Please try to consider that there are things in the multiverse beyond your ken and there very likely is where Luna is concerned.

And know that she important to me. If that means 'as an object to you,' then I'm sorry you think that way. But if you hurt her, you'll be hurting me. I won't abide that when she's done nothing to you. And I don't just me you physically attacked her. She feels things. You can do as much damage with words as you can with a sword.

Please don't. She's been through too much already.

I have admitted that there is such beyond my ken. I know not all the intricate details that goes into robots or machines, but you have done little to fill that gap, so one would wager you know just as little.

I have not sought her out since I issued my warning to her, I had been content to leave things be unless she crossed the line I laid. 'Twas you who opened this topic once more, 'twas you who dug into this issue, and breathed life into it once more.

And if I say aught to her again, you can place the blame on yourself.

I've explained, sir. I'm not an engineer, though. I'm a doctor. And in my medical opinion, apart from having iron bones and being constructed by human hands rather than a womb, she's human and a person. All of her systems function like a human's systems. All of her thought processes are human. She can defy her ingrained programming in order to do something that she thinks is right - that she makes the personal choice on. If that's not displaying a soul, I don't know what other proof I can provide to you. She's not a slave to some pre-programmed responses. She's like any other person. She reacts, she adapts, and she decides what she's going to do based on what she knows and what she's experienced.

Do you really think cells that divide and form into your vital organs and skeletal structure are somehow intrinsically more valuable? That that's what gives you a soul? Break us down to our base elements and we're all just made of stardust. And that's how we'll all end.

Also, if you're going to be passive-aggressive, I'd just prefer you acknowledge that's what you're doing. I don't make your decisions for you, Mr. Estinien. If you decide to say something hurtful to her, that is your choice, not mine. You'll have no one to blame but yourself.

You fail to realize that an imitation--no matter how convincing--is not the same as the original. It was created, it puts on an act and naught more. An act you have fallen for quite pitifully. Your explanation speaks of our bodies, but not our souls, but I see this topic will do little but endlessly churn with little to gain, when you and I both lack the deeper understanding of such to fully make our point plain.

I am not being passive-aggressive, I am clearly stating cause and effect. Had you let this matter be, I would scant think to speak to her again, but you have dug it up once more. If you wish to side step your responsibility, then so be it. It's of little concern to me.

Is there anything of concern to you, Mr. Estinien? Because there doesn't seem to be a lot.

Your robot friend. Which seems to be some grave sin to you robot sympathizers.

It's not a sin, it's just foolish. Focus on the Joker if you want to keep an eye on someone who actually deserves it, sir.

[He's grateful for the text. He can delete 'mate' and replace it with something moderately more respectful.]

You assume I can only focus on one threat at a time. I trust scant few here, machines far less.

[He's going to throw his tablet in a moment. Right. He needs to just. Stand up. Walk around. Imagine punching his face.]

I'm sorry you've got your vision on selective blinders, Mr. Estinien. I'll bid you good day. And leave Luna alone, you bloody git. Please.

[All right. Not his proudest line to end on, but for the love of all that's holy! John shuts down the conversation.]

IC Inbox (Snowblind)

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cw: discussion of pregnancy/souls/this is all controversial stuff, i know

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omg pretend I wrote it and not her in that last tag A+ me

NEVER. Esti clearly has fucked up and called her her. 8T (No, it's fine.)

Sobs I have betrayed Estinien's stubborn jackassery

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