The questions and the answers

[greyerrant]

[ A video post to the COMP network ]

[ Garviel stares into the screen for a moment his helm removed, his expression... pensive. ]

What defines humanity? At what point is someone so altered they are no longer human, and what emotions can we lose before are are not even remotely humane? I am curious.

Comments

Video

[echo_of_a_jedi]

You're not going to like it if I say I consider all self-aware beings equal, are you?

Re: Video

[greyerrant]

I will say that I have yet to find one that hasn't treated humanity in a pointedly rapacious manner.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

Well, that's not really the point right now.

More to your point, your identity as yourself is more important that quibbling over the nature of species, at least from my point of view.

[greyerrant]

So as long as Garviel Loken is Garviel Loken, it doesn't matters if he is human?

[echo_of_a_jedi]

That's what I think.

[greyerrant]

Hmh. Are you always like this?

[echo_of_a_jedi]

Nice, or pretentious?

[greyerrant]

Take your pick.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

I try to be one, and usually get called the other. From an objective standpoint, probably yes to both unless I'm in the middle of something important.

[greyerrant]

You remind me of him, a little.

[ Meetra knows who he means, because of the conversation near the strange construction that rises into the sky. And the pain in him when he confronted his... ghost. ]

[echo_of_a_jedi]

I hope that's a good thing.

[greyerrant]

He was loyal to the end.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

That's as good a compliment as I could have asked for, then.

[greyerrant]

I miss him.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

I noticed. You two fought side-by-side for quite a while, huh?

[greyerrant]

Over a century.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

That is quite a while.

He...fell in that place you mentioned before, right? Istvaan?

[greyerrant]

Yes. My friend Aximand killed him.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

I take it you're not friends with Aximand anymore.

[greyerrant]

No. But I think I still pity him. Abaddon was always a butcher, Aximand was a thinker. I believe events may have conspired to force him into acts he had no real desire to commit. I saw the grief in his face as he slew Torgaddon.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

There are people I wish I could say for certain even that much about...

[greyerrant]

Betrayal is always cruel to us. That is why it is considered the greatest crime of all, by me and mine.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

The most dangerous person I ever met called herself the Lord of Betrayal.

She was...well, she betrayed me, obviously. She betrayed everyone, and everyone betrayed her. I like to think I was the only one who didn't, but then again I'm the one who rejected her teachings and killed her. I'm just not sure if that's what she wanted in the first place.

She was an extremely confusing person.

[greyerrant]

That sounds like.... stories I have read. Of beings who scheme, and scheme, and betray everyone, in the end, they even betray themselves. The question is more if you survived without... being tainted by the experience.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

Every experience changes who we are. But if you mean falling to the Dark Side, I'm not showing any of the typical signs or attitude changes, as far as I can tell, nor am I as likely as Kreia was to up and murder people for a philosophical point.

Still, it's not like one can really trust a self-assessment of their own mental state. If I had fallen to the Dark Side, I wouldn't likely be able to even tell until I looked back on my actions objectively.