damned_bulletin | [anonymous - Callahan's board]

Is that strange? I'm sorry.

It's more that it's strange to me. I'm from the future and my entire species are centred around and comprised of technology. Not knowing anything about it or using it is just... unusual to me.

Ah, I see. I suppose it's to do with me being so far along in my years. I see it around, but I've functioned just perfectly without it so far and see no need for it.

Oh. [pen marks from tapping the page]

I suppose it's also easier since there isn't much technology here either?

Just as I imagine it must be very difficult for you here, without it.

I manage. It's the adaptation to being human now that's a little more difficult.

What is different between you as a Coluan and you as a human?

Apart from the fact I'm organic, you mean?

As a Coluan I have external armour, the ability to regenerate damage so long as my primary centres are intact, and a wide array of weapons and tools available. If I were still Coluan here, I wouldn't have any of the problems with the... nocturnal events, and I could access computer systems directly as well.

I suppose other details are that my mind and personality are the result of complex programs that emulate emotions and such near perfectly.

So your mind and soul are generated? Not...well, I suppose they are real, but not ah, how do I say, innate?

I don't understand what you mean, exactly. A soul is a theoretical concept; how can you define it enough to decide if it's generated or innate?

I suppose I cannot, but I just wonder if it is different for you than for us. Is there a difference in your soul from our souls?

Assuming a soul exists, do you think it's simply the act of being born that creates it?

I believe so, but I am from a time and place where religion is absolute.

Then by that logic, if that's all there really is to it, I would have one as well. Coluan's aren't created from scratch, after all. There's genetic material as well.

Ah, then I apologize for my misconception. I am unaccustomed to dealing with...nonorganic people?

Not many people know much about Coluans. My people... prefer to stay on Colu, for the most part. Plus it's a little personal.

I understand. Not many people know the truth about what I am either. Because we live so long, it is better that we don't interact with people.

What are you, if you don't mind me asking?

You probably wouldn't believe me. Not many do. I...try not to speak of it as it tends to put people off.

There are only a few things I have trouble with believing, and they're more to do with... people expecting blind acceptance of things without wanting to find out more about the truth behind them. I've gotten better at not saying when I don't think something is true, though I've always thought honesty was more important.

You can tell me if you wish, either here or personally, or if you'd rather not, I won't push for details.

People need faith and sometimes faith requires a blind acceptance for not all things can be quantified and seen, but it does not mean it does not exist. Humans need this belief, to give them a sense of safety, to help them through hard times which befall them. It is how they learn to cope, to understand that perhaps bad things don't happen randomly, but for a reason. It gives them a thread to hold onto when things seem at their darkest.

But forgive me, as I said, I come from a place where religion is absolute. Perhaps I will tell you when we meet. Perhaps you will still not believe me or wish to believe me after all.

It's likely a difference in belief systems. Colu has no religion; my people have never had reason for it. Things happen because of cause and effect, scientific principles. It seems strange to me that people would need to think of things happening for some greater purpose, that bad things happen to them for some reason.

Does it really make a difference to think that, for example, you were brought here for a greater purpose set out by your deity as opposed to simply chosen at random by the madman in charge of this facility?

It helps people cope. Perhaps with your programs and science you do not feel this need, but humans have an innate need to be bigger than they are - to think they are part of a something great.

Do you find comfort in the idea that you were just an unlucky soul brought here only to die? Or would you like to think there is a reason you are here? That for some reason, a higher authority wished you to be here, to make a difference?

I don't need to think some higher authority brought me here to make a difference. What I do with myself and the resources available to me is my decision to make, no one else's. The involvement of a god or other higher force doesn't mean I am automatically doomed to succeed or fail, so I don't see how a belief in that could make any real difference.

I am here, I have certain things I can and cannot do. I don't need anything other than that.

Count yourself lucky that you do not feel the need that plagues others then. The humans I've watched for so long still feel it deeply as it is ingrained in them, I think, from birth.

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