Upon Vestia: Chapter Fifteen

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James narrowed his eyes, realizing he'd just given Esk some great ammunition to annoy him with. Oh well, too late now. "Yes it's annoying! How could it not be annoying?"

Luka laughed. "sorry, i'm not risking gumming up your system with this stuff. I do NOT want to explain that to your brother." She kept eating popcorn. "Need subtitles? Or want to just make up what they're saying? " The Imperium movies were hardly deep or very wordy, a lot of explosions, chases, shooting stuff. They were very pulpy, much like their books.

James laughed. Asher would be so annoyed if he shorted out on booze. Ethan would probably be annoyed too, for that matter. Probably not a good idea. "Not like I'd get drunk from it anyway, darn it all."
"Hmm, not sure I'll need subtitles for this. Looks like they're planning to defend themselves from a horde of hideous aliens," he said.

Luka nodded. "pretty much." She shrugged. "I feel sorry for you guys, not being able to get drunk and having photographic memories sucks. How do you cope with shitty things?"

James laughed. "You try to think about something else, or emotionally detach, or embrace your rage. It works fine! We're all mentally stable, right?"

Luka shrugged. "about as stable as everyone else I guess." She patted him on the shoulder. "if you need to vent, come find me next time okay?"

James smiled softly at her. "Thanks. You're a great friend, you know that, right?"

Luka smiled. "You know, I really don't regret joining the Silver Devil crew. It's not been easy, but i'm glad I met a lot of you. I grew up being told Aliens were all awful and terrible but you know, you aren't all so bad. The only person who's actually intentionally harmed me has been the damn Hexenfolke." She shook her head. "i'm glad I have you as a friend." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Thanks for this." She pointed to the movie.

"The sprinkler incident turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, who would have thought?" James said. "If I'd known dousing an entire station in foam would let me hang out with you guys, I would have done it years ago." He smiled at her, "Yeah, I mean it's gotta be super strange for you out here," he looked at the laptop, the camera was panning slowly over some troops who were standing at attention and listening as their commander have them some sort of rousing speech, "but I sure am glad we got to meet each other."
"It wouldn't have been right to watch without you," he told Luka sagely.

Luka nodded. "We've all made good out of pretty terrible situations I think." She sighed sadly. "I just wish Eckhard could have survived to see all this too. He'd have loved it. " She looked at her half empty can of beer. "I miss him." She admitted.

"Yeah," James said softly, "It sucks that things went the way they did. He sounds like he was an awesome guy." He put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her a bit.

Luka nodded. "He was. You remind me of him." She smiled sadly. "he was very passionate about what he believed was right and fair. "

"I wish I'd gotten to meet him." James sighed, "Seems like death has a bad habit of coming for the wrong people way too soon."

Luka nodded. "It does. Meanwhile the assholes get immortality. The universe sucks like that." She sighed and finished her beer.

James nodded. "It's not fair at all. Looking at some of those immortals like Todd, you just kind of wonder why the good people couldn't get a few decades more when those guys got everything." He smiled sadly, "I guess people always say it stinks more for the survivors than the ones who are gone, maybe that's true. I'm not much of a philosopher."

Luka nodded. "We believe that when you die, that's it, you just... cease to be. There is simply oblivion and what do you care? You're not aware, you're dead. You are, and then you aren't. Generally people don't fear their own death, they fear the loss of those they love because you're the one who has to live with that void in your life. I guess.... for races who have an afterlife, maybe there's more to fear from dying but for us, it's more not wanting to miss out on life and wanting to avoid pain and not hurting those we care about... you know.. like sane people. "

"Yeah," James smiled softly. "Sure stinks for the people who outlast them, but the dead themselves probably aren't suffering so that's something at least." He shook his head, "Gets weirder when you find out that whatever the hell a soul is, you have one too though. Not quite so simple when you grew up around religious folk who believed in afterlives and empty dimensions full of lost souls and all that. Makes you kind of wonder, you know?"

Luka shrugged. "I find it more comforting to believe there's nothing. The idea of there being whole... worlds full of dead people is really unsettling. The thought that your consciousness could cling on somewhere else makes me uncomfortable. This talk the guild have of ghosts is... really horrible. The Anamcara themselves horrify me. Two sentient minds crushed together and forced to submit part of themselves to function? that's a level of horrific punishment I can't even begin to fathom. For a free citizen of the Imperium, our bodily autonomy is absolutely sacred. Our minds and our bodies are our own. It's part of why certain magics disturb us so much. Anything that invades your mind, your body, your ability to function freely is an abomination. These people here's very existence relies on taking away people's rights and liberties of their own mind and soul, and that's monstrous. It's why I get so angry that they have the audacity to judge other races, when their very origin is so horrific. How can they possibly have any moral high ground when to be born, they must deny two individuals their autonomy? They talk of atrocities, their existence is the biggest atrocity of all." She sat up and set her empty can down on the floor. "We don't imprison our enemies, we don't occupy their lands and subjugate them and do you know why? Because to strip another sapient being of their freedom is, to us, worse than death. Death is final, it's just an end. Subjugation is cruelty for the sake of cruelty. The Imperium are efficient and at times brutal, but we are not cruel. We would never seek to prolong the suffering of our enemies. If there is an afterlife, if there is something after death, then what is it? And how do we know that by killing someone, we are not condemning them to worse than imprisonment, worse than servitude? It is... troublesome. What if when you die, those you wronged are waiting to get some hideous vengeance? Oblivion is simpler, neater, tidier. And comes without a whole host of what ifs."

James nodded. "I always found it... comforting? To think that Emma was at least away from all that crap forever now. Since I thought we didn't have souls, I figured she was just gone. It sucked, but at least she wasn't trapped in purgatory or whatever." He sighed, "But then we found out the other day that hey, we do have souls just like everyone else. There are a lot of religions in the Terran Empire that say androids, AIs, we're abominations. What if one of them was true? What if Emma's soul was still out there, being punished for something she couldn't help, being hated by some god or whatever for being a robot? I mean it's unlikely, but it's unsettling."
He smiled sadly, "I mean the idea of seeing your loved ones again sounds great, but at the same time, afterlives raise too many questions. I'm with you, I'd much rather believe this is all we get."

Luka nodded, shuddering a little. "It's just too upsetting to think about. I prefer to believe we only get one life, and our rewards and punishments are within that lifetime. No cosmic punishment, no arbitrary reward system. The same reason I don't like to believe in real gods. It just raises far too many questions that nobody seems able to answer. Some seem to find comfort in their gods and their faith, like the tailor, but i find comfort in atheism. I like facts, I like observable truths. Being out here has shaken some of that, but until I see any categorical proof that there's anything after death or any great deity above it all, i'm happier not to blindly believe. Make the most of what we've got, however short or however long that might be right?" She opened another can and raised it in a sort of cheers motion.

"Yeah, much better for consequences to be limited to one lifetime. I wonder sometimes if there's more because there are so many unknowns, but I prefer to believe there's nothing more after this." James smiled a bit as Luka opened the next can, and took one as well, raising it, although he didn't open it. "My brother would say that at least we're here now, and we're not alone, so that's something to be grateful for. If you subscribe to insane positivity, I guess he's right."

Luka laughed. "Asher really is such a positive person. " Her eyes widened. "oh! We should be celebrating though, you guys won this debate whatever... that means." She smiled softly. yeah she didn't really understand what the big deal was. So what the guild decided to promote the androids from objects to actual people, the only people who seemed unwilling to treat them like people were the terrans anyway. She didn't really understand this tier thing, it felt rather arbitrary to her. but it was important to James and Asher so... yeah. She tapped his can with hers lightly. "to being people or... something."

James laughed. "To being people!" He shook his head, "I don't get it myself, I guess they're gonna help protect us now though, so that's cool. Less loss of life and all that, yay."

Luka snorted and shrugged. "Who knows? " She gulped back more beer and leaned her head on his shoulder again. "but it matters to you guys, so it's worth celebrating." she added decisively.

James smiled at Luka, "Matters more to Asher than the rest of us, but yeah, worth being happy about anyway." He looked a bit guilty, "I probably shouldn't have gotten so mad at him, he was just trying to do his job."

"it's not his job though." Luka contested. She waved a hand dismissively. "I'm sure he understands anyway. you and I, we keep getting told off for being emotional and believing in stuff." She was slightly tipsy now. "It's not fair we're not allowed to be passionate about things too."

"He signed up for it, the whole saving the robots thing, that kind of makes it his job, " James shrugged, "I should probably be more supportive." He nodded in agreement, "Sure is a pain being expected to bite our tongues all the time though." James kept an eye on Luka, she was starting to look kind of intoxicated.

"Yeah like we're really dumb enough to provoke beings who could probably kill us with a thought. I don't like them, but I don't want to be vaporised either. " She huffed. "But i'm not grovelling and i'm not lying to satisfy their inflated egos. Besides, it's weird out there. portals.. magic everywhere... infected not just walking around free but wearing tabards like they're proud of being diseased? I'll stay here, where it's relatively safe and a lot less crazy." She kept drinking.