It would seem that you have fallen rather deeply into the sheep
mentality that is so common among your Mhaldorian ilk. One would think
that independent thought would be a 'strength,' but yet your leaders do
so little to promote it. While I doubt very much that one so hopelessly
ingrained can be rescued from the mental darkness that is Sartanism (a
name which I use noting that the two new Lords you've been handed have
done little to expand upon the old dogma), but I will respond
nonetheless.

Your first mistake, and it is a very telling one indeed, is to claim
that your Lords are possessors of infinite wisdom. This is simply not
the case, and anyone with the capacity to look beyond their own personal
divine can clearly see so. If divine, and I am referring to those of the
Pantheon here, possessed infinite wisdom, they would neither disagree
with one another, nor would they be constrained to their own personal
realms.

This first issue, however, is rather irrelevant to your overall point; I
simply wish to use it to demonstrate a deeper issue at hand here. You
seem to have made the rather arbitrary judgment that the activities
which define sentients are superior to those which define denizens. Are
the thoughts that run through your head any more profound than those
that run through the wizened heads of Epicurus, Damaris, Averroes, and
all the other 'denizen' scholars of the land? I submit that they are
not. You have demonstrated a rather lock-step world view that I do not
feel is characteristic of these scholars, even if they rarely express
it. We cannot observe the thoughts of these denizens, so we cannot
discount the possibility that they are just as profound, and sentient as
yours or mine, if not more so. They simply may choose not to express
them. Is the silent wise man or the loquacious fool a more 'sentient'
being? Clearly it is the thought, rather than the expression that really
draws a line here.

What, then, can we use to make this distinction? Simply attempting to
engage them in conversation is not much of an indicator, because their
participation in such a conversation is entirely voluntary, and cannot
be used to distinguish between the standard interaction of sentients and
this concept of Scions you've come up with. The lines drawn by what we
can afflict someone with also strike me as being rather arbitrary, and
disconnected from the true question of mental acuity. Your statement
that only sentients can ascend to divinity is simply untrue. I suggest
you read into the history of Mithraea's divinity.

So, I've ruled out various potential mechanisms for making this
distinction, and various other things you've presented seem to be
similarly discountable, but I've yet to propose a mechanism of my own.
Since I'm a Jester, I'm sure you can guess what my mechanism is. Humour,
of course. The reaction to that which is funny requires a certain level
of mental acuity that is not possessed by the denizens of the land, and
is not voluntary as conversations are. Those who can laugh at that which
is funny are sentient, and those who cannot are denizen. This
distinction will largely draw the same line that you have sought to,
with a few exceptions of humourless beings who would otherwise be
sentient.

Now that we have a more efficient mechanism, which will draw clearer
lines, we can examine the implications. What does it have to do with
suffering, oppression, and all those other lovely buzzwords you've
thrown out? Not a whole lot, really. At best, your efforts to inflict
these things will be largely neutral to these designations. At worst,
they will extinguish the flame of humour that burns within us all at
birth. While you may profess to advance sentient life, it is simply not
the case under any definition of the terms but your own superficial
ones.

It is through the life of the jester that we seek to expand our own
affinities for humor, and awaken the same in others. This is the way to
expand, and advance sentience, not by seeking to crush the very spirit
which truly defines us.

High Hooligan,
Tiax


Penned by my hand on the 21st of Aeguary, in the year 408 AF.