Does My Home Have a Soul?

 

Let’s talk about Quarians and god for a moment, yes?

So, Quarians are a race of people who are very similar to Romani ; they have no actual homeworld.  The millions of Quarians travel through space on a Flotilla, sending out young adults on Pilgrimages to learn how to be a functioning member of galactic society.

This does bring challenges for these people.  The more “established” races find Quarians to be dirty, to be thieves, to be dregs on society.

They also victim blame the Quarians for why they don’t have a homeworld in the first place.

300 years before the start of Mass Effect (which would be around 1850 CE), the Quarians fled their home, Rannoch (”Walled Garden”), because of Geth (”Servant of the People”).

The Geth are a sentient robot people, whose VI (virtual intelligence) is almost considered AI (artificial intelligence).  Like with most robots, they were used to do tasks deemed mundane to unsafe for Quarians.  As the Geth numbers grew, so did the technology.  By themselves, Geth can do a task as efficiently as it can.  However, once more Geth show up, it turns into a group think and they can do bigger tasks faster.

As the Quarians toed the line of AI, a question from one of the Geth SHOOK the Quarians so badly, that they wanted to pretty much just wanted to do a hard reset for the Geth.

“Does this unit have a soul?”

Now, this would worry any squishy being.  If this robot is asking if it has a soul, then surely a robot uprising was bound to happen, yes?

Well, the Quarians tried it.  And failed.  The Geth, because of their group think, rebelled. To be perfectly honestly, I don’t fault the Geth.  They were being threatened with having their species wiped out because their creators didn’t want an uprising.  They were being punished for questioning their existence, while the Quarians were more worried about being killed from their slaves, essentially.

“Does this unit have a soul?”

We all ask ourselves a similar question.  “Is there an afterlife?” “Is God real?” “Do I exist?” “What’s my purpose in life?”

I’m not sure. Maybe? I have no idea.  To eat tasty food.

In all seriousness, a god punishing their servants who asked a question or did something the god (or gods) didn’t like is not new.  However, we have never had the chance to ask that question of our creator like the Geth did.

Could you imagine the face your creator would make if you asked that while they were in the middle of making you?  How shocked and horrified they must have been.  To question if you have a fire inside you that craves art and quiet days.  To question if you have a light inside you that wants to know more about itself and why you exist at this point in time.  To question if you have a spark inside you that scares the far reaches of your mind and questions your own mortality.

“Does this unit have a soul?”

Yes. So much soul, that it caused a war.