[She gives him a wary look, for she's had this conversation a dozen times and it almost always ends in her companion attempting to convince her that earth is different. She's sick of listening to people justify what they realise is unconscionable]
It's not the killing that's the problem, it's the eating. No matter if the corpse belongs to a friend, an enemy or a stranger you find on the road, you give them a honourable send off on a pyre, not butcher their flesh for your belly.
[Her disgust is creeping into her tone. She pauses to rein herself in, to restart.]
Are you from Earth? Most humans here are from earth. I am from Callirhoe where the humen live and where we are not the only people with sentience. [That little grammatical difference is something she clings to now]
There are many animals on my world, both sentient and yet to gain sentience, and we come from all parts of the food chain. Once, many centuries ago, the humen ate meat farmed from unsentient animals, for we are omnivores, but we foolishly traded with the catmen and the dogmen who would hunt sentient herbivores to supplement their agriculture. We struggled with the ethics of our lifestyle for generations until we were sure that there was no justifiable way to eat the flesh of a being born with a beating heart or breathing lungs. Flesh looks like flesh when prepared, and how can we be sure of its source unless we slaughter the animal ourselves? Moreover, even if we believe an animal to be unsentient how can we be certain? The Mercy might enter their spirits and raise them to sentience just as so many of us were raised in the past. We are Omnivores and we can survive without meat.
[She's growing more passionate as she speaks, hoping to get through to this human, just this one for now, to make him understand where his stinking predator fellows refuse to]
The dogmen were won over by our arguments and are now our staunchest allies. The catmen refuse to give up their ways. To this day they will pass over our borders to try steal any child small enough to be taken away. Only the Omnivore Alliance protects the Herbivore races from being murdered wholescale. We have a duty to the world to use our predator instincts to protect, not to desecrate for the sake of our bellies.
no subject
It's not the killing that's the problem, it's the eating. No matter if the corpse belongs to a friend, an enemy or a stranger you find on the road, you give them a honourable send off on a pyre, not butcher their flesh for your belly.
[Her disgust is creeping into her tone. She pauses to rein herself in, to restart.]
Are you from Earth? Most humans here are from earth. I am from Callirhoe where the humen live and where we are not the only people with sentience. [That little grammatical difference is something she clings to now]
There are many animals on my world, both sentient and yet to gain sentience, and we come from all parts of the food chain. Once, many centuries ago, the humen ate meat farmed from unsentient animals, for we are omnivores, but we foolishly traded with the catmen and the dogmen who would hunt sentient herbivores to supplement their agriculture. We struggled with the ethics of our lifestyle for generations until we were sure that there was no justifiable way to eat the flesh of a being born with a beating heart or breathing lungs. Flesh looks like flesh when prepared, and how can we be sure of its source unless we slaughter the animal ourselves? Moreover, even if we believe an animal to be unsentient how can we be certain? The Mercy might enter their spirits and raise them to sentience just as so many of us were raised in the past. We are Omnivores and we can survive without meat.
[She's growing more passionate as she speaks, hoping to get through to this human, just this one for now, to make him understand where his stinking predator fellows refuse to]
The dogmen were won over by our arguments and are now our staunchest allies. The catmen refuse to give up their ways. To this day they will pass over our borders to try steal any child small enough to be taken away. Only the Omnivore Alliance protects the Herbivore races from being murdered wholescale. We have a duty to the world to use our predator instincts to protect, not to desecrate for the sake of our bellies.