[OOC] On Chula and classifications of consciousness
So, since probably the beginning of recorded time in human civilization, or possible since the beginning of humanity, there's been an implicit understanding that humans are fundamentally different - set off in a class of their own - from animals. No mater how far along the timeline you go, in most human cultures this is upheld. Unlike concepts of fixed sex/gender correlations and divides and most of the controversies of neurodiversity, it doesn't really get subverted or eliminated. Oh, it gets dressed up in different forms - souls, intelligence, sentience - but it sticks around.
The Chula, on the other hand, recognize no such distinction between themselves and nonsentients other than a matter of degree. Chula, humans, k'kta, the entire ranks of thinking species, are only very intelligent animals to the Chula mindset, with no more meaningful distinction than that. A human is smarter than a cat is smarter than a lemming. That's it.
You can imagine that does some interesting things to the people who have to live in Chula-built social infrastructures.
The Chula, on the other hand, recognize no such distinction between themselves and nonsentients other than a matter of degree. Chula, humans, k'kta, the entire ranks of thinking species, are only very intelligent animals to the Chula mindset, with no more meaningful distinction than that. A human is smarter than a cat is smarter than a lemming. That's it.
You can imagine that does some interesting things to the people who have to live in Chula-built social infrastructures.