Life after life... or not
OOC: Reposted from theatrical_muse from 8/23/2004, 18 of 50.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
For who?
I am a being of pure psionic energy. I am *very* difficult to destroy. I don't age, I don't get hurt-- something actually has to be actively *trying* to destroy me to do it.
All mortal sentiences have within them a psionic energy core, a *thing* that is the essence of their selfness, which is generated by the activity of becoming sentient, but once generated cannot be destroyed any more easily than I can. Mortals-- sentient beings made of matter, especially those made of meat-- can age, and die, because the stuff they are made of is fragile. That core of them, however, is as immortal as I am.
So do mortals have an afterlife? Sure they do. What they do with it, mind, is up to them. It differs from species to species, from individual to individual.
The Q, however, cut out the middle-matter and took our immortal souls straight up. We *are* our immortal parts. (So are mortals, but since they can't see that part, and since their matter existence is profoundly different from their energy existence, it's understandable that they get confused on the issue.) If I choose to manifest myself in meat, I and everyone I manifest to know it's an affectation, that the "real" me is the psionic part. I hate the term "soul"-- it's so redolent in primitive superstition. But that is, in essence, what I am.
There are ways to destroy one's immortal essence. And if that happens, there isn't anything left to *have* an afterlife. The Q have always, in the past, conducted executions with mercy-- instead of attempting to destroy a Q essence, we simply enflesh a criminal in meat and cut them off from the Continuum, which makes them mortal, for all intents and purposes, and their essence as a Q will live on the way mortal souls live on after the meat they are in is destroyed.
But during the civil war, we found a way to actually annihilate one another's Q essences. For the first time we brought true death to the Continuum.
So do I get an afterlife? That entirely depends on how I die-- *if* I die, which I plan not to. If I were made mortal and then killed, yes. If I were killed as a Q... then no. Those of my comrades who died during the war are dead forever.
We can bring mortals back to life. It's easy to reconstruct matter around an existing psionic energy core. But if that core is itself destroyed... well, all the Q's horses and all the Q's men won't be putting *that* back together again.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
For who?
I am a being of pure psionic energy. I am *very* difficult to destroy. I don't age, I don't get hurt-- something actually has to be actively *trying* to destroy me to do it.
All mortal sentiences have within them a psionic energy core, a *thing* that is the essence of their selfness, which is generated by the activity of becoming sentient, but once generated cannot be destroyed any more easily than I can. Mortals-- sentient beings made of matter, especially those made of meat-- can age, and die, because the stuff they are made of is fragile. That core of them, however, is as immortal as I am.
So do mortals have an afterlife? Sure they do. What they do with it, mind, is up to them. It differs from species to species, from individual to individual.
The Q, however, cut out the middle-matter and took our immortal souls straight up. We *are* our immortal parts. (So are mortals, but since they can't see that part, and since their matter existence is profoundly different from their energy existence, it's understandable that they get confused on the issue.) If I choose to manifest myself in meat, I and everyone I manifest to know it's an affectation, that the "real" me is the psionic part. I hate the term "soul"-- it's so redolent in primitive superstition. But that is, in essence, what I am.
There are ways to destroy one's immortal essence. And if that happens, there isn't anything left to *have* an afterlife. The Q have always, in the past, conducted executions with mercy-- instead of attempting to destroy a Q essence, we simply enflesh a criminal in meat and cut them off from the Continuum, which makes them mortal, for all intents and purposes, and their essence as a Q will live on the way mortal souls live on after the meat they are in is destroyed.
But during the civil war, we found a way to actually annihilate one another's Q essences. For the first time we brought true death to the Continuum.
So do I get an afterlife? That entirely depends on how I die-- *if* I die, which I plan not to. If I were made mortal and then killed, yes. If I were killed as a Q... then no. Those of my comrades who died during the war are dead forever.
We can bring mortals back to life. It's easy to reconstruct matter around an existing psionic energy core. But if that core is itself destroyed... well, all the Q's horses and all the Q's men won't be putting *that* back together again.