Fiction:Gods And Mortals, Why All The Fuss?

Please note: This article is speculative esigned to put to paper a ptential eplaination to the age-old questino of why "mortal" is derogatory based on the way work in the fiction universe.

Written by Serriam Quitarba, professor of psychology at the Eriam IV branch the Alpenix University. vol. 1823, iss.725 of Understanding.

I would like to ask a question, a simple and honest question; what makes a "god" so vastly different from all other life in reality? Why is there always a superiority complex attached? What makes many of the ones observed so indifferent to mortal affairs? This is what I would like to answer. For the purposes of science, every instance of the highly questionable and ambiguous term "god" shall instead be replaced with the more precise (though admittedly still broad) term "ethereal".

There are many myths and stories sorrounding exactly what an ethereal is, where they come from or their existence. I believe I can answer most of the myths by analying ethereal psychology. Gifadag is a Kralgon expert from the  who was able ot shed light on some information regarding this particular collective of ethereals. THe Vyro'Narza are entities of time, their anatomy exists in fifth-dimensional spacetime which according to professor Britia Vitiol, a colleague of mine and an Illuminate of quantum physics. For the uninitiated 5D space is a dimension constructed of three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. In other words, beings native to this dimension can percieve time as innately as you or I can percieve length and depth. While we are all aware of time, we require artificial instruments to accurately percieve it.

But this is beside the point, but it does relate. You see according to Gifadag, the Vyro'Narza are "wardens of time". Their eternal task is to maintain the timeline and prevent any disruptions. Given the nature of the many-universes theory, this is a lot of time to cover, far more than any of us could possibly imagine since every choice made theoretically splits a timestream in two. I am also told the Vyro'Narza can also percieve the future, this is a lot of visual stimulus to take into account. "Eternal task", however, is what sets them apart form us mortals. We cannot percieve the time dimension as they can, but unlike us they have a task they have been set to do since creation.

I believe the defining factor that sets etereals apart from mortals is the level fo free will. All ethereals may exhibit a higher form of consciousness (such as the Vyro'Narza ability to percieve all branches of a point in time), they may all be united but unlike us mortals they exist to maintain a specific domain of reality. A domain being a metaphysical aspect of existence such as life, death, time and mind.

Why look dow non us mortals? Well it's because to them we are a spasmic mess. We can shoose our own paths in life, we have to earn our right to exist, we innately create divisions betwen ourselves and ther are so many variations that it is simply easier to categorise us lesser life forms" by one over-arching concept; that we all one day die. Sure modern technology means that death for many of us can potentially be a non-issue, an some lifeforms are indeed biologically immortal (in many cases this is because their anatomy is quite simple). We also do such bizarre things as eat, use our bodies ot make more of ourselves, put the self before the community and protest against figures of authority. Ethereals are an enigma who leave very little information so I cannot say if they form hierachys within themselves or if the structures we do see are merely there to organise mortals.

Why does being vunerablre to death make us so alien to them? It's probably because (in the case of sapient beings) we want to be recognised by the universe. pre-sapient lieforms exist to reproduce and maintain biospheres as a result and yes, some religions afirm that the animsals doing what they do allows for us spaient beings to exist. Perhaps that is the case with ethereals; they are given domain over a single aspect of reality, we may not notice it but they are that aspect given form (such as the Vyro'Narza and time), we might not be able ot exist without their efforts, or we might. But to these entities, no we cannot. I will not play arbiter and say which side is right. These beings exist in higher dimensions that most lifeforms in 3D space cannot percieve without a sensory overload.

In summary Mmortals and ethereals each see each other as being immensely alien as a byproduct of the nature of each others' existences. Ethereals are timeless but the ones we know of exist to perform a task that most mortals would keel over and hemorrhage over. But because they have never experienced death for mage or dieases, the value of time has no meaning. They have no final deadline, they have no terminal point of existence save perhaps for the end of reality. They exist for a purpose. Mortals however, live with this terminus constantly on their minds. Time is important, time has value, and compared to the ethereal lifespans, that time is unfathomably short. We have no subconsious desire to fulfill a task save to reproduce (another thing that is alien to ethereals because there is no point in producing offspring save for numbers), while ethereals are driven by purpose, mortals are driven by instinct, that underlying desire to do something with the existence one has been given by biology and the will of one's parents. Because mortals are not innately unified by a known purpose like the ethreeals, we must create our own be it though religion, government, scientific pursuit or a consious decision of our own.

To the etherals, the very idea of pursuing your own purpose in life is...mindblowing. THe principle to them is completely chaotic because we all have different ideas on existence and what to do with ours. So the next time an ethereal comes up to you and calls you a mortal, take it as a compliment, or if you're in that kind of mood mood, an indicator that they are jealous of how much free will you have. I'm not an advocator of the idea that to be a god is to have unimagineable power over reality, in fact our free will can change the face of the universe in more profound ways, albeit on a much clower timescale. Why? Well because I think when we do it, there is much more value because you're either one remarkable renegade or a big group of pepople are al lworking together and putting instinct aside.

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