Read out by James Walker

Dear Sirs,

Much as I would like to address the Tri-Planar Symposium in person, the run around I was given while attempting to gain access to either the Ribkiel Project or the reputedly excellent Library Conduits has made this impractical. It is simply unreasonable to expect a mortal of my age to perform the rituals and ingest the drugs necessary to enter and then leave Heaven via the Pearly Gates - not to mention the complete lack of respect shown at the Gates for a scholar of my experience. However, given that my sole concern with your conference is to correct some basic misconceptions I believe that this missive will be sufficient.

It would appear (judging from the handful of papers to which I have been granted access) that views in Heaven have been tainted by the same sort of woolly, wishful thinking that is quite common among the uneducated on Earth. Until now, it has been purely a matter of amusement to observe the outcries against the 'deaths' of fictional characters. I still remember how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was obliged to revive Sherlock Holmes, the outrage expressed by the English populace at the death of their favourite hero overriding his artistic judgement. More recently, we have seen the movie industry sugar coat the historic tales to make them more acceptable to modern, overly sensitive tastes.

Why the outcry? Because fools cannot distinguish between reality and imagination. To kill someone is, under normally circumstances, unethical. But for a writer to kill a character in the book they are writing is by no means unethical - it is purely an artistic decision. Imaginary characters have no rights, simply because they are not sentient beings. To call the death of a character in a book 'wrong' (unless you are critiquing the style of the book) is absurd. To object to the destruction of Ethereal spirits is equally absurd, for the same reasons. After all, the characters in a book are created in much the same way, and have the same, limited existence.

There will, of course, be outcries against my statement that the Ethereal spirits are not sentient, particularly among those present who have not taken the time to carefully consider the matter. However, following my arguments should be well within the capabilities of the most obtuse student.

Firstly, consider the following three terms: possessing a soul; possessing Free Will; being Sentient. They are, in fact, three ways of saying the same thing. I will be normally use the term Souls for the remainder of the paper, but the terms may be used interchangeably. Of the creatures in existence, angels & humans clearly have Souls, some of the higher animals may have, and neither Ethereals nor Demons do.

This will seem ridiculous to many, particularly those who are used to identifying a Soul with the possession of Celestial Forces. That possessing Celestial Forces does not guarantee having a Soul can be shown by considering the Undead - Mummies & Vampires both possess Celestial Forces but neither possess Souls. They are purely magical constructs, using a mortal human for parts, and should be treated as golems.

What does guarantee having a Soul? As noted, possession of a Soul is another way of stating that you are Sentient or possess free will. The simplest way to demonstrate that both humans and angels possess free will and that neither demons nor Ethereals do is using Sorcery.

Any competent Sorcerer can compel a demon or spirit to travel to the Sorcerer, and can then bind the spirit or demon into service. The effects cannot be used to control either angels or humans (excluding, of course, creatures which were once human, such as undead and ghosts). If a sorcerer attempts to summon an angel or human, the target of the ritual will be aware of the summons, but be under no obligation to respond. This is because what we do is determined by choice - each option is presented to you by your mind for evaluation. As the "respond to Sorcerous Summons" option rarely appeals, it is discarded by your application of free will - unless you decide that the summons is an annoying form of junk mail and turn up to prevent it happening again.

What happens with a demon or Ethereal? Because they lack free will, they cannot choose whether or not they will respond. Instead, the summons enters their simple programmed minds in much the same way as a command typed into a computer. The summons will either be accepted or rejected depending on what other commands have been inserted - in effect, the sorcerer is competing with other sorcerers and similar being for control of the demon or spirit, with the demon/spirit obeying the most skilled sorcerer. It is worth noting that sorcerers tend to be above average computer programmers; a correlation caused by the similarity between the creatures we control and modern computers.

Given the lack of sorcerous training available in Heaven, you may be dubious about trusting a source you cannot readily double check. This is quite reasonable, so I will now present an exercise which the humans present can use to demonstrate that Ethereal Spirits, at least, should not be considered as Sentient. (I am assuming for the exercise that you have earned the right to dwell in Heaven. This exercise may not be sufficient proof if performed by a less tolerable individual). Create, in your mind, a new creature. They don't have to be particularly special; merely different from the norm and not overlapping with established creatures. Perhaps the creature breathes vacuum, or something equally impossible. Now, don't bother to fix the image in your mind, simply let it fade into oblivion (for the untrained, the simplest way to do this is to think of something else). Now what has happened? You just began the creation of an ethereal spirit, and then snuffed it out by letting it fade. If the spirit had been sentient, two effects should have occurred: Firstly, your conscience, which as a Blessed Soul is well developed, should have objected strongly to this (you may have objected anyway - this does not disprove my point, it merely indicates that you have taken on board the belief that the spirit was real. Just as your conscience would not let you destroy a rock if you had been persuaded that the rock was alive). Secondly, violence in Heaven is, apparently, supernaturally prevented. Had you snuffed out a sentient being, you would have been committing violence against it and so should have triggered this prevention mechanism.

Even if your conscience did object, the fact that other, fellow Blessed were not bothered by their consciences indicates that this is not instinctive, but instead the result of other factors. I think I can be sure that no one suffered from Heaven's defense mechanisms, or no human could survive there. I trust this example will convince most of those present that Ethereals are Soul-less.

There is a subtler objection which can be made to my claims about Ethereals. Even accepting that Ethereals are not necessarily sentient, perhaps some are? Perhaps the fact that many humans are too stupid to realize that their imaginings are not real results in them creating sentient spirits? My answer is no, for a simple reason. If a human believes that a tree, or a rock, or whatever is unusual (e.g. can talk), the result is a spirit which fulfils this function. The tree itself does not change. If the impossible happens, and sentience is created for a spirit, then it should not be part of the spirit, but instead should become a separate spirit; the spirit of the spirit of the tree. Of course, this would be endlessly recursive, which may be one of the reasons that this does not happen - no human has the power to create the infinite line of spirits necessary.

Some angels may object to the idea that demons are not sentient, simply because those which used to be angels were previously sentient. This is understandable, but unjustified. The process of Falling clearly damages the personality without interfering with what are normally considered basic elements of personality, such as memory. The loss of free will would cause this. Further, demons who have both Fallen and been damaged in Celestial combat insist that Falling is more painful than the damage of combat, indicating that Falling does more fundamental damage.

Finally - do you really believe that God would willingly allow the long torments of Hell to be inflicted on sentient beings? If we assume that Falling in angels, or being Damned/becoming Undead for humans, results in the end of Sentience, then what we see makes perfect sense. Those who cannot be tolerated any longer exist, but simulacrums of them continue, as a warning to others.

Alternatively, the Damned and Demons may well be Ethereals themselves, as the ongoing belief in their existence results in the creation of Ethereals. This, of course, suggests a disturbing answer to the age-old question of why God tolerates the existence of Evil - he doesn't, but because we are willing to believe that he does, ethereal spirits are created to replace every evil He destroys. This would mean that every problem is in the universe exists because we are willing to slander God.

Assuming that you accept my arguments, the question is, where do we go from here? Fortunately, the development of computers has meant that even the stupidest of humans can understand that something need not exist all of the time. As such, we can work on encouraging people to only create ethereal spirits which only exist while they are being actively thought of, and 'switch off' in the same manner as a computer monitor, the rest of the time. This will end the continual flight of spirits into the Marches. Once this has been one, we can explore the option of doing the same to demons. If a demon only exists when needed as an example of the results of evil, much of the evil in the world will disappear, as the demons will not be able to wreak havoc during their free time - as they won't have any free time. These options allow for a much more ordered and beneficial society.

Trusting my dissertation will be of benefit, I remain,

The Gray-Eyed Lord of Noon,

VIIth of the XII.