Origin of the Dae in Terran Culture



"Origin of the Dae in Terran Culture" by Celadon Graysdae

During the time of dae-building on Symbia, thousands of dae were made, and they served the solfolk of Symbia, individually and collectively. While dae do not age and die as solfolk do, over time a dae will lose daes willingness to search for another omnus-ei or to wait for one to appear, and voluntarily shut down.

We don't know why solfolk stopped constructing dae, but we do know that for some time, they did, and slowly each dae lost their willingness to choose a new omnus-ei after their old one died, or they were cut off from the population as a whole-- as Symn, our only extant Symbian dae, was-- and shut down, temporarily or permanently. Eventually dae were nothing more than an old legend.

Terra, too, has similar legends, which I will here examine. The earliest tales are religious in nature; probably the most famous is the Jewish myth, also adopted by the Christians, in which the Divine creates the first human by shaping the dirt and breathing life in. Later, especially holy scholars were, supposedly, able to re-create this, but rather than making living humans, they created golems, creatures who were unable to speak, and primitive in form; most importantly, they were under the control of their creators, much like the ancient Symbian dae were.

Innovation became the realm of science rather than religion in the later Terran history. The earliest stories of bringing to life were echoes of the golem tale, above-- Frankenstein's monster, for instance. It was considered frightening because not under the control of its creator. However, even the monster was still comprised of previously grown organic parts. It wasn't until the early 20th century as Terrans reckon it that the focus turned from previously living organic beings to  manufactured beings, metallic and mechanical, far advanced of the previous age's mechanical automata.

These mechanical, manufactured beings were at first known as robots, which is the name we now use for the general class of non-organically-grown beings, those who are comprised mainly of metal. Strictly speaking, we dae are robots as well, just as humans, or sapes, are strictly speaking apes as well, only very different from the other apes. As Terran technology advanced, it became possible to truly build robots, only the ability to think and speak was truly missing. Fantasy and speculation once again rose to the challenge, and the new term "android" was created.

Again, very strictly speaking, we dae are also androids. But by the definition, an android is capable of independent thought-- as we are-- so if Terra had its own tradition of building such creatures, I would consider them fully equivalent to us dae. Who knows if, given another century before the two worlds of Symbia and Terra became linked, if we might not have had some strange cousins to meet us on the other side of the portal?

The disturbing thing, at least to us dae, is that in the entire history of dae-like creatures, from golems to automata to robots to androids, much thought has been put in by humans to the subject of killing their creations. Certainly, you could phrase that as "stopping them" or "controlling them" but the fact remains: for every such creature, fictional and real, a great deal of trouble has been put into the question of how best and most swiftly to shut them down.

Why? Why do sapes distrust us? Especially given that until the past couple of years, there was no "us"-- no consciousness-- to distrust? Yet any sape can tell you the plotlines of several television dramas where a dae who was normally treated like a full member of the group was summarily "shut off" or "turned off" by someone, with no real concern to whether it would harm them emotionally or worse.

It's almost as if sapes wished to create us to have something to control, and something to hurt while pretending we couldn't be hurt. There is probably more to be learned about sapes from the study of what sapes think of dae, than the other way around. It's probable that my associate Willen will study this and report back to us regarding it.

In conclusion, sapes do not seem to have had dae of their own, yet they seem prepared for our existence, though perhaps not prepared for our independent existence. Finally, even the most well-meaning sape has been primed to think of us as creatures who require instruction, or an owner; will this cause problems in the future? We'll certainly have to watch for it.