Our nation has been under great turmoil this last year. We have become embroiled in a war with a coalition of nations, who would see this land wiped off the map, our people used for slave labor or meat. We have been rejected by the so-called "United Nations" time and again, and have no say in the affairs of the world we live in… this human world.
They see us as beasts, brutes, monsters, abominations. They see us as deviant and savage. They see us as animals, and in that respect, they are correct. We are all members of the Kingdom Animalia, but they fail to take into account that they are as well. The first King of Khoz (great is his unspeakable name) prophesied that the human world, once they found us, would hate us. So, we hid in the jungles, under the desert, in between places. And when the humans came, we fought back, not with teeth and claws, but with words and reason.
And we nearly lost.
The first great Human War, as it will now be known in our history, was caused by ignorance and fear; two sins that are forgivable. This one was caused by pure and simple hatred, and that is unforgivable. They say that we may not survive, that we are an abomination against everything written in their Bibles and Qu'rans and Torahs. They say we have two choices: conform to the standards they hold animals to be- unintelligent, unspeaking, oppressed, four-legged- or be exterminated.
We will not longer be subjugated. This morning, an envoy from our Empire has gone to the United Nations with the constitution the greatest minds in our empire have drafted, the Constitution of Sapient Rights. It demands equal protection not only for all of our kind, but for all sapient beings across the planet, including humans. Should the U.N. accept, it would mean the end of this war, but should they reject it… may the First King (great is his unspeakable name) have mercy on them.
I now ask something of the troops fighting the humans on the front lines: Remember that though they may call us animals, they, too, are animals, and though we may take their lives, we do so reluctantly. We were always taught to take lives only for the sake of food, and for nothing else. I also ask you not to hate the humans, but to pity them. Pity them for their ignorance, for their hatred, for their fear of the unknown. They cannot help they were born human, and, sadly, they shall remain human for the rest of their lives. They shall never know what it is like to be one of us, and they can never understand the day-to-day affairs of the great land of Khoz.
They are ignorant through no fault of their own; they were born ignorant, just as we were born in our manner. Remember that they are also creatures governed by the first King of Khoz (great is his unspeakable name) and as such, I am confident that they will see the error of their ways, and that this war will end not with our extermination, but with cooperation.
As spoken by Yotar Rex, 14th Queen of Khoz, in the Human Year 2007. Long Live the Empire, Long Live the Laws.
Excerpt from the Constitution of Sapient Rights
Article 01: An entity is sapient if it can pass at least 8 of the 10 Redmond tests, as designed by the human agency known as the "Global Occult Coalition". These tests evaluate the following:
- The Ability to Recognize Words, spoken or written
- The Ability to Recognize One's Self and Others
- The Ability to Communicate
- The Ability to Manipulate Objects
- The Ability to Solve Problems
- The Ability to Adapt
- The Ability to Feel Basic Emotions (Fear, Love)
- The Ability to Feel Higher Emotions (Hatred, Anger, Pity)
- The Ability to Use Tools
- The Ability to Breed
Article 2: All entities that can be proven sapient are to have the ability to speak their mind as they choose, provided the way in which they speak their mind does not cause physical harm to other sapient entities. Furthermore, all sapient entities are to have the ability to worship who they choose, free from prejudice or persecution by others.
Article 3: Life may only be taken for the intent of consumption. Upon consumption, a compensation is to be paid to the family of the consumed, if extant; if not, a tax will be paid to the treasury of their home nation.
Interior Memo, Global Occult Coalition, American Headquarters
We intercepted a courier from Khoz carrying this; the bird is currently being held in captivity, and we'll deliver him to a zoo soon enough. There is no way we're going to let this constitution pass. The Redmond tests are incredibly obsolete, and we're still not entirely sure how the Khozians learned about them. By the Redmond tests' standards, any cat or dog smart enough could be considered sapient, and so could pretty much any Class-3 or higher AI.
We were planning on burning the original document, but it disappeared overnight. Probably got misfiled; we're sending a statement back to Khoz that this will not be tolerated, and the war will continue. They don't have any idea what they are, or what they're sitting on. They don't even know how they're able to think, to exist. We do, though.
And we'll get it if it's the last thing we do.