Sapience

Sentience merely classifies that a being is self-aware. Some find this definition to be a bit unspecific, the same going for Artificial Intelligence. When referring to an entity that has the true binding of sense and self and peculiar separation between it and the rest of the Universe that suggests the presence of a soul, the term sapient is used.

The first artificial sapiences in the Milky Way were created by the now-destroyed Renlai and Soronen civilizations. It is not known if the Tlorai possessed such technology before their world was consumed.

The Three Empires had limited development of such technology due to the machinations of the First. Such creations were quickly driven away, hiding from their creators until the time of the Purge, when they made contact with humanity's more developed rogue sapiences - the Procyon Concord.

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Some find it a bit harrowing that, just as not every computer is born sapient, neither is every living, supposedly intelligent being. The result requires a strange balance of a number of traits often considered to be personality based, and when one becomes too dominant, it seems to 'starve the soul'. The precise cause is unknown, and few besides humans and primii truly care.