I’m not so sure if mankind is all that more sentient than animals. I’ve seen and hear about some really funky, insane stuff that some people do every weekend and it sounds a lot more like what animals do on the Discovery Channel rather than a sentient, intelligent species. The better these people look, the crazier the stories get. I might have a really morbid view of things, but the twenty some percent of humanity that are genetically attractive do nothing but indulge in lust and the other eighty percent kill and rape each other. This is one of the reasons why Humility is my favorite virtue.

@JJ
I’ve imagined it to be similar to Square Enix’s film The Spirits Within, and Final Fantasy 7 of course, with the Gaia-thingy—some form of physical substance within the planet itself that recycles spirits to provide the world with life. I haven’t given it an awful lot of thought, but I have thought about it at some point, and I think Olivia briefly mentions it in the Ascalon Isles flashback with Aaron, but passes it for mumbo jumbo.

I suppose there is no harm in telling the ‘gag’ behind the Miranda Kerr avatar. I happened to mention to Ex that my real name is Miranda, upon which he revealed his obsession (?) with Miranda Kerr and repeatedly asked me to have her as my avatar. And being such a nice person (I hope), I changed it.