"My parents taught me that in the past, Ascendeds were hunted down by Wildtypes as monsters and oppressed, and that I should be sympathetic to their history.  Supposedly, back before the Race Wars, my family followed the Ascendeds to help them start their own life out here, where the Unified Earth Dominion couldn't reach them.  Well, I guess, the UED's reach was longer than expected so the war started, but now The Ascendancy is established, so every turned out alright in the end, right?  Ascendeds have a place they can call home," Israfil said with a sort of lost look in his eyes.

[hr]
Tera didn't say anything for a bit.  She had heard some Quantums speak like that too.  They were either obsessed with 'upgrading' themselves to the point that they no longer had human traits, or they felt that they were so far below the 'miracle' that was biological sentience that they stopped valuing their own minds and gave themselves up to despair.  "Is that how you define yourself?" Tera asked, a bit more sternly than she intended, "Is your worth dependent on what value others assign you?"  If a human sentient mind cannot define its own worth internally, what hope did an artificial mind have?

[hr]
"I know," Maya said, "we have files on all of you.  Your sister's got quite the history.  To be frank, her position on the team was always tenuous.  While Lear gets a free pass, the committees say your sister is 'too difficult' to control, and won't 'contribute' to the team.  There was one gambit keeping her in, and you demonstrated that in the last mission.  The combination.  Engineers saw something similar in both your cogs, but they didn't know what.  Now, she's practically indispensable, both of you are, and I'm glad for it."  Maya sighed a bit, smiling at Claire, "Maybe I've been keeping Lear on too tight a leash; maybe if i just give him some freedom and trust, things won't turn out as badly as I think.  Maybe...I just can't forgive him for what he did to your sister.  As a fellow Ascended, I feel shame when one of my kind abuses their gift." may chuckled dryly, "As it turns out, the whole point of his cog is to abuse his gift."