“…So is it Saint’s shotgun or isn’t it?”
“Like I said, it’s a replica.”
“So it’s not his shotgun.”
“No, it’s not the actual gun he carried in his actual hands, but it’s identical, aside from some aesthetic refinements I made.”
“You know, a little gilding here, some plasteel enamel there. Superficial touches.”
“OK. So it’s a copy of Saint’s shotgun, just like the real one except you made it look a little different.”
“…Uh, yes… Though, you know, it’s pretty rich making such a sharp distinction about ‘the real one’ and copies when the original in question was recovered from Saint-14′s final resting place inside a Vex simulation. It’s not unreasonable to wonder if the real one is even actually the real one.”
“You think Saint’s tomb was just simulated?”
“I mean, it was. It’s inside and part of a simulation.”
“So he could still be alive?”
“I heard the Vanguard recovered communications he left behind, like farewell notes—so no, I don’t think so, but the whole point is it’s hard to be sure what’s real when you’re dealing with a simulated world. Y’know, there used to be a philosophical hypothesis, dating back before the Golden Age, even, that everything we experience as reality could be some kind of simulation, and if it was good enough, we might have no way to know for sure.”
“Why would they think that back then, before they even had serviceable computing power?”
“They imagined it. Don’t think any of them seriously believed it, just considered it as a thought exercise. But my point is once you start dealing with that level of simulation, the whole idea of reality can get blurry.”
“OK, but it’s still not actually Saint’s shotgun.”
(Perfect Paradox w/ Calus’s Selected)
(Request and image credit: @myriadofnocturnes)
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