Sentient

A **sentient** is a being protected by the guarantees of the Galactic Constitution.

## Definition

Despite repeated uses of the term "sentience" or "sentient" in the Galactic Constitution, the Constitution provides no definition of the term. Furthermore, neither the Galactic Tribunal nor the Galactic Senate has established a formal test or definition of sentience. Legislation is presently under consideration by the Senate that would define sentience for legal purposes.

## Controversies

A significant debate in the Galactic Senate concerns whether droids are sentients and therefore protected by the Galactic Constitution. The Senate currently has one droid serving as a Representative, Mel, who is an advocate for the position that droids are sentients and entitled to all of the same rights as organics.

Generally, Centralists have been more skeptical of extending the full rights of sentience to droids. For example, Centralist Senator Aarom Crisover authored an editorial advocating against recognizing droids as sentient. He claimed that "[t]he fight for droid sentience is a fight to steal elections, undermine your healthcare and pensions, and exert complete control over the Galactic Senate."

By contrast, Populists have been more outspoken in favor of droid sentience. Representative Mel, for example, is a Populist. Likewise, in one instance the Populists issued an official statement on the issue of droid sentience, in rebuttal to Senator Crisover's statements:

> What we have said is that sentient droids deserve full rights which we shall stand by. The first reasoning of his op-ed is the inaccurate claim that sentient droids can be mass-produced, the facts of matter is they can't, they require years of raising by their creator almost as one would a child according to our expert on this subject. . . Sentient droids are remarkably similar to organic sentients in many ways, their neural nets are comparable to organic brains both in structure and function. They also cannot be as easily controlled as he has boldly claimed, sentient droids have their neural nets locked away so that external forces cannot tamper with them and the only way to get a sentient droid to believe what you want it to believe is to intensely brainwash it, which you could do to organics as well.
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Likewise, leader of the Populists, Ayy Tann Luroon has proclaimed that "[t]he fight for sentient droid rights is the civil rights issue of our times." The platform of the Technocratic Liberty Faction also calls for recognition of droid sentients.

Following the by-elections of Helona, 0 B.C.V., the Senate was effectively tied between the parties supporting droid sentience (the Technocrats and the Populists) and the party opposed (the Centralists). The results prompted a renewed protest effort by self-aware droids.

## Rights

The Galactic Constitution provides a variety of guarantees to sentients. Article I of the Constitution affirms that "[a]ll sentient beings are created equal," provides that all sentients are "entitled to the rights enshrined in this Galactic Constitution, including the right of suffrage, free association, and protection from undue hardship," and prohibits "[a]ll forms of slavery or forced servitude." In addition, Article VIII prohibits the Galactic Senate from passing any laws impeding freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, or the "rights of sentience."