Yeah, that’s right, it’s chapter 24 and we’re still rolling out characters who will have at least secondary significance to the overall narrative, sometimes two of them in two pages. That’s just how we roll.

So here’s the thing about the orcs, to me, as we present them here. They are not equal in intelligence to humans, which makes it not only strategically easier for (ahem) The Silver Centurion to try enslaving them, it also makes it emotionally easier. He can tell himself it’s no different than yoking a cow.

But just because none of them are going to be snapping off sassy one-liners or designing a flag, that doesn’t mean they don’t meet the definition of a civilization. Human/sentient rights shouldn’t be alienable by an intelligence test.