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We can side with Ava, and think "Godless communist Ascians are something less than human."
Or we can side with Severian, that the Ascians are human, and cannot be killed in the guilt-free manner that butchers kill cattle or dwarves kill orcs.
But there's a harsher side to the whole exchange. Because even though neither one knows it, the Conciliator has returned to the Order founded in his name, upon his relic, and he has found it quite in error. And the next thing you know, <SHAZAM!> the order has been destroyed on the battlefield, never to rise again.
Just a coincidence?
Could you enlarge on this a bit? I'm not quite following.
-alga