[Michael gives a brief nod. Fair enough. He's never liked ambiguity, so he can appreciate the direct approach.]

Condolences. It wasn't the most enlightened era. [It sounds to him like ignorance is the problem over faith, but he knows the two go hand in hand often enough that he's not going to open that argument.] Though I may be a figure in multiple religions, I don't consider myself religious. I'm not here to build churches or bring the word of God to the faithless. I believe humanity's best left to govern itself.

[That might still be an ugly end for them based on what they were doing to the planet back home, but if extinction is their ultimate fate, still better that it be one they choose for themselves than one they're driven towards by up above.]

I take it your mother was human. [Witch-burnings killed more fellow humans than anything else, to his recollection.] What are you?