"Sure, if that's what you go by," Shepard replies easily. She could get pedantic about those silicon-based people with all the branches and no carbon atoms she'd met doing publicity junkets, but she gets the feeling strict adherence to terminological accuracy is not the actual issue.

"There are some AIs and a robot about my size." Who she guesses is also technically an AI, but frankly this is more thought than she'd put into the subdivisions of machine sentients before. "If you don't mind me asking, what's the problem with 'synthetic?'"