“By vote of three to one, the Photonic Network abstaining, the Presidium of the Conclave finds no justification in the any of the Accords to disbar any species from signatory status or from signatory-member status on the basis of its origin. By vote of three to zero, the Photonic Network and League of Meridian abstaining, the Presidium of the Conclave finds that homeworld status under the Common Volumetric Accord is properly granted to the first colonies of the temísi, arthál, and zal!en under the nomadic-species precedent set by the róthich in in re Rothichican. And neither the Presidium nor the Conclave as a body has any further comment on this affair. Please refer your questions to individual legations. Thank you.”
– Peliakos Amvarixin ve-Sintich, spokesman for the Conclave
“‘Playing god?’ is it? ‘Fake bodies and rootless environment’? Oh-ho! I scent the stink of Never Last, Parents for Natural Children, or some others of that baseline-uber-alles, rah-rah crowd upon that so-innocent article sent anonymously to the Router. All they need is to mention impurifying their essence and we’d have the whole set. Unless that’s what they meant by that ‘natural species’ emphasis which – speaking as one of the enthusiastically Reengineered Esseli Biosystem – they can shove right up their excretory vacuoles.”
“The soph’s an idiot. Makes no sense at all. Fictional government — all governments are fictional until you implement them, and with people like the Iltines and the Galians and the Vonnies out there, they can hardly do worse. And as for culture, these new species may not have much self-generated culture now, but that’s a problem that will solve itself in just a few decades or centuries spent living.”
“I’d offer to grow him a new exocortex, but this much stupid’s got to be contagious.”
– GTTAAACATATGGAGGCCATACGA, letter to the Accord Journal
“It’s certainly not what we expected when we sold the rights to ith-Vinithinios. And for myself – when we first heard about it, I thought it was the weirdest damned thing. Just a game setting, you know, no more than that. I and my design team just made them and their cultures and all the rest of it up for the sake of the story we wanted to tell. It never crossed my mind – never crossed any of our minds – that people might actually want to live there.”
“Now? Well, no offense intended to those involved, but it still seems a little weird. But mostly, I think we’re proud of having invented peoples, places and cultures that they wanted to make real. And I very much look forward to seeing what they do with them.”
– Camdal Essenye-ith-Haranye, lead designer, Mirajdíä Studios
“Oh, great. Nice for them. But how are we supposed to play the games now?”
– overheard in a skymall, at Asché (Lilium Drifts)