>Part I: The Forbidden City
>
>I am not a jungle cat - Servals are native to the grasslands
>and wetlands of sub-Saharan Africa—basically everywhere that
>isn't rainforest.
>
>Please don't eat me! - This was Kaban's first line, and became
>a running gag as her automatic reaction to pretty much any jump scare.
> By this point, it's entirely possibly that she's just doing it out of
>unconscious respect for the classics.

I assume this is set after the end of season 1 and assumes season 2 never existed, from the way you spoke about them, Gryphon.

>
>Lucky Beasts virtually never spoke to Friends directly -
>They're programmed not to interact with Friends at all if they can
>help it, in a manner philosophically similar to nature documentary
>camera crews.
>
>her unnervingly immobile golden [eyes] - Owls can't move
>their eyeballs in their sockets like we humans can; they have to point
>their whole faces at whatever they want to look at. That's why their
>necks are so much more flexible than ours, and a big part of why they
>have very limited facial expressions by our standards.

My nature-fu is not best. =) Actually learned several things from these annotations.

>
>It's likely the Professor and Mimi can move their eyes as
>Friends, but are simply not in the habit of doing so. On their human
>faces, this results in a very distinctive blank stare.
>
>we are the chiefs of this village - By "this village", she
>means the entire Kyōshū Region, but stops short of claiming
>authority over the whole of Japari Park. The regions have very little
>contact with each other since the ferryboats stopped running.
>
>As an aside, writing the Professor and Mimi is kind of like writing
>Mordin—hard to get started with sometimes, but once they get
>rolling, difficult to stop. :)

Mordin. Spastic scientist. Much to write about. Little time.

Yeah, I can see how writing Mordin could be easier once you get in the groove.

>
>named for one of the principals of the Japari Consortium -
>JAPARI was actually an acronym on the initial incorporation papers.
>Renraku Corporation of New Japan was the "R".

Well, well. Time to break out my old school tabletop books. Does Renraku bear any resemblance to the Shadowrun megacorp of the same name?

>
>that particular old book in the Professor's library - A copy of
>the 2295 Expanded Edition of Carl Sagan's Cosmos.

Interesting that Kaban has the frame of reference to understand a book like this, not that I've read it. As usual, I'm very interested to see how Starsand, the Friends, and the Ceruleans work. Looking very much forward to the continuation! Thanks for another excellent story.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge