follow up: the line about "voids keeping neighbors apart" in particular, for example, calls to mind the Hemospectrum. You talk about SBAHJ as paradox information originating from itself, and interestingly, the Hemospectrum is another example of this. Equius inherits all his knowledge of the hemospectrum and class based society, and then in becoming part of LE, he (however unwillingly, since Arquius doesn't seem to have the same will LE/Scratch do) becomes the very source of all that detailed intimate understanding of the differences between troll castes--ie; the information that "keeps neighbors apart" on Alternia.

Totally! and Alternia is defined by these methods of keeping trolls apart; not just through a stratified society or isolated neighbourhoods, by through the vast expanses of time separating trolls from their ancestors, or the complex systems that keep them separated from the processes of their own of procreation and childrearing.

I think probably the most apt point of comparison for the circular nature of Equius’ investment in caste hierarchy, though, is Caliborn’s relationship to gender. Given that there was a version of the hemospectrum pre-Lord English - on Beforus, where it was “[t]he jo8 of each 8lood caste […] to serve the needs of all those 8elow it.” - the establishment of Alternia’s caste system represents not only the fulfilment of a self-sustaining idea, but also the corruption of an existing system which was intended to draw trolls together; just as Caliborn turns Calliope’s game of unity and cooperation into a battle of gender supremacy.