Later in the essay, Reed talks about the emergence of the idea of the cycle: “A person lives inside the most perfect spacesuit. Crafted from a wonderful, almost fairy-tale material, this suit is stronger than any diamond. The tiny built-in AI serves as the working brain of the suit... In essence, the suit functions as a very small and extremely efficient spaceship. Like most ideas in my stories, this idea was not developed. I needed one more insight. It came a few years later: I realized that the space suit rather resembles a whole world, self-sufficient and eternal. I began to think about the more resilient species of human beings, about people who wear this “smart shell” all their long, long lives. I imagined them as part of a society, a state within itself. But where could these strange souls live?.. Well Of course, I thought. They must crawl along the skin of a spaceship. A small starship will not do. I need something solid, a vast space where an entire culture can arise, and since the mind's eye does not need investment, I quickly sketched the first plans for a ship, a huge one. like the world. The story "Remora" appeared in F&SF magazine in May 1994 - and the Great Ship left the stocks." Reed analyzed the character of Qui Li and her significance for the series: "Several times while working on these works, I felt that It is useful to give my readers, and myself, an idea of the threads that connect this universe and our present. Such a thread was Kwi Li. She was born in our world, at least in this century. She remembered herself as a child, she remembered like telescopes. , directed into the sky, caught signals from other intelligent beings, how new knowledge poured in, how the image of a galaxy filled with life was established. And soon, after a truly short time, life on little Earth changed in an incredible way.”