Why do the Synthetics want what Rintiala and Dianire have in every cell in their bodies? That treasure is the Recursive Instructional Nexus, the last great step forward in biorganic engineered intelligence: a learning supercomputer that fits inside a living cell, altering its DNA as it adapts to environmental changes.

This was Sean Landesten’s very last creation. Not only is the RIN within the Nueguan humans, but a lesser version of it exists within the Cactus Mothers, allowing them to also evolve at a much faster rate.

The Sky Wanderers have kept all the technological advances in the last 500 years, and continue to develop them, but they do not have the RIN. Cyl and Tia know this, because though they can detect the RIN easily enough, they can only analyze some of its more basic functions. The deep structure of the RIN is hidden from Sky Wanderer technology, of which the Synthetics have the basics.

So…the Nueguans have the RIN, the Sky Wanderers have the science, but the Synthetics want both. Why? Because Cyl and Tia do not have the resources at the Kierland to make more than two more Synthetics, and daringly, they choose to create a synthetic Rintiala and a synthetic Hunts-The-Ruins, so that Alyria will have sex with them, and the Synthetics can use her naivity to learn more about the RIN.

The goal of the Synthetics is to download their consciousness and learning into the RIN, and then free themselves of their synthetic bodies. They would become the supreme organic beings on the Empty Earth.

Do they see the Nueguans as a threat? Absolutely not; after meeting Rintiala, they conclude that she is the next step in evolution. Then they meet Dianire, the dragon created to protect Rintiala at all costs. To their delight, they discover that Dianire’s RIN (the Redourine clan) is easier to analyze, as its command structure is focused on physical and biological realities.

Rintiala’s RIN (or Tiala clan) is truly the next step, for it contains the DNA of Rain Tellier, the world’s first bona-fide psychic. Rintiala is the larval stage of a paranormal dynamo, something completely beyond the understanding of both Sky Wanderers and Synthetics.

Originally, I was going to call this “The Attack of Doctor Exposition”, but I will endeavour to weave this information into an action sequence, as the synthetic Rintiala tries to convince Dianire to stop fighting them.

What is Dianire’s response, as she battles a giant servitor on the roof of the Kierland? “Very impressive speech, but I’ll take my chances with gravity.”