"What are they instead?"

"Distinction seems academic. But, like, what is the trait that distinguishes Valar from Maiar from me, if it's not species?"

"Power level."

"I could imagine something that was clearly not a human but was not more or less powerful than a human which replenished its population on a non-reproductive model, though."

"Sure, but speciation is a word from biology, at least in Quenya, and is useful for all but your-realm-humans, and the ways it's defined are tied to reproduction for what at least superficially look like very legitimate reasons."

"What are the reasons?"

"You have animals that are all one kind, yes? Then something happens - a river changes courses, some of them get blown off to an outlying island - and they live as separate populations and they change sort of the way languages and cultures do, but on a bodily scale, and after long enough they can no longer interbreed and at that point they're considered different species, and that is probably how many kinds of animals came about, Eru probably did not populate the world with billions of them and yet billions there are."

"Huh, interesting. But there's, like, mules, wolfdogs..."

"Mules are sterile, at least here."

"I don't know nearly enough about animals to confirm if they are in my world too, maybe they are. So that makes them not count?"

"It means that any - good ideas about body design - from one species can't leap over to the other."

"...Okay, I can see that."

"So the biologists aren't coming out of nowhere. Your world is a little confusing. Things in general don't appear out of nothing? Just, specifically, human babies?"

"Just specifically human babies. People ascribe religious significance to it, they'd find you guys extra disturbing."

"Any gods that would do that are not very responsible."

"Your system does come with some unambiguous benefits."

"Your society is fascinating socially. Really shows how much of ours is structured around the family."

"I'm sure I'm missing a lot of family-themed subtext even though I double-take every time somebody refers to their parent or whatever," nods Kib. "Humans do friendships, we do marriages, but it's all - bidirectionally self-assembling?"

"I am on very poor terms with much of my family and think the bidirectional self-assembling is the way to go. But the pride one takes in a child is a very precious thing. Maybe worth everything else."

"Some teacher/apprentice relationships are really close. Don't know if that would cut it for whatever you're getting out of having children."

"I am tremendously proud of some of my apprentices as well but it's not very comparable."

"I'm not best placed to remark on the distinction," shrugs Kib.

And they do another afternoon and evening and night of tests.

And Kib yawns his way back to bed. Yaaaaawn.