They're pretty cheap! He's taking a loss on them to get the internet off the ground.

Governments get special governmental website addresses, which look shiny and official.

Nik looks the other way since she is a Vesairel, sort of, but warns Lanisal not to try to pull that on a large scale.

What kind of spam? Random low-quality posting, or what look like bot accounts? Because it'd be surprising if that happened so quickly.

The spam is mostly people who saw a nice thing and wanted to break it by posting the whole alphabet as many times in a row as they could.

Lanisal doesn't even pout about not being able to pick up all the interesting domain names. Instead she puts up another site for her business and announces the upcoming launch of five new shows. Buy a password and see the first episode of one of them online before the official release! Buy a different password and get access to her old shows.

The Varoran and Marenasar clans want their own official websites too. They want to know if they can have the special governmental label on the grounds that they're very important to the internal politics of Anavel Sani and act like governments for their members.

The imperial government puts the imperial laws online, including all the appendices.

The (technically) governor of (technically) the state of I Don't Like The Other States, a quarter-square-mile island off the coast of Rasa, would like the shiny government seal for her website. The only thing she wants to use her website for is listing her state law. Her only state law is that no one else is allowed within her borders besides her, on pain of horrific torture. The imperial government's official list of member states confirms that I Don't Like The Other States is a real state which was founded thirty years ago and almost never engages in interstate commerce. Functionally it's really more of a protest against the existence of other people than a state. Where its population even heard about the internet is unclear.

The (not even technically) self-proclaimed solar lord wants a shiny government seal for his website where he explains that as the king of the sun and moon he's aware of the secrets that the imperial government is hiding from the people! like the existence of nineteen extra types of magic, a colony on the dark side of the moon, and the "fact" that there are no other planets in their solar system!

Dareni starts a list of websites that seem legit to her. Enumerating every legitimate website on the entire internet is totally possible and totally something she can keep up as it grows! Totally.

Forum acquires a character limit and a thirty second post lock and a block feature. If anyone would like to be a volunteer moderator and take vengeance upon spammers they may apply here, abuse of moderator power results in revocation of same.

Someone shares the passwords to Lanisals shows on the public forums. Nick tells her, "I warned you."

Governmental seals are limited to states and state sponsored organizations. I Don't Like The Other States can have one if it's insistent enough. The solar lord can't. The clans, he'll think about it, supporting evidence for the people treating them like a state thing would help.

He suggests that Dareni think about programming something to automatically judge websites somehow. There's ways and ways.

A lot of people would like to be moderators, actually. A disproportionate number of applicants are ereli. One of Lanisal's boyfriends applies.

"You can't buy advertising like that for any price," she says.

Well, for example, people don't go around wearing clan symbols they're not entitled to. And when the clans make it known that how the clans dress is how the clans dress, other people don't try to look like them, usually. And people in the city of Anavel Sani started obeying certain Sorota public health policies before they became law. The state of Anavel Sani was acknowledged to belong to the six clans of the Confederacy when Anavel Sani became a state.

The solar lord now thinks Nikolas is secretly controlled by the sea anemones and warns everyone not to trust him.

I Don't Like The Other States cites the imperial recognition of the state as an entity separate from the state of Rasa. Also, it's been a state longer than Ira Sani. Also, look at its governor's fangs.

Dareni agrees that's probably a good idea and she'll think about how to do it.

He chooses a bunch whose applications look better than average and lays out a bunch of forum rules mostly about civil discourse and makes a special moderators only board and tells them to talk to each other when moderating, too, and figure out how to run this whole thing. Probably some of them will not work out and get moderator power removed, and a couple of them can become Moderator Moderators (AKA Administrators) later if they're good at it. That position even comes with a little pay! He's curious to see how the ereli work out, he's not really sure how ereli work, still.

If the clans can get the Anavel Sani government will write to him to say that the six clans are closely associated with the government, they can have a slightly less shiny government-affiliated-organization label. Individual cities, the Hari Medical Association, and the like get this tier of shiny label, so it's not bad.

Nikolas has a rather impressive set of fangs and predatory snarl too. The impromptu intimidation contest amuses him greatly... But the private island can have its governmental label, the imperial government acknowledges them, fine.

They get the spam under control. One of the ereli takes the initiative to try starting some useful threads.

The clans talk someone who works in the Anavel Sani government into writing to him to point out that no one has ever served in an elected position in Anavel Sani without belonging to one of the clans.

A disproportionate fraction of early internet adopters seem to be ereli. Shortly there's a website for pictures of delicious-looking beluli.

This seems to be going well.

He leaves the moderators mostly alone, but will program in additional moderation tools if they're easy to do and they present a good case for them.

Sure, but are the clans actually related to the government in some official capacity?

He looks into why a disproportionate fraction of internet early adopters are ereli. Possibly it's related to how he suddenly had dozens of ereli wanting his pod homes all at once.

The search engine lets you choose what species you are now. If you do, it'll show you things you're more likely to want to see better (guessing off species generalities), for example not showing any agerah food blogs to beluli or whatever.

No, the government of Anavel Sani is technically in theory a separate entity from the clans that the clans just happen to have controlled uninterrupted for centuries.

There's now a website for the organization of ereli dedicated to improving erel lives. They assess candidates for public office based on how their proposed policies would affect ereli. They pay people to do things like test out pod apartments and then they tip other ereli off about it. They help ereli raise law-abiding well-educated children. They fund medical research that might extend the life expectancy for their species or figure out non-belul blood sources that might be cheaper than beluli. Somebody involved seems to think the internet is promising.

Reactions to the search customization are mixed.

Then they don't get the shiny governmental labels.

He writes in saying that he'll take advice and feedback into consideration.

Well, they can always opt out of customized searches. He's not going to turn himself into Google, tracking everyone from the shadows.

Now there's signs in his stores and a section on the search engine homepage advertising the electronic bank! Focus-tested ones per species, if you chose a species for the search engine! Haven't you wanted to buy something on the internet but been scared it's a scam already? This solves that problem and makes its money by charging a tiny amount to the people receiving money. And you can get a cool game, shiny computer peripheral, or six months of your own website free if you sign up for an account!

Lanisal opens an account with the internet bank, but no one else in her clan does yet. A handful of other people open accounts, Valanda among them. Ereli start opening accounts, mostly with only small amounts in them for now.

A farmer starts taking online orders for fruit delivery anywhere on the mainland as long as the order is big enough to justify paying for the trip.

The computer parts and website services store gives you a discount if you pay online! Nik pays Lanisal to set up online orders and give a discount to them, too! He approaches a few other big mail-order companies about making them their own website and doing online payments, look how much dough the fruit guy is raking in, see? And air travel companies, if people can book a flight online and pay right then it's very convenient and you don't have to pay a ticketing agent, the computer does it all.

He's definitely losing money, but that happens in the establishing stages of a business.

The city of New Dover gets a semi-official website, with maps and tourist information and so on. The Order of Mercy gets a website and puts up free medical advice, which people might not trust of course, and its own private forum where nurses and doctors will give general medical advice for free, unless they get overwhelmed with asks. Though, they know humans best. A bunch of other immigrant companies set up their own sites, from the church to a beer-brewing company to someone who owns a rather fantastically decorated botanical garden to the Automaton Appreciation And Advancement Academy. ('Academy' is a bit of a stretch even if they do teach people, they picked the name because they liked how it sounds in English.)

Lanisal starts selling online, now without courting piracy on purpose. The airlines still want to weigh all cargo at the airport but start taking reservations online.

The New Dover sites all attract some people, especially the Order of Mercy one.

It looks like web hosting is going to be a bigger revenue stream than the online bank for now. Well, as long as he starts making loads and loads of money soon.