"Indeed! If you agree that it is not any known species, it shall have to be named. Pseudocaelifera fulgurivorus was my first idea."

"Naming it begs the question of which court you would present the species to," says a third voice, nasal and reedy, Vero's cousin Ulsi.

Her reference brings the conversation to a pause for a long moment. Under normal circumstances, a scientific discovery by a scholarly aristocrat would be presented to the emperor. However, the imperial traditions of Baelo dictate that all other credible claimants must be removed from the succession before the new emperor can ascend, and the First Industrial War ground on with unprecedented human and financial costs to achieve an unprecedented stalemate.

Now the two claimants hold court in the north and south halves of the continent, neither able to assume the title and the corresponding powers. It puts the nobility in the awkward dilemma of studiously avoiding the kind of proximity to either would-be emperor that might lead to them being pressed for support, or else declaring for one side and being cut off from peaceful transactions with the other half of the continent for however long the interregnum drags on.