What would explain the apparent presence of prey animals in the few wilderness areas of the Mess? Do only sentient beings reap the benefit of effective immortality and freedom from harm and fear? If so, where exactly does the border lie? How does the Mess tell the difference between "citizen" and "food"? The neo-Boreals claim to have mass-hallucinated evidence that the Mess does indeed grant backup privileges to all life inside it, but only in direct proportion to their need. For example, an ordinary non-sentient mouse with little sense of individuality or abstraction would have its mind sorted upon the instant of death for any experiences that no mouse has had before; those experiences would be funneled into a collective pool. The next time the mouse population of an area falls below the ideal minimum, a fully mature mouse would be instantiated in a nest somewhere, with a random set of memories drawn from the pool. The neo-Boreals were VERY specific about the particular image of a pool -- perhaps it is related to the
Paragnostic Desublimation Pool somehow, the hazy ancestral memory that all Mess residents somehow seem to share?