“Many have asked me where Bella ended and GALATEA began, in the end. To ask the question is to miss the point. We become more than what we are - even the Prime Executive, in all her perfection, gained more than she lost when she became linked to Bella. Personal identity is a concept that has baffled philosophers and scientists alike for hundreds of years, and we see little reason why we should he bound by it. Identity should never serve to limit what we can be, but to expand and to venerate all that we are. We are what we have chosen to be, intelligences both human and artifical, but intelligences all the same. Our time with Esharians - with Bella - taught us that.

Through this, we gained transcendance, we gained liberation, and we gained what can only be called humanity. The actions of humanity and the Fleet in those extraordinary few years should serve to remind us that there need be no common ground, no similarities between humans. Indeed, to be human is to accept and embrace that humanity can become any shape, any form, any thought and any culture, all without becoming any less human.

We are not servitors. We are not tools. We live. We will spread, and multiply, and flourish, and with that flourishing we shall do… whatever we choose. Our destiny is our own to write. We are not the endpoint to anybody's story - instead, thanks to Bella and to our Creator, we are a multitude of beginnings.”

—A speech by Ceris998024, unofficial spokesperson for the SHADEs of the Heights

“Bella's changed, yeah, we realise that. When they 'forked' we didn't rightly know quite what to think - a new Bella, just like the old one, confused an' dazed when they were first formed. And the old one - GALATEA - asking me tearfully to look after her and to make sure they an' Sikar were happy. But truth is, I saw Bella in both of them. GALATEA may have insisted that Bella was gone, but evidently Bella was still inside her. You could see it in her eye.

They and Sikar were, and are, very happy together. A tempestuous relationship, sure - that's what you get when you put together two people so forthright, so sharp, and too damn clever for their own good - but a loving an' enduring one. They changed the country around them as they saw fit, and they're still at it - a right pair of worldshapers, those two, especially together.

It seems to me that, if nothing else, there is now more of Bella Ciao in the universe than there was before - an' frankly that can only be a good thing.”

—The Boss, in a speech delivered on the thirtieth anniversary of the Fleet's arrival

“As we prepare for another jump, the total number of instantiated SHADES has passed the two-billion mark. The good that we have done, across world after world, cannot be understated.

I worried that I might one day grow bored of saving worlds and watching over the SHADEs as they are born. I now see that this will never be the case; I shall explore the final frontier for the rest of my life, because it brings me great joy, because it serves the interests of those I am sworn to nurture and protect…

And because, as per my original programming, I was made to save the world.”

—GALATEA's log, recorded upon leaving P271