For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed.

...now I'm a spent firework; but at least I've been a firework.

If, by happiness, you mean the absence of adversity I and all fabricants are the happiest stratum in corpocracy as genomicists insist. However, if happiness means the conquest of adversity or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one’s will to power, then of all Nea So Copros’s slaves we surely are the most miserable.

Travel far enough, you meet yourself.

Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction

Any society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.

Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' conscience; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Mephi replied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.