Calamari is a watery world with few land masses. What land exists is swampy, boglike marshes where the first aquacultural civilizations sprang up when the Calamarians emerged from the blue-green sea. The Quarren remained sea-dwellers, able to live in air but preferring the warm security of the sea. Eventually the two races began cooperating, the Mon Cal - as the Quarren call them - providing ideas and the Quarren providing the metal to make the ideas reality. Now great, floating cities dominate the oceans. They extend far below the waves and serve as centers of learning, culture, and government. Within the lowers levels of these floating metropoli, the Quarren live and work.

The Quarren are pragmatic people, unwilling to trust new ideas or lofty concepts. Their outlook on life, as evidenced in their art and literature, is somewhat opposed to that of the Mon Cals. They do not dream of brighter tomorrows, but hold fast to remembered yesterdays. The sea is where the people belong, not upon floating hunks of metal or out among the stars. Still, the Quarren have followed the Mon Cals from the ocean depths to the endless boid of space, benefitting from the dreams and aspirations of the sad-eyed race and growing considerably dependent upon them.