 Though almost always hostile toward one another, tribes did cooperate to kill pest-control teams after entrepreneurs arrived on Aralia to turn it into a planetary amusement park.The government of the Antemeridian sector declared the Ranats semi-sentient, permitting sentient beings to kill the rodents in self-defense and forbidding them to arm members of the species.The governor restricted the movement of well-armed groups to Aralia to cover up the species' existence and its questionable level of sentience.