[h3]The Three Rivers Telo Trials[/h3]
When Prince Vakhul XII died, the question of who should inherit his third floor factory kingdom captivated all the principalities of the Three Rivers. According to long standing custom, it belonged to his closest living relative until the next conclave of judges redistricted the region. As the late prince had no descendants and no living ancestors, his only sibling, Princess Peraula, took possession of his domain. Normally this would not be the least bit controversial, but in this case, a complaint against this transfer of sovereignty was filed in the High Court by none other than the deceased Prince Vakhul himself.

In life, the prince had a sliver of brightstone implanted in his brain. After his original body died, the shard was transplanted into an artificial humanoid construct, called a telo. The shard imparted the late prince's personality and memories into the telo, which it argued made it Prince Vakhul. Princess Peraula disagreed, arguing the telo did not meet the legal definition of being the same person as Prince Vakhul and so the late prince's domains still rightfully belonged to her.

The case sharply divided the Three Rivers. Old codgers pining for immortality expressed outrage that there was a question about whether a telo was the same person as the one its shard had been implanted in, while young yipper snappers worried about yet more cuts to their already dismally small inheritances argued voraciously against granting telos inheritance rights. There were also a few crazy people who argued something about fundamental rights of personhood for artificial constructs and whatnot, but most people were wise enough to only care about the decision's impact on their immediate future.

The hit reality show The High Court immediately picked up the case for its prime time slot. In the law obsessed land of the Three Rivers, there was no higher honour. After lengthy preambles intermixed with touching flashbacks of childhood memories of the main participants, the actual case began as the judges entered the arena amidst a fantastic pyrotechnical display as the show's guitar-heavy theme song roared in the background. The announcers play-by-play commentary flooded the soundscapes of every home, with cheers erupting as each cunning legal maneuver came into play. During the bonus round, the defense shocked the court by bringing in a necromancer who summoned the prince's spirit, proving that the telo was not the same person as the late prince. At least, it would have proved it if respectable people still believed in such foolishness as necromancy. At the end of the first day, the judges remained undecided, although the defense's lawyers lead the style scoreboard by 7 points.

The next morning, as the defense's expert witness Eliana Reyes was on her way to the Timitubo Legal Arena, the prince of the intersection of 12th and Rosewood Street detained her for violating Article CXCVII, Section 17. This was, of course, a dirty move because everyone knew that the third paragraph of Section 2 provided exemption for noncitizens from violations of sections which conflicted with Article XLII's basic rights of pedestrian access, provided proper etiquette was followed. And the only reason she could be detained was because of that section's ambiguous language which allowed for one to argue for either one of two mutually exclusive definitions of proper etiquette. Three Rivers residents were fans of crafty legal arguments, but only when they did not rest on ambiguity.

Rioters overwhelmed the one-man army of the intersection, and barged into the despicable prince's adhoc bathroom prison. But, due to a prolonged dispute over the sharing of maintenance costs between the princes of the third and fourth floors of the apartment complex, the floorboards could not support the extra weight of the rioters. Eliana cracked her head on the bathtub below and died. Back at the arena, both sides agreed to expedite the case in the interest of public safety. In practice, this meant no new witnesses could be called upon to testify. However, later during that day's bonus round the defense unleashed their next surprise: a telo containing the personality and memories of Eliana Reyes. Despite her vociferous opposition to the technology, she had secretly undergone the operation. As the telo maintained Miss Reyes' personality and memories, it was still vehemently against the technology and was fully prepared to demonstrate the ways in which she was most certainly not the same as the real Miss Reyes. This left Prince Vakhul's lawyers in an unpleasant situation: They could either bar Miss Reyes' telo from testifying on the ground that the telo should count as a new witness, and thereby undermine their case by admitting that telos were not the same as the person their brightstone came from, or they could allow Miss Reyes' telo to unleash her crafty arguments against her own kind without being able to call upon a new witness of their own to balance the score.

A mix of boos and applause filled the arena as the judges chimed in: Should telos be legally recognized as the same person whose memories and personalities they hold? Judge Sarkov, no. Judge Nanuri, no. Judge Pulo, no. Judge Khaminda, no. And of course, Judge Simon went against the crowd and voted yes. "The defense's tactics were complete rubbish", he explained.

However, this victory for anti-thought activists was short lived. In the Second Telo Trial it was decided that telos, while not meeting the legal definition of a person, were still legally eligible to be the closest living adult relatives of their previous bodies. And thus a new class of princes, lacking the rights of personhood but also not burdened with its obligations, came into being.