--Excerpt from the meeting of the Roman Senate on the Ides of May in the year of the Consulship of Tacitus and Galba--
Princeps: "The Senate will hear Gnaeus Licinius Maro."

Senators: "Speak! Speak!"

Maro: "Honorable fathers and senators of Rome! Have you heard of the goings-on in the chimaera colonies? Surely you must all have heard the stories by now. Not only do the women there all dress like whores, with their see-through spider silk garments and excessive jewelry. Not only do they act like men. But now they are corrupting our daughters, filling their heads with feminare ideas! For too long have we stood idly by and allowed the chimaerae to do as they please! It was we who created them! We who gave them their freedom! We who granted them citizenship! And it was we who gave them their colonies! And what have they done to show their gratitude? They revel in decadence at our expense! They poison the minds of out daughters! And so I propose a formal motion to strip their colonies of their tax exemption! After all, it is only right that they pay for the damage that they cause."

Senators: *cheer*

Paetinus: "You are correct in saying that we granted the chimaerae all of these things, Maro, but you are wrong to say that they have done nothing for us. It is they who have Romanized the provinces! It is their spider silk garments that has helped us enrich ourselves from our trade with the east! And more importantly, it is they who provide us with the vast majority of our troops! I ask you, honorable fathers, can we afford to lose these things? And can we afford to antagonize the many chimaerae who make up our legions?"

Laetus: "Then what do you suggest we do, Paetinus? Nothing?"

Paetinus: "What I suggest is that we actually give these ideas some thought."

Maro: "How surprising that the effeminate Paetinus is a feminaris. Come then, enlighten us!"

Paetinus: "Very well. I ask you, honorable fathers of Rome, do we divide dogs into hes and shes? Or do they both share equally in hunting, and in keeping watch, and in the other duties of dogs? Or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while leaving the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling of their puppies is labor enough for them? It is only right that women should work alongside men and share equally in all aspects of the state. All of this is already a reality in the chimaera colonies, so why not the rest of the Imperium?"

Maro: "You hear that, senators? Paetinus wants all of the Imperium to be like the chimaera colonies--virtueless, immoral, and decadent! Is this the Rome you want to see? Is this fit for the Imperium that the Caesars left us? These feminares speak of 'equality', but who else is it that uses this word but Greeks, and Jews, and slaves? If we accept such ideas it will lead to the destruction of the Roman way of life! It will be the end of the Imperium Romanum! It will be the end of Rome!"

Princeps: "The end of Rome? Do you truly think the Imperium so weak that it would crumble because of the adoption of feminare policies? No, I see a far greater danger to Rome in this very chamber. It is not the feminares that will be end of the Imperium Romanum, but this animosity towards the chimaerae. Honorable fathers and senators of Rome, Maro would have you believe that everything granted to them was done out of charity, when in reality it was purely out of necessity. After you created them for your own amusement, curiosity, or greed, you saw how quickly their population grew, and knew that if you kept them all enslaved they would one day come to realize how numerous they were and rise up to destroy you, and so you had no choice but to free most of them and grant them citizenship. And then what happened? They were lynched by their fellow citizens and then retaliated against them. And how did you quell these unending riots? By driving the free chimaerae out of the city, only granting them their own colonies so that you could use them to Romanize the provinces. And when we needed more troops to keep the Imperium Romanum safe and secure the borders, you turned to their prosperous and populous colonies and offered them the same rights as men in exchange for military service. We have come to depend on the chimaerae. Not only do they provide most of our troops, but their colonies have become vital hubs of commerce and governance. If we antagonize them, we risk shattering the Imperium into a thousand pieces, and that is why I must veto this motion."

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The Roman chimaeras were originally created by Atlantean genoitores (genetic engineers) as custom-made luxury slaves for the upper class of the capital. However, because of technical limitations, they were incapable of being crossbred with one another—even chimaeras based on the same species were unable to have children together. Eventually, one enterprising Roman managed to produce a female chimaera that could reproduce asexually and reached adulthood in a mere four years. He and several others would go on to apply the same technique to many other chimaeras. While this made them very wealthy in the short term, in the long term they ended up creating a fast-growing population of non-human women.

In time, these parthenogenic women made up the vast majority of the chimaeras, and this resulted in their colonies developing into what was essentially protofeminist communes with vibrant Sapphic communities. It was this that attracted many human women to visit these chimaera colonies. Some merely visited out of curiosity, while others came to get an escape from the patriarchal society that made up the majority of the Imperium.

In the scene depicted above, we see an intimate moment shared between the daughter of a prominent Roman politician and an up-and-coming chimaera philosopher. As can be gathered from the Senate meeting, scenes like this along with the protofeminist feminare philosophy coming out of the colonies is upsetting the status quo.

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