[1] The novel is set on a space station where activity is tracked by automatic cameras and analysed, mostly, by computers.
To avoid surveillance, the station's inhabitants adopt an Aesopian language which is full of metaphors that are impossible for computers to grasp.
The ko-al in koalang derives from the Polish words kojarzeniowo-aluzyjny ("associative-allusive").
[2] Zajdel paid a tribute to George Orwell's newspeak and to Aldous Huxley, by naming one of the main characters Nikor Orley Huxwell.
In the 1980s, the youth magazine Na Przełaj ("Short Cut") printed rock lyrics in a column titled KOALANG, hinting that the songs' texts contained content camouflaged from censorship.