The Talorids are floating beings looking like glowing orbs, which once had three sexes and essentially thought like humans did, however, they are reproduced through artificial means and actually have a "basic programming." What the Guardian did was to make more and more suggestions on program changes, until he could take over, and change the programming to something he liked. Now Talorids have only one sex, and each could only do the task it was created for, making them helpless professional idiots.