Prompts - initially, the boxes search for actual scenarios in the world that are poetic analogs to the query. Because the Big Boat and crew are project specific, the network knows that it's being asked to riff on the real world, to efficaciously hallucinate.
Prompts show the capabilities of the box network. If Joe or the iStone refers to the boxes during prompts, that will demonstrate (exposition) how amazing the box network is and why achieving sentience by merging with mycelium make sense.