By sending the Judge this scroll, Dr. X was laying claim to all of the 
heritage that Judge Fang most revered. It was like getting a letter from the 
Master himself. The Doctor was, in effect, pulling rank. And even though 
Dr. X nominally belonged to a different phyle—the Celestial 
Kingdom—and, here in the Coastal Republic, was nothing more than a 
criminal, Judge Fang could not disregard this message from him, written in this 
way, without abjuring everything he most respected—those principles on 
which he had rebuilt his own life after his career as a hoodlum in Lower 
Manhattan had brought him to a dead end. It was like a summons sent down 
through the ages from his own ancestors.