Hi Tomas! I wanted to ask: is the name "Arden Vox" significant?
Aarden in Dutch means "earth" or "earthly", and Vox in Latin means "voice." So his name kinda means "voice of Earth" -- which seems appropriate, given his motivation for working on The Project.
No. The joke there is "Ardent Voice", and the slight connotations of Vox populi: as he is both acting unilaterally for everyone and thinks they are him. And of course this famous phrase: Vox populi, vox Dei – "The voice of the people is the voice of God".
Esther is just a reference to the novel I Smell Esther Williams, which I was reading when I was writing the story. And it is referenced in the DFW essay the protagonist inverted the message of.
As for Krishna, I just thought the line "granting me an unwariness that allows me to ask such things of Krishna" was amusing, so named him Krishna.