1. A method of processing a query, comprising: receiving a query requesting at least one specific attribute of selected ones of a plurality of objects satisfying a query criteria, the query directed to a database containing state data for the plurality of objects; generating a data structure in response to the query without retrieving an object satisfying the query criteria, the data structure comprising, for each object satisfying the query criteria, each specific attribute requested by the query and the identifier of the object, even if the identifier of the object was not requested as a specific attribute in the query.