I can imagine, yeah.

Do we count as a polity?

I dunno but you should find out before they go polar spring.

She makes a face. Peka cannot see it, but it still happens. Yeah.

Illia makes discreet inquiries re:experimental reds and the definition of polity.

If she's keeping experimental subjects in a polar land she will for population control purposes constitute a polity even if they don't behave like one in other respects.

Okay then.

So apparently we count as a polity at least for population control purposes; I feel like this should have implications for non-population-control purposes.

Like what?

I mean--I'm not entirely sure what I mean. But--

If we can get people to accept decontamination as valid--

It'll be good to--already have something in place. Did that make any sense. I am not sure it did.

You wanna run a polar red country?

Kinda yeah. Does that make me horribly selfish? It probably makes more sense to just give them the resources to self-govern.

People're more likely to trade with polar reds who have planet-dispensing aliens looking out for them.

There is that.

And like, there's self-governing but they can't really self-support, not yet.

Mhm.

But every individual neighborhood is gonna have a structure to it so if you can govern the whole collection of 'em without messing that up too much it would be good.

True. I will definitely prioritize that.

I'm trying to figure out the one that's there now but Orvara's all different.

That makes sense. How are they different?

They seem really big on 'if you fuck up they drag you to your grandma, who is very disappointed in you'.

She giggles.

Really? That seems odd.

I mean, reds need some internal policing that doesn't rely on ever inviting actual grey cops to show up, but the grandma-based one is new to me.

The internal policing makes sense! It is the grandma part that is odd.

Seems to work okay for them.

Sure. Odd doesn't mean bad or anything.

Also, uh, this isn't super urgent but does cultural translation come with money?