Nod. "Universal access to birth control is a very impressive accomplishment."

"Thank you!"

"What sort of resources could we get you to best serve your people?"

"We are so excited to get colonization underway. We have moon settlements but they scale badly and are more science outpost than habitat."

"Have you done a survey, do you know nearby uninhabited candidates for terraforming? - once there are portals the 'nearby' won't matter but those may still be five of your years out -"

"We have some in mind!" They can get him to this green astronomer to discuss that if he likes.

He'll dispatch someone. "This far from home terraforming is one of the most expensive and resource-intensive things we do - there are better resources for it locally - but I should be able to arrange it on the grounds that you're in unusually pressing need and will make very resourceful use of it. Projects like that are a major diplomatic commitment - if we're offering transit or en-route protection that's a sizable ongoing obligation - so we'll have people out here to write up a detailed agreement to everyone's satisfaction, though I can maybe anticipate their questions and advise you on ensuring the negotiations go smoothly."

"We don't have any observable neighbors that we know of, is protection likely to be a substantial concern?"

"Unlikely in the short and medium term; you do have neighbors relatively close once warp travel is available but they're pre-warp themselves and no one is likely to give it to them if they look militaristic, and you're a ways away from the areas where travel is likely to be contested. There are incidents every few years with wandering raiding ships, and if they knew of you they might be tempted to wander over here, but they certainly won't learn of you from us."

"I see. What are the questions likely to be -?"

"Regardless of the feasibility of meeting membership terms here, would it be possible to establish on a colony planet governments in adherence to them? Are there resources that could make that possible? Who will be allowed to emigrate? Will anyone be required to emigrate? Are there resources that would make it feasible to allow more freedom of choice surrounding emigration?"

"Oh, I hadn't been imagining politically separated entities. We'd need the right caste ratios, which might happen on its own or might require incentives - child credits are dispensed by caste anyway, easy enough to do it by making them cheaper by various amounts on the colony -"

"That sounds like a good way to do it. What are the recommended caste ratios -"

"There's plenty of flex, but very roughly fifty percent purple, twenty percent yellow, ten green, six or seven each orange and grey, and small percentages each blue and red."

Nod. "Do you have a sense of what it would be inside a space station? We have excellent artificial gravity, and while I don't think even a very large station would be a good substitute for a colony planet they're often popular as a way to test legal and political reforms without attempting destabilizing rollouts everywhere."

"A space station would probably need fewer purples - a lot of those are in farming or manufacture -"

"That makes sense. If there'd be interest in such an experiment that I could have in orbit tomorrow."

"I don't know that we can have it set up tomorrow, especially since no one would be trained to maintain the place that quickly."

"Oh, we've got robots for that. But by all means take your time, just know that that's an option with very quick turnaround."

"I'll see about finding volunteers and getting political experiment buy-in, although I don't know how popular these requirements will be with some people. How much station capacity are we talking about -"

"Elves find confined spaces aversive and build our starships very very big, if you wanted the space for a million people we have a design on file. Which requirements are you expecting to be unpopular?"

"I'm not sure if I'm reading the requirements correctly but it does seem like it would erode the caste system considerably..."

"Oh, no, the private sector can have whatever restrictions on employment they care to have, the only problem would be laws that apply only to a specific caste and are overwhelmingly unpopular within that caste. Does that come up much?"

"I haven't actually polled them on this but currently reds are policed very heavily whenever they're outside their neighborhoods - it's so damaging when they break the rules, that's what the entire war is about is our neighbors letting reds pollute their food - but it seems like a bit much to expect them to vote that, no, they can't just touch anything they want no matter who else is going to need it later - they're allowed to self-police for the most part at home, we just need them to wear their shoe covers and stay on designated paths that can be cleaned later and so on when they're at work."

"Bribery is permitted - a law that says, say, reds have to stay on designated footpaths in non-red areas but each get a stipend of such amount for the inconvenience would need majority support from both reds and nonreds, since it could be construed as a law imposing a restriction on reds or as a law imposing a disadvantage on nonreds, but if it has majority support in both subsets then it'd work fine. And you could poll carefully, figure out how much of a compensatory stipend you'd need to get majority support. Or maybe they don't want money, maybe they won't object to the law if there's sufficient assurance an overzealous peace officer won't beat them for an accidental violation - I wouldn't be able to guess, really, but you needn't assume it's hopeless if it wouldn't pass a straight vote."