I've got a list of names | Glowfic Constellation

Afen is disappointed in the universe. He bounds back and forth across his room explaining why to his wife, his infant granddaughter, the end table, and a reporter flabbergasted by her good luck and cringing silently against the wall in the hopes he won't remember she's there.

"There is no reason to suppose that a species evolving independently of Amentans, with their own evolutionary history and living mammalian species likely related to theirs, would end up looking like us. None. Every explanation every scientist has ventured to the press has been unimaginative and unconvincing retroactive refitting of bad models to baffling data. Aliens shouldn't look like us but with different hair colors. Aliens that are not made out of carbon at all would be unsurprising; aliens with only as much physiological dissimilarity as exists between us and animal species on our planet would be mildly surprising; aliens with opposable thumbs would be truly remarkable. This is not remarkable and biologically enlightening; this is just inconsistent with everything we understand about the universe. It doesn't teach us new things about evolution; it should make us rethink evolution. - don't quote that part, they'll take it out of context."

Reporter nods rapidly.

"All of that said, I've picked up three of the languages and I'm working on building a good machine translator, it's a challenge with as little as they've produced in the way of electronic records. I'm absolutely going there to meet them as soon as the politicians figure out what to do with themselves."

"Do you have any predictions about that?"

"About politics? Why would I have predictions about politics? They deliberately obscure relevant information, for one thing, and for another it's deathly boring."

"- I mean, sir, surely you hear from your son about -"

"I have seven children and some of them are very dense indeed but not quite dense enough to try to interest me in politics."

"I was referring to -"

"I know who you were referring to. If you want a statement from Aitim go bother Aitim."

"Thank you for your time."

"I did not alter my activities in response to your presence and therefore you can't yet be said to have wasted any of my time though you should go before you do."

...out skitters the reporter.

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Also I think it's the middle of their night right now, they live in Britain.

thesignalandthenoise

Well, I guess I'll park here and see if my blog related problems mysteriously disappear.

Did you ask Aitim? He's good at that kind of thing.

thesignalandthenoise

Yeah.

Curious about your political opinions. The human counterparts don't like us much, they think we should have just left them alone and settled uninhabited places.

thesignalandthenoise

They were kind of dying in droves. This is better than just peppering Mars with arcologies but I wish it were politically realistic to be politer about it.

They don't want to be caste-d either.

thesignalandthenoise

Oh, wow, is it that obvious from the outside how much it sucks?

Apparently. Also they think population controls are stupid and unnecessary.

thesignalandthenoise

How do they figure? I guess they could suppose we'd toss them anything habitable with really short or really long years, that would be nice of us.

They think they just don't want kids that much and will level out eventually with no meddling. I suppose we could do that, or let them settle the equators and poles of places.

thesignalandthenoise

If they don't want kids that much and can live places we don't want, yeah. I mean, we'd get steamrolled by every other country on Amenta, but apart from that.

Aitim explained that, yeah.

Humans also don't have a pollution instinct.

thesignalandthenoise

I suppose that's pleasanter probably. Hopefully it doesn't interfere with the stopping them from dying in droves thing.

I think they appreciate the merits of not dying in droves but it's a real hassle to convince them they can't spit on the sidewalks. What caste would you pick if they let people do that?

thesignalandthenoise

I would have been fine anywhere else, I think. Depends on stuff.

Growing up I think I was vaguely under the impression that lots of people did like my father or Aitim and just skipped out on whatever they'd gotten assigned.

thesignalandthenoise

You know that isn't actually legal, right?

Wait, really? Next you're going to tell me that sometimes blues get away with things.

thesignalandthenoise

Every now and again.

Aitim's okay. Means well, has ever been to a grocery store.

thesignalandthenoise

What's he meant to have learned from a grocery store?

Oh, I have been giving my cousins on that side a hard time because it came up recently that their guess for how much people spend on food was off by an order of magnitude.

thesignalandthenoise

You could make that mistake even knowing what the food costs if you didn't know how much people waited for sales or saved expensive things for special occasions or avoided throwing things out. Maybe less easily by a whole order of magnitude.