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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"Then it seems like it'd be a horrible loss if you went ahead and imposed your system everywhere and some wildly superior system no one's thought of never got thought of because the people who would have implemented it are instead your powerless subjects, complying as hard as they can so you don't sterilize them for stepping out of line."

thesignalandthenoise

"We want to integrate you. Sterilization is a criminal penalty, people don't get sterilized for political philosophy."

"For saying 'I don't think it's right to comply with population controls as currently implemented', though?"

thesignalandthenoise

"Safe if you follow up with 'but I'm going to anyway', not safe if you say 'so I'm gonna go have an illegal baby'."

"And if you did a straight auction we'd be gone inside a generation."

thesignalandthenoise

"It's casted on Amenta, and you were going to be started on the Voan system to clear out noise from preexisting conditions like slavery and poor educational outcomes anyway."

"If there were a humans-only auction it would definitely take a couple generations to drive us extinct, yeah."

thesignalandthenoise

"I think we'd notice in that time."

"And try to put back together the norms you ripped out and lit on fire? Or would you go 'well, more babies for us'?"

thesignalandthenoise

"There would be a faction saying the latter and I'm not sure who'd win."

"Uh huh."

thesignalandthenoise

"I will look up the governments you mentioned but suspect they are in fact terrible and just not in ways you find conspicuous."

"Maybe. Like I said, I have barely ever talked to a Muggle and get my cultural knowledge from their math and science papers. But even if we have never done better, we will, once we make you leave."

thesignalandthenoise

"Well, I hope you can make it worth it."

Nod.

thesignalandthenoise

"Where are you on all this?" Pelape asks Miranda.

Ebele Miranda Swan ༐

chanuphis

"...I think I differ from you mostly in that... I think violent conquest of a planet is bad and that it's worrying other options weren't more seriously considered even if consideration did yield this conclusion, while you think it's the obvious way to go. ...I think if you were running the planet instead of Aitim we'd work everything out really amicably, honestly."

thesignalandthenoise

"Suppose that's something."

"If that means 'with Amentans not having to leave' what exactly would be different - or do you think you could convince her of Amentans having to leave..."

Ebele Miranda Swan ༐

chanuphis

"I wouldn't make them leave. I'm not actually all that gung ho about it as-is unless we can make Mars work and even then..."

"Are you more optimistic about humans ever having any semblance of independence or just don't think that's worth hurting them?"

Ebele Miranda Swan ༐

chanuphis

"I might be more individualist than you? I'm sure there's some way to make Amentan needs less burdensome on humans - Pelape? -"

thesignalandthenoise

"Oh, sure, if I were running the place and my human consultants said 'the showers are a bit much' I'd go, like, 'okay everybody, we didn't even make reds plastic up for the comfort of social workers and delivery people and cops who had to go into their neighborhoods, we don't have to make humans do more of this work for our comfort than actually makes sense from a scientific public health standpoint if it's really not bothering them'. I mean, a scientific public health standpoint covers a lot and in particular a lot of interference with your water supply because wow but it doesn't, uh, prohibit... visiting people's graves... if that is a thing you like doing."

"The thing about an individualist perspective is - if you ask humans, individually, what they want, it'd be 'not being ruled by aliens'. Not universally but definitely it's been true of all the humans I have talked to! I don't care about local governments independent of the people who make them up, but those people care about their local governance, intensely, and that makes it as important as anything else people care about that intensely, and I feel like since you don't care about it at all you're underweighting it."

thesignalandthenoise