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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thesignalandthenoise

"I mean, if they'd put forth anything other than an optimal effort under the circumstances..."

"Yeah. Planets!"

thesignalandthenoise

"This one turned out more complicated than anybody really had in mind."

"There's that. I still can't really think it'd have been better to leave them."

thesignalandthenoise

"No, of course not. It's just the sort of circumstance where anyone who has a grievance feels attacked instead of unlucky, so..."

"And things that are bad about your world are just part of the background noise of life - so the government's corrupt, so people live paycheck-to-paycheck in a job they loathe when they'd be great at one that's a different hair color, so it's illegal to argue one should break the law, so we execute people for too many things, it's not that they're okay it's that you don't wake up outraged about things that just are. But to them, those things are new, and worthy of all the outrage we'd probably feel if the law was changed to be that way.

And to us the beating your children and women prohibited from work or education and absolute poverty and child mortality and ongoing massacres are new, and not the kind of awful which we've gotten used to and restrain ourselves to complaining about at dinner parties.

Maybe there are people out there somewhere whose society has nothing wrong with it and they could tell us who they're more upset with."

thesignalandthenoise

"Yeah, that's - exactly. Yeah."

Sigh.

"Minor recommends Iceland to tourists, he says the glaciers are spectacular and wizards have magic tents with showers which improve camping from 'terrible' to 'kind of cozy'."

thesignalandthenoise

"That's still in the northern hemisphere, right, I don't want to reseason again."

"Yeah, it's right near here."

thesignalandthenoise

"I could go for looking at glaciers from a magic tent, but I can't really hike, does this work for non-hikers?"

"I am promised by Iceland's budding tourism bureau that one can boat to many lovely glaciers. I have maps and boat schedules and things."

thesignalandthenoise

"Cool. I suppose you probably don't know how to hang glide."

"Haven't the faintest idea. Should we also look into hang gliding opportunities?"

thesignalandthenoise

"It's fun, but I'm not equipped to teach it because teaching it involves going up and down a hill a lot. I had to learn at a ski place over the summer, when there was a lift. Once you're good you can just jump off stuff, but till then..."

"I would tumble? We can save that for next time, then. Just glaciers."

thesignalandthenoise

"Glaciers." Nod.

They go off to check out the accessible-by-boats glaciers.

thesignalandthenoise

The glaciers are lovely! Pelape has no sea legs and has to sit to watch them but this does not make them less lovely.

The magic tent looks like a normal tent on the outside and a cozy apartment on the inside.

thesignalandthenoise

"This is nice!"

"They might not've run out of space even if they were Amentan about babies, could just fit more planet into their planet."

thesignalandthenoise

"Well, they would have had to get over the secrecy, but yes."

"Wouldn't have survived the internet." He makes them hot chocolate. "Aitim sells wizards things at a shopping mall in his city, because he wants more non-hostile contact between magical people and non-magical people who don't smell and have something of value to trade them. Some of them tried their mind-affecting magic nonsense, and then the shopkeepers did inventory, checked the cameras, and banned them for shoplifting. They figured out pretty quickly that it wasn't going to work."

thesignalandthenoise