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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chanuphis

She glances at Aitim.

"I have put forward a lot of reports without giving my colleagues any time to read them; I think meeting again once they can speak more confidently sounds useful."

chanuphis

"Sounds good to me."

People consult their calendars and pick a followup time. Aitim walks Miranda and Karen out.

chanuphis

"Wow."

"Oh?"

chanuphis

"Their genes would be half human, they probably won't be very smart..."

Sigh.

planetarium

"We were standing right there!"

"You can imagine why I didn't want to bring anyone who was going to threaten to turn them into cabbages!"

chanuphis

"They could have maybe used a small amount of advance warning about the cabbage thing. Like. I'm not gonna. But they might need it to be their most diplomatic selves."

" When threatened they threaten back; if they did something different then everyone would try to threaten them."

chanuphis

"And what causes them to not call their visitors stupid?"

"One of 'evidence that it's not true' or 'a briefing on how to flatter humans and why to want to'. If I'd brought people who might be cabbaging I'd have tried to persuade them of wizards on my own with the box and then give them such a briefing but I think they might well not have believed me."

Karen Dwimmer

planetarium

"How would they explain the box?"

"I don't know but 'secret magic society' is really, really implausible from where we're standing, compared to 'complicated illusion' or 'genuine new technology'."

chanuphis

"I guess they didn't follow up on Veritaserum."

"Last I heard chemists were confused that they couldn't synthesize it but not that confused, protein folding is hard. I'm sorry they were rude."

chanuphis

"It's less that I'm offended and more that I'm not optimistic about being able to come to a satisfactory compromise with them."

"Oh?"

chanuphis

"They didn't seem to be thinking of us as people to compromise with, just a resource that might or might not be dangerous to extract."

"Hmm."

chanuphis

"Hmm?"

"I feel like we have had a lot of interactions revolving around 'how do we extract all the resources and investment and infrastructure from Amentans and then remove them from power one way or another'. And that's an entirely reasonable thing to want and plan for, but certainly does not involve much thinking of that resource as people to compromise with. I am starting to suspect that thinking of dangerous alien resources as people to compromise with is much harder than actually compromising with them."

chanuphis