"What she was trying to explain earlier is that we attended the last round of treaty negotiations and argued, successfully, for millions more credits for humans on top of the Voan system, because we wanted humans to be able to have children."

"If you have concerns about the advertising I can take that up with their department, but they're supposed to be advertising the benefits of two-child families, not implying that humans shouldn't have children."

"People are hearing 'the aliens care a lot about how many children we are having and want it to be less, for some reason, but are finding creative ways to say it'."

"I assume they already noticed this and stopped but if they haven't I'll see to it."

"The other thing I was trying to explain earlier," says the first diplomat, "is that even before we met you we had planned in years of delays before population control in order to make sure we had reversible long-term contraception which did not cause anyone to be infertile afterwards, because accidentally causing some humans infertility would be awful and we were, before we ever met you, willing to sacrifice a lot in order to make sure that didn't happen by accident."

"You're being very humane about everything so far, at least on an institutional level. I think there's some kind of inferential gap here - Pelape?"

"That you want humans to have children is very different from being comfortable with the idea of humans having unlimited children, which is what no-coercion methods amount to."

" - I mean, if human birthrates did not drop to replacement then we would certainly have no choice but to reconsider. But if human birthrates do drop to replacement, then - no one complains because other castes have cheaper credits -"

"Yes they do."

"Well, it's not common. No one is going to impose controls on a population that doesn't need them."

"Unless they find themselves in a hurry. Or get worried about religiosity or child-wanting being too heritable."

"No one is going to impose controls on a society that doesn't need them."

"Unless they find themselves in a hurry and the population hasn't proved that they don't need them yet, or they think it would be more humane to do it now before they breed themselves into our level of fervent reproductive drive."

"I don't think I understand what sort of answer you're hoping to get here."

"Presumably treaties between Amentan countries have intermediate states of enforcement prior to 'outright war', mechanisms according to which the treating parties may monitor one another like your Cene observers..."

"Monitoring isn't typical for something that would be hard to miss but if it'll be reassuring we'd be happy to authorize any number of members of your faction to observe law enforcement and population reduction operations and ensure that they're happening as agreed-upon and in a non-coercive fashion."

"And the other thing?"

"Do you have punitive measures in mind or would you like to read some treaties from back home and see what strikes you as adequate?"

"Second thing sounds great but they're probably all designed with more of a background relationship in mind than 'we sell you Veritaserum mostly because that way you kill fewer people'."

"Yes, something like 'trade sanctions' seems inappropriate. Requiring the prosecution of all involved officials is standard for some kinds of treaty violations, or if you'd rather, the extradition of involved officials for trial in a court of yours."

"That could work. I'll want to run it by some people."

"That makes sense. I can send you a more complete list."

"Thank you."

"Of course!"

"What else is on your agenda today?"

"We were hoping to ask for more details on your desiderata for human self-determination."

"Pending results on hybrid children, which might make it a rather academic matter in the long run, among the opinions in my faction is that human self-determination in the form of humans in positions of authority, especially if they're not directly answerable to Amentans, is desirable. Disparate lifespans are such that it might be difficult for even a human who somehow managed to compensate for a lack of a blue network and education to advance far in the government as it's structured today."