"I think it would be prudent to continue this meeting another time."

"Certainly. I'll send you the examples we discussed."

"Thank you."

"It's been a fascinating conversation!"

"Mmhm."

They leave.

Aitim what should this say about the quality of available Anitami diplomats?

Their assessment, for whatever it's worth, is that renegotiating the population treaties to give you what you want on that front is going to be possible if we really get terraforming, that the human sovereignty arrangements should be totally achievable right now, and that you're going to keep making more and more arbitrary demands if they're as accommodating on everything else.

I had to end the meeting because I thought some of them would look great with footlong incisors and I am one of the less hex-happy wizards available. Do you have anyone whose preferred negotiation strategy isn't some combination of 'be incredibly dense', 'pretend to be incredibly dense', or 'assume that I'm incredibly dense'?

Please don't assault people in treaty negotiations, I really cannot overemphasize how serious we consider that to be. 

That's why I shooed them instead but they were so awful! Why did you send awful ones? Are they all like that?

There really are a lot of cultural differences here. I can try to find people you like better but we might in fact not have any who will react well to being told the caste system is regressive and we can't let humans join it even if they want to.

I don't object to humans having the option to join the caste system but I object to people's kids not having the option to leave it and I thought I was crystal clear on that point.

Humans don't have the option to join the caste system if their children under it won't be treated like any other yellow. They have the option to imitate the caste system, which has advantages but also drawbacks. I think maybe you should talk with Kan until you're decided on which policy aims you want to get through this arrangement in particular, and then once you have a complete list work with him and Pelape on explaining it in a way that makes it easier to get done.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

She compared the possibility that some humans might object to having all the land on Earth owned by blues who stole it to the complaint that slaveowners had about their slaves being freed.

The people currently mad at us for taking their property do mean 'freeing their serfs and stealing their land' pretty interchangeably. Most landowners were slaveholders or had recently stolen it out from under the natives. I don't know what fair land management would look like - definitely not like what we're doing right now - but if we gave it back we would mostly be giving plantations to slaveowners and colonizers and landed nobility, not to the people who live on it.

That is neither what she said nor the part of the comparison I objected to.

Then I would need more information to give you a helpful explanation of what she might have meant by that.

I said "Slaves are people who now own themselves. Land is inanimate and now belongs to blues" and she said "In both cases someone had an illegitimate claim which is no longer being enforced for them."

I think you should discuss this with Kan.

Sure.

He sighs. "It must be so frustrating to feel like you're trying to help people and they can't even stop being condescending long enough to make it clear they're smart enough to realize that."

"Are you talking about me or them, because I didn't stoop to hexes but I did make a couple remarks that were not most diplomatic. In my defense I am not a diplomat and have this job because I don't look suspiciously like anyone."