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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too-early-and-too-late

"He says, off literally no information other than that."

Minor Finis Way

"They couldn't be worse at ruling than blues!"

"I shouldn't have mentioned Afen said all blues were contemptible, now you feel like you've got permission."

thesignalandthenoise

"Doet's interesting and I don't think they have bad quality of life overall but they're... really experimental in a way that's not always great, although I'm rather cognizant of my hypocrisy in saying that given how fervently I wish I'd been in an experiment city when I was born."

Aaron Meriwether Way

wealth-of-nations

"What's bad about being experimental?"

thesignalandthenoise

"Well, they're not doing it any more but they used to use reds for things you couldn't reasonably get anyone to agree to."

too-early-and-too-late

"Were their reds worse off than other peoples' reds or..."

thesignalandthenoise

"Uh, I guess that depends whether you prefer a higher background risk of police brutality or being heavily scrutinized by researchers and possibly blinded to see if you come up with any useful accommodations for yourself."

too-early-and-too-late

"Wow."

Minor Finis Way

"I am really glad you all didn't invent spaceships sooner."

thesignalandthenoise

"It would have been really embarrassing."

"As it was it felt like - we'd put all the horribleness behind us and could finally grow up."

too-early-and-too-late

Sigh.

thesignalandthenoise

"The story about FTL went live and it was like everyone stopped holding our breaths."

"It's - growing up understanding exactly how vast the universe is and how much of it is empty and knowing that we just don't know how to make space for you to have a baby..."

Ebele Miranda Swan ༐

chanuphis

"We're gonna try and get you Mars. There's just a limit to how much you can break on your way off your planet."

"Everyone's agreed on that, I think. Even the people who annoyed you so much want this to be by far the most humane occupation in history."

Ebele Miranda Swan ༐

chanuphis

"Well, that's good on net, although in some ways it might be less frustrating if we just went in wands blazing and everything were tidily unambiguous."

"I think you'd end up confronted with equally frustrating problems even if you were invaded by a terrible government. What do you do with their citizens, do you expel them to their certain deaths or let them stay and under what conditions, do you go after the government at home as well, how do you make sure that a different country doesn't try or doesn't just kill everyone on Earth in a panic..."

Ebele Miranda Swan ༐

chanuphis

"I was mostly thinking 'less socially frustrating' but yeah. This is an improvement."

"Yeah, it would definitely involve less pretending to be friendly."

too-early-and-too-late

"And there'd be people who deserved to be turned into bats, which would be a useful outlet."

"If you want to announce that there's some specific well-defined thing punishable in your jurisdiction with, uh, bat transformation..."

too-early-and-too-late

"See, that's the thing, I don't want to announce that, I don't actually like punitive legal systems and the - light friendly correction - thing about hexes doesn't culturally translate and so the right thing is never to turn anyone into a bat. But it's frustrating to just keep taking the high ground when it feels like the other side isn't."