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

"People lived here."

"Still live here. Haven't hurt them. Won't hurt them."

too-early-and-too-late

"Just tear up their homes and livelihoods and eat up their land to build cities everywhere. And you kill them for throwing fruit."

"One person. There was one execution for throwing rotten tomatoes."

too-early-and-too-late

"Did you set the executions policy."

"Yes."

too-early-and-too-late

"Explain."

" - not actually sure what information you'd consider relevant. I'm trying to bring this about with as few lives lost as possible. The worst possible outcome is an organized resistance and a ongoing civil war. Worst for the people of Earth, obviously, but also worst for - Amentans are going to encounter other aliens, if Earth is a model of how to get what we want while leaving the local population better off, successfully integrated, and well-treated, then it'll get copied. If Earth is a catastrophe - in particular if it fails because of my choice to be unusually, bizarrely lenient by Amentan standards - then everyone's going to say 'oh, what went wrong was he tried to play really nice with them, not execute anybody'..."

too-early-and-too-late

"Have other species been found?"

"Not yet."

too-early-and-too-late

"Some of them might be more powerful than you."

"We are trying to deal with you the way we'd want a more powerful society to deal with us if they'd found us at the same tech level. Clear rules, humane and consistently enforced population controls, sanitation and hospitals and schools and an end to slavery and an end to war and a path to integration."

too-early-and-too-late

"Is that really all you'd want?"

" - it would not be our whole wishlist but it would be a lot of the items on our wishlist."

too-early-and-too-late

"Amentans don't care about being ruled by people who understand them and don't hold them in contempt and care about the same things as them -"

"We care about that. We're trying to do that here. It's hard for most people to do consistently with - the current population's education level and background assumptions - but we know it's important."

too-early-and-too-late

"You could have just offered us help."

"A population without population controls and with FTL is going to go to war with everybody they run across."

too-early-and-too-late