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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"Yes."

too-early-and-too-late

"Your father?"

"...yes."

too-early-and-too-late

"Tell me about the history of treatment of the red caste."

"Amentans held until recently that people who worked for several generations in polluted work became, themselves, inherently polluted. The caste that did our sanitation and garbage and mortuary work, reds, were agreed to be polluted. They weren't allowed to leave their districts except for work. Laws either did not apply to them at all or were not enforced to protect them. The police sometimes murdered them to let off steam. It was looking likely that we would kill them all once we could automate the work they do. My mother argued that it was possible after all to clean them. At extraordinary personal and political costs to many people this was agreed upon and all the reds were cleaned."

too-early-and-too-late

"Explain pollution."

"Amentans find it intensely distressing to be unclean or to suspect that our environment is unclean. Unclean things include obvious vectors for disease - rotting food, garbage, dead bodies, sewage - but also things that have been touched by unclean people even if it's been verified they aren't carrying disease. This is so strongly felt that back when we had reds people would go hungry rather than eat food that there was a chance had been loaded into a truck by a red. Some starved. We're trying to figure out how to make cleanliness requirements not onerous for humans, given that you don't possess the drive naturally to make sure you are clean all the time."

too-early-and-too-late

"What does trying to make cleanliness not onerous for humans look like."

"Eventually once the facilities are accessible we will want humans to decontaminate after they, say, touch a dead body. Failing to decontaminate is a capital crime on Amenta. It takes about five hours."

too-early-and-too-late

"Yeah, that would be super unpopular. Can you do 'this is a human planet and if the native species thinks it's good enough to wash your hands it's good enough?'

"No. I am investing in research into higher-tech decontamination processes that are faster, though, and hopefully eventually it can be down to something shorter which is still agreed to be acceptable."

too-early-and-too-late

"Has fourth-oldest brother suggested that Amentans, who care about this, pay humans, who don't, a sum of money that reflects how intensely they feel about it? That way if Amentans feel strongly enough that they're willing to offer a sum of money sufficient to get humans to shower, humans will shower, and if Amentans don't care that strongly humans won't."

"Kantil. Wouldn't work, people need to be sure it's universal. He did suggest paying humans for their time."

too-early-and-too-late

"It's kind of sounding like we just don't want you guys on our planet."

"I think it'll be net positive but a closer call than it would be if we were more similar species."

too-early-and-too-late

"Compared to 'let you build us things and then make you leave', I mean, not compared to if you'd just left us alone."

"If you're right about the population thing and if there's not a substantial population of humans who actually find pollution standards, once introduced, deeply soothing and reassuring, and you're counting the end of slavery as 'build you things', then that seems plausible."

too-early-and-too-late

"Great. Then I'm going to tell you what resources I have and you are going to tell me how to make Amentans go away once we've gotten all our use from them."

Twitch.

too-early-and-too-late

"Something to say?"

"A full account of what things you care about and what resources you have seems more useful than just resources and the stated goal, in case there happens to be a way to accomplish more which doesn't technically accomplish the stated goal."

too-early-and-too-late

" - yeah, all right. I think planets should be run by the people living there and saved for the people living there. I think Amentans should be stopped from conquering anyone else even if they're really really horrible. I want Earth to be a spacefaring galactic power that can help prevent that and also defend itself, against things that I understand might well be much worse than you are. I want the executions to stop. I want no population controls until we've had a good try at stabilizing our population through voluntary methods. I want Earth run by humans in the pursuit of a good standard of living for humans, which does not include things like decontaminations and a caste system - were you going to impose the caste system -"

"No. I was going to try to use the assimilation of humans as an excuse to make it flexible for everybody but certainly no one was going to sort any humans into our castes for the next thirty Earth years or so."

too-early-and-too-late

"Castes are dumb. Just so you know."