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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chanuphis

"Why don't they trust each other -?"

too-early-and-too-late

"I think people were more loyal to Elio than the mission? Or, if they were loyal to the mission, it was specifically the Statute thing that's now been obviated in the most dramatic way possible, not to - general internationalist humanitarianism - this is the problem with building narrow coalitions... anyway, they're loyal enough to Elio that he said 'everything on hold' and everything's on hold."

chanuphis

"Well damn."

too-early-and-too-late

"The only thing they have done which is at all wizard-related is take out Elio. Unless anyone's heard anything new -"

Karen Dwimmer

planetarium

"More of the same is all... they've leafleted almost everywhere."

"They're using machines to do the construction near London. Could be magic integrated with machinery, like the Hogwarts train, but I couldn't detect it. They don't run on coal."

too-early-and-too-late

"Which has what implications exactly -"

"No idea. I wanted to go ask them but I didn't. - their English is not very good and their native language doesn't have many voiced stops, I don't think."

chanuphis

"Are the ones working in other languages better?"

"I haven't left Britain. If they're really doing the same things everywhere that they're doing here they have - god, they must have half a million people - they've got to mostly be Muggles -"

chanuphis

"Unless there's been a secret wizard society under Antarctica for centuries."

"And no unicorns in Antarctica so they were stuck for birth control."

chanuphis

"Apparently. And developed in complete isolation and - flying things - and decided to take over the world - thinking they were the only wizards in it -"

"...well, it fits the data."

too-early-and-too-late

"And what, whatever happened to Elio was completely unrelated coincidence?"

chanuphis

"It could be? He might have any number of enemies, someone may have just cursed him. The flying people have been at work for a while, you'd think it was related if he'd fallen ill any time in the last month, wouldn't you -"

too-early-and-too-late

"Yes but not as strongly, it was right during the takeover."

chanuphis

"Which takeover?"

too-early-and-too-late

" - it was like an hour before France but I think they hit a lot of Europe at the same time -"

Michael Cyrus Way

"Well, if international travel's safe maybe you should go around everywhere and figure out where they landed when and what differences in the notes there were and what they're doing now and how proficient they are with the languages and so on."

"Yeah, maybe."

chanuphis

"If they think they're the only wizards in the world they shouldn't have gone to so much trouble to make it seem like it could be fancy technology, is there any way that would just happen to be convenient?"

" - I mean, maybe it lets them have mostly Muggle labor, maybe it scales better, but - I can't imagine that what they've got is optimized for any goal a secret wizarding society would reasonably have. ...we could ask them how it works."

too-early-and-too-late

"Minor, they're killing people who throw rocks at them."