Sargeþi turns to Bar.

It's true, Bar agrees. Also: congratulations.

"And ... that means that you want me to join your hivemind?" Sargeþi asks, turning back. "How does that work?"

"Extremely well, thank you," Amethyst jokes. "Actually, it's kind of a long story."

And so she summarizes how she got her miraculous notebook powers, and what they mean for Sargeþi.

"So ... join up with you, retain my independence, but get a practically unlimited number of threads of attention, telepathy with a group of like-minded and sympathetic people, immortality and various other super-powers, and save not just my world but every world?" Sargeþi summarizes. "You make a compelling pitch."

"Well, to be clear, we[in] will save your world even if you don't join up," Amethyst replies. "But yes. We[ex] would be happy to have you."

Today has been ... a lot. No matter how much she wants cool magic powers, the sensible thing to do is to wait.

"Can I think about it?"

Amethyst grins.

"Of course! Now that we've met, you should be able to send me messages by thinking about it. You can let me know when you make a decision, and I'll be right there," she promises.

She finishes the last of her milkshake with a slurp.

"Soooo .... what else do you want to talk about?" she asks. "Want to hear my baseline plans for your world, and let me know if they sound like they need modification?"

Sargeþi is lost in thought for a moment, before she shakes herself.

"Yes, that's probably a good idea. Really, you should just contact Emergency Services and work with them," she opines.

"It's often a good idea to work with local authorities, when they're reasonable," Amethyst agrees. "Why do you think I should talk to Emergency Services?"

"Well, I guess your appearance isn't an emergency, per se, but Emergency Services knows what all the currently ongoing problems are? And will have plans for how an influx of resources could make people better off, without completely destabilizing our civilization's existing paradigm?" Sargeþi hazards.

"So ... I can open that door and get enough fixity crystals to cover your planet — Actually, sorry, are you from a planet? You look like you're from a planet, but sometimes people are from, like, infinite fractal lattices and it's very embarrassing."

"Yes, I'm from a planet. Um. It's about 6,400 kilometers* in radius, I think," Sargeþi supplies.

* Milliways has the good translation; it does both bases and units.

"Right, okay — so I can cover your planet in fixity crystals. We[ex] have, by this point pretty good object recognition routines. So you can assume that we[ex] will have eyes on every ongoing emergency within about 50 milliseconds. Those will get automatically triaged, and several thousands of my threads of attention will start dealing with them in priority order. If your planet has a typical population density for human planets, and typical crime and death rates, and no really weird situations, nobody will by dying or in immanent danger thereof in about a second," Amethyst explains.

"After that, we[ex] typically send representatives to every major polity, to make contact and talk about what we[ex] can do for them. We[ex] also set up orbital habitats far enough away not to be in the reasonable jurisdiction of any existing polity. The one thing we[ex] insist on is being able to give people the ability to leave, but frequently making that offer goes more smoothly if we first take some time to talk to the local government and get either their endorsement or condemnation."

Sargeþi blinks.

"I think the thing that people from my planet would find most reassuring is ... being obvious that you're not going to intentionally disassemble existing governments or other institutions? And that you care about trying to do things in a legible way. So I think it would be fine if you, like, showed everyone a vision that said 'Hi, I'm a benevolent alien. If you want immediate rescue, do X. If you want to learn more, do Y. If you don't want to interact with me, that's fine. I'm in discussions with Emergency Services about how to smoothly and peacefully put your world in contact with the rest of the multiverse.' And it would be fine to show that immediately, but you would have to follow up by actually discussing that with Emergency Services in good faith," she elaborates.

"And some people are going to be startled and upset by that, but ... I don't think it's actually possible for you to show up without upsetting anyone. And most people would endorse being told immediately if there were something important like that."

Amethyst nods.

"That all makes sense. Should I wake up sleeping people, do you think?"

"Can you look at their notification settings on their phones, if they have them, and go based on that?" Sargeþi suggests.

"Sure! That should be pretty straightforward. Can I poke at your phone to see what the settings look like?"

She nods.

"Let's see ... okay, it looks like the setting is just in the global registry ... I can write up a fuzzy matcher for that and it should work fine," Amethyst surmises. "Alright. How about I record that message now, and you can tell me about how it will come across?"

Sargeþi takes a moment to try and put themselves in the mind of the typical person suddenly confronted with an inexplicable vision.

"... actually, a lot of people are going to think they're hallucinating. You should explicitly mention that you're sharing this message with everyone with compatible notification preferences, and that they should check with other people or trusted news sources."

"Alright," Amethyst agrees. "How about this?"

A little frame appears around Amethyst, with a blinking red recording indicator in the corner.

"Hello everyone! I am Amethyst, a benevolent alien here to welcome you into the inter-dimensional community. I'm sending this message to everyone with compatible notification settings on the planet; you're not hallucinating, and you should confirm that by making sure everyone else is seeing this as well. If you want to be immediately evacuated from this planet at any time, say, sign, or write 'heliotrope vacant elephant'. If you want more information about me, say, sign, or write 'divide radiator clear'. If you don't want to interact with me, that's fine. After this message, I plan to talk to your Emergency Services about how best to peacefully welcome your planet to the multiverse."

"That seems fine," Sargeþi agrees. "Is that ... it? I mean, I feel like there's so much I should prepare you for ..."

"Well, we've got time," Amethyst agrees. "We can spend more time preparing. But there's something that I had real trouble with ..."

"More so than the gender thing?" Sargeþi jokes.