"I'm not sure what you mean. That is, yes, of course they are, but maybe you're looking for a more marked difference than is understood to exist."

"I mean, I'm curious if being pollution has psychological effects that might cause them to commit more crimes... it seems like that would be very traumatizing for an Amentan."

"I believe they're much likelier to be hyposensitive."

"That's better than the other options, I guess... Still, I don't like to see a good technology not being implemented because people are afraid of riots. We're no Luddites here."

"What is a Luddite?"

"A few hundred years ago, Luddites were artisans who rioted and destroyed factories because they were afraid of losing their jobs. The term has entered our language to refer to knee-jerk technology hatred."

"How odd. In most industries Voa is in a particularly good position to introduce automation because the guarantee of children stands separate from having a career or money, but we have no special advantage when it comes to reds."

"Population controls seem like they would help the issue, because no one would be afraid of their six children starving."

"People do still want money for their smaller families, but in a credit country if you take someone's job you're making it unlikely they'll ever have children at all if they haven't got them yet, and in a permissions country you're removing a primary way of attracting a permission."

"We found that people don't actually lose jobs if there's more technology. They just retrain and work new jobs, and automation leads to higher productivity and a higher standard of living. I guess castes might make that harder..."

"We're not opposed to technology in general. Voa's population system does mean it's harder to rebalance castes, but if we have someplace to expand into, we can preferentially grow the castes we're relatively short on, mostly yellows, and not extend as many third child offers to purples."

"Still, you have to wait for them to grow up. It's much slower than retraining people as programmers."

"Purples aren't likely to be good at programming. Greens might, but it's a yellow occupation centrally."

"Maybe humans are better at being trained to do things? There are many people on Earth who go from, I don't know, retail worker to teacher to technical writer..."

"I suppose it's possible that's the explanation. But forbidding eugenics might also be a factor - if our purples could be as good at programming as your programmers because neither humans nor purples have specialized for it over time."

"Our smartphones look about the same as yours."

"And if you'd found us when my parents were my age we hadn't invented computers yet; there are other factors involved."

Fred tries to remember when computers were invented-- the sixties?-- then tries to do some math on Amentan ages. "I think our computers were invented... maybe twenty of your years ago?"

"My parents would be twenty-two this year had they lived. I'm not actually sure if there were computers when they were five, it was approximate."

Fred blinks and does some math. "You're... fifteen?"

"I'm five. We should really figure out a precise conversion rate."

"...Maybe I'm wrong here but isn't five awfully young to be governor of a country?"

"It is. There are not very many Voan blues left, Commander, especially ones with national rather than regional family ties."

"Did something... happen? I'm so sorry."

"The Imperial occupation. I believe I mentioned it."