"They have this sacred pattern and they do stuff in accordance with the pattern, and following the pattern's more important than like actual results. They'll kill anyone who sees the pattern, and anyone who hears someone describing the pattern, and they've gone to war over that before. I don't think they have a concept of individuals? I heard a lot about how they fought the war, and they were really relentless but they did it weirdly? They didn't have a problem getting a lot of soldiers killed, and they didn't try to hold any territory ever. They don't think mind control is wrong."

"That's so weird! I hope we can avoid running into aliens like that if we figure out portals."

"Yeah. I think maybe the Elder Things must've had a way to target for empty planets, because they found a lot of empty planets and like made all the life on them? But I dunno if you can target for an empty planet that doesn't need a lot of work and doesn't have mean neighbors."

"We can do a lot of work! It's possible for us to live on our moon. The reason it's not more popular to live there is that it doesn't have seasons, but that's just to do with how fast the planet goes around the sun."

"Yeah, and I guess you could start with really big and well-sealed houses while you were working on the whole planet. And probably the Elder Things left behind some worlds they hadn't put people on yet - lots of places got cut off when their portals went down."

"That would be convenient if they terraformed them pretty close to how we'd need!"

"I think they made a bunch of different types of places, so maybe there's some close ones?"

"Why did they do different types?"

"I guess they were experimenting? But they were super good at genetic stuff too so could live bunches of places."

"We're still learning how to be that good at genetic stuff."

"They were really old when they started making species, I think - maybe don't make sapient species? For at least a while if you do get that good?"

"I don't see what we'd want to do that for," Hadri assures them.

"Yeah. We don't mind existing but even if you mean well I think it's hard to do right."

"Mostly we just want more room to have children, and I guess some people might be able to feel parental about making a new species but it's not the usual."

"Do kids matter a lot to Amentans?"

"Oh yes! Do shoggoths like to have a lot of kids?"

"I don't think so? Mom was grandma's only kid even though grandma had lots of opportunities to make more, and grandma only had two siblings. When I asked mom if I could have a baby sister she also said that shoggoths don't have two growing kids at the same time so I'd have to wait until I was done growing."

"Huh! Here in Voa it's most common to have kids two years apart."

"Kids eat a lot - not as much as humans but adult shoggoths don't eat much at all - and usually you have kids when you're in a knowledge job so you have more free time but still some energy. Mom sometimes says that once I'm at bottom edge of adult size and old enough to look after myself she's gonna hibernate for a decade."

"Gosh, that's a long time to hibernate."

"I think she's being silly when she says that."

"If it's really important to Amentans to have kids you guys might be good neighbors for like planets with only shoggoths? If empty planets are hard to find, 'cause we don't expand fast and're happy being aquatic anyways? Though I dunno what other planets' shoggoths would wanna trade for that."

"There's a lot of science fiction that has us cohabiting with aquatic species, because we think that'd work really well!"

"It'd be good for us to have friendly neighbors too."

"How do you imagine that working? Something like the human village you were near before?"

"Don't know enough about other shoggoths? I guess for us we'd probably come to the surface to trade and stuff, and you'd get more shoggoth tourists and stuff than humans do? You might be able to build mixed cities near or over the water, too, or with shoggoths who're good at shapeshifting."