You're right.

Wisdom and humility are admirable. You remind me of an old friend, long dead, even more for your refusal.

...Let's take a short break.

Sure, the purple can go get dinner at the conference catering tables.

We would like to plan how to allow Amentans to visit our world, Ice the lead Draak diplomat informs Amseli. We have identified small land areas that nobody will be particularly upset to develop a bit, but we aren't sure what shipboard or planetside facilities you will need to be comfortable.

"We can figure that out and plan to build them there ourselves if that's easier, given information about the spaces set aside."

I think we will want to be heavily involved in the planning and construction to keep any development... Ecologically noninvasive and not too disruptive to the landscape.

"Oh, I was imagining ecologically non-sensitive areas. Are you sure you want permanent Amentan structures on the planet at all? We can probably make do with self-contained ship designs."

They are, but it's still a concern. Part of the reasoning here is practice for possible joint development on wholly new planets. And part of it is... Creating something together is a wholesome experience.

"That's true, but only if we can come to agreements about it without too many difficult compromises. I'd like to make sure we have a plan to retreat to if it turns out to be harder than anticipated."

...We can make a nice stable landing pad if jointly built residences and local farming don't work out?And let you bring your own ships down. Shining Truth could haul an Amentan ship docked to it to another star. 

"That sounds workable."

I think they would welcome someone trying to dock with them, for the practical experience. And your greens got our docking connector schematics almost a season ago so I would assume you can do it by now?

"I think we do have some shuttles refitted accordingly now, yes!"

I know who knows how to communicate with ours, and I presume you can find out on your end? Shall we arrange it?

"I think that's a great idea."

She skirts the still-ongoing argument and finds a small Emerald-clan Draak. Small by Draak standards, that is - they're still bigger than a horse. The little one makes an affirmative sort of chuff and flies off towards the ships.

Lightsong is retrieving a device. It seems our ship-to-ship communication is limited to pre-chosen messages and simple ideas because the devices that transmit the Song at a distance are low-fidelity.

"You don't have a protocol for digitizing writing?"

There might be one? Electronics to most of us are unique handcrafted masterpieces. Also I am not literate, though I plan to learn.

"We also use radio to transmit sound and it comes through pretty clear, though that requires spoken language. I suppose you could tote Amentans with you as signal translators."

It would certainly make communicating with other Amentans easier. I'm not sure we'd want to do that for Draak to Draak communication.

"It'd compromise security, certainly. And if you had to encode the message it'd be no easier than everyone involved learning to read. Oh well."

Everyone involved will probably learn to read. It's a very unsettling time. I think some Draak are planning to just pretend nothing has changed. Certainly many are planning on letting their children do most of the adapting for them and watching how things go.

"That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. As long as enough of you are invested in steering they can wait for consensus to form."

She makes an uncertain considering noise.

While I am thinking of security, the senate wanted to demonstrate a powerful weapon on a moon or asteroid but I convinced them that would be a bad idea.

"...it certainly doesn't seem like a friendly thing to do. What purpose was it meant to have served?"

A warning not to invade Newhome. And a general lashing out, to soothe fears of inevitable doom at the multiplying horde of Tailless. Her tail flicks sharply. I can't say I don't share those feelings at all but that's not the right reaction.