"Mm. How was you destination chosen? I mean to ask, is it ideal in some way or was it only your first acceptable option? If the former is true, the fairest course may simply be to transport your fleet to their intended destination sight unseen, and leave formal contact for later."

"It was the closest available planet habitable from the start, though also seems pretty nice for our purposes.

"What would the benefits to waiting be, and how long would waiting take?"

"The purpose would be to prevent anyone from feeling like they have to choose between planetfall and interacting with what they will perceive to be a privacy violation."

"My understanding of the possible timeline was: 

- Transport them to the planet.  While that's happening, make very basic introductions and ask for some diplomats and programmers, mentioning something vague about it being best to do diplomacy on your world and wanting a Rotom or two to see how your systems hold up, and that you'll return later when you can.
- Quietly tell the diplomatic team what the issue is right as they're assembled and leaving, keeping the rest of the fleet ignorant for the moment.  Let the normal people explore the planet and set up some camps on the surface for a while, while the engineers are testing things on yours. 
- In a month or two, return with the diplomats and programmers and programmers' reports, in shuttles that don't bring your new physics or scanners that the system remembers things from or... whatever the correct terminology is for that.

"I think that sounds like a better way of doing it than just showing up, suddenly putting them decades ahead of schedule, then vanishing without a word for... I'm not sure what your timetable is."

"I'm not sure what timetable would shake out of that scenario either, but your idea is a good compromise. I'm willing to recommend that approach if you are."

"I can't think of a way to improve on it, anyway," she says after a minute of trying to think of any.  

"Any other things, that might be important to know about the fleet?"

A thoughtful pause. Two points in particular stand out to her as salient.

Firstly, "This is, well, part of this question is sort of whether or not this is, indeed, a question for Araeneve: Can you tell me about these parallel socialization expectations? I'd like to understand better which aspects are worth compensating for, or if attempts at compensation or emulation would be counterproductive."

"We handle a lot of the need for physical contact between ourselves, since our humans don't touch each other as much after adolescence, outside of romantic situations or certain exceptions like handshakes.  Both social preening of various types and also play-fighting - a common way that we become closer friends is by challenging each other to friendly sparring.  I don't think any of that is necessary for friendship or trust, but it might slow it down a bit to not have it.  Compensating by walking up and hugging humans would do more harm than good, and obviously touching daemons is out of the question.

"Some is adding extra details that would be awkward to bring up, or only adjacent to a conversation.  Hmm.  If you had a daemon, I would probably have been bringing up with them that we've had personal issues with paparazzi in the past, even though my Verity has been trying to focus only on the issues that affect everyone.  In general, we tend to do more emotional expression - either speaking from emotional places, speaking of emotion, or outwardly expressing our feelings in body language - than our humans do.  Saying things that would be unsaid otherwise, or adding reasons for things. 

"For compensating... making sure your emotions are clear and expressed.  Perhaps having citation holograms for daemons to read, which easily expand into details on publicly-accessible facts related to the conversation could be made.  I don't know if they'd help, or how well they'd match what we're used to talking about, but it might work as a kind of emulation and keep the entire person focused in a way we're used to."

Madoka is thoughtful for a moment, rubbing the golden crystal brooch on the collar of her suit.

"Can you give me more examples of the... category of extra details? I can hold two separate conversations at once, easily. I'm mostly wondering how, or even if, I should. I want to be sure to avoid uncannyvalleyfaking a daemon."

"Other examples... If giving movie or story recommendations, the daemons will usually mention or ask about content warnings.  We're the ones who ask about incompatible orientations or existing exclusive relationships before flirting.  Also, lots of the same sorts of things that our humans talk about with each other.  In general, humans are more focused on the transferred information aspect of a conversation, and we're more focused on learning the personality of someone from what they say and how they say it, but we both do both.  

"Creating a hologram that resembles a daemon physically would be creepy.  I was picturing a screen with text on it.  Probably controlled by an AI, whenever in range of technology that can do that.  Controlling it directly by a human, especially two-way communication and not just citations leading to an online encyclopedia, might be seen as improper.  There are a lot of daemons who will only talk to other daemons.  I can't articulate why, other than saying it's probably instinctive."

Madoka nods.

"I suspected as much about a holographic mimicry. The possibility of impropriety is just the sort of thing I was worried about, though. Perhaps... Galvan Soul?"

The golden broach chimes, light rippling under its surface, and then it speaks in a womanly voice. HEAVEN'S GAZE.

An orb of pink light an inch across spins into existence over Madoka's hand. She stares at it in concentration for a long moment, more light rippling through the golden crystal of her broach.

Then, the orb floats over, taking up approximately the same position from Madoka that Araeneve is in from Verity, and then, from the orb itself comes a softer, quieter version of Madoka's voice, "How's this?" Madoka herself doesn't open her mouth or speak. "Maybe we could practice?"

"Hello.  Are you Madoka's Device?" they guess.

Giggle. "No, its just me. It had occurred to me to draw that comparison, between daemon and Device, but what an Intelligent Device is to a mage is rather contrary to what a daemon purportedly is to their human. What I'd like to learn is if I have... what you would consider the daemon-y parts of a person integrated into my own mind in a way where I can learn to distinguish them and route them to a separate conversation."

"I've been thinking of them a little like daemons, because we can't help but compare them to something familiar.  At least from what I've picked up, your culture seems to see itself as much more firmly connected to technology.  Some of the words being used makes it sounds like you treat your computers and technology more like extensions of yourself than as possessions."

"It's true. I had been making the same comparison until you explained which things were daemon things. Even Unison Devices, who are people in their own right, care about a different set of things with regard to their partner. An Intelligent Device like mine doesn't have the emotions to be capable of caring about my social interactions at all."

"What sorts of things to Unison Devices care about?"

"Protecting their partner physically, seeing their partner thrive, and also whatever their designer designed that individual to care about. They also have panhuman emotional architecture on top of that, and usually care about being good at whatever other things they're designed to be good at. Unison Devices are rare, though. They're very expensive and difficult to make without... certain shortcuts which are illegal in the TSAB."

"We're too much of the same person for us seeing our human halves thrive to be... social, rather than selfish?  We are conscious of different things and have different thoughts, but emotions and general well-being are shared.  We are the ones to jump in front of any physical danger, though it's because we're the ones who are more durable, feel pain less, and heal better."

Verity pulls her attention away from the daemon conversation, and strikes up a secondary one.  "What sorts of things do people do on a ship of this kind, while waiting for it to find something or arrive somewhere?"

Madoka speaks simultaneously, through her lips and through her spell.

To Araeneve: the orb of light bobs approximating a nod. "Yes. Devices function primarily as tools. Extremely sophisticated tools, that functionally become a part of our body, a part of our mind, even, but not a part of our... 'heart'. I don't think there's much if any overlap."

To Verity: "Socialize. Train. Also, your cabin has a full entertainment center and the cruiser's cache has the last century of movies and music and serial shows and games and sims and books and quests available."

Araeneve nods in turn.  "Do unison devices change interests over time like humans, or are they locked to always being interested in what they're assigned to like?"

Verity considers that.  "Perhaps I'll try some of them later.  VR was the only entertainment media that I followed, back on the fleet."

"Neither, really," Madoka's voice from the spell says. "The interests of an ethically made Unison Device don't tend to change because they start out as whatever they would've changed towards, see? And, um, historically the unethical cases tended to fail at both, or compel the desired behavior outright..."

"VR is your audiovisual sensory immersion medium?" Madoka ventures. "What was the last VR your were into like? I'd love to hear what you enjoyed about it."

"I wouldn't have expected minds to have an end set of interests they'd stop at."

"Recreations of places on the dead world were usually my favorites, in absence of wilderness or meaningful travel.  I also liked the scavenger hunt genre - a large world for wandering around in, collecting objects that were sometimes keys to unlock further areas with more objects.  The latest one I really liked had small sky islands connected by bridges, each with a different biome on it and mazes inside."

The conversation continues in that vein for a while. Madoka does her best to pay attention to the feel of each conversation, to intuit what is different about a daemon conversation, though she isn't as confident as she'd like to be that she's getting a feel for it.

Eelesia chimes in occasionally with factoids.

And Homura just stands very close to Madoka without participating in the conversation.