"It unusually hard on your planet? Or are rockets harder than we're guessing - "

"Launching rockets typically requires a lot of infrastructure and we want communications and mapping satellites above every planet we've explored."

"Ah, yeah, I can see that kind of demand outstripping production pretty fast."

"Yeah, we're working on scaling up but there's still a lot of work to do."

"Sounds it. We're still on this one planet, and people're figuring it'll take years of working together to get to the big milestones."

"What do you see as the big milestones?"

"Getting a satellite into space and then getting it back down, getting something simple living into space and getting it back down - probably there's some more scientific step stones there but the big early one's gonna be sending a person into space and having them get back, and sending people to one of the moons that people think will be best for staging for farther trips, and getting an orbiting research station."

"Those are all good goals. We might be able to offer your some advice or knowledge. I have some authority to negotiate but any agreements I make need to be approved by our government if they involve any sort of long-term commitment."

"Yeah, and people'll probably want something international for any agreements with y'all, and that might take a while."

"Agreements involving a lot of people always do. Are there any formalities we should observe when meeting your government representative?"

"Councils don't tend to stand on formality too much. Uh - most people don't like other people getting within arm's reach of them unnecessarily? Or, like, sudden loud noises."

"That's good to know. I don't think we would have made sudden loud noises regardless but some greeting rituals in our society involve physical contact. I'm glad I know not to offer any such gesture."

"Yeah. Most people who need bigger bubbles also have a service snake, so you can kinda tell - snake's usually trained to hiss if someone gets too close."

"Interesting, that's another bit of useful knowledge. We also sometimes use service animals, mostly other mammals."

"There are service mammals! We've had reptiles in general domesticated longer though, I think."

"I think we also have some domesticated reptiles but we don't tend to train them to the extent that we do mammals."

"It's kind of weird if you have any similar animals at all."

"It's not really weirder than the two of us looking so similar. I'm sure our scientists will be fascinated to look into how deep the similarities go."

"Yeah. Sounds like the type of things that'd have biologists in a tizzy - we'd also wanna be sure we can't share any diseases or parasites, I bet."

"That's why we're in airtight suits. We also sterilized all our equipment before coming to your world."

"Thanks. First contact diseases can get pretty bad, even when you're the same species..."

"We had some pretty horrible times in our own history that demonstrated that."

"Minimizing disease and managing outbreaks is one of the big things governments are important for."

"We're in agreement on that. The Network guarantees healthcare for everyone in our territory."

"Nice. Most major nations have managed at least weak guarantees by now, but getting it truly universal is apparently kinda hard..."