Yeah this was going to come up eventually but putting it right next to 'the symbiote quadrupeds conscript all your magic kids, dysgenically' it will look as good as she could have hoped for. "Amentans have sub-populations called castes which specialize in broad types of skill and career. Since people of a particular caste tend to marry others of the same caste, anything that runs in families and is good for some people to have but not others can spread out in a particular caste where it's useful and not in others where it isn't! It also lets our education system be a bit more customized to the cultural background and aptitudes of everyone it's serving. We have words for all the castes but it's also common to nickname them by the most common hair color, and people whose hair color doesn't match their caste will tend to dye to match - so you can call me a blue, and Tekma a green, and Makutka a yellow, and so on."

"That's interesting. How often does it happen that people's hair colour doesn't match - er, and how does that come up, hair colour usually does run in families for us?" 

"Oh, most people's hair colors do match. But occasionally there will be an intercaste marriage, or someone will just take after a remote ancestor, or their hair can be a new color the same way all the hair colors came to exist in the first place."

"Are inter-caste marriages, er, disapproved of?" 

"They used to be. These days people can go ahead and do it, though it's not really recommended in the typical case and people have more in common with members of their own caste."

"Do you have a hereditary nobility - is that one of the castes...?" 

"We don't have a nobility per se, our government is democratic, but blue is the governance caste! We also do diplomacy and landholding."

The Heralds exchange some looks. 

"Is there any way for people born in other castes to, er, be reassigned on merit, if they end up having a lot of talent for governance work?" Katha asks. (Born to poor smallholder parents, she's a little touchy about this.) "- Also, do you not have guilds or whatnot, with leaders who represent the various trades? We have guild leaders who speak for the craft or trade in question, in Council meetings, to make sure their needs are represented as well." 

"Castes don't get reassigned, but there's a lot of flexibility that would be more complicated to explain. We don't have guilds, but because we're a democracy, if a trade feels poorly represented they can vote for someone who better understands their needs! Most government offices also have ways for ordinary citizens to write in with feedback."

It sounds kind of uncomfortable and not entirely fair to the citizens of less well-regarded castes - which is almost certainly a thing - but it's not like Valdemar is perfect, either, and they do have to keep in mind that these are aliens and it's better not to judge them for their inevitable differences. 

The Heralds try not to show any discomfort they're feeling, and move the conversation back to discussions of exchanged Gifted people so the Amentans can learn about magic, for weapons and other support with the war. 

The Amentans came ready with a short presentation including pictures and graphs of various bombs and planes and such they can make and tote over plus their satellite imagery assistance and communicators for Valdemar's soldiers!

Keiran is so amazed and impressed! 

Savil...is less sure that her feelings about this are positive. 

She asks what sorts of wars they've had in the past, on their home planet, and - how bad the casualties and infrastructure damage tended to be. 

The last war Tapa had that escalated beyond something like "shooting down a plane where a plane didn't belong" was with Voa, years and years ago, when Voa (a major food exporter) started delivering contaminated food and causing major shortages all over the world. Tapa announced an intention to take over a border province that was mostly farms to establish domestic food security, some of Tapa's allies kicked in some support, there was enough warning for the civilians of the province to withdraw if they wanted to, noncombatant casualties were very low and they avoided damaging anything they were going to need to integrate the province later. Today Imde province is part of Tapa like any other province.

That's...odd and kind of surprising and Savil is more than a little suspicious that it went exactly the way they're claiming! That does not sound at all like how wars normally go! 

"- Wait, why was this Voa country exporting contaminated food in the first place? Was it - some kind of international threat, trying to poison their enemies - you wouldn't think that was a very good idea." 

"It was a terrible idea! It was the act of a single madman, and Voa could perhaps have smoothed it over but they wouldn't actually hold him responsible for the matter."

"That's really awful! How many people died before the other countries realized the food was unsafe to eat?" 

"Total deaths from food insecurity and the effects of the contaminated food were something like - I think ten to twenty thousand but it's been some time since I read an estimate report, and of course a lot of people weren't eating well even if they didn't die."

"That's very unfortunate. I'm so sorry to hear that happened." 

Randi takes a deep breath. "...Anyway. I think what we're all worrying about here is that - if our world very suddenly acquires destructive non-magical weapons - which can be produced in large quantities, unlike mages - then our wars here could become a lot worse. Even if it didn't happen on your planet, I'm not sure that guarantees it's a good idea here. So - I think we want to stick to the bare minimum, on destructive offensive weapons. But we would of course be very grateful for the help you can offer." 

(Taver is VERY SUSPICIOUS about the Amentans' recounting of the war with Voa, and is paying a lot of attention to reading all of the delegates' thoughts about it.) 

"If that's what you're comfortable with!"

Man, she's glad they didn't push on exactly how the food was contaminated, because she doesn't want to have to explain that pollution is bad and their entire society is insufficiently sanitary and the entire delegation needs to go take a long shower after walking among the natives. That would just not go over well, she's not getting a vibe of "oh, please, tell us how we can actually wash everything properly, we are desperate to know but just too low-tech for it" from these folks. Also she's getting the sense that explaining reds will be dicey. They should maybe just do a modernized city here instead of bringing any.

Interesting. And - not exactly in a good way. 

They know for a fact at this point that the aliens don't have any kind of Thoughtsensing, so it's not an infosec risk for Taver to alert his Chosen. Facial expressions still might be, though, so he passes it on to the other Companions of the Heralds present in the meeting, but tells them to wait for a good moment to actually bring it up. 

Well, it's not like he was really expecting that the aliens were being entirely upfront about all of their cultural differences. Obviously that would be a mess. 

Tran suggests they go over the meeting agenda items and decide what to execute today. Valdemar doesn't want to send any Heralds to the ship in space, at this point, given how short-staffed they are with the war and also now this new situation. They would be delighted to send over a couple of Healers, though; a lot of them didn't want to volunteer to go down south, because of the danger to themselves, so there are more who can be spared from the House of Healing in Haven. 

And, of course, he's sure they can find a Bard who would love to go, and have the initial honour of learning the aliens' music and also writing some ballads to commemorate their first contact! 

They would just love to bring some Healers and a Bard up! They actually have some people convalescing up there right now, another delegation was attacked.