:Okay, I need to go, apparently someone got a boo-boo and needs fixing up. Was there anything else you wanted to say to me? Also, if you want to talk again, or have sex, you can ask for me.: He points to his chest, then looks embarrassed.

:Sorry, I wanted to point to my nametag.: All of their coveralls have them.

I don't really know what else to say. I have questions but couldn't do anything with the answers... Yeah we can try this again later. She reaches for her jumpsuit.

Understandable. He puts on his clothes too and leaves.

Once it's nighttime, the Asteralians distribute a bunch of the lightpencils for the Amentans to try and make air-murals with. It looks way cooler when it's dark. The Asteralians do a bunch of geometric patterns and flora and calligraphy and sketches of the two peoples dancing.

They will take the lightpencils back later and account for all of them, though, after a few hours.

Nobody tries to steal one. (Somebody was hoping really hard they wouldn't ask for them back but hands it over.)

They're going to go away now and propose a time tomorrow to reconvene. They say that the tablet with media that they left behind can still access what's left of the ship intranet and so they can use it to send a message if there's anything urgent — Nenad demonstrates. There's only one available channel on it (which connects to Nenad).

Once that's settled, they all go back into the ship. They don't close the outer gate of the airlock but they do close the inner gate.

The Amentans all go camp out in the desert except for the ones assigned to be up all night streaming media from the tablet to folks who are not in the desert.

There's actually not that much media on them and given how they are just uploading and not actually reading the text of the books, they are likely to run out in the early hours of the morning. There are only a few hours of video total.

They still have the everything from yesterday and are going to go on the internet again. They have way better machine translation now and can competently translate Tapap text. They don't have passable machine translation for other languages still, though given that Lawyer Yellow mentioned Anitam and Cene they are working on Anitami and Cenemi translation first.

What has the Tapapsphere Internet been saying about them? From there they also deduce what the contact team has been sharing about what has been proceeding here.

The internet has more information to work with now. The internet is confused about why their sleep schedule is so rigid so that they don't have somebody talking to Amentans round the clock, when Amentans would obviously accommodate that. The internet is so excited about aliens wanting to have sex with them right back. They want to know how the spaceship works. They are polling each other about whether they'd like to turn into Asteralians; most hesitation is driven by anxiety over the mystery about what exactly the cultural practices you have to do are and the fact that you have to move to a place none of them have even seen pictures of, but there are also people with cosmetic or patriotic objections, people who just want to live on a planet, people who think the aliens are up to something, and people who think it cannot possibly be the case that this elaborate immigration process is necessary and they will just have to establish their own thaumaturgical base.

Very useful information! The sleep schedule thing is honestly valid. They were actually doing it to be accommodating to the Amentans who do have a circadian rhythm and who are diurnal but they can float the idea of 24/7 negotiation and knowledge exchange tomorrow.

Rauha thinks that they really should inform the Amentans more about their cultural practices!!! I mean it makes sense that they would be nonpushy with their proselytization when it comes to other Lavender nations but the Amentans have no exposure to the Generous Patron of Desire at all! They are wronging them for not sharing it as soon as possible!

Nenad reiterates that their goal here is to establish contact and then they can do all of that. I mean they don't even have contact with the Hierophant. Obviously, you want want contact with the Hierophant for something as important as this. For the sake of doctrinal accuracy and all that. Rauha has no words to say against this.

The other researchers generally think that they should be freer to talk to the Amentans...I mean they can share secular cultural practices! Why does the informational control have to be so stifling. Nenad reminds them that the experimental drive is a state secret and so obviously they are going to have this control. Even if it's not related, it could still leak. Did they forget the NDAs that they signed. He sings a song about how you should keep your promises and abide by your contracts. They are quelled.

Nenad does approve more media being given to the Amentans tomorrow, including pictures of what their habitats are like. Nenad will approve Rauha's proposal for having a press conference with a Nenad-approved prewritten speech. Nenad will also approve the idea of establishing formal internet-based communications so that they can answer questions from regular Amentans, but only answered approved by him will be published. They are not to have communications with Amentans outside of these bounds. Nenad is going to sing another song about how you should obey the captain of the spaceship. The rest of the crew rolls their eyes and puts up with it, yes they get it.

Tomorrow, there's a new psion tasked to negotiate, introducing himself as Cosmos Drive.

What is the status of the bidding? They would like to discuss potential financing options with Lawyer Yellow, now.

They have two basic options: get a loan based on their projected capacity to make money and pay the crystal guys with that, or actually sell a bunch of magical services and then use that money to pay the crystal guys. They can probably get great loan terms and it will get things moving faster.

Internal discussion ensues. They definitely want to get it sooner rather than later, so they are much more inclined towards taking a loan now. Which entities are willing to make a loan to them? They'll prefer a Tapai entity because they are in Tapa and doing international litigation seems Complicated, but if there are other entities who are offering much better rates, they would be inclined to contract with them instead.

Every major bank in Tapa would be happy to work for them, especially if they can film shaking hands or something to use as ad footage.

Yes they would actually love to do that! (It's good for their PR and it gives a legible record of their transaction. Actually...)

They are planning to do a press conference at some point. Later, or perhaps tomorrow. Could a TV crew be arranged then? They plan to talk about themselves and the crystal and their financing agreement. And then they can do handshakes and smiles with said major bank. Would that be acceptable?

Absolutely! Here are bids from a dozen crews.

Yum yum bids. Okay they are going to work through the contracts and ask questions about legal wording but they don't anticipate any issues.

Hm...they're not going to naively pick the best bid but they are going to want to strike a balance between "lowest rates" and "has flexibility to refinance in the case there are issues, either the Asteralians taking longer than expected to make money, or are making money slower than expected, or the crystal manufacturing running into cost overruns and needing more money".

The banks are willing to strike variously flavored deals about adjusting the interest rate to compensate for a slower repayment schedule and allowing the inflation of the loan amount if more is required.

They will select one after some deliberation! Nenad is going to be the one to sign or otherwise solemnize the contract on behalf of the ship.

Cosmos will float the idea of setting up the Asteralians with a formal identity and website on the Internet so that they may do communication more broadly, in addition to the press conference.

They haven't done any radio transmissions since stopping on the first day because they don't know the international radio transmission and spectrum frequency laws and don't want to be a nuisance. 

They should get a webmaster yellow who can manage that for them - maybe a whole outfit's worth, they're going to have a lot of traffic and correspondence!

Tapa can inform all the countries they were talking to of this mollifying explanation for their silence.

How much will it cost to set that up? And the ongoing costs. (They are expecting Tapa or other countries to offer to pay the cost in whole or in part but it would be presumptuous for them to assume that). They don't anticipate being able to answer many questions since there are way fewer of them here than there are Amentans, and they're not like. Actual diplomats.

The two things they want are something like an email address with which they can contact other countries formally with. Then a public mailbox people can send questions to, with an attached FAQs section — the main issue and cost, they think, is hiring people to sort through the questions to sort away obvious spam and group similar messages together. They don't anticipate sending replies individually will be a good use of time (though it would be good for PR).

Yes please, thank you! They weren't intentionally snubbing the other countries.

The Tapai government will offer to manage the website and screen their mail for them but doesn't want to just assume they would not prefer to pay thus and such an amount per year to not have their website be government-managed.

They're actually going to take the offer! (There is the risk of the Tapai government reading their mail, but they plan to meet in person with foreign diplomats anyway and they can share encryption keys with them.)

Great! They'll get right on that.