Tapap doesn't usually inflect for number in proper nouns specifically!

They're biocompatible, so the Amentans cheerily take snacks - they like the dumplings a lot. The blues who have come all want to learn Standard Imperial, and the green linguists, and most of the yellows. The purples mostly skip it and get to work breaking ground.

The Imperial government encourages people to learn Standard Imperial, because all government communications are done in that language. It's a necessary component for being able to interact with it. However, their two civilizations have only just met, so they are very willing to accommodate the language differences for people settling in the Imperium.

The Imperials were kind of afraid of all of the Amentans wanting to learn the language at once – certainly all the Imperials would want to learn Tapai even before they settle there – but if only the blues, greens, and yellows want to learn, at least, for now, then that's more manageable. The Imperium doesn't really do mass schooling and only goes for individualized instruction or tutoring. They've gotten a bunch of tutors from the Imperial Standards Authority, as well as vetted private language tutors to come and teach them – all Keepers. Many of the few hundred Amentans who want to learn will get their own tutor, or be put in a group of two to four people, depending on how their schedules are set up. Coordination will happen with regards to scheduling and the spaces in which this tutoring will occur – the current structures are all makeshift, so there's not a lot of space.

Blues want to learn for diplomatic reasons, and greens for intellectual ones, and yellows because they will be programming the computer translation software to work better. They were expecting that for most purposes a random monolingual purple could use the software and maybe consult someone who spoke both if there was a complicated nuance, does that sound wrong? None of the people who are here now are even sure they'll stay, they might not reseason, so then it would be odd to put the time in if they didn't have one of those reasons. Some oranges who successfully reseason will want to learn so they can teach kids but they don't have teacher oranges on the planet yet because they weren't supposed to have any kids here.

Wow, they did not know technology could be used for automatic translation. Standard Imperial was designed to be able to be parsed formally for validity by hand, and potentially by machines, but automatic translation they wouldn't have dreamed of. They would love to learn how to do that!

It could be that the Imperials are just much more keen on learning new languages than the average Amentan. Part of the reason Standard Imperial became a thing is so that everyone always had a common language regardless of how many new conlangs are cooked up. And the Imperials also don't have the reseasoning concern. 

The Imperials restate, although it had already been worked out in communications previously, that the Amentans are free to lay out their plot of land however they'd like, and that the Imperials will not enter without permission save for this section near the front gate. Regardless, they ask how Amentans usually lay out their cities. What aesthetic are the Amentans going for for their city?

The city planner blue can show them the layout he has in mind! Apartment towers here, offices there, shopping and recreation boardwalk/boulevard by the lake, shuttleport over there, leaving the forest for the time being for the botanists but it'll get gradually cleared as they have more needs for the space, farms for some Amentan crops that don't have close-enough analogues locally up on terraces in the hills with hiking trails among them - this was a really exciting project for him, you never get to start this much from scratch on Amenta in a place expected to be as exciting and important as this one - initial geology report suggests there might be iron deposits down there but they're not really worth going after under the circumstances, they only have so much room to work with, and presumably they can buy raw materials from the Imperials, yes? Architecturally speaking he hired this one firm that does swoopy glass stuff, it's frankly plain by Amentan standards but it builds quick and it'll look familiar to the residents and it doesn't look like anything else on the planet at the moment.

Interesting! Imperial cities centrally plan their aesthetics, with Very Detailed Instructions on the types of decoration and facades for buildings, and incentivizes this by offering land value tax discounts on the regional level depending on the level of adherence to the standards. Imperials care deeply about coherent aesthetics. They don't centrally plan the layout of their cities though. Is this the sort of thing that was done because this was on a new planet, or are all Amentan city layouts centrally planned?

Yes, the Imperial government is currently making arrangements for businesses to come here near the main gate and offer their services and goods to Amentans, including raw materials suppliers. If they have specific things they know they'll want and need, they can tell them what they want so that the Imperial officials and send messages over the teletype network for prospective vendors.

The swoopy glass stuff is indeed otherworldly! It's a little lacking in color for Imperial standards, but the effect produced by the curving glass is exquisite. Their glassmaking technology would mean that if they tried to build similar looking buildings, they would be way too expensive and way too fragile.

Amentan city layouts are planned but usually not centrally all at once because usually no one person owns all the land a city sits on and there is usually already some settlement you don't want to just demolish in any location where you'd want a city - new cities grow up gradually as some kind of stationary resource like a farm or a port or a mine requires workers who demand goods and services whose providers in turn demand services, etcetera. This is just a new stationary resource (their land grant from the Imperium) but it's much more sudden!

They're going to need glass according to these specs, or sand they can turn into the glass like so - and steel, lots of that, and do they know how to refine aluminum yet? - and material for plastics but they can use, like, inedible plant husks, for that, if they need to, it'd be good to know early so they know how to allocate space to e.g. refineries versus bioplastic factories.

That makes sense.

They will send out calls for businesses to arrive here so the Amentans can examine their product, and transmit the specs they gave. Yes, they know how to refine alumina into aluminum. They have fractions of petroleum that they've used for plastics before, but the state of plastic chemistry is in its baby stages. The Imperials will give information on the sort of plastics feedstock they have.

If the remna like learning new languages, should they be having the linguist greens teach them Tapap? Also, what Amentan exports interest them that they can exchange for their materials?

Yes! That would be lovely. Lessons on other Amentan languages would be great too.

You can exchange gold for Imperial rupnu at any bank. One gram of gold gets you one Imperial rupnu. There was talk about transitioning to fiat currency when you came, to prevent destabilization of the economy because of foreign gold, but that would be extremely politically unpopular. The system remains in place for now.

They will happily pay for Amentan books and media, both non-fiction and fiction, especially books about your technology, of course. Food likewise will be very popular. Ornamental art will be very popular: functional things which are beautiful. Generally, the Imperium much prefers ornamental art over fine art. They would also love to see Amentan performance art, and potentially even hire some, if Amentan art forms are received well. Some people would want to hire your architects and builders to make swooshy glass homes for them.

Okay! They didn't fill up their population allotment to the brim with would-be settlers so they won't have any trouble swapping in a dance troupe or band or architect if someone wants to pay the amortized costs associated with their berths on a ship and their usual performance fees, which, translated into gold at Amentan prices, would be - yea much. Here are some paper catalogues to distribute among interested parties with pretty dishes and cabinetry and shoes and containers and so on they can order - or commission like instances of (especially anything that needs to be made in remna sizes, since those are pushing the Amentan bell curve pretty hard).

Lovely. The prices are...kind of expensive but they were expecting that, what with them having to travel interstellar distances to get here. The paper catalogues will be distributed, with notes saying that extra custom commission costs should be expected if you need or want the items upsized.

Are there any other things the Imperial officials can arrange for them? They say that the sellers and buyers should arrive slowly within the next dozen or two days, depending on how far away they are. Transportation technology is something they are very keen on learning!

Would they like the Amentans to build a railway from somewhere to somewhere else? They can watch if they like.

The Imperium has steam locomotives, but the Amentans probably have better trains. Yes, that would be lovely. If they want to trade quickly, they can build a railway from here to Guskai City. The steam locomotive station is placed outside the city's borders, since it produces smoke, but if the Amentan trains are smoke-free, and do not produce lots of noise (or is such that such noise can be largely muffled), then it could potentially be inside the city's borders. They'll have to ask the residents, though.

The Imperials propose alternate routes connecting nearby cities if they're not interested in that, though.

Amentan trains are electric! They don't have a great generator built here yet but they could do it in parallel so the trains are ready to go when the generator is with, uh, 20% more purples? Or they can just swap out the generator purples for the train building purples if the remna would rather wait.

Amazing! They know enough theory to hypothetically build electric trains, the problem for them is getting electricity that isn't polluting like burning coal or oil. They've been using geothermal, water, and wind thus far and looking into solar and nuclear.

They can wait. Honestly they're surprised they work so quickly. "It must be the better technology," they say, although the other reason they're thinking about is that Amentans have a limit to their lifespan, but remna can just wait patiently for something to be built. They don't say that though, it seems kind of cruel to remind them of that fact.

Amentans like geothermal, traditionally, and hydroelectric - wind takes up a lot of space they could use for other stuff, but they sometimes do solar especially in rural areas - but these days they have net positive antimatter generators!

More marveling at Amentan technologies, and hopes that Imperial engineers would one day be able to build such a thing.

Aside from raw materials, what sort of things or services would the Amentans here or back in Tapa be interested in buying? Sellers will come to the gate regardless, but we can put out messages if you are looking for something specific.

Also, here are teletype machines and how to use them to connect to the Imperial networks. It's kind of sad compared to Amentan internet, but it's functional.

Souvenirs! Art objects, such as books and paintings!

Food is the most popular souvenir in the Imperium, but they're not sure whether the Amentans are looking for that. What types of souvenirs were they looking for?

Many of the functional-art-pieces are too large for Amentans to use, such as fountain pens, cutlery, or furniture, but there are some which would fit them, or which don't require you to be a specific size. Once the market has a better idea for Amentan tastes, there would probably be many manufacturers and artisans who would accommodate them.

There are books-as-art! Not art-books, but books where care is taken to ensure that the book itself is beautiful. Here's a catalog of them. One of the featured ones is a marine zoology book that's evocative of Kunstformen der Natur, with the cover having an embossed graving of one jellyfish. Here's another one that's a pop-up book of buildings which are considered iconic, and explanations for how they fit the style of the cities they're in.

Painting as fine art is relatively uncommon on Zmavlimu'e, but there are some. What types of paintings? Illustrated diagrams or data visualizations of some kind are common in the Imperium, are they interested in those? Here's a globe of Zmavliterdi with land borders of gold wire, with the ice caps made of milky quartz. Here's a biological drawing of a wheat plant, Grey's Anatomy style, but in the form of a tapestry. Here's an ancient love song's lyrics in calligraphy, where the words form a drawing of the flower alluded to in the song. The paper is even scented to smell like it.

Food counts, it's exotic, but it needs to travel pretty well to make it to Amenta and that's where the real huge market is.

The art will probably wind up in museums, though it's not impossible to eat with a comically large fork. By books they meant, like, novels? Do they have those? The globe is exquisite, though, that would get pride of place in a Zmavliu'e-art wing of a museum.

There is food that will last for dozens of days up to (Zmavlimu'e) seasons. They can have those. There is candied fruit, tea, preserved meats, candies, wine, and spices.

Oh, novels! Yes, they have novels. Many novels in Zmavlimu'e have sexual content, and they weren't sure whether that would be appealing, what with the dioecy and non-eusociality of Amentans. And the different biology in general. A lot of them are just...porn in book form. Do you want to get the most popular books now, or for us to try and select books that we think Amentans would find interesting?

Huh, Amentans have written erotica and some of it is about (imaginary) aliens because some Amentans have, like, alien kinks, so it'd have a niche, but it is perhaps not as mass marketable as nonporn stories would be. They can try anything they think will sell now that they have this information on the Amentan erotica landscape though.

The imaginary aliens niche is much bigger per capita in the Imperium compared to Amenta, it seems. Much of the work is also BDSM-y, either totally or in part. Although that isn't considered a 'kink' here, it's kind of...normal. Here's a catalog with blurbs.

They find stuff with relatively little to no overt sexual content and put a catalog together. Zmavlimu'e fiction in general is characterized by very consistent theming and emotional valence, the absence of the concept of heros and villains (it's only protagonists and antagonists), lots of thought put into worldbuilding (many of which will have addenda elaborating on it, or perhaps even ancillary books), and growth/power fantasy/competence porn narratives. To an Amentan's eyes, Imperial fiction evokes 'yellow who wanted to get into fiction writing'.

Here's a hard sci-fi novel about people on a spaceship which had a breakdown, causing them to get stranded and have to work very carefully to survive and return home. The novel is...technically inaccurate, now that there's a literal spacefaring society here able to factcheck it, but the novel has great dramatic tension. Kind of tragic, though. Some people die. Many of the books, including this one, have an openable envelope containing potentially spoilery tags or content warnings, such as character death.

Here's a fantasy novel about people who get different magical powers with aptitudes in each one depending on their personality, and whose strength at the moment depends on what emotion they're currently expressing. There's a lot of interiority in the characters, and a lot of time is spent on digressions about mental exercises, many of which are lifted from or inspired by the Imperial Church's ritual and meditation teachings, and how the characters use those to cultivate their powers, and also how having to deliberately adopt certain patterns of thinking changes them, for better or for worse. Very power fantasy-y. Also very popular because Zmavlipre kind of like fiction that has categories like that, which causes everyone who likes that franchise to categorize all their friends according to it. It's kind of a cliche.

Maybe the alienfuckers have enough overlap to produce alienfucking video porn, that would be well-received by some. Here is a list of video porn companies if they want to pitch any on the idea. Do they have an idea of how BDSM achieved fixation as a sexual taste in remna?

The books are circulated with bad machine translation and gradually, as the popularity data comes in, hand-translations from the most advanced of the yellow language students!