There are many Zmavlipre who would love to shoot porn, either with themselves or with their drones. Many messages will be sent to the companies.

Prenu, in the ancestral environment, managed their drones with operant conditioning and with scent, so they already were very willing to do corporal punishment. For drones, they had to be able to respond to said conditioning but not run away from their Controllers. Dominance and submission is kind of baked into their biology. As for submissive or masochistic Keepers, it is known now that Zmavlipre and drones share the same genotype, but the differences in phenotype are because certain genes are expressed or suppressed – and that there is variation in this, which leads to certain Keepers exhibiting drone-coded traits and vice versa.

Huh, the Amentans were lowkey assuming that drones just automatically did what they were told. Eusocial animals on Amenta don't have to train each other.

Yes, that's the case now, although back then they weren't sapient and hadn't developed language yet. So it was kind of hard to get drones to do what you told them to, because you couldn't tell them what to do.

Oh, it does make sense that there would be a phase between "all desired behaviors are simple enough to be basically instinctual" and "language" where conditioning would play a big role, yeah. Anyway, BDSM is not so mainstream among Amentans but it's not unheard of, they should just script a little more aggressively to make sure they don't trip over assumptions about each other's meanings in that department.

People still practice conditioning today. It continues to be a very robust form of drone shaping. Drones which have been trained to be too literal might get stuck in ruts where they keep doing the same thing over and over and have to be broken out. On the other hand, too proactive drones can be too liberal with their interpretation of commands and become unpredictable: punishment creates bright white lines they shouldn't cross. Also, it's fun! Nowadays they have hypnosis, though, so really it's not that necessary. That last reason still means that conditioning will continue to be a thing, though.

They can do that. The Keepers will participate in the scripting, but as for the drones, they say that they can do whatever they want with them so long as it wouldn't permanently damage them, maim them, or kill them. Otherwise it's fine.

That's as may be but they don't know how robust they are!

Drones are very robust. Here's some big no-nos: asphyxiation, stabbing the torso, or application of strong blunt force to it, restriction of food and water for more than a few days, permitting large blood loss, head trauma.

Here's an anatomy textbook: as long as you don't touch the organs or the brain, it's fine. Also, the drones have good enough body-control such that they can report if things are getting too bad.

The Zmavlipre express sadness that Amentan sadists haven't gotten to experience The Joys of Dronekeeping and are very glad to alleviate this.

The ones who do porn are not necessarily the same as the ones who would get the most Joy out of Dronekeeping but, presumably, the remna settling on Tapa can alleviate that.

Ah, that's true. Is sex work only for specific castes? If so, which castes do sex work? Many Zmavlipre voice their predictions out loud: the majority guess orange, with the rest being split on green, and a few grey.

"It's orange because it's caring work." It seems that taking care of sexual needs is considered a part of nursing and doctoring in Zmavlimu'e.

"It's green because it's artistic work." Many people hire sex workers because they want to have very elaborate roleplays, and fiction writing is a green job.

"It's grey because you want your escort to be robust." The vast majority of Zmavlipre think big muscles and strength are hot, and greys have that, so it has to be them.

In Tapa, porn is grey by analogy to performance dance, but seeing clients is orange. In other countries all sex work is grey. The scripts, if elaborate, may be written by greens, but usually not; greens do have the written and drawn erotica market, though.

That divide is so interesting! (And economically unproductive, they don't say.)

Are these divisions cultural or legally enforced? What if a Tapai grey said he wanted to write erotica?

Oh, he can! He just can't make more than 20% of his income from it, but that's easy if he gives it away or just does it on the side.

(Ah, so not as unproductive as they thought. And if they've had the castes long enough such that each caste could be selected for different traits, then it would make sense to structure the economy around that. They probably have to do it to be able to do mass-education, teaching certain skills only to certain castes, what with the lifespan limit.)

How does Tapa do education? It would seem that, because of senescence, they would have to have efficient education and would have enough children per year to have the economies of scale to do mass-education. The Zmavlipre predict that each caste receives different education – both in structure and in content.

Oranges teach children! They have fairly similar structures, although, like, greys get more gym class and yellows get more computer lab time and stuff. They have varying class sizes and smaller ones do work better but not by so much that they don't do a lot of teaching in large groups.

Oh. The Zmavlipre had predicted that each caste would get their own schools, since you want the elder members of each one to pass down their skills to the younger. Given that they have many castes rather than the remna two, they were assuming that people would be more specialized.

Controlling a classroom full of children while they learn X turns out to be an importantly different skill from just knowing how to X. The schools are casted, though some are intercaste, and the oranges pick up appropriate domain knowledge sufficient to teach little kids the first steps of a field; advanced instruction sought in adulthood will normally be in-caste as they guessed.

Ah, that was more in line with their prediction. Zmavlipre usually have drones do all of the pre-pubertal childcare, and only afterward do they start being more involved, because then the child needs to be taught skills. Back then, Keepers did all the teaching, but nowadays, drones can teach the basics of numeracy and literacy to children also.

Amentans learn a lot of things before puberty! Possibly because they senesce they're in a bit of a hurry to learn all the things they'll need for their careers in just a few years.

True. Keeper children are usually too busy doing their own thing to be meaningfully taught complex topics.

Are the Amentans here interested in buying things? Or perhaps just window shopping? (It is explained that it is not considered unseemly to observe but not buy, and even if it was, they're aliens, so they're expecting that the Amentans would be more circumspect with purchases.) The sellers nearby have come and set up stalls near the gate – there's a specific section that the Imperials have laid out for them.

Well, if it's definitely okay to look and not buy they'll get a bunch of people treating the shops as a bit of a museum! What's there?

There are not that many sellers so far – everyone here has come from their own accord, rather than from the broadcasts the Imperium has done over the teletype network.

Ridzal sells tea. There's white tea, red tea, black tea, fermented tea, and of different grades, and coming in loose leaf or tea bag form. There are very detailed signs next to each one talking about the varietal, growing conditions, proper preparation technique, and what the taste is like. Sadly, many of the qualia words don't have Tapap equivalents. He offers free samples – there's a gas burner there boiling tea so the drones can brew some. He will also permit the Amentans to smell the tea leaves, if they want. That's usually a thing you do with tea. He says that he doesn't sell tisanes though. Do they have tea in Amenta? A gross grams of loose leaf tea will average about three dozen fepni, higher or lower, depending on the specific thing. The dust and fannings tea in tea bags is much cheaper, at one dozen to one dozen and six fepni for a gross grams.

Tetkad sells drones. Apparently he's very good at languages, because he starts speaking Tapap. With a very strong accent, but with good grammar and appropriate vocabulary. He's brought a dozen and five drones who've achieved similar levels in fluency. He would love to receive advice on better pronunciation so he can train himself, and his drones, better. Seven of the drones are young and untrained, but the rest have been trained to do domestic work to Imperial standard – how do Amentans usually manage their home? Presumably they have machines to do that for them, but if not, then there you go. He also says that he offers psychotherapy for both drones and Keepers, or in this case, people in general. The way he says it implies that drone training and psychotherapy are somehow linked, or that people doing one usually also do the other. He says that it's fine for them to touch or examine the drones as much as they want, but that they shouldn't hurt them. The way he says it implies that sometimes sellers allow that. He's flexible, but he says that the price of the untrained drones starts at two gross rupnu, and the trained domestic ones at three gross six dozen rupnu.

Semsis and Radan Company sells fruit – Semsis came here, while Radan remained in their store in the city. They grow tropical fruit in large greenhouses, which lets them survive the winter months. There's lychee, mango, and jackfruit, all still whole, and priced by weight. One gross grams of each is four fepni, ten fepni, and nine fepni respectively. Similar to Ridzal, they've actually cut up some of the fruits and offer them as samples. Semsis explains that they normally wouldn't do this, but of course, he doesn't know whether they have similar fruits in Amenta, and he wouldn't want them to buy a whole bunch only for them to hate it. The fruits will taste very similar to the Earth equivalent, but have very little acidity or sourness to them, but will otherwise have the same flavors and aroma.

Amentans have tea and it's really popular in colder parts of the world; some of these Amentans have a taste for it and will sniff teas to see if any smell tasty.

A green linguist will be waylaid by Tetkad's stall and coach them on pronunciation! What kind of maintenance do drones need? Will they behave weirdly if they're supposed to obey an Amentan who won't smell right? How do drones enter the market anyway, don't people just give birth to them when they want them, is it just not weird to them to sell their offspring? The green calls over a theologian friend who is here to consult on emergency theological questions and they talk about housekeeping, which is apparently a theological matter to Amentans, and ask about psychotherapy and what that tends to entail and why drones would need it. Does he rent drones, if someone is not sure they want to keep one indefinitely?

Exotic fruit is popular given that there's tastes available! Not very tart though, are they, might want a squeeze of Amentan lemon on top, or maybe they should just be strictly dessert applications...

The black teas are quite strong smelling, especially when brewed, but the other types of tea are more mellow. Do Amentans like stronger or weaker teas?

Tetkad will happily accept the coaching. Drones need water, food, rest, and medical treatment in the case they encounter something their body control couldn't handle. On the one hand, drones experience more stress than Keepers, but on the other, drones usually have better body control than Keepers. Yes, but he trains his drones carefully to not rely so much on that. So long as you follow a consistent punishment regime, you'll be fine. No? Drones might be given birth to, but they're not people. Many people do get attached to their drones, but it varies from person to person. Interesting that Amentan housekeeping is a...religious thing? He supposes he could see it – housekeeping is one part of maintaining an aesthetic sense and of evoking emotions in ritual. Psychotherapy is necessary to change the psychological characteristics or behavioral baselines of drones, such as training them to be more proactive versus literal, or expressive versus impassive. You also use it to ensure they remain responsive to your commands without needing corporal punishment, and to ensure that your bond to them remains strong and doesn't fray, especially since you are not their parent, and indeed, do not express any Keeper pheromones at all. Tetkad does not lease drones, usually, but he's willing to lease drones to the Amentans if they want to test them?

The drones which are trained will be wearing simple brown tunics and pants, but the untrained ones will simply be wearing loincloths. All of them are wearing metal collars. They're all standing still in a line.

Semsis will be surprised – people usually hate sour tastes in fruit, and indeed they have carefully bred their fruit plants and trees to produce non-sour fruits without compromising on it having other flavors. He's not that surprised, though, of course aliens would have different tastes in fruit. They have citrus fruits, but they have similarly undergone this selective breeding, although since the baseline was higher, they still remain more sour than other Zmavliterdi fruits.

Amentans vary in how strong they like their tea but there is at least initially a preference for the weaker ones while they get used to local flavors.

Does that mean that remna do not enjoy pickles? Tapai love pickles.

A punishment regime sounds potentially like a lot of work, what does that entail?