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The planet looks like an ideal spot for colonization from a distance. Covered with a range of biomes, from lush forest to long coastlines to roaring rivers. However, when the Amentans arrive they quickly notice anomalies on their scans.
A population of humanoids lives on the planet, scattered - sometimes individuals are spotted alone and other times they appear in groups of up to a few thousand. They appear similar to child Amentans, except for a general lack of bright hair colors. Civilization appears primitive - in some cases so primitive that it's confusing how they survive at all, with small groups managing to survive in environments as harsh arctic tundra huddled around campfires, in sandy villages in a desert with a single well. A small number of cities exist, most without obvious sources of sufficient food to support them.
As the Amentans investigate further they notice more anomalies of a far less consistent nature. There's an aurora in the northern hemisphere that shines continuously, day and night. One of the cities appear to change subtly in composition and position constantly, with no obvious construction visible. A group of the humanoids appear to live underwater, alongside a gigantic manta ray, hundreds of feet in breadth. A giant skeleton statue of green crystal seems to be moving. A blur of feathers and wings zooms across the planet like a missile at one point. Except for the humanoid species, none of the anomalies repeat.
These are just the anomalies they notice easily from orbit, more may be found on closer inspection.
They only let the animals have babies if they're good for the purposes they have in mind! Obviously they can't tell if an animal is tasty before it has babies but it also works if you analyze them on the level of breeds or strains. They also do it with plants!
Yeah, like that! And since Amentans are a kind of animal and have babies they can even do this to themselves.
One of the ash covered amaliens would like to know why they made themselves look all ... long.
They didn't, they haven't chosen everything about themselves. Before they had invented things like bags they were already like this as adults. Here are pictures of Amentan kids though!
Kids haven't learned how to do spaceship jobs and also they weren't sure if it might be dangerous and prefer not to put kids in dangerous situations.
Why haven't they learned? Do the kids prefer the adults be put in the dangerous positions too?
- Amentan kids are very young. Like this one in this picture is, uh, 984 days old.
It takes more than 984 days to learn to be a person! Amentans that age are still working on talking clearly and reading and stuff.
They give their ages! They range from nine Amentan years* (the grey Fika had a sleepover with) to thirty-one (one of the linguists).
*36 in Earth years.
Huh! Why arn't there any who are as big as the amaliens, like that boy in the picture?
Amentan kids that size could theoretically have learned to do some spaceship jobs, but they often don't have very good judgment yet, and usually want to do things other than learn all day, like play and learn stuff that is not directly relevant to spaceship jobs.
Not-kids still like those things, but they have had enough time to learn spaceship things at a more sustainable pace.
Amentan kids are often bad at judging risks and choosing priorities and following instructions, which are all really important in some possible situations on a spaceship.
Not all of them, but they make sure they will be before giving them spaceship jobs.
There's a lot of competition for spaceship jobs! In principle people as young as 5 could have had all the training they'd need for some positions but the youngest person on the ship is 8 because they count relevant experience when deciding how qualified someone is.