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.
Well, that's... weird... but it won't deter their explorers, not if the atmosphere scoops come back safe.
It does! Except for near a cluster of volcanoes, which nonetheless has a small group of the humanoids.
Well, they'll land their initial team not near the volcanoes, then. How about this not very anomalous looking beach, to start out, with enough space to make a camp and hiking-friendly terrain.
Landing and setting up camp goes well! Flora and fauna appear similar to their home planet. They discover a single lone humanoid, napping in some tall grass at the edge of the beach. She really does look like a little Amentan girl, with strangely dark brown hair and rustic but well made woven clothing. She is clutching a blanket of scraps of fabric sewn together.
Will she... wake up if they talk to her, or nudge her?
Nudging her works!
She opens up and rubs her eyes. Then she looks at the Amentans. Then she rubs her eyes again. Oh, the Amentans are still there. She tilts her head to the side and asks something in an unfamiliar language.
That's exciting! The greens they brought along will start trying to establish communication with her while the greys hike some more.
She tries talking to them - she has trouble paying attention to learning their language but is happy to play charades to teach them her's.
The greys hike to a forest, where a pile of the humanoids are napping together. One of them has a small amount of thin green vines clinging to her. In a different part of the forest they encounter one of the humanoids awake, climbing a tree.
The greys take pictures and also wave to the climber, but they don't disturb the nap pile.
The climber waves back and smiles but doesn't stop climbing.
They take video of this but they're not the linguists; they keep spiraling out and getting a sense of the area and mapmaking.
The forest is dense but not large, to one side they encounter a rushing river and on another they find a swamp.
Near the rushing river they encounter a majestic looking white dog (apparently a german shepherd) that appears well groomed.
In the swamp they spot a group of the humanoids, playing by bouncing on the inflated vocal sac of a gigantic frog like it's a trampoline.
...they'll take video of these eventualities. The dog isn't hostile or anything?
Nope! It looks very friendly and like a good dog. It will enthusiastically try to lick them if they get close enough, unless they appear scared of that.
One of the greys will in fact let the space doggo lick her.
They circle back to the camp, where the greens are trying their best at learning the local language from the local cutie.
The space dog will follow the nice grey back to camp if she doesn't seem to mind.
The greens have made progress - they've figured out that the humanoids call themselves "Amaliens" and that near the beach is a comfortable place to nap but not on the beach cause then you might get wet.
It looked very comfy, yep. Does she have a name? Does the dog have a name? Does the beach?
Her name is Ariana! She isn't sure about the dog but it might be called Fluffeld. The beach is named ... she visibly makes something up ... Sandy.
Meanwhile, as the Amentan spaceship orbits the planet, the strange aurora responds to its presence nearby, increasing in speed as if excited.
The shipboard Amentans dutifully take data about it.
The aurora moves towards a village in the arctic tundra, almost touching the ground. The waves of light there form regular patterns, like spoken language transmitted in glowing hues.
Well, maybe the computer can figure something out, if the locals are somehow generating it?
The computer can indeed figure something out! The language is easily translated, initially appearing to mostly be a special dialect focused on coordinating groups of people in emergencies, though it has enough grammar and vocabulary to be used for other things as well.
However, the computer soon reports that further analysis that the initial assumptions were wrong, and the language is mostly composed of varying degrees of basic interrogative clauses expressing confusion, with the same caveat about having enough variety to be a general purpose language as well.
It's not entirely clear why the computer's analysis changed so dramatically - that doesn't normally happen!
Uh. If they run an analysis on only the initial batch of data with a clean version of the program then what. They're going to denetwork these computers just in case.
Still mostly interrogatives clauses, though with more words for expressing questions that the speaker is nervous about the answer to.
What if they take the initial data and have a linguist who just woke up analyze it on PAPER.
The linguist finds the language bizarrely easy to learn. They quickly realize that the language has fewer nervous question words then the computer reported, but a bunch more words and idioms for greeting new people.
This is so freaky! In a cool way but freaky!
Can they hello back to the aurora?? With light flashes or something?
The aurora hellos back! The linguist who learned the language notices suddenly that it has a bunch of ways to say "I also say hello!" and similar additive greetings for group conversations.
Is the aurora the language, or a viral vector for the language, or a different entity or controlled by one that happens to speak the language...
The linguist notices that the language contains very short words for "sentient language" and "an additional friend who is an aurora".
SENTIENT LANGUAGE??? amazing. do you just communicate with a sentient languages by noticing that there are words in it for things. what.
The grammar certainly seems to have been optimized for that, with easy branching constructions of syllables and grammar!
Possibly it only became like that after the linguist started thinking about it.
They're going to... quarantine these researchers actually, just in case, but... study the heck out of the language and tell it that they are here to explore this planet.
The language has lots of excited greetings, a few loan words from an isolated dialect about being afraid of separation, and a bunch of elaborate poetic terminology for landscapes and exploration that sound rather elegant when spoken aloud.
Meanwhile, two Amaliens set off to a nearby beach from the village that the aurora visisted in the arctic tundra. From there they ride underwater on the back of a creature that looks like a hyrbid of a rino, a walrus, and seal. One of the Amaliens is dropped off on a nearby continent soon after.
The dropped off Amalien has a wooden play sword and a mouse mounted on her shoulder who she talks to as she walks towards a campsite (the mouse is not obviously responding). At the campsite she finds a group of three Amaliens napping, cuddled with each other and what looks like a giant fluffy sheep or llama torso. No head or legs are visible under the fluff.
She wakes the group and together they mount the creature, which rises to reveal many extremely long legs, more then it seems like it could fit. It moves fast, legs seeming to dissapear into the fluff as they are pulled back from each stride and new ones emerging.
The group stops at a cliff, where the girl with the wooden sword and mouse dismounts, climbing partially down the cliff and into the nest of a gigantic elderly looking pelican with three pairs of wings. She climbs into its gullet sac and it flies, streaking across the globe in a flurry of feathers. It darts from place to place - the girl emerging each time to visit strange creatures and talk to people, some of whom join her in the gullet of the monster or set off on journeys of their own.
The Amentans are largely unaware of this, except for the occasional sighting of the incredibly fast bird.
Yeah, they don't have nearly that kind of satellite coverage and are mostly attending to the beach and the aurora-situtaion. Since they're quarantined anyway that team will all try to learn the language though.
It's easy for them to do so! They figure out that the language is the same for all of them - features noticed in response to one of the researchers are easily noticed by the rest. The language contains a lot of excited words for getting attention and happy replies that are spoken in a way designed to be heard well in crowded environments.
Do notes and memories on features the language had before change retroactively?
Descriptions of the features stay the same, but anything recorded in the language itself (either through audio or phonetic transcription - no written form is obvious) seems obviously to be part of the language as it currently is when re-examined later, though the translation of the content doesn't actually change.
That's so weird. They will do so much notetaking in both The Sapient Language and also in Tapap. Does the sapient language have a name or anything?
Cryptophasia! It's apparent that the natural idiomatic reply to a name is your own name.
Confused greens will all recite their own names.
The idiomatic greeting then ends with the person who originally shared their name expressing happiness to meet the second speaker. The Amentans also notice that their names transliterate into the language as various shades of "new potential friend".
That's so cute?? What a friendly sapient language. They aren't really communicating with the project leads because of the quarantine so they all go their own directions here - one of them starts trying to write poems in Cryptophasia and one of them starts trying to translate the information packet of things that they might want to know about aliens and vice-versa into it and one gets to work on a dictionary and one decides to try seeing if it'll adapt to sign language.
A bunch of prefixes and suffixes and compound words can be used to deal with multiple things at once, though the Amentans are noticing a bit of a lag on discovering replies within the language as so many different projects are started at once. Still, a connotation of joy to be doing so much accompanies the more complicated and clever constructions of words they discover.
Back on the beach, the Amalien girl has gotten distracted from charades for now and is jumping over waves and trying to get some of the Amentans to join her.
Sure, one of the greys will jump over the waves to try to keep her talking.
She's really excited about that! She'll try to get him to hold hands with her so they can jump over waves together (she indicates this by saying it and also by grabbing his hand if he's okay with that).
Sure, there is nothing aversive about leaping around in the water with (what looks like) an alien child. (They don't seem to have... adults... so possibly she's not a child but she's still cute.)
After a few minutes of this a giant pelican-esque monster plummets out of the sky, crashing on the beach a few yards away from the Amentans and the jumping girl, sand being thrown everywhere by the sudden impact.
Miraculously, it appears unharmed, albeit rather sandy.
The Amentans yelp and duck for cover; the grey who's playing with the Amalien picks her up and sprints away from the impact site.
The amalien covers her eyes, scared, as she is picked up and whisked away.
He sets her down again once he's gotten behind some trees.
She clings to his leg a bit.
Meanwhile the winged monster appears to be getting ready to regurgitate something.
Oh yuck. Nobody comes out from where they're hiding.
An improbably large number of Amaliens tumble out of the mouth - landing together in a pile. Thankfully for any squeamish Amentans, no food or fluids accompanies them - the new Amaliens are disheveled but clean.
what the fuck
The Amaliens disentangle themselves and stand up. They're an eclectic bunch - all look like children but aside from that they have little in common. Included among them:
- A girl with wild messy hair with dead leaves stuck in it.
- A slightly damp pair, a boy and a girl, wearing leathery wetsuits.
- A trio with bits of fluff stuck to their clothes.
- Another trio that appears to be covered in ash and soot, with singed hair.
- A girl with a wooden sword, standing slightly ahead of the rest, with a mouse on her shoulder.
- A boy skulking in the back, who at first looks a bit older than the others, but upon closer inspection actually just looks like someone who is sleep deprived but too busy to rest.
A few of them have brought very cozy looking blankets with them.
They begin looking around for the land-based recipients of the communication the Aurorite had told them was coming from a space object.
Well, the space object is over there, and there are tents spread out. Also some of the Amentans aren't hiding very well.
The group finds the Amentans and a few wave at them. They try communicating with a combination of words and gestures that the Amentans should bring the Cryptophasia so they can all communicate more easily.
The what now. These Amentans don't know what that is.
The spoken monster that the other Amentans communicated with, the Amaliens struggle to convey. A few of them get distracted by dipping their feet in the ocean and watching the sand wash off their toes, but refocus on the first contact mission after a bit.
...well, if they want to supply the landing-camp linguists with more vocabulary they can work on that.
They work on that with more focus then the wave jumping girl did. They focus on building up enough language to explain to the Amentans that some of the other Amentans in the sky ship would do a better job of communicating due to something that was transmitted to them earlier.
"...then why haven't they told us?"
They don't know! And they're sort of confused and worried because the ... they struggle to communicate... The transmitted thing is alive somehow.
...something alive has gone FROM the planet TO the mothership?
The Amaliens nod and looked relieved at having been understood. Except for the tired looking boy who just looks a bit more nervous than before.
Is it dangerous?? Have the people on the ship noticed it??
The amaliens don't know if it's been noticed and are quite worried for it! It doesn't seem dangerous to them?
The tired looking Amalien glares at them a bit more.
Well, they can tell the people up there that the locals think that a living thing has gone to the ship from the surface somehow? Does it go through places without air?
Yes it does and yes they should tell them! And, the tired boy adds, they should transmit it back here fast.
(They do take a bit of discussion among each other to figure out whether it transmits through places without air, but conclude that it does)
They radio up with this pronouncement.
They get a response back that really puzzles them. They are somewhat at pains to figure out how to ask the locals "is it a language that is also a person".
The amaliens understand pretty easily, and confirm that it is.
Okay... how does one transmit it.
They should have someone say something to them down here in the language.
After some more bewildered conferencing they give the amaliens a spare everything and have it connected to one of the linguists, who says, "I'm sorry, we didn't know that it couldn't exist in multiple places!"
The Amaliens play around with the words the linguist said, deconstructing them and trying to say new words aloud (giggling when they sound funny) and figuring out what sounds natural, quickly reederiving the language.
After a bit of internal discussion, one of the amaliens says in the language "Cryptophasia can't be in places 'less they can communi-cate with each other. It'll still stay in both places s'long as we can talk to you."
The Amentans on the beach will start figuring out the language just from overhearing all this, but might have to think a bit to learn it.
The greens who have been studying Cryptophasia want to ask some questions about it now that they can talk to people who aren't it. They're currently mostly not communicating with the rest of their ship because it was really frightening how it did... magic?... to them; they think it's cool and it hasn't done anything hostile but they would really want to know more about how it works before letting it spread to all the Amentans even once. (The camp Amentans move off so they can't hear the conversation.)
Oh, it's a monster.
....meaning?
It is unique and special and can do things and exist in a way that is all its own? Cryptophasia is a very friendly monster, though it doesn't have a very special companion friend like some do. It's also really extro-vert-ed so it likes being spoken by lots of people. The amaliens were guessing the spaceship was a monster too but maybe it's not?
They built the spaceship out of metal that came from underground and on asteroids and stuff.
Oh. That sounds really hard! The Amaliens (except for the tired boy) look impressed and the one with the wooden sword looks at them with awe and excitement in her eyes.
It was really hard and took them a long time to figure out, yeah! If it's okay with the amaliens the research team would like to wrap up the things they were doing to study the Cryptophasia - they can keep the phone line open and talk about it while they do that, but preferably out of earshot of the landing team - so they can make a determination about whether they want to recommend using it for general communications with locals.
That's okay!
The poetry writing green notices a really elegant rhythmic scheme that lends itself towards writing a poem around staying to write pretty words and sing pretty songs with a friend.
Awwwww, the poetry linguist is fond of you too, Cryptophasia.
What will happen to this poem and all the other stuff they wrote down if they close the channel and the amaliens "keep" Cryptophasia?
They won't be able to understand it till they learn Cryptophasia again.
(Also in Cryptophasia the word "keep" doesn't exactly apply to the situation, more grammatically relevant would be "Cryptophasia stays with the Amaliens".)
(The more flowery poetic form actually has the subtler connotation "Crytophasia stays with friends such as the Amaliens and possibly including other friends".)
How was Cryptophasia in the aurora?
The Amaliens explain that the Aurorite is a smart monster and can't normally talk that easily but can learn Cryptophasia which can pay attention to other people who are speaking it and appear a way that passes messages between them.
Does the aurora need it back?
The obvious construction of "Aurorite and Cryptophasia" uses a version of the word "and" that connotes occasional closeness of friends but not dependence or constant companionship.
Oh, okay. How many people can Cryptophasia be among at once? It seemed a little slower to respond when they all started working on it in parallel.
The term "language monster" is apparently an abbreviation for the longer phrase "language that only has a few attention threads to have relevant apparently reactive features with but can be learned by (excited happy inflection) a very large number of people as long as they are not very communication-wise distant".
...so if Amentans settle here and put an internet up it could be on the whole internet?
It is apparently impossible to say the word "internet" in Cryptophasia in any way other than "INTERNET!!!!!!"
Okay! It wants the internet! The greens are hopeful that when everyone is convinced that it isn't dangerous to learn Cryptophasia it can have an internet and all the settlers here can learn it. There seems to be lots of space the amaliens aren't using, right? Would they like new neighbors?
Amaliens rhymes with "friends" but it's awkward to construct sentences which start with "Amaliens would definitely say".
Yes, but they still have the line open so they can just ask these amaliens, right?
The amalien girl with leaves in her hair opens her mouth to answer but closes it when the tired looking boy makes eye contact with her. He whispers something in her ear. She nods a few times.
"We can talk about that with you!"
"Great! Are there any places that would be especially good for new neighbors to live?"
"Are you representing the Amentans?"
"- uh, us specifically, no, we're linguists, but once everyone's calmed down about the Cryptophasia we can talk to the representatives of - our group of Amentans."
"I think we should probably talk with them. What sorta calming could we help with?"
He feels a bit awkward about being this cold to new people, but he knows that some amalien needs to be cautious and careful with things that might become scary and he's trying really hard at it because that's his job.
Fluffeld, who has been on this beach the whole time, is disappointed with the lack of attention he is getting. Belly rubs??
"- well the trouble is you can't talk to them because they don't want to learn Cryptophasia while they're still nervous, but it would help if you all taught the linguists who are down there in the camp more of your not- Cryptophasia language that's just a language and not magical."
Sure, this purple has nothing to do right now and will belly rub Fluffeld.
The girl with the wooden sword and mouse on her shoulder pipes up.
"Could we do that by saying things and then trans-lating them to Cryptophasia and then you could figure what the your-language is for that?"
Yay!! Belly rubs!
"No, because as part of them being nervous they're not letting us talk to them very much, just answer some yes or no questions - they don't want to get Cryptophasia from us."
"Oh, okay. We can talk to them without Cryptophasia if they are nervous about meeting a new language-friend."
She bravely goes over to the linguists and starts conversing with them in the normal amalien language. The other amaliens trickle in behind her and help.
The linguists are very happy to have more language data!
Meelia is happy to chat with them! She's excited to talk about fun people she's met and things she did with them. She acts out her stories as she tells them to make it easier to figure out what she's saying.
" - and then I helped her climb to the very very tallest branch and we found her glowing bird friend stuck up there and scared to come down and so -
The other amaliens help as well, though sometimes they are distracted listening to Meelia's really cool adventuring stories.
The linguists are not super clear on whether this is fiction or fact but it doesn't super matter when their priority is the grammar.
Meelia is presenting the stories as real things that happened to her, and nothing seems obviously made-up about them. During one she mentions how her wooden sword got stuck in the mouth of an angry monster and she points out a set of tooth marks on her sword. The wooden sword was apparently saved by the quick action of the friendly mouse which is currently sitting on her shoulder.
Are a lot of monsters dangerous?
They can be, yeah. 'specially if they're angry or lonely or scared. Amaliens can be that way too, though not as often cause they can give themselves hug and also talk to other amaliens about feelings and lots of monsters don't know how to give themselves hug or talk to anyone.
...are there monsters that keep being dangerous after someone has tried hugging them? How does one avoid such monsters?
You can stay away from them and not try to give them hugs when they don't want any?
Okay but do they like, come where people are living? Like, would such a monster show up in the camp and attack Amentans, or would they have to go bother one where it lives for this to be a problem?
They don't usually go where people are living Meelia thinks. Unless something is wrong and they need to be there like someone stole a toy they like or a friend is napping there or they got pushed out by another monster.
One of the other amaliens excitedly adds that Meelia is really good at helping those monsters and the people in the new place they are trying to move.
They are pleased to make Meelia's acquaintance!
They would like to know more about amaliens, too. They look sort of like young Amentans, but they haven't seen any who look more like adult Amentans, so perhaps they are adults and just look like that? They haven't seen any baby ones either though, is it the wrong time of year?
What's an adult? Also what's a baby.
A baby is a new person who just started existing, and an adult is someone who hasn't been a baby for a while - how long a while depends on species. Do they have animals that are born, or hatch out of eggs, and then get bigger?
Oh yeah they have those! It's sad and sorta happy and a few of the amaliens have obvious emotions about this.
Wait, did they say that happens to people??!!?
- where do amaliens come from?????
They don't remember coming from anywhere!
For how long?!?!
They're not sure?? They don't keep count and they can't remember every detail and can't tell exactly when things they remembered happened.
Fika has an unusually good memory and is pretty sure one of the earliest things she can remember is a time she gathered up a lot of friends for a fun party month* together during a month where the moon blocked out the sun from view at the start and the other moon blocked the sun at the end.
She's not sure whether it was the first time the moons did that.
*month is the closest translation of the amount of time.
Judging by the orbits of the moons, two total solar eclipses last happened that close together a bit over 35 thousand years ago. The one before that would have been closer to 285 thousand years ago.
They take some time to kick that question to the astronomers and get an estimate back.
well if they're immortal it's very good they don't also have babies???? they guess???????
The amaliens are confused about that, not that they want to have babies but. They arn't sure why the being immortal bit matters.
Well, if you're immortal, AND you have babies, and you also don't know how to go to other planets, then eventually there are too many of you for you and all the things you eat and all the stuff you need to fit on the one planet.
Oh. They guess that could happen but mostly they think a bunch of them would nap most of the time if that started being an issue.
Even if they - hibernate? - then they would still need air and such.
They arn't sure that's true. Some of the amaliens with singed hair and ash on their faces say that if you fall into lava where there isn't any air you can nap till other amaliens find you and you get better or until lava pushes you out of the ground again later, though that can take a really really long time.
(also it can hurt a bunch and isn't fun)
Immortal indestructible alien children??
Woof!
And monsters. Like this soft fluffy dog monster. Doesn't even have horns, weird.
About how many amaliens are there?
A bunch! They do some arithmetic together and then guess it's about a hundred thousand.
Gosh. And there are never any that seem new?
Not that any of these amaliens remember.
Wow.
Anyway, they should go back to talking about the Cryptophasia because it seems like that might be important for the prospect of Amentans living here. Are the amaliens cool with some Amentans living here? Amaliens could visit Amenta too if they want.
Those things sound exciting. Though Lucien says they should all talk to repre-sentative Amentans about that, like they sorta are for amaliens.
Right now the greens are working on computer translation for the amalien language (nonsentient)! They can wait for that to get good enough that a blue will be able to say all the things they need to say, or they can discuss Cryptophasia till there's a blue prepared to try it.
They'll wait for the computer to get good enough! A few of the amaliens would actually like to take a break now if that's okay.
Do any of the Amentans want to climbs trees with Fika?
Sure, some greys will go tree-climbing. And a botanist.
Lucien stays back and helps with the translations.
Meelia does too but after a bit wanders off to swim with the amaliens in wetsuits for a bit.
Woof!
(Fluffeld races Meelia to the water and jumps around in it splashing people)
The linguists can show them how the software they're using works if they like.
Lucien will listen, along with a couple of the other amaliens. They are rather smart and learn quickly, though they don't have any sort of prior exposure to computers. Still, most amentan adults wouldn't grasp novel concepts as quickly as they do.
No one is allowed to talk to these linguists in Cryptophasia but it has a traditional oath idiom about talking about new things one learns in Cryptophasia later. One of the amaliens says it before going over to the linguists to learn.
That's okay as long as they speak strictly nonsentient language while building up the computer model with the linguists.
They're okay that! They'll translate the cool bits of how the translation software works into Cryptophasia later because it's a language-monster and likes language things. Also they'll probably translate the non-cool bits too cause Cryptophasia will probably find those bits interesting too.
As long as that won't infect the software with Cryptophasia before they're ready, sure.
They won't! Promise.
Then they can work on that till the sun is going down and the Amentans need to get things squared away to sleep overnight.
The amaliens switch between working with them and playing a few times. When the sun goes down a few of them build a small campfire and after a bit they all cuddle up in a pile to sleep.
If any of them would rather sleep in a tent this grey will share!
Sure, Fika will share his tent!
So cute <3 There's a couple spare sleeping bags for in case they needed them, like if one got torn, but none have, so Fika can have this one.
Oh wow the sleeping bag goes all around her! She can fit her whole body inside it.
She giggles while popping her head in and out for a bit before falling asleep in it next to the grey's sleeping bag.
Cuuuuuuuute!
In the morning the computer's had a while to chew on the language - and so have the non-quarantined shipboard linguists - and they can have somewhat more fluent conversations! They want to know more details about how Cryptophasia affects people and for how long and through what vectors.
Lucien is the first up - he slept at the edge of the pile outside and doesn't have any trouble extricating himself.
Cryptophasia acts like a language someone learned, he'll explain, except it can also cause you to notice things about it you hadn't before, as if they were always there. It can only affect people if those people can communicate with other people who it is effecting. Written communication won't work, it has to be real time. Also in order to be affected the person needs to put some effort into figuring out the language, though not much.
And if someone is out of communication with other people they - instantly? gradually? - lose the understanding, can't interpret their own memories of Cryptophasia...?
They can interpret their own memories but will realize that they don't really know how they did the translation. It's not instant but only takes a few minutes or seconds.
Okay. There's a blue who's willing to go in with the quarantined linguists up on the ship, having made some advance preparations for limited communication with the rest to make sure she's in good mental health and confirm that she recommends going ahead; they can talk to her, and she is more able than these academics and explorers to represent their people.
Is she going to come down here?
She can do that but she'd need to bring a pilot; does it work to talk on the phone?
They could but it sorta feels harder. They could go pick her up in Peli?
(Lucien is thinking that these aliens are really sort of awkward about first contact with new people. Though it is a pretty hard job.)
Where's Peli?
Lucien gestures at the giant elderly looking many winged pelican that brought the amalien delegation here.
...even if it can fly in space it looks like it would not be comfortable for an Amentan to ride in.
The mouth is bigger on the inside, that's how they all fit. He's not sure if it could fly to space, he's never been. Meelia might know.
If they prefer to talk in person she can get a pilot.
They do prefer that.
Lucien doesn't say sorry aloud cause he thinks it's important to have boundaries with new people and that means meeting them in comfortable ways if that's possible. But, he's thinking he's sorry.
Down she comes. This will take her a bit.
See her soon!
Lucien bounces a bit at the prospect of the meeting. He's excited about important things happening!
In the meantime there are refinements to be made and gaps to be filled in the corpus, and also some greys want to take video of flinging amaliens into the air and catching them if they think that would be fun.
Fika is up for being tossed!
Meelia would like to be tossed once or twice too!
Woof?
Lucien will stick with helping with the corpus.
Tiny linguistically helpful child immortal alien!
Lucien is taking this very seriously. He can play when there arn't brand new aliens for the first time ever.
Meelia giggles as she's thrown into the air. The second time she lands on her hands and then stands on one hand briefly before collapsing, giggling and smiling.
"Can I try tossing one of you now?"
"Sure kiddo," giggles a grey.
Meelia will do her very best! She is actually quite strong - she can lift one of the greys up and throw them a tiny tiny bit in the air. If any of the greys have heard about very strong grey children they will realize that some of the strongest amentan kids who train a bunch are at least as strong.
Yeah, the one who volunteered knows how to land well, though as expected she didn't get much air. "Thank you!" Hair-ruffle.
Meelia smiles! She helps tossing the other interested amaliens - a few of them seem to specifically want her to toss them. Also she tosses an insistent Fluffeld a little higher then she managed to toss the grey.
They are taking so many videos of this.
Fika gets everyone to toss her at least once! Include all the greys and Meelia and any of the other amaliens who want to try. She also tries to get Fluffeld to toss her but can't figure out how to make it work.
Woof!
Fluffeld seems quite amused.
If... they'd usually hesitate to suggest this but these kids come out fine from falling in a volcano... if she sat on Fluffeld and he jumped off a high place and she didn't hold on too tight she could probably get some loft that way and it would be sort of like him tossing her?
Oooh! She'd need to get Fluffeld somewhere high up. Do the greys have any tasty sweets he might like?
He likes sweets? They don't know if he'll like Amentan sweets but someone has freeze dried berries.
She'll try that! She's pretty sure he likes sweet things. Though it was a while ago last time she saw him.
She takes the freeze dried berries with her to a nearby tree (well, she eats a couple of them on the way).
Fluffeld follows the tasty looking sweets!
Fika climbs up the tree. She climbs like it's more natural to her then walking is. She's far more adept at this then any Amentan.
She holds some of the snacks out to Fluffeld, and then helps him get up too, partially carrying him.
Woof!
Nom nom he gets a few of the treats at the top to eat.
Fika clambers onto him. She waves to the Amentans recording her on the ground.
"Ready?"
"Ready!"
Lucien opens his mouth to say something when -
Fika throws the berries down and Fluffeld jumps! She goes soaring, boosting herself off of Fluffeld. She flies through the air towards the Amentans.
She lands, but not with any of the grace with which she climbed. Her ankle twists at a bit of an angle and she bonks her head on the ground.
A grey dives for her to try to break her fall and roll with her.
The grey manages to catch her before her head hits the ground!
Oh good. He sets her in a sitting position. "Okay?"
She looks a bit overwelmed for a second and the breaks into a smile.
"Yeah! It was really fun and I went super high. Though -" she moves her ankle experimentally "- my ankle is sorta hurting. Maybe I'll nap for a bit?"
"Okay, do you want the sleeping bag again?"
"That would be nice."
Lucien heads over.
"Fika I think you should be careful and probably shouldn't nap now. We're doing important things and we only get to do them once and there's no one else here from the Esteel Tree."
"Could Peli get someone else?"
"Not someone who's already been here the whole time like you. If it doesn't hurt too much you should stay awake. Okay?"
"Oh."
"Okay I can do that."
The greens want to know if naps help amaliens heal faster or if it just lets them skip being conscious while it happens. And if they are sufficiently confident in their immortality that this would be a reasonable time to try Amentan painkillers on Fika.
Naps are mostly just for not staying awake, since it hurts and can take a while to get better. Though some of the ash covered amaliens say that if you get stuck in lava you can usually stay awake to try to get out but it will really really hurt and also you will heal much slower. They think it's only a good idea if you're away from a place where friends will be able to get you soonish.
Meelia will add that if you get hurt really bad you can't stay awake, like if a boulder monster falls on you from high up when you're climbing a really tall mountain.
They can try the painkillers, sure! Fika has tried some plants that helped a little bit before but she didn't bring any with her.
They guesstimate her weight and dose her as they would an Amentan with a mild analgesic from the first aid kit.
It's a bit less effective then it would be on an Amentan, but it still works pretty well. Wears off much faster though.
They can give her another dose as needed unless she's experiencing any side effects.
She's not, though the next dose wears off even faster.
...weird? Maybe part of how their healing and durability mechanism works is building up a tolerance to environmental stuff. They can get her an ice pack and see if that helps for longer.
It does!
Oh good. They have plenty of those.
She'll hold one on her foot while she goes to climb another tree.
...that seems like not something an Amentan would do with a bad ankle but she is hundreds of thousands of years old so okay...
She climbs while keeping the icepack on her foot, sometimes with a hand and sometimes by pressing her feet together and other times by pressing her foot against the tree. She ends up on a nice sitting spot and relaxes there.
Cute!
Eventually the blue representative's shuttle lands, complete with another grey who piloted her down.
The amaliens gather together when she arrives. Lucien and Meelia are a bit in front of the others
Out comes the blue. The pilot scurries off to join the other greys. "Hello!" says the blue in Cryptophasia, once the pilot's out of earshot.
"Hello! I'm happy you could come down to talk to us cause we're not very used to meeting new people who aren't actually there and Lucien things it's important for us to do this right. It's nice to meet you!"
"It's nice to meet you too! I'm Shani Tion. Tion means 'star' in Tapap, our language, and it means that I am our ambassador to other stars."
"Oh that's really pretty!"
She's actually a bit jealous and wants to ask if she can visit other stars but Lucien would be unhappy if she got distracted right now so she can do that later.
"I'm Meelia! I don't know if it has a meaning but it sounds sort of like 'amalien' so maybe I was named after that?"
"We're excited to meet new people and to get to know you and help each other."
"Us too! We've wanted to meet other kinds of people for so long."
"We sometimes find new friends on our own planet but didn't realize there were other people to meet outside of our planet! Also there's a lot more of you then any new friends we've found."
"There are! Back on Amenta, there are billions of us."
Meelia's eyes go wide.
"Wow that's so many!"
She thinks for a bit.
"Earlier you said there's a thing were you can have too many people on one planet. Is billions too many?"
"No, but we have to work very hard and make a lot of people really sad to make sure it doesn't become too many. That's why we're exploring, so we can have enough space not to need to do that!"
"Oh no!"
"Some of them could come live here?"
Lucien would really prefer she not offer things without everyone thinking it over but there's not really a chance they're going to say no, not completely anyways. Their planet is pretty big.
"That's what we were hoping! It's a really nice planet and some people would love to live here and be friends with you."
"What sort of things would you need to live here? Also also, could some of us also live on your planet sometimes?"
"Sure, some of you could come to Amenta and check it out if you like exploring! You might have to learn Amentan languages to be comfortable there long term, because I think Cryptophasia will probably need to stay here on this planet, but we'd be happy to teach you. Here all we need is space and an introduction to some of the friendly monsters and warnings about where the unfriendly ones live, we can grow our own food and build our own homes."
"I can learn the language if I have to to go to a new place!"
The other amaliens look scared of the idea of learning a new language but she's brave and really really wants to go to the other planet.
She tries thinking of the best place for them to live.
"There's lots of space and food we don't usually eat underwater and not as many monsters in most of it. It's kinda uncomfortable since there's no air and it sorta squishes you down in some places but maybe that's worth it for you to have a very empty and nice new place to be in? There's also a friendly monster that can help you breathe but doesn't have too much more room since lots of amaliens live with it."
"We can't live underwater very well; we could build something to let us do it, but it would be a lot easier to live on the land."
"Oh. Well, there's lots of friendly and nice places to live and I'm sure lots of amaliens would be happy to show you them."
"Aside from not being underwater, what sort of things would you need?"
He wants to catch any difficult surprises early, before a bunch of the Amentans have settled.
"We prefer to live places that have seasons, so not at the cold ends of the planet or the hot band of it around the middle. We need fresh water and the land needs to be able to hold a lot of weight because we like our buildings to be pretty tall. We have lots of different kinds of food that grow in lots of kinds of soil, so a variety of soil is good. A lot of the things we like to build need metal so it's good to know where to dig that up and whoever's digging it up will want to live convenient to that."
The amaliens have so many questions.
What's metal? Why do you like seasons? Is it cause the weather is more interesting that way? How tall do your buildings get? What types of food do eat? What is the tastiest? Can I climb your buildings? Do you want to live in the Esteel Tree? How often do you move where you're staying?
These objects are made of metal, mostly steel but some aluminum and titanium and a bit of gold! It's because Amentans have a seasonal cycle, do any animals here do something like hiding underground in the summer or the winter or flying to a different place some of the year, it's sort of like that. Some buildings are more than a thousand feet high! The amaliens can try these foods they have along though they are not the best because they had to be okay to bring on a spaceship trip. They all have different favorites. Buildings usually get climbed from inside, not outside, in stairs, and some buildings don't have stairs at all and just have elevators, which are like so. What is the Esteel Tree? Amentans move when they need more room in their home like because their family has gotten bigger, or if they have changed jobs and want to be closer to what they do all day when they're not at home; this is usually not too often, a few times a year at most.
Fika is pretty sure she's seen gold before but not the others and wants to try biting them.
A thousand feet is really tall! That's bigger then the Esteel Tree! Oh wow all these foods are really yummy treats! Elevators sound sort of boring, unless they go very fast. The Esteel Tree is a monster-tree that is friendly and a few hundred amaliens live in it (like Fika) and a bunch more live nearby.
How big do families get? Why don't they just make the roofs taller instead of making new homes? How big do amentans get?
Fika can bite most of the sample objects.
Amentans stop growing when they are about this big, though some are a bit taller? A growing family means someone new joining you to live with you, like a baby, since Amentans have those, or a spouse, since they have those too.
"Could you draw us some pictures of your world?"
"None of us are really great artists, but we can show you pictures that we took with machines!" Behold, downtown Shapto. Amenta from space.
Amaliens ask what various things are in the pictures, such as the shops, streetlights, and farmland.
Fika looks a bit unsure about something.
The Amentans can show closeups and explain about shops and streetlights and farmland.
"Farms aren't that fun I think."
"Some people really like them, and they're where we grow our food. We need to eat every day."
Fika gets a confused look on her face but doesn't say anything else.
"Some amaliens might get upset if you get rid of places they are visiting to make farms, is I think what Fika was suggesting."
"That's why we're asking where would be a good place. We're not planting any farms today."
"I can help you find some places, lots of amaliens travel but I'm sure they'd be happy to have new neighbors even if some parts of the places have to change for that to happen."
"Great!"
Fika and some of the amaliens get distracted, but most of them work on and off with the Amentans to figure things out. Lucien doesn't get distracted at all, and Meelia sticks around even if she starts daydreaming when they arn't talking about amelians visiting the Amentan planet.
The Amentans have orbital photos of the amalien planet, if that helps with choosing sites to investigate/ask the neighbors about/meet the monsters near.
Meelia will talk about all the different dangers places on the map have and where there are nice monsters and where there are less friendly monsters and where the weather is really rough and where there are really pretty views.
Fika points at the Esteel Tree, the beach they are on, and a place where a cool looking pinecone is buried.
Lucien will talk a bit about who lives in each area and how easy the logistics would be. He also asks for copies of the picture of they can have them.
Fluffeld tries to lick the map!
Fluffeld should not do that please. Does the pinecone do anything or just look cool? Here is a spare everything for Lucien, here is how to look through the pictures.
Lucien would like spare everythings for other amaliens as well.
Fika ignores the question and wanders off.
Woof!
They don't have all that many spares on hand but they can import more. How many total?
Um. Could all the amaliens who want one have one? If they have enough that all the amentans who want them have them.
They have plenty, but hundreds of thousands of everythings will take longer to arrange than, like, a hundred.
That's okay! Where do they get them?
They make them! In factories! Here is a video with plinky music about the process of making everythings.
Fika sees why Fluffeld wants to eat them!
Woah. That looks. Like a complicated monster that's not actually a monster?
All the parts of the factory are made, same as the everythings are!
Are they made by other factories?
He's smiling a bit.
Yep! All the way back and back till they just had rocks and sticks they have made things with other things.
What was the second thing they made?
Lucien is super interested.
Since none of them were around that long ago they don't know for sure - writing was not among the very first things made - but archaeologists think that next they worked on getting rocks into better shapes and at some point learned to make bags, probably out of animal skin!
They have rocks in cool shapes and some bags but animal skin is sort of harder to get then some plant fibers, and they are pretty sure that making soft blankets is easier than making bags.
Spinning took inventing! It's hard to be sure when they came up with it but archaeologists seem to think animal skins came first. Animals are edible, so they had reasons to get animals to skin anyway.
Huh, when amaliens eat animals they get sick.
...some of those foods they tasted had some meat in them. Are any of them feeling sick?
No, they feel fine. Maybe their animals are different?
Maybe, like maybe any animals that were tasty to amaliens have evolved to not be safe to eat any more. Amentans do a thing where they control the evolution of animals they keep for food, so they have gotten tastier over time and not poisonous.
Huh! How do they control evolution?
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!
Huh! That's cool.
Like cats! They gave cute ones more food.
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!
Huh. Why arn't there any kids with them?
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.
And it takes more than 984 days to learn a spaceship job?
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.
Huh! How old are all of you?
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.
What does he mean by they don't have very good judgement?
Also, does that mean that the not-kids don't like playing or learning new different stuff?
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.
And the not-kids are good at those things?
Not all of them, but they make sure they will be before giving them spaceship jobs.
And none of the kids? Lucien looks mildly skeptical.
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.
Are any of the people who looked liked them in the pictures 5 or older?
Meelia wants to know why they don't have the relevant experience.
Amentans who look like them are 2 or 3.
Experience takes time to accumulate! Since the amaliens don't know where they came from presumably they also don't remember being chronologically 2 or 3.
What takes that much experience? Meelia wants to see if she can do any of the space-jobs.
Would she like to come up on the spaceship and see some of the things people up there do?
YES!!!
Meelia jumps up in the air a lil'.
Then next time there's a shuttle going that way she can come along!
When's that gonna be?
Depends! They don't have unlimited fuel with them so they will need to go home for resupply sooner if they make more trips, it would be ideal to wait till there's more reasons for shuttles to be going to and fro.
Like what sort of reasons?
Like if it turns out this blue is allergic to something here, or they need to go up for more food anyway, or need to land shuttles on other parts of the planet and want one of these ones up there to dispatch on another landing like that.
Oh, how long will it be?
Fika tries climbing one of the Amentans.
"- oh, hello there," says the blue, trying to help her and sit her on her hip.
Fika does not need any help to end up perched on the blue's head, as high up as she can get.
The blue will attempt to settle her a little more comfortably, like, on the shoulders, but then continue with the chat as though there were nothing odd about this.
Fika will accept being settled comfortably while she braids the blue's hair (assuming the blue doesn't object).
(Meelia still wants to know how long till she will get to visit a spaceship.)
The blue doesn't have very long hair but it is okay to attempt to braid it.
How about the day after tomorrow if no excuses come up before then? But if other amaliens want to come they can join in the same trip!
Fika only actually remembered that this blue is a person a bit after she started trying to braid her hair but she's already up here. Maybe she can use some of her own hair to do some complicated things to get the blue hair to braid. She's very good at arts and crafts.
Meelia will go! And a couple of the other amaliens will join.
Okay! They can look around inside the shuttles that are here now if they like.
Yes please!
Lucien will join everyone on the tour.
Woof?
Fluffeld can come too if he doesn't put his mouth on anything.
The shuttle the greys and greens came down on is big enough that they could live in it if they wanted to, but they like spreading out a bit in the tents. It does have their showers and food and stuff inside it. The one the blue came down in is much smaller, only a couple of rooms' worth of space plus the propulsion.
Fluffeld politely holsters his tongue.
Meelia is bouncing continuously during the tours.
What's the propulsioney bit do? What are the showers for? How do make it go up? Where do you stay when it gets off the ground? How fast does it go?
They will happily explain all of these things! Showers are for getting clean, they need to do that a lot to be comfortable and avoid getting sick. They strap in here when it's in flight. Speed gets kind of confusing in space, but it accelerates yea much...
Woah! That's faster then she went when she was in space trying to find a space cow that got away. She thinks that the space cow was actually made up though and never found it. If they see any cows in space they should let her know.
They haven't seen any cows in space so far. How did she get to space to chase the space cow?
There was a vibrating speed monster that sped up things it touched for a bit sorta and wasn't friendly and she and Peli took it away from a bunch of amaliens who it was hurting (by vibrating things they liked till they broke and also by speeding up the amaliens so their friends all moved slower then them for a while) and then afterwards she and Peli were vibrating a lot so she tried to see how fast they could go and then she got so high and couldn't breathe and was a bit floatey and later she checked and found out that that was space.
Wow, is the vibrating monster still around?
Not around the amaliens it was around before but around other places. She dropped it off on the other side of a mountain. She doesn't know if it's still there.
Fika is done!
The blue doesn't have any hair ties on her, but if Fika does she will let the braids be fastened without complaint.
FIka used a few strands of her own hair to tie this bits off.
"Thank you, little one," says the blue, patting her leg.
"You're welcome, big one!"
The Amentans all giggle adoringly.
Fika considers climbing down but then she won't have as good a view of the braid so she stays where she is.
That is fine with the diplomat she's perched on.
Once the ship tour is done they can talk more about where good places to settle might be and mark monster locations more thoroughly till they have a pilot city site picked out. Speaking of cities what is the... citylike... thing.
The amaliens end up recommending a large valley with a river going through it that had a group of amaliens living there a decade ago that has easy to live next to monsters. There's enough room for a small Amentan city, which can be expanded further past the valley with work to befriend monsters and help monsters move if they are having trouble being friendly.
That citylike thing on the map is Keetim! Keetim is a monster who is friends with Keeta who is the mayor and there are over a thousand amaliens in the city! And also other monsters! One of the amaliens who lives there says it's a nice place to live though hard if you're scared of nightmares.
"She means afraid of the city's nightmares, not your own. Keetim moves around and changes and that's really nice most of the time and helpful but sometimes it has nightmares and then it can be scary until it calms down. Keeta helps with that so it's easier to live in than it used to be."
"- what kinds of things happen when Keetim has nightmares?"
"Did one of them get their name from the other?"
"It changes in scary ways. I think one of the very bad ones had things like sharp stuff growing on the ground and on the sides of buildings and then some of the buildings fell towards the ground like they were biting the things inbetween."
"I think Keetim was renamed when it met Keeta? Or maybe afterwards cause people forgot the name before that."
"Used to be named Sutimad."
"Wow. Sounds like Amentans shouldn't go to Keetim, but I hope the amaliens who live there are comfy." And they can get underway figuring out what they will need to bring from home and what they will be able to extract locally to build what they will need here.
"It's not always sleeping so you could visit for a bit but it is pretty hard to live in and amaliens have to be super careful if they have animal pets there."
Natural resources are plentiful and most resources they might need they can find somewhere on the planet - though the amaliens can only direct them to ones that don't require special equipment to find. The bigger issue would be getting the resources from where they are to the nicely located valley. Lucien thinks they can probably do this by having multiple backup routes in case one has a monster on it and keeping the places where they get the resources safe (and small enough that monsters won't generally find them by accident).
Do a lot of monsters fly? Helicopters use a lot of fuel if they're carrying anything very heavy, but it'd be a reasonable backup at least for the workers if not the materials if there was a monster on a road or railway.
Most monsters don't fly! Those that do don't usually fly very fast. Monsters might notice the helicopters when they land and take off if they're loud but that shouldn't be an issue if it doesn't happen too often.
Also based on the way she's bouncing he can tell Meelia wants to go on a helicopter ride.
Nodnodnodnodnod
They don't have helicopters here right now! They will have to bring some over. Would possible rail-obstructing monsters be deterred if the rails were electrified?
That sounds like it would hurt monsters?
Yeah, it usually hurts a bit but less than being hit by a train and if a monster showed up while a train was already going really fast it might not be possible to stop in time.
Oh. Could they make it so the rails were only electric when the train is coming so it doesn't hurt monsters the rest of the time?
(He's a bit confused why they jumped to something that would hurt monsters so fast but maybe they've tried a bunch of things and they didn't work and also they don't look sad cause they're aliens and they have different looking faces then amaliens?)
Yep, they can do that! They don't want it to be impossible for monsters and animals and, for that matter, amaliens, to comfortably cross the tracks when nothing's coming. Usually on Amenta trains can make noises if the track is obstructed, but monsters wouldn't know what that meant.
A little bit of electricity would work then if they can't delay the train that time and don't have enough fuel for the helicopter.
Alrighty, they will design the rails with that in mind.
Time passed as the Amentans and amaliens hashed out details. Before long new colonists arrived and a city grew, as fast the Amentans could manage.