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city lights on the water
the Amentans put a city on the amalien world
Permalink Mark Unread

[Concurrent with kids these days and ohana means family]

The city is called Chaspanti; it means "turtle shell" because there is a giant hermit turtle in the general area, not particularly friendly nor hostile, and it left an outgrown shell made of dead coral near the city site, which has been turned into a government office. (It's only about house sized, so there is more government office elsewhere, but it's a pleasingly iconic bit of architecture.) They work fast; a ton of people want to work and invest in the settlement and they can get the best people at exciting prices (before you factor in the antimatter for the ships, but that supply chain is also trying its best to make some order-of-magnitude efficiency jumps). It's early autumn in Chaspanti so they're mostly bringing people in on two-month contracts with renewal options, so people who season will stay and people who don't will be replaced. There are some greens handwringing about how they'll speciate if they do that too much but no one is going to solve that problem this year.

There are mines, there are farms, there are logging camps, there are factories, there are tents and prefab houses - and as they dig and refine and import and cut and shape and haul, Chaspanti stretches higher and higher and the number of happy Amentan settlers grows and grows.

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien heads to an administrative building in the city for a meeting about how the construction noises are too loud for some of the amaliens camping nearby. He's hurrying since he only blocked out two hours for the meeting and his teaching some of the campers about how to avoid attracting unfriendly-to-Amentans monsters to the area ran late. And he can't stay extra cause he has to go explain to some other amaliens why they shouldn't name their planet "Wiggles", which is only a bit better than their last proposal of the Amentan word for "toaster". He knows some amaliens want to name the planet something that makes them giggle but he also knows some amaliens care a lot about people caring about their planet and don't want people to be giggling all the time when talking about it. 

Still, right now he needs to focus on talking about the loud noises in Chaspanti with the Amentans.

Permalink Mark Unread

Right! He can talk to the acting mayor and colonial governor, Nin Hopa. (The previous blue didn't season so they're trying this one.) "The loud noises are pretty hard to eliminate entirely," he says very seriously. "The equipment we use to build things is about as quiet as we can make it. Would it help if we concentrated most of it into a few hours of the day, or, alternately, if we did more stuff at night so it's spread out more?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Day hours would be good, though if you can have a couple of days every once in a while where you do a lot of it and tell nearby amaliens beforehand they can know up stay away for a couple of days if they want to avoid sound?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, I can have them concentrate the loud stuff on particular days insofar as they can and they can do less loud stuff or take breaks on other days unless there's something time sensitive. Do you have an idea of how loud it has to be to bother the neighboring amaliens?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Near the edge of the city and a bit louder than screaming, I think."

Permalink Mark Unread

"So this isn't much of a problem in the city center?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not right now since I don't think many amaliens are interested in there. Might change eventually but hopefully you'll be doing less building?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"- well, I'd hope that amaliens interested in the city would be interested in all of its features at least to the point of accepting earmuffs, but the construction will slow down and ultimately move to a second city site, yes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hm. How soft are the earmuffs you have?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"They're usually foam with vinyl or something over it to make a good seal, so they're squashy but not pettable."

Permalink Mark Unread

"It would probably be good if they could be very soft? I bet you lots of amaliens would be excited about using them that way."

Permalink Mark Unread

"They won't keep out sound as well if they're fuzzy but maybe there's something that'll work. I can place an order. Will this help with people bothered by construction noise from farther away too, do you suppose?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"It might, though I'd worry about the earmuffs getting lost if they're being used all the time and not just when amaliens are visiting the louder parts of the city."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, we can order a whole bunch of them, even a thousand pairs of earmuffs are a lot cheaper than rescheduling construction."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That should hopefully work, we can meet again a week after the order to check-in about this?"

Lucien has discovered that he can schedule things, and the Amentans will be okay with that! It's really great, most amaliens won't want to schedule things too far in advance or will and won't show up. He has a physical schedule book now! He also has a pocket everything but he is really enjoying the physical schedule book even if his handwriting is still sorta blocky and big.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure, sounds good to me, same time?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yup, two thirty pm."

He writes it into his ✨schedule✨. It takes him a bit but he's very focused. He doesn't want to miss any meetings after all. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"I'll see you then!"

The earmuffs arrive some four days later, on the next ship to depart after the order went out, and all the neighboring amaliens can get a pair and a spare and directions to someplace with more. They also try to make more of the jackhammering and such happen at coordinated times.

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien has successfully convinced amaliens to not name their world Wiggles but now another group wants to name it the Cryptophasian word for "home" and now he's needs to explain how that wouldn't work given Cryptophasia isn't allowed in Amenta and he's having trouble explaining this.

Meanwhile, even though the Earmuffs have arrived and proved popular, most amaliens aren't interested in exploring the city with them and are instead just nuzzling and petting them. One boy with a black bear monster friend seemed interested in exploring but no others. He really thinks this is important, not just for the future but so they can get to know the Amentans well enough to understand things like why they don't want Cryptophasia on Amenta. 

He heads into the city, looking for somewhere nice to bring a tour group of amaliens to. 

(He has three hours blocked off to look. It's written in orange on his schedule.)

Permalink Mark Unread

The city has a big children's museum and schools and apartments and a garden of local plants and restaurants and a gym and a bus system (subway still in progress) and a university and parks and shopping and rowhouses and a theater and a shuttleport and an under-construction roller coaster park.

Permalink Mark Unread

He thinks he'll avoid a trip of amaliens to the children's museum for now cause he's nervous about Amentans not taking amaliens seriously cause they're small. Though some amaliens might enjoy things in it so he'll maybe recommend it to them event-ually anyways. What sorta restaurants are there?

Permalink Mark Unread

There's a mix of ones doing adventurous things with the local plants that have turned out to be good for Amentans to eat and ones using almost entirely imported food, presumably planning to switch to local as the agriculture gets up to speed.

Permalink Mark Unread

He'll sample little meals from different places! He's looking for gummy and sour things and also seeing how nice the staff are and if they are good with amaliens like him.

Permalink Mark Unread

He can have free samples from most places but would need, like, money, to have a substantial amount. There are lemon cookies at this one place, and pickles at that one, and chewy tapioca thingies at that one.

Permalink Mark Unread

He has a bit of money on his everything for helping organize amaliens advising amentans on things, but he isn't looking for a lot right now. He has enough to pay for things like a big meal for lots of amaliens once or twice, in addition to paying for his small apartment in the city.

Permalink Mark Unread

A fair fraction of the Amentans he encounters are reseasoning and even the ones who are successfully synced up to the local autumn think he is So Cute. They all know he's an immortal space alien but he's such a cute immortal space alien. Mostly this takes the form of people looking at him and smiling at him and being helpful when he asks for things - nobody else was getting free samples - but it may not be the reception he has in mind.

Permalink Mark Unread

He's an Important Person helping the Amentans be okay here so he doesn't think it's that weird that people are okay giving him free things sometimes. But also he does find some of the looks sorta weird and is worried the amaliens will feel sorta out of place 'cause of them. Can he find any restaurants where staff look at him normal?

Permalink Mark Unread

...yeah no. He is cute and tiny and unaccompanied and people are going to go gooey over him. The differences between the restaurants could be entirely down to the coincidences of who happens to have the most presently-autumning employees.

Permalink Mark Unread

Sigh. He'll check around for a manager of one of the restaurants who seems sensible to him. 

Permalink Mark Unread

The first hostess he asks wants to know what he needs the manager for, can she help him?

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"I'm trying to figure out if this is a good place for a bunch of amaliens like me to come and have a meal at. Most of them don't like visiting the city and I want to make sure it's a good time for them when they do."

 

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ooh, well, I think that'd depend on what they like - if it's a big group I recommend making a reservation so we can have a table set up for you and some of the long-legged chairs and whatever foods amaliens like best all ready when you arrive, but we don't have a separate party room, I'm afraid."

Permalink Mark Unread

Hm, a separate party room would prolly help with how people look at amaliens funny. At least would mean not as many people doing it.

"Do you know what place has a party room? I think it sounds like a good idea."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I believe the flatbread place across from the park with the huge fountain does."

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien heads there and see if he can get the manager to understand that people shouldn't stare at the amaliens or act weirdly to them.

Permalink Mark Unread

"- weirdly how?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Sigh.


"Like they should be treated special just cause of how they look like smaller Amentans."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You're also another species, the first new species of people we've met, so that's also got people excited. Have people been rude to you -?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Not def-init-ly. Just feels a bit like Amentans think we're not fully people sometimes."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That would really surprise me! I'd assume people are looking at you like they look at children? Children are people, just - do amaliens find things cute -"

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien says nothing, just stares with the tiniest bit of ... it could be disapproval, it could be skepticism. It's hard to tell.

(Lucien's heart is actually beating real hard. This is sorta scary to talk about. Maybe he can just not say words right now.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"- you look a lot like us, when we're children, and we find children very cute, and have instincts to take care of them and help them and love them, and I can see why that would be irritating given that you're thousands of years old, but it's sort of like asking us not to flinch at a loud noise, a few people will be able to do it if they're expecting it but it'd be really hard to get everyone to not even sort of look at you like you're a cute child. If they were being rude that would be another matter, they shouldn't be rude, we all know you're actually ancient and not Amentan at all."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hmmm."

Words. He should say those so they don't think he's even smaller than they already do.

"That's why I was thinkin I could get a party room and have waiters who were warned in advance? It'll be a lot of amaliens first trip here and I want it to be good for them. If that's okay with you?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Sure, I can reserve you a party room and tell the waiters that. I don't know if they'll be perfect, I haven't had any of my current employees that long because everyone here's trying to figure out if they season and it's not great for job turnover, but I can tell them."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That would be appreciated."

He'll reserve a room for a few days from now, and pencils it in his schedule (In purple. Big group things he is organizing are purple).

Permalink Mark Unread

Room's all his, any special food he expects to want his party to order?

Permalink Mark Unread

Vegetarian options are important. Nothing else, amaliens will try lots of things. Smaller portions might be ideal but it's not required.

Permalink Mark Unread

Huh, do Amentan meats disagree with them, how strict do they need to be about cross-contamination there?

Permalink Mark Unread

Lots of amaliens don't like eating dead animals cause it makes them sad. Cross-contam-in-ation should be okay he thinks, s'long as they don't taste it.

Permalink Mark Unread

Milk and eggs and honey okay?

Permalink Mark Unread

Yeah, amaliens eat those. Sometimes they even eat meat he thinks, but they don't wanna kill the animal to get the meat like Amentans do.

Permalink Mark Unread

Not nearly the weirdest food opinion aliens might have had. They can have non-meat foods sufficient to feed a crowd of small people on the designated day.

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien smiles! He will be there.

He checks his schedule - time to go back to his own place for a shower and then his dinnertime.  

Permalink Mark Unread

All his neighbors in this building are purple. The ones down the hall from him brought a kid his size who wants to be a lumberjack when she grows up. The apartments are a mix of studios and two-bedrooms so people who live alone, like him, can mix with people who have one or two kids, like the would-be-lumberjack's family. The studio apartment in which he lives is all new construction, and they didn't have to economize on footprint per se, but they were working with somewhat limited access to raw material and it came out kind of poky. It's got a big glass window with blinds, and a hyper-efficient little kitchenette with a two-burner stove and a half-height oven and a small fridge/freezer and a dishwasher right under the sink and just enough cupboards that he could fit two people's worth of dishes in the available space if very determined. It has a well ventilated bathroom surfaced in superhydrophobic anti-mold paint, with a shower and a toilet and a sink and a closet for cleaning supplies to live in and the laundry machines. It has an airy rest-of-the-apartment with a fold-down shelf for the mattress of his choice to hide away in during the day, and a fold-down table with pull-out benches to sit at to eat. If all the furniture is tucked away there's enough room to pace a reasonably satisfying lap.

Permalink Mark Unread

He takes a shower, and makes sure to get between his ears just like the video on his everything told him to. 

He needs to figure out what to make for dinner with the Mayor. He's sorta nervous about this but he did a bunch of shopping yesterday and now he can hopefully find something with his things to cook? Maybe his everything has ideas.

Permalink Mark Unread

His everything seems to think that with the ingredients he has on hand he can make vegetable soup and biscuits.

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien gets out his step-stool and sets to work, washing and kneading and boiling and stirring and cutting things. He's very careful to wash his hands a lot to keep everything clean and also to not cut himself by accident, even a little.

After he's done, he tastes it to see how good he did.

Permalink Mark Unread

The soup's a little bland and the biscuits that were in the back of the oven are browner than the ones that were in front.

Permalink Mark Unread

His everything says to add salt for the soup so he can do that. He also throws away some of the worse looking biscuits and puts the rest on a bowl for taking from. Afterwards he sets the table and cleans it and makes sure he's wearing clean clothes and everything looks good.

He gives one last check on everything and then realizes that he didn't put the new tablecloth down so he unsets the table and puts the new tablecloth on the table and then he hurriedly re-sets everything and makes sure it looks nice. He's still finishing that up when his guest arrives.

Permalink Mark Unread

Here is the mayor! "I wasn't sure I had the right address at first! How'd you pick the building?" he asks.

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"I was looking for somewhere that I could get my own place in and still have money left over to do other things. Why was it hard to find?"

Lucien offers to take the Mayor's coat and hang it up should that be applicable. 

Permalink Mark Unread

"It wasn't hard, I was just confused that you'd have a purple apartment instead of a house or a host family or something. Thank you." Sure, he can have the coat, though it's longer than Lucien is and hanging it up will be a bit of a trick.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Houses seemed much more expensive in the city and have lots of room for kids and I don't have any of those."

Lucien will get his stool to help with that. The coat sorta flops on him while he does this but he figures it out.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Where do you get your money, anyway?" Mayor sits at the table.

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"Some people needed help finding re-sources and things and I helped them find them instead of them having to pay money to find them so I got some of the money instead."

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"Oh, I see, that must have happened before I was shipped in. We do appreciate that you folks are such good neighbors!"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Thank you, you are good neighbors to have as well."

Lucien smiles, he's glad they're doing a good job at that. 

"I was hoping we could do more together as neighbors, if you'd like that."

Lucien leads his guest to the dinner as he says this.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, what do you have in mind?"

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"I'm bringing a bunch of amaliens to dinner in a couple of days in the city at a restaurant. I got us a private room and everything. I think it's a good first step but would like your ideas too."

Lucien is very careful to eat all cleanly.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Well, who are they? What sorts of things are they interested in?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"There's about twenty nearby amaliens camped out, from a few places. I think they like seeing the city from the distance and would like looking at cool things but are nervous about the noise and crowds and newness being too much. At least a few of them would prolly like exploring the city other-wise? The rest might explore it if they thought they could make new friends in the city."

Permalink Mark Unread

"I think they could but we might not be used to each other's friend-making habits. How do amaliens usually make friends?"

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"Playing games together, going on trips, hugging each other when bad things happening."

Lucien is not very good at making friends with other amaliens, but he probably knows more than the Mayor.

Permalink Mark Unread

"There are board game meetups, and hiking clubs! If they'd like to try joining either I'm sure that could be arranged."

Permalink Mark Unread

"There might be amaliens interested in each. Though I'd be a bit worried about amaliens being treated differently, especially in the board games meetup, and feeling awkward about that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"If it helps, kids come to board game meetups sometimes, my son's group has a 3D-puzzlewar whiz who's three and has been there for seasons, and I think the people there get pretty used to them."

Permalink Mark Unread

Sigh,

"I think that might make it worse? I'd worry people would get the amaliens confused with kids. It's happened to me a few times."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hm. I'm not sure how to solve that, all the ideas I'd give a - taller - person worried about being taken seriously would possibly just parse as... kids playing dress-up, and make the problem worse..."

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Lucien freezes awkwardly. He really hopes that isn't what he's been doing! Would be really bad to just make it worse.

Permalink Mark Unread

"So I don't think I should suggest you get fitted for formalwear. I do think people being used to you in general will help, though, as you have more opportunities to be seen as individuals with your own areas of competence and your own individual levels of maturity, as opposed to 'the aliens who look like kids'."

Permalink Mark Unread

Okay he will make sure not to get formal wear but that won't really help tell him what to wear.

"How do you think amaliens can get started on that?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hm. Well, if any amaliens want to be on television, I would be happy to record some interviews with them, me and maybe some of the greens, semi-scripted to make sure it comes off right, and everyone will gradually get accustomed that way; and I still think the game and hiking meets would be a good plan, it'd let everybody have a word-of-mouth source of information on what amaliens are like up close."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Those both sound like good ideas. What do you think I should be looking for in amaliens to be on TV?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"They should be good at speaking Tapap, ideally, though we can subtitle them if not, and - composed, I guess, more like you than like some of the others I've seen who are more exuberant, exuberance is childlike. We'd probably want ones who know useful things about this planet or the monsters or who have interesting anecdotes about their own life history."

Permalink Mark Unread

Lucien bats around ideas with the mayor over dinner, suggesting amaliens like a camper who had recently been a Volcano Watcher as good fits. Probably they'll need subtitles, at least for now - in the future he can get some of the others to learn Tapap better. 

Permalink Mark Unread

What do Volcano Watchers do?

Permalink Mark Unread

Keep an eye out for any amaliens who got trapped in volcanoes a while ago and bubble up. It happens sometimes, specially cause there was a collapse that dropped a bunch of em.

Permalink Mark Unread

How often is sometimes??

Permalink Mark Unread

There were a couple dozen who were dropped into the lava during the collapse a while ago and one floats up maybe every ten years? They've recovered four so far, and lost one more cause it's dangerous. 

The amaliens who have been watching there recently tend to be more serious then the others so that could be good for the interviews.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Okay, so, that does sound like it would filter for seriousness, but I'm also - as long as we're focusing on PR here - a little worried that it's sort of an inherently cartoonish sort of thing to happen, people falling in volcanoes and needing to be fished out so they can sleep it off - you know we'd just die if we fell in lava, right -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"I assume you'd be in a lot of pain first? It's still possible to swim out sometimes."

He... does not know what to say to the mayor calling one of the most special amalien jobs "cartoonish". He will have to watch more cartoons to figure it out he guesses.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Yes, we'd be in a lot of pain and catch fire, I suppose it's possible we'd escape with horrific injuries if we were very lucky but those could still kill someone later in the hospital. We have no idea at all how amaliens survive things like that. So, it is interesting, but in a way that's sort of difficult to think about."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah, yes. It can be difficult to think about for us to."

"So. What you want is someone who is serious and has a life that won't be difficult to think about?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Right. Someone with legible accomplishments, ideally - I mean, fishing people out of a volcano is important but it's not the sort of thing Amentans are used to assigning status to, we're looking for something more like an expert on all the kinds of birds on the planet or a musician who'll demonstrate for us or something."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Hm, Meelia is off planet. What about the Mayor of Keetim? Or Cryptophasia? Or Veena, she's a good singer even if she can be a bit silly."

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"Cryptophasia seems hard to interview and I don't know how it'd take to being on a video like that. Mayor of Keetim sounds great, I'd love to meet her, and a singer we can edit the silliness out if it's too much and just show her singing."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Her singing can be a bit silly sometimes but we could try it. Would it be possible to interview the Mayor in Keetim, so she doesn't have to leave?

Permalink Mark Unread

"As long as Keetim's awake so it's safe, yes."

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Lucien agrees that Keetim should be awake! He'll hash out details with the Amentan mayor for as long as he is willing to stay - Lucien is really quite excited about figuring out the logistics of everything.

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The mayor will kick a lot of the details to his yellow and make a remark about getting Lucien a yellow hat, and let himself out, thanking Lucien for the hospitality.

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Lucien thinks he should have a blue hat, but he doesn't say that aloud. He's still really confused by the colored heads thing. 

After the mayor leaves he checks his schedule. It turns out he went later then he thought he should and now he doesn't have too much time to prep-are for his meeting with an Amentan Agricultural Specialist tomorrow. He'll do research on his everything to get a better idea of how Amentans grow plants.

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Lucien stays up late researching. He would have managed to get to bed earlier but he got distracted cause irrigation is exciting and it took him a while to get back on track to figuring out basics of how farming worked. Some amaliens had irrigation but they never used it to protect against frost, which is just such a cool way to use it! Also the cost of getting water to places that could be irrigated could be so high you couldn't make money by growing crops with that water cause the water cost more. But then when there were more people who needed more food the value of the crops went up and the cost of irrigation stayed the same and so those places got irrigated and the Amentans irrigated so many places

Oh no he got distracted again. 

Permalink Mark Unread




Eventually Lucien gets to sleep. He doesn't have one of the two days a week he schedules where he'll need to do the heavy thinking things tomorrow, so he will be okay on only a few hours of sleep. His back might hurt but it's worth the not napping. He has lots to do.

Permalink Mark Unread

Meanwhile, just outside the city:

Neh heard about the city when Lucien visited his camp before, and he thought it sounded different than other places. He wanted to see what was in the shadows there. So, after he slept through most of the day like he us'lly does, he is heading out to the city with his friend Meow the Bear-Monster.

Meow looks like a big black bear, with a habit of walking upright. He folds Neh in with a big hug in the darkness, and the two of them vanish into shadows.

Permalink Mark Unread

.... and appear together somewhere else. In the city. Hidden in a dark corner.

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This dark corner is a cleaning supply closet and they're kind of squeezed in here between the vacuum and the boxes of disposable mop heads.

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Neh shivers, going through shadows can be really cold and sorta tiring. This doesn't look as different as Lucien made it sound. Meow moves things out of the way so Neh can open the door and peek out.

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This is a dance club! It's dim and the lights that there are are colorful and pulsing in time to the music, which is throbbing and low. Amentans are dancing with each other and getting drinks from the bartender, whose lavender hair is slicked up in a mohawk.

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Aaaa, too much!

Neh puts his hands over his ears and screws his eyes very shut. When the loud sounds and lights keep going, Meow roars to try to get all the chaos to go away.

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That gets the dancing to stop, actually! ...doesn't immediately do anything about the lights and music.

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Neh keeps her hands over her ears and her eyes closed while Meow tries swiping at the lights.

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Meow is able to knock a sconce off the wall!

Amentans start screaming and fleeing for the exits!

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No that's even louder! Neh grabs onto Meow and they move into shadows again, to a different place in the city.

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This dark part of the city is a laundry room. The lights are off and the machines are rumbling and there is nobody here.

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Oh this place is nicer! What's in the machines?

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When this machine is opened a bunch of water and soapsuds and clothes fall out!

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Fun! Neh will play around with soapsuds and the clothes for a bit. Afterwards he'll put it all back into the machine and try a different machine. 

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This one is empty.

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What about this other one?

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This one is a dryer but it's not very far along in the cycle. Wet clothes flop out onto Neh's feet.

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Squish! These are all full of such different cool things!

What about this one?

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This one's a dryer that is done! Dry warm clothes mostly don't flop out because they weren't in motion.

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Soft! Warm! Neh cuddles into the dryer.

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This will be nice and cozy for about ten minutes and then the door opens!

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She wakes up when the door opens, she was having a good nap and Meow was lounging in the corner.

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The Amentan who has opened the door yelps with surprise and drops her laundry bag!

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Neh yelps too and hides further in the bundle of clothes in the dryer!

Meow just sorta stands there.

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The door slams and the Amentan runs away without her laundry.

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Neh continues to hide for a bit.

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Somebody else calls through the door. "Excuse me, amalien?"

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Neh hides deeper.

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"Excuse me?" they try again.

But when that doesn't work someone will eventually try talking to the mayor, who will send a runner yellow to Lucien's.

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"Muh?"

Lucien is so tired. His brain is trying to get back into working order but keeps returning "this time was shaded in blue for sleeping!", which is not very helpful.

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"I'm sorry to wake you, but there's an amalien and a monster that seems to be able to teleport and willing to destroy property hiding in an apartment laundry."

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"Oh dear."

Lucien pushes himself to wakefulness, his back throbbing as his mind is cleared of sleep. It's painful but he can do this. 

"Is the monster a black bear?"

Clothes go on the body... not inside out like that, whoops.

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"Yes, you know it?"

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"Yeah, I know who it is."

A glance at his pocket everything to learn Cryptophasia so he can figure out how to say "what is Neh up to right now, it's an emergency" in it.

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Neh's name sounds foreign in a Cryptophasian sentence, like someone who doesn't know the language. The word "emergency" can be optionally followed by a discourse marker to indicate a shift into a quick urgent sounding sub-dialect, which has "will contact others to find out more" as a brief interjection between utterances.

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Lucien opens the door, rushing out. 

"Take me there and give me an update on the way."

He squishes a feeling of rudeness which is not at all helpful right now.

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The runner hurries along. "The bear and the amalien appeared in a club and the bear broke a sconce and they disappeared. Now they're in the laundry room, and the bear frightened the people in the apartment and the mayor's night interceptor thought we should get you. Should we wake him up?"

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"I can handle it I think, though if you need someone to help calm down the scared Amentan I don't think I can do that till after I've helped Neh."

 

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"Oh, I think they'll be fine once the laundry room's cleared out and they can re-wash things."

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"Okay then."

He checks to see if Cryptophasia has any linguistic features he didn't notice earlier about the situation.

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The names of other amaliens who were camping out nearby seem to be from similar linguistic sources but they seemed to have been incorporated into Cryptophasian more recently. In fact it seems like Neh's name shows an amount of linguistic drift corresponding to being separated from the group for a few hours.

It feels like there's something more going on with her name but Lucien can't figure it out right now.

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"Neh's been away from the other amalien campers for a few hours, I'll know more details soon I think."

Rush rush rush.

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Here's the apartment. The purple who does laundry for everybody in the building is available to be consulted but doesn't know anything much besides 'there was a bear and something moved in one of the dryers and there were clothes everywhere'.

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On the way to the apartment, Lucien has finally figured out what was up with her name: it's said in really quiet tones that are hard to overhear in loud places. In particular the words "night club" and "bright lights" and "lots of people" all are harsh sounding words that would easily drown her name out. His best guess, though not one he can be certain of, is that "laundry room" would actually sound quiet in a way similar to her name.

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Okay so Neh was upset by the club and went to the laundry room where he* was happier. Lucien knocks on the door, softly. 

*Neh's pronouns are inconsistent, as Neh is "hiding from view" gender.

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Neh pokes his head out of the still warm but sorta cooler now clothes. He doesn't say anything.

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"Hi Neh, it's Lucien."

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Neh nods, which isn't very helpful cause the door is closed.

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"I'm going to poke my head in a bit if that's okay."

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It is, he thinks but doesn't say.

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Yup that sure is a Neh head. And Meow in the corner of the room.

"Hey Neh, can I come in to talk to you?"

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Nod nod.

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Lucien goes in, closing the door quietly to keep them alone.

"You're used to it being quiet when you explore at night, aren't you."

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Neh nods and tears up a lil bit.

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"Sorry that the city is not like that, it must have been scary."

Is Neh huggable?

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Neh is very huggable and will sorta shiver into Lucien's hug.

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Tight hug.

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Shiver, cry.

"Liked this room till people came. Was quiet."

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"Would you like it if I found a room like this you could visit alone?"

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Nod.

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"Okay I'll do that."

Hugs.

Lucien thinks in his head in Cryptophasian about whether they need to be out of the room soon.

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The yellow outside notices that there are several words for "resolving a situation" that differ based on how urgent it is to resolve.

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"- uh, it's not an emergency but it would be best if it didn't take more than a few hours to get Neh and the bear out of the city."

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Lucien notices that the word most applicable to the situation has a connotation of taking place on the time scale of a few hours.

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He can work with that. Hugs continue.

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Meow joins the hugging and after about half an hour Neh is ready to be alone now. Meow hugs him softly and they fade into a shadowy corner.

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Lucien hugs himself very briefly.

"If you're still out there feel free to come in now!"

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The yellow opens the door a crack. "Everything okay?"

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"Yeah, Neh went somewhere to be alone for a bit."

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"Okay. I think if they're not going to be able to talk to people about what they need they should probably not hang out in the city, at least not without an escort who can do that, especially not if the bear wrecks stuff when scared."

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"I suspect the bear wasn't scared so much as trying to make things be quieter and less chaotic for Neh? I think they can hopefully talk to someone they know about what they need - like me."

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"Sounds good. Just, not in private buildings."

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"I thought only bedrooms were private?"

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"Things are - various amounts of private? Like - that's a bank, over there. They have money that they're keeping safe for people, we're using a lot of cash on this planet while things are still not at five nines of reliability. Anyone can walk in, but there are cameras, there and there and probably more places, so if anything happens to the money, they can look at what those cameras recorded and see who they need to talk to to have a better idea of what happened to the money. They need to do that because sometimes people want to steal. And also, because it's a bank, while anyone can walk in, they can't do whatever they want in there - they can't wheel a grill in and have a barbecue with forty of their friends - and if they did that they would have to leave, because the owners of the bank can decide that they're not allowed in any more. The park is much more public - anybody can walk in and they can have a party with forty of their friends and grilling there - but if someone left a lot of trash lying around in the park after they did that, then we'd have to track them down and make them pay to clean it up, because the park is for everyone and nobody's allowed to make it worse because then it isn't for everyone anymore."

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He got up way too early for this figuring this out. 

"I can explain to Neh that if someone asks them to leave a bank or some place she should do that? As long as they ask calmly I think she will. I don't think she's gonna have a big barbecue in a bank or steal money or make a big mess without cleaning it up."

He's also a bit confused about why no one is allowed to do a thing in a park that is for everyone but he doesn't think that's very important right now and his back is hurting him so much.

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"It would be better if they just didn't teleport to places in the city at all till they know more about how it works, because a lot of how it works is based around people not being able to teleport."

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"Exploring is really important to Neh, even though he's also scared of new things sometimes."

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"He can teleport out of the city, when he gets overwhelmed, and just explore by walking till then?"

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"Sounds like it would involve him seeing more people, not fewer? Would it work if he only teleported to special starting places and walked from there?"

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"Yeah, I think that would probably work too. Do you want to go back to bed, work out where in the morning with the mayor?"

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"I can't really do short naps once I'm awake, and I have a meeting in the morning already. I can do my grocery shopping anothr day and meet with the mayor in the afternoon? Or move the morning meeting again."

He takes out his schedule as he says this - it's one of the best parts about being awake!

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"As long as Neh's okay staying out of the city till you've figured out where she can start from when she wants to explore it that's fine. I can put you down for, when's your afternoon slot, two? I'll put you on his scheduled for two."

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"She's probably going to be sleeping soon anyways. Two works."

He changes his schedule to match.

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"Okay. Sorry we had to wake you!"

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"It made sense and I'm glad you did."

And with that he departs, heading to his first meeting early - he can wait there for the Amentan he's meeting with.

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The agronomist he is meeting is five minutes late, apologizes, and will then, if not interrupted, talk about soil bacteria for the next three hours.

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Lucien will listen with interest for the first bit but eventually he is too tired to listen even if it's really really cool.

"Were there things about amalien farming you wanted to ask me?"

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"- ah, yes. So, do you cultivate crops in any systematic way?"

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Lucien can talk about how they have gardens and how some amaliens have tried to make ones that last a really long time. They don't need much food but some amaliens like to breed special types of plants to get them ways they want them. They can do a lot of that cause they can keep working on it for a very long time. They also do some of that with animals by moving some animals around when the animals are okay with that so all the ones who are a way end up together.

Also they have some irrigation but nothing as cool as the Amentans have! The Amentans do such a good job with irrigation!

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The green can also talk about irrigation for a while, though not as long as he can talk about soil bacteria! Amentans do a lot of things with technology and brute force that amaliens do with time and coaxing - since Amentans do need to eat, and a fair amount too, they don't have the luxury of inefficiently gardening little tastes of things. Also they eat meat, which generates fertilizer as a byproduct, so that's handy!

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Oh fertilizer seems cool! Some amaliens have animal friends around their plants but they don't do anything very organized. How good is the fertilizer for plants?

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It's very good, it helps them grow more food per square foot and not need to let land fallow as much. Some animal farms have pretty elaborate setups for collecting and removing the fertilizer stuff and then they compost it and mix it with other stuff and plow it in to where the plants are going to grow.

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Lucien thinks the elaborate setups sound cool! How do they work?

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Like, you can have the animals live somewhere with a porous floor, and then have a sheet of compostable paper under that, and then roll it out and replace it on a regular basis.

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That doesn't sound that hard! He's sort of tired and having trouble imagining it but maybe he can take some amaliens there after they have lunch in the city tomorrow to show them the cool things and pet the animals? 

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Sure, if they like, there's not a ton of animal agriculture set up here because they don't have enough land producing plant food for the animals to eat for it to make sense to do anything intensive but there's a small egg farm.

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That sounds fun to visit! He'll pencil them in for a 4pm field trip with a bunch of amaliens?

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That's probably fine, how big a bunch?

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About a dozen?

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He'll let the egg farm people know!

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Lucien is quite happy about his ability to schedule things for tomorrow despite everything being really hard today. Next up - explaining to amaliens how to deal with visiting the city! ... Would have been great if he did that yesterday actually. 

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The amalien campers are starting to be excited to visit the city - Lucien makes it sound like an adventure that they can all go on together. They are a bit confused about the concepts of "traffic" and "little amentans who look like amaliens but are actually really young" but they are smart and listen to Lucien when he tells them these things are important to know about. They are sorta nervous about all the rules and loud noises but have their earmuffs (which are so soft!) and will get to be in a room just for them. 

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Lucien is pretty satisfied with how well his talk went - other amaliens can get distracted but he's much more used to explaining things to them than to Amentans. Still, he's excited about talking to the mayor in the afternoon since the mayor is sorta like him in ways lots of amaliens arn't. 

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The mayor is there on time for the meeting in his office! He offers Lucien a tray of tiny sandwiches. "Bit of excitement last night, I hear!"

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Tiny sandwiches! Lucien noms one that looks vegetarian.

"Mhm. It ended okay but was sorta hard at first cause people weren't used to each other."

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The tiny sandwiches have pickles and butter on them.

"It's probably a lot to get used to, things like laundry machines and nightclubs!"

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Lucien is confused that these things go together this well yet somehow they do!

"And teleporting bears and night aliens."

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"Yup, we're not set up for teleporting bears at all. Are there a lot of teleporting monsters or just the one?"

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"Hm. There are a few incorp-oreal monsters, like Cryptophasia, but I can't think of any that are really teleporting Monsters right now."

He searches his head for anything relevant.

"There's an incorporeal one that can form different bodies that might sort of count as a teleporting monster? I'll ask around and find out if there's anything else that is as teleporty as Meow, the black bear monster, is."

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"Meow, huh, what a name. Is Meow always with Neh?"

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"Yeah, they're very close friends. Sometimes that happens with monsters and amaliens."

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"I've noticed! How do they communicate?"

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"Monsters like Meow can often understand a little bit of what's going on around them and gesture at things they think, but can't figure out very complicated things usually. Some Monsters are much smarter like Cryptophasia or the Aurorite. Some don't seem to think at all, and are just sorta like plants with special things. Some are sorta hard to tell about, like Fluffeld."

His sore back is cause of a not-thinking monster but he doesn't mention that.

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"Fluffeld is the one that looks like a hornless dog, that the landing party met?"

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"Yeah. He shows up at important places sometimes and seems to want to be friendly and helpful but doesn't do anything that's obviously very smart."

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"We have intelligence tests, I wonder if any of the monsters would want to take one some day. Anyway, my overnight report tells me the plan is for Neh to only teleport into specific places in the city, or to get out, and otherwise walk while here? How many places do you suppose she needs, and what sort of places?"

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"I think she will need enough places that she can choose some to explore and not run out super quickly? Though we can also give her more when she has explored a bunch of them already. I think the important thing is she feels like no one is trying to make her go only places they want her to go - she doesn't like that."

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"Has that happened before?"

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"Um. You didn't want to talk about difficult things happening to amaliens, I thought?"

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"- I don't want to try to figure out how to broadcast an interview about fishing amaliens out of a volcano, but this seems different to me."

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"Um... it's not so different."

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"Well, if it's not then we won't broadcast an interview about Neh's history either. But I would like to know what the trouble is in this case."

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"Um. A while ago Neh fell into some lava and was there for a long time. I don't think he remembers much but he was really hurt. He still really needs to be able to go to different places to not feel trapped and also is still scared of bright lights and things that remind him of lava I think. He also sleeps sorta weird cause of all the time sorta napping in lava he had. doesn't feel trapped. Meow saved him, not one of the Volcano Watchers. I think Meow and him were friends before but Meow couldn't save him till he was floated somewhere dark enough."

Lucien is sad about this, but it's also really important.

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"Oh, okay, when you said she doesn't like people making her only go places they want her to go I assumed the 'people' part was important, thought it might have to do with some history of amaliens interacting with each other or an unfriendly monster or something. Anyway, my staff spent the morning coming up with a candidate list."

They didn't know about the darkness requirement but have proposed various places in the city, mostly parks.

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"Meow can only go to dark places, so some of these prolly won't work less you turn off all the lights near them? Also more different places would be good."

He is still a little teared up cause of the Neh story but not much.

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"Does Neh want to explore mostly during the day or is the night all right? More places are dark at night."

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"Only the night is okay, she sleeps during the day."

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"So the parks will be okay, they're not lit up at night, but we can try finding a few more spots that aren't parks if parks aren't suitable."

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"I think limiting it to one type of place isn't the best since she it will feel like not being able to go new places to her, which is sorta what she is scared of?

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Okay, they can dig up some closets in some buildings whose occupants are relatively amenable?

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That should work!

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Okay. Is this a good enough list?

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Yeah, it should do for now. They can chat again if Neh starts running out of places that are different from each other and still wants to explore the city.

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Okay. There will be more city over time so hopefully the range of places expands, and people will also get more used to amaliens in general and Neh in particular, and monsters and general and Meow in particular.

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Lucien is looking forward to that! He really appreciate the ability to work out problems like this with the mayor. Is there anything else to discuss today?

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Apparently they're going on a farm tour, do they need anything they don't have for that?

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He doesn't think so - lots of amaliens like animals and he expects it'll go well and be interesting for amaliens.

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They probably won't get to, like, pet the animals, to be clear, it's not a petting zoo.

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That should be okay, a lot of animals don't want to be petted.

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The mayor has no further agenda items.

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Lucien will depart, taking one more of the little sandwiches before he leaves.

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Next up Lucien has to have another meeting about the planet naming. It's not a very product-ive meeting but he is able to do it over his everything (they have another one at the camp) so he doesn't have to leave his home which is sorta nice cause he's so tired.

His last big thing for the day is going to find Neh and explain to her about the different places. He checks on her but actually she doesn't want to go new places tonight and wants to be alone, so he'll visit her again tomorrow instead.

He manages to get to bed on time today, so he'll be ready for the big day he has scheduled tommorow.

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Nobody wakes him up in the middle of the night this time!

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Quick shower, making sure to rinse the monster on his back very lightly since it doesn't like it too much he thinks, and off to work!

He heads over to the amalien encampment to pick them up for the big day.

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A few amaliens decide to stay home, one or two to cuddle with Neh who wants friends around today, but most are excited to go into the city! Two put on their earmuffs right away and another few just hold them cause of how soft they are. 

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The city is bustling! People look at them and smile but mostly manage not to say 'aww' out loud especially when they pass somebody with a BABY who is absorbing all the attention of that nature and seems really into it.

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The amaliens are sort of confused about how their are different sorts of Amentans who act differently! Like the old ones and the baby ones and the normal looking ones. They are all bunched up in a group but not very scared.

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Lucien has to suppress some scowling at people who say 'aww' but manages to make it to the restaurant without being impolite to anyone.

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The restaurant has their private room ready and waitstaff assigned to them who are respectively handling not going "aww" by a) mostly looking over the amaliens' heads or at the dupe pad or the tablecloth, and b) gritting his teeth constantly.

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Honestly that's better.

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Not according to this amalien!

"Why're you angry?"

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"- I'm not angry, miss."

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"Oh, are you doing that with your teeth cause you need something to fidget with? You could get a mouth chewy toy. My friend has one but she's not here right now."

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"......... thank you for the advice miss."

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"Your welcome!"

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That went better then expected honestly!

 

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Waiters bring them vegetarian foods!

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Nom nom nom.

"You are a really good cook!" one amalien tells a waiter. A few others agree!

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"- I'll let the chef know!" he responds.

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The amaliens finish up relatively fast - there's a lot left over actually since most of them just snack on the different foods.

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Lucien pays the bill with his pocket everything.

"Do you think there's anyone who would want the extra food that we didn't eat?"

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"- not really, since you got a little ways into everything, but it'll make good compost for the farms!"

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"Oh, that's great! We're going to farms next actually. Do you think we should bring it there?"

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"No, we have special bins for it here, it goes in batches."

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Efficient! He approves.

 

With that he is off to the farm with the rest of the amaliens.

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The chickens all live indoors. Over here are the egg incubators and the hormone bath they dunk them in to make sure they will all be female enough to lay eggs; over here are the chicks; over there are the ones old enough to lay.

The chicks look tolerably comfortable. The adult hens don't, really. The floor's made of wire mesh, with a roll of giant paper unspooling from one end and gradually rolling up on the other to be periodically taken and composted; they have perches and roofless nest-platforms, which can be withdrawn from the other side of the wall to be washed and put back, and the holes those leave in the wall when they're removed are the only times sunshine that can get in, though there's plenty of electric light. They're being fed hay and grain and some kind of vitamin mix. The place smells like bleach.

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The amaliens are sort of confused why chickens need baths, and also feel bad for how the chicks aren't outdoors since that seems sort of sad for them. They ask when the chicks are let outdoors and when they're told they aren't some of them are really confused about this. Their guide says he'll answer questions at the end of the tour, so they hold it in for a bit. Then they see the adult hens, crowded in a place that smells bad and doesn't have sun and there's nothing for the chickens to do and the food doesn't look like food chickens would want and and and... A few of the amaliens start crying.

"Why's it have to be like this..."

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"- well we have a lot of them in one place, and that makes it hard for natural processes like plant growth and dilution and so on to take care of all the mess that chickens make. So we set them up like this, and we can keep them clean that way," says the tour guide.

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Lucien is sad, as well as a bit confused and angry.

"And the lack of sunlight?"

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"...chickens aren't plants, they don't need - are there birds like this on this planet that need sunlight? These ones don't, they're Amentan chickens."

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"I'd expect birds here to try to get to sunlight if there wasn't any? Even the not flying types. And if you took it away I think they would be sad?"

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"They're healthy enough without it, and it's cheaper to build the building this way. Windows break easily and the birds could be hurt, or flap out of the opening and into the wilderness, if that happened."

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"That doesn't sound like a very good reason to do something so sad... Do you want help fixing it?" 

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"...if... amaliens wanted to get some money together to pay to... install windows in the chicken coop... I guess we could do that?"

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Amaliens start suggesting other ideas. Like better food and more space and how amaliens can come and play with them and a few of them want to adopt chickens of their own so they have better places. They didn't realize Amentans needed help with this sort of thing but they can help.

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"How much do you think all these things might cost?"

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"...space is always very costly, we're working with the footprint you guys - or maybe it was other amaliens? The footprint some amaliens suggested to us and we're trying to be efficient with it, we can't just trivially give the chickens twice as much space unless they're paying for it with twice as many eggs. Uh, we're not... adopting out the chickens... we're keeping them for the eggs, this is the number of chickens we are trying to have. I guess we could set something up for amaliens to play with them, conceivably?? Windows, uh, ballpark five hundred tap for a window yea big, scales linearly, plus repair costs also in that range if they break."

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"We didn't realize that the amount of land wasn't enough to feed you all without extreme measures. We can figure out how to allocate some more if that will help, rather than paying for new windows. I can't afford many."

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"This isn't an especially extreme measure? We can build... chicken coops with plastic roofs, or something... in the future... might make the climate control work worse though, I'd have to run it by some people... look, chickens don't need sun, they aren't plants and they don't season."

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"I... hm. I think you are using the word need not in the way we would? We don't need to eat but we just did and it was good and would be sad not to ever eat."

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"Amentans need to eat. And the chickens' eggs are one of the things we eat. And if food gets more expensive, it's harder for us to eat enough. So the things we eat that need sun get sun and the things we eat that don't only get it if it's cheaper or easier that way, so food can be cheap and we can all eat every day and not be hungry and sick."

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"We could help you get enough food then, if that would solve it?"

It would be difficult, amaliens don't have that much experience in making very large amounts of food, but he bets he could figure it out with them.

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"If you come up with a more efficient way to get eggs we would love to switch to it. Do you know what efficient means?"

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"Yes, I know what efficient means."

Lucien does not roll his eyes because unlike some people he knows how to talk in difficult situations without doing silly things.

"I suspect you aren't counting 'the chickens really don't like it' as a cost when deciding if something is efficient?"

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"- right, that's not a resource we're spending unless it affects the chickens' health or production."

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"It seems like a resource that's being spent even if you're not the ones spending it?"

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"- it's not an input we need to conserve or a cost we need to cover, it's just a thing that may or may not be happening depending on whether Amentan chickens are like birds you have had as pets or whatever before."

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"It's a cost to the birds."

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Several of the amaliens nod in agreement. 

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"It isn't... expensive? I'm not very used to Cryptophasia so I'm not actually sure if I'm saying the right words for what I mean. We don't have to pay the birds."

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"You should!"

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"...that wouldn't make any sense."

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Sigh.

"This probably isn't actually a good way to discuss this problem. I'll schedule a meeting with the mayor later to talk about it, for now I think we should go back to the camp."

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"Okay, uh, I hope you... enjoyed... the... tour?" says the farm purple.

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"We didn't."

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The amaliens are relieved to have returned to their camp afterwards. There is a lot of hugging and some crying.

They aren't particularly interested in visiting the city again.

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He doesn't blame them. When can he have a meeting with the mayor?

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The mayor's secretary has a slot open at eleven in the morning tomorrow.

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That will work he supposes, if there's not anything sooner.

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If it's an emergency the mayor could stay in the office late this afternoon? What's wrong?

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There was an incident at the farm he took amaliens with that he was having trouble resolving with the manager of the farm.

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Is somebody hurt?? What happened???

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"Yes, some amaliens had a pretty bad time. There were disagreements about how to help the chickens."

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"- help - the chickens?" says the secretary, wrongfooted.

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"Yes. .... If you don't have an easy answer I think it should wait till I talk to the mayor. Tonight if that's possible."

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"...I'm not clear on how that's an emergency and I am reluctant to extend his schedule for things that are not emergencies."

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"... Fine, I can do tomorrow then."

He'd really rather not deal with someone who isn't the mayor about this, given how the last time went.

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"Okay, he'll see you at eleven. Thank you for being flexible!"

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"You're welcome," he says, in a mildly annoyed tone.

He... is going to cancel his meetings for the rest of the night and do some research about chickens in Amentan society.

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Chickens are cultivated for their eggs and their meat. (These are mostly separate breeds, though egg-laying chickens past their egg-laying time of life are also eaten, they just don't tend to taste as good.) Most chicken farms are like the one he saw, though the hormone thing they do to make them all female is only for egg-layers, since male and female chickens have equally tasty meat. He can find a few pictures of chickens penned up more out-of-doors in some mixed-use farming arrangements where they can serve as pest control and skip the composting step of turning chicken waste into fertilizer but this only works with some crops that they won't damage and is lower yield in eggs. There are decorative chicken breeds that are sometimes turned loose in gardens and parks in some areas. Both outdoor uses are noted to have a higher risk of predation for the chickens and the eggs from pest animals like rats and most animals that will eat rats will also eat chickens, so you have to expect a high rate of chicken loss if you're going to keep them outside.

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Lucien tries figuring out how much shorter the chicken lives are on average when they are kept outside so he can guess at the tradeoff between keeping them outdoors and indoors. He is crying a bit while he does this but he can keep wiping the tears away so he can read and figure out which one is better.

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A decorative chicken kept indoors as a pet can live two Amentan years. Meat chickens usually live a couple months tops, they're bred to grow very fast; egg-laying chickens usually have a useful lifespan of one to two seasons. Outdoor pest-control-and-eggs chicken lifespans are all over the place but you can't keep them outdoors in winter anyway so generally they are eaten sometime in fall regardless of when they were hatched.

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Okay, so the outdoor chickens might actually live longer on average. That's good to know. He is really confused about the decisions that the Amentans are making and sad and ... should probably sleep so he's ready to deal with things tommorow.

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...

Instead of sleeping he keeps going back to researching. He's so confused and it's hard to sleep and and...

Eventually he falls asleep in front of his everything.

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He wakes up when his alarm goes off. He has this morning set aside for talking to amaliens about planet naming but instead he's going to go and comfort them before heading to his meeting with the mayor.

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The mayor is as ever in his office on time for the meeting! "Good morning! My secretary was so confused, you wanted to help us with something about the chickens?"

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"Yeah, there was a rather emotional disagreement about how to house chickens at the farm we visited yesterday and I think there's a cultural gap that was hard to communicate across. I was hoping that we would be able to have a productive conversation about it."

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"I hope so! Are the chickens bothering amaliens with - smells, noises -"

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"No. Sort of the opposite. We are worried that the chickens are having a bad time because Amentans didn't consider this as a downside."

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"...I assume if they're too stressed it affects how many eggs they lay but other than that, no, not really, we don't consider that a downside."

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"We do, and generally we feel bad about chickens feeling bad. Not at all as much as we would about an Amentan feeling bad or an amalien feeling bad, but some."

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"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm not an expert, but I'm not aware of any economical ways to take into account chicken distress - it could be there are some, especially if you can communicate with chickens and they turn out to want very easy things, but I certainly couldn't tell you what they were."

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"My understanding is that if we provided additional land to house animals, and labor to keep the area free of predators, this would do quite a lot for the chickens and not actually economically hurt you?"

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"- I suppose it might? If you want to earmark some land for chickens? I think the things that I'd get questions about with my people back on Amenta, about that, would be how far this would ultimately go. There are billions of chickens on Amenta, more of them than there are of us, and there are other animals we farm too. It's important to us to get along well with you, worth making plenty of adjustments - I'm not sure there's space on either planet for all of those animals to have all the space you have in mind, or enough amaliens to look after them."

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"I'm not sure. I think roughly twice the space with additional windows would make a big improvement. Chickens are the biggest concern. Regardless, we will help as much as we can, even though that's not enough to fix everything."

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"Why are chickens the biggest concern and not cows or pigs?"

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"As far as I can tell they're treated worse, and there's also far more of them. However I'm concerned about the cows and pigs as well."

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"Okay. So, this is a big sector of our economy. There are a lot of things where if you wanted them we could probably just make it happen. This one, not so much. You're going to need to prioritize and figure out what tradeoffs are worth it to you. I like to think of political problems in terms of what's easy, what needs pushing, what needs pulling, and what needs flipping over. So in this case maybe you want to subsidize farmers whose conditions you approve of for the chickens, push good-chicken-conditions. Or try to organize a boycott - not that I think that would work, but you could try it - to pull on bad-chicken-conditions. Or fund research into growing meat without needing an animal at all so we stop breeding new ones entirely and then everyone's happier, including, I suppose the average remaining chicken."

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Lucien really likes the mayor.

"I haven't looked into such research, but it sounds like the most promising long term option. I think in the meantime we could provide an additional large amount of land for chicken farmers to use on our planet right now that has basic welfare requirements. We'd charge for keeping the additional land free of harmful-to-amentans monsters and could use that to fund research? Probably some amaliens will want to help with the research as well."

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"Hm, I'm not sure how you see that working out economically. Egg farmers get their money by selling eggs. More land is useful to them if, and only if, it results in them selling more eggs. So they won't pay for it if they will only sell the same number of eggs that way."

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"My impression was that land use is a major cost of chicken farming?"

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"It is! But if eggs per land goes down at the same time land goes up, it might not mean they can make any extra money that way."

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"As long as we scale the space provided with the requirements of number of chickens per square foot I imagine that will be okay?"

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"Maybe - my point is that if you want the chickens to have twice as much space you have to earmark more than the same amount of land chickens are currently using again, so more than twice as many chickens can fit on it. Also, this might not work very soon because there are only so many people eating eggs on this planet and I don't think they'd suddenly start eating more eggs given the opportunity or the farm would have more chickens already; instead what it'd do is slow down the rate at which new farms have a reason to be established here."

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"I was hoping some of the eggs could be exported. And also that, given the land would be exclusively for chickens - it would be economically worthwhile to move the farms and sell the current land which can be used for other things. I'm pretty sure this can be solved with economics somehow. Lots of problems can be - I spent a bunch of time reading about it last night."

He actually ended up enjoying that part of the night, though he feels guilty about that.

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"Eggs aren't worth enough per weight to be worth shipping between planets. If we had more settlements here, then of course the larger number of people would eat more eggs, but I'm glad we started with one to uncover friction exactly like this one."

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"Yes that's why I suggested only the one small settlement."

The mayor is being confusingly hard to explain to.

"I feel like there's a cultural gap here again. I'm trying to figure out ways to address concerns about the welfare of the chickens that amaliens have while making the Amentans better off. A mutually beneficial trade. Is there a reason a large grant of land that is free of monsters and ear marked for chicken farming at acceptable densities couldn't achieve this?"

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"If it were only that I'd expect it to work! It was the plan to charge money for keeping it free of monsters that I expect to make the deal unprofitable for the farm."

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"We can charge a small amount - or even zero - if needed. I have a few other ideas about how to raise money that we could discuss?"

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"Sure, lay them on me."

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Lucien has several ideas! There's a weird goo from a monster that can make it easy to live and maneuver deep underwater they could sell, some amaliens might do normal jobs to earn money, he thinks the Esteel Tree might be able to make a lot of food if needed, there's one monster that is really really good at crushing things, ...

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Those are all neat ideas that could totally work for getting the amaliens more leverage in the economy and the mayor encourages them to all be tried, though the goo from the monster might not work on Amentans and should probably be tried on a weasel or something first.

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He thinks some amaliens have brought animals underwater with it but he's not sure and can check. Oh uh, not that the Amentans are animals just. That's what is not as hardy on this planet.

Anyways, his plan is that amaliens will provide land to start fixing the immediate problems they have with the chicken farming and they can work on the other methods to provide more substantial funding in the long term to research. Does that seem good?

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Amentans are biologically speaking a kind of animal, they're just also people and that's more important - but not for whether they can breathe underwater specifically; in that department they are basically animals.

Sounds great. There will be some initial costs associated with moving the chickens and so on but that's one-time and the mayor is willing to spot the funds for that as a signal of goodwill and cooperation.

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The mayor is very good.

"One last thing I guess. I think we should hold off on the interviews and the joint social activities for a bit longer. Just until things have cooled down. It's still important to do them eventually I think."

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"Sure, we didn't have a firm schedule for those and it's no trouble to move them."

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Lucien is actually a bit excited after leaving the meeting. This was hard, really hard, and there were really sad problems to have to deal with. But they were able to figure them out! There's a lot of work to be done and he'll have to co-ordinate a bunch of amaliens to achieve things and probably other problems will come up but, he's ready to deal with all that. There are differences between Amentans and amaliens, but despite that they can work together - even if they don't always understand each other. 

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Lucien moves a lot of the meetings he has for the next week - planet naming and amalien/Amentan social events can be delayed. Instead he needs to figure out how to coordinate making a large area safe for Amentans. He can put together some basic estimates of land amount soon - the chicken farmer from yesterday might be able to help. Regardless, he thinks they'll need something between 5 and 50 Amaliens working on helping with monsters in the immediate future and a smaller number for longer term maintenance. He can recruit a bunch of the campers nearby who might be interested but he should probably get someone who is good at organizing hard things to help them. Deet, currently one of the Volcano Watchers, is probably the best choice to at least get things set-up. 

For the money making plans he'll need a bunch of different amaliens to help. He can probably ask Vira to help with figuring out whether the underwater goo will work on Amentans and then she'll definitely want to learn about the growing meat research things. He can probably manage the other things on his own, working with monsters or amaliens who are friends with monsters and such. 

By the time he's done adding things, his schedule for the next week is more packed than it was before. So is his schedule for the week after that, which he also had to clear to make room for all the things.

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The next day he gives a very excited Vira the email of a marine biologist Amentan he met a previous meeting about water purification. 

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Dear Lucien's water friend,

Hi!! I'm going to figure out if Marmo's goop works on Amentans and Lucien said I should put words into an everything so you would know that! He told me you are really good at knowing things about water and that you could know if there were things I should 'periment on that I might not think of doing at first. I really love water too! I also like lots of other things but looking at water is fun and the really tiny things and the really big things and all the other things inside water are interesting. Did you know that orcas have the most brain cells in the bit of brain that I think does thinking, even more than amaliens! I'm not sure about Amentans but okay I looked it up (this everything is really really cool! it knows everything! well not everything everything, but still a bunch of things!!) Also some orcas don't have any colors at all but those orcas are easier to see so they get less food but in some places those orcas are liked more and they have more kids! Sharks don't like other all white sharks like that ever I think, and coral that's like that is usually sick but not always actually which is really cool! I figured that out cause I noticed that if a plant's in a dark place sometimes it'll end up white and then be sorta okay later and so I tried it on coral and the same thing happened!

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Would Vira like to meet the marine biologist in person?

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Yes! Though does Vira have to get clean for that, she sorta likes being messy.

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She can't be polluted but the marine biologist will not fuss about it if she has seaweed in her hair and tracks in sand.

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Vira looks up what pollution is.

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Pollution is the state of uncleanliness created by death of a person (not an animal or plant), or, also only in a person, substances rejected by the body for being noxious (so urine, feces, vomit, pus, mucus under some conditions, and a few more exotic disease-related substances, but not sweat or blood or tears, typically). The caste dealing with pollution-risky situations, reds, was not historically well isolated from the pollution they worked with nor adequately decontaminated afterwards and must be presumed inherently polluted in a self-perpetuating manner at this time. Persons who have come into contact with pollution in a normal way (like going to the bathroom) follow one of these abbreviated procedures; in more exceptional or irregular circumstances the full decontamination shower is required.

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Vira does one of the abbreviated things. She's sorta curious about more about how pollution works and how they tell if someone is a person and gets distracted by that for a bit before running off to see the marine biologist friend.

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The marine biologist has a lab set up within offroad-vehicle-distance of the city, on the beach! It's not a construction priority so it's been behind schedule - usually not being a priority would not have put it behind schedule, since the schedule takes that into account, but the noise limiting protocols are slowing down anything that's not right in downtown, so some of the equipment is still in tents or crates. "Vira, that you?" she calls, looking up from where she is collecting and photographing tidepool life.

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"Yes!!"

Vira bounces a bit while waving hi. 

"I really like your internet!"

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"We like it too! Though it's slow here for anything less popular than Summary Bank. Were you talking about orca-like creatures here, or Amentan ones?"

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"Both! The brains look the same. All super twisty and big and wrinkled, with surface area big enough to be okay with the amount of bits working with the blood that goes round it!"

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"Yeah, they have huge brains! They don't seem to have language, or if they do it's very rudimentary, but they're still pretty neat. So what's Marmo's goop?"

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"They're not just big, they also have lots of neurons! Even more than other types of whales that have bigger brains! Also I taught one to talk a while ago and it wasn't that bad at it but it wasn't that good at it either."

"Marmo is a giant sorta manta ray monster that has goop that does lots of cool water things! It's hydrophobic but also somehow sucks water in and turns it into the bit of air people breath I think! It also has some other cool things like preventing pressure from hurting! I think that one has something to do with how hard it is to squish and the little bit of air it makes between someone's skin and it! Also if you suspend it in water to move it somewhere it stays good for longer, and even better if you stir it around but not too much."

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"That sounds awesome - uh - where's the orca you taught to talk?"

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"Dead. Put him in a place that was good for fossil making but not sure if that's done yet. Maybe?"

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"Oh. Okay. I would be interested to hear more about that later - maybe Cryptophasia helps?? - but anyway you and me are supposed to figure out goop experiments. What do you do with the goop to make it work on somebody?"

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"Cryptophasia didn't help with the orca, though it is very good and that's a fun sounding idea!"

"They spread the goop all over themselves and make sure to get under their clothes and also on their gums and eyes and stuff."

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"What... happens if they miss a spot?"

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"Depends! It's basically like that bit isn't protected so like. If they go down really deep the pressure still pushes on that one bit and that bit can get pruny and if they miss mouth bits they can be bad at breathing and so on. Deep enough some really weird things can happen with partial application cause of the pressure!"

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"How long does it last and what happens when it wears off?"

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"three to five days.. It wears off slowly, the effects decreasing as it does so. People feel wet before any of the other effects wear off."

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"How does the monster make the goop?"

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"Sorta sweats it? More comes from crevices and everything."

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"Wow. Does this happen all the time, whether it's sick or not? Can it stop if it wants?"

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"It happens all the time, I don't think it could stop? The mechanism seems similar to skin oil glands which aren't vol-un-tary and also monsters usually won't get sick much if at all."

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"Skin oil, gotcha. How much does it make?"

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"Bout enough for 300 people to have it on all the time? Um, I guess more like 150 if they're Amentans cause you're bigger. Um. Hrm. 170 actually, based on how big you all seem and the sur-face area diff-erence that would mean if you have the same sorta shaped bodies as us."

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"Are a lot of amaliens using it full time?"

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"About a hundred seventy or something? Sometimes more."

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"Does it make amaliens sick at all, or give them rashes or taste terrible or anything?"

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"Nope! Tastes sorta like sea water and mucus but maybe 20% more yummy than that sounds?"

Vira decides to clarify.

"I invented a yummy scale and checked a bunch of things."

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"A yummy scale! How does that work with people having different tastes?"

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"People only have some different tastes! There's some things that are rough-ly invariant across people - not too many but some. I figured out those and used them to make my yummy scale."

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"Wow, you should talk to food scientists and see if it replicates with Amentans, I don't think we have something like that though it's not my field at all. Anyway. When the goop wears off does it disappear or do you have to wash it off or what?"

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"There's some invariants that don't apply to mammals but most of them stick. More different species are harder though."

 

"The goop'll flake off if you leave it alone for long enough, but water washes it off if it's long enough after it stopped working."

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"Long enough? How long do people have to go around with goop on them that isn't working any more after they're done being underwater?"

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"Oh you can wash it off more quickly soon after it's done if you want, you just sorta have to rub at it. Otherwise it takes maybe two hours if your underwater and thirty minutes if you're in the air and three hours if you're in a vacuum and seventeen seconds if you're in lava and 20 hours if you're in a pile of the goop and not moving and at least a few months if you are moving but maybe could take longer."

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"Wow, you did a lot of experiments about this. Do you have it written down anywhere or do you just memorize all your results?"

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"Usually I try to figure out the under-lying rules so I can re-derive all the things later if I need to. But I write things down while I'm working on them and then store things in Monument later."

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"Monument? Is that a monster?"

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"Mhm. It's very good at 'membering things."

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"Wow, it must know so much. How does it remember things?"

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"It can sorta copy memories? Cept I think they are only as accu-rate as the memory itself was since lots of them are in the third person and memories shouldn't be like that really."

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"Oh, gosh. And then you can experience the memory by visiting it?"

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"It's sorta ~glowy, but yeah. It's only the op-tic-al parts though."

 

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"How long have amaliens had writing, do you know?"

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"I don't know. No one can remember not having it, though sometimes it changes a tiny bit. I invented my own way of writing things once that used elements!"

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"Oh wow, like the periodic table? That's such a cool way to do it!"

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"Yeah! Hard to get all the elements to write things though, so I have to use stand-in symbols sometimes! It's really fun though when I do get all the bits together to write something in it!"

 

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"Oh, you used the elements themselves? That sounds so inconvenient, but it's still such a terribly clever writing system. I think Oahkar is written with a bunch of symbols with basic meanings piled up into complicated ones, but the basic meanings aren't the real elements."

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Vira bounces excitedly.

"I also used molecules sometimes to mean more complicated combinations of things! Oahkar sounds really cool! Who made it?"

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"I'm not sure! I didn't get very deep into linguistics in school."

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"Oh, just wet things?"

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"Animals and ecosystems in the sea, specifically! Wet things that live in lakes and rivers are a different specialty."

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"Oh that makes sense! Do you study things that live in lakes with salt?"

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"I don't personally but some people might study those and also sea animals, it depends on specialties. My specialty is molluscs, actually, but I have enough generalist background to start looking at the species here and it'll go a lot faster with someone who knows as much as you do, you sound like an amazing naturalist."

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"Thank you! I bet you're an amazing molluscist! Did you know you can clean water more quickly by making it harder to live in for a few molluscs there so they start filtering it more to get more food to survive with?"

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"Yes, we use molluscs to clean water a lot on Amenta, though they're usually freshwater molluscs since that's most of the water we want to clean!"

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"Oh! If the fresh water isn't from a big river and is in a lake made by snow or rain or something I figured out that I can find a bunch of different creatures and add them to the water to create an eco-system where each spe-cies changes the balance so it ends up being extra superduper clean and it's easier to take care of a bunch of lakes that way cause I just need to introduce a new species and wait a few decades or centuries for the food chain and things to be affected!"

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The marine biologist thinks Vira is SO COOL and all her research is SO COOL and yes incidentally is able to find ways to turn this into money (prizes, grants, buying parcels of goop, etcetera).

Meanwhile, the mayor sends Lucien an email that Meelia has been arrested back on Amenta and is being deported to the general area of Keetim.

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What.

What did Meelia do...

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Looks like battery and incitement to pollution hysteria. Also she went missing for weeks and her host family were worried but that isn't actually a crime.

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That doesn't sound like Mee- okay that does sort of sound like Meelia. Did she have a reason?

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The battery was unprovoked as far as they can tell - she might have been worried he'd do something to stop her from going and committing incitement to pollution hysteria, but he was actually moving away from her to wake up a noncombatant blue at the time she attacked him. The IPH seems to have been motivated by concern for red welfare but they have no idea why she chose to disappear among the reds, who did not ask her to be there, for weeks, accomplishing nothing, instead of doing some Citrus searches to learn more or something.

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Yup, that sure does sound like Meelia's attempting to use adventuring to solve any problems she encounters. He suspects that there was an issue where she was trying to do something and didn't know the Amentan way to do it and did it her own way - she isn't used to using Citrus to solve things. Still, she really doesn't like hurting people unless she has to and it sounds like things escalated pretty far. 

Lucien had been about to leave the city to go in-person to try to convince Deet to come and help with the chicken farming but this seems more urgent. He messages Deet on his pocket everything that they'll have to reschedule.

Meanwhile he schedules a meeting with the mayor to discuss this as soon as possible. He doesn't want there to be some problem when Meelia lands that still isn't resolved. He's not worried though - him and the mayor are good at solving problems together. 

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The mayor can see him that very afternoon.

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Excellent. He spends the intervening time reading any news he can find about what happened. Also icing his back cause he woke up early and now it's hurting again and it turns out the ice helps as long as he doesn't put it right on the monster on his back.

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And at the meeting the mayor can tell him when Meelia's ship is expected and that she is not to enter Tapai territory unless she appeals in thirty years and her re-interview comes up more favorable and that battery and IPH are actually both really bad and either one would have most likely gotten an Amentan sterilized.

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Lucien is extremely confused about how Amentans use the ability to have children to commit battery and IPH. He thinks he can imagine how for IPH but all his guesses for battery seem... unlikely.

Also he'd like to clarify what areas the mayor considers Tapai territory.

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This area on the map here carved out for the city and its supporting industry, that Lucien helped them pick. Meelia asked to be dropped off near Lucien or at Keetim and the latter is not in that territory so that's where they're taking her.

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The fact that she wanted to be dropped off near Keetim makes total sense - she's friends with Keeta and feels safe there and would go there when she is sad. But... while Lucien is friends with her he's not her closest comforting hugging friend. He's a "things should happen to fix problems" sort of friend. It's not a great sign. 

Lucien would like to know how the mayor intends to handle Meelia visiting the city.

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"Well, my sincere hope is that she will not attempt it. But I do have on my agenda attempting to workshop with you what range of solutions would work for amaliens here who come into the city and break the law, either just by being there if they've been asked not to or by doing something else while visiting."

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"I mean, you could remove them from the city? Might make them sad though. Specially Meelia."

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"Yes, we can do that, but if it keeps happening it could become a huge drain on police time. Amentans who can't stay out of places they aren't welcome are sometimes fined, or imprisoned, but I don't know if either of those would really be suitable."

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"Is that not what police are for? Also fining someone doesn't feel really relevant since amaliens won't be using money to get into the city it the first place?"

He grimaces.

"Also I don't think anyone would be happy about Meelia being imprisoned. It sounds like it would make lots of amaliens really sad and angry."

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"Fines are mostly for deterrence and for recouping costs associated with enforcement but a lot of amaliens have no money and not much use for it so it would, yeah, not really suit. That's what police are for, but usually we want to use police to handle unexpected things, and longer-lasting solutions to handle anything that just keeps recurring. So if she comes to the city uninvited once, then the police can remove her. If she does it again, especially since she also went places she wasn't supposed to go on Amenta, it stops being a central case of police response. Do amaliens have something you do when another amalien is coming into a place they aren't wanted repeatedly?"

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"I wouldn't really expect deterrence to work on an amalien? In Meelia's case I'd expect it to make any problems worse - she'd just think of them as obstacles prolly and she usually tries to use adventuring to solve obstacles. Which is really great sometimes but not really great other times. Amaliens would talk to the person a lot if the person kept going somewhere that was making people sad and try to figure out why and how to solve it and give them hugs and talk some more and try things. I'm not sure what we'd do if that didn't work. Usually with monsters we can just leave where they are. Sometimes I guess we have to move them far away maybe?"

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"- sorry, you think deterrence doesn't work on amaliens in full generality?"

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"Depends kinda? Someone might decide they wouldn't enjoy something cause of the downside but if they're trying to help someone and they still think it'd help people I think doing bad things to someone if they try to help won't make them want to stop? Might for a few amaliens I guess, but also I sorta expect more amaliens would decide that meant helping was even more important."

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"Why would that mean helping was even more important if whatever means was chosen was specifically something that other people didn't want to happen and were working to prevent and make unappealing? Is it more important to feed someone if you have to steal the food to do it?"

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"I think if you can easily purchase food for someone and then a law is passed making it illegal to do that and than I think it could make sense to try even harder to get that person food? Not sure why though."

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"I... suppose... that could make sense under some sets of assumptions...

...this doesn't tell me how to have a persistent unwelcome amalien removed from city limits short of putting her on another celestial body, though, which I presume would be awfully uncomfortable for her if it wasn't one with anything anyone else wanted on it."

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"I can't actually rem-ember a time when amaliens needed to do that. I suspect part of the issue with Meelia is Amentans didn't know how to de-escalate with her and she didn't know how to de-escalate with them?"

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"That seems likely. Also she spent a lot of the escalatory period deliberately out of contact, apparently she left her pocket everything behind."

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"Huh. She might have had a reason but I bet at least part of it is she just didn't consider having a pocket everything to be important? A lot of amaliens have trouble adapting to them and Meelia in particular tends to be fairly slow to adapt her methods of approaching problems. It's possible it wouldn't have occurred to her the pocket everything was even capable of communicating with people."

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"...there's not enough detail in this report for me to contradict you, though I admit that sounds very odd to me."

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"It's also possible she abstractly knew that it was capable of communicating but didn't think of it at the time. Amaliens are very old and pocket everythings are still new to us."

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"Understood. What deescalation techniques work well for amaliens?"

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"Explaining to them that someone is sad or angry and you want to talk about it. Expecting that if you tell them they can't do X because of Y then if Y doesn't apply to them/they can solve it, then they might do X. Expressing willingness to hear them out. Showing that you care and have empathy. Giving them an obvious way forward that they trust might help. Asking another amalien to come and talk to them."

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"This... makes sense for small communities of people who don't all know each other. I'm worried it won't scale well and having to find someone who is personally and individually offended about an instance of incursion into the city, or someone who is sincerely empathetic about the state of being exiled due to having committed serious crimes, is not something I have a procedure for or expect much success with. Perhaps I should have some amaliens on retainer for situations like that."

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"That might be a good idea. I also really don't expect this to be a common issue - amaliens are pretty well behaved and Meelia is an outlier in terms of trouble making."

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"You have quite a lot on your plate already, is there someone you'd recommend as a mediator to retain?"

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"I can think of a bunch of amaliens who are good at mediation - like Keeta or Po - but I don't think that any of them aside from me actually know Amentans very well. I can mediate for anything that comes up for now and help train someone as my replacement? I don't expect mediation to take too much of my time, though I suppose when it does come up it'll be urgent."

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"It does seem like it might be, though we can certainly hope it doesn't come up; with any luck Meelia won't decide she urgently needs to visit Chaspanti."

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"I can pre-emptively talk to her about it if you'd like - I'm planning to travel to Keetim to meet her when she lands."

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"That sounds like a good idea, thank you. I'll send you the updates widget for her flight."

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"Thanks!"

Lucien schedules a follow-up with the mayor for a week from now so he can help some other amalien start learning how to be a mediator. He heads home for the evening afterwards, doing a bit more research on how Amentans deal with law breaking before bed.

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Amentans really don't like it when people break the law. There are some minor regulatory infractions that just get you told to fix it, but other than that breaking the law will tend to get you punished - fines are common, there are a ton of jobs you lose or can't get if you have a criminal record, they use sterilization as a punishment sometimes (the country of Met will also sterilize your relatives if you do something really bad), the death penalty exists, house arrest and prison exist but one has to fund one's own imprisonment expenses.

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Oh no. It seems plausible that all these punishments are of necessary to keep things working well on Amenta but it's really sad and he should spend some time trying to figure out how to make things better there when he can, just in case they missed something.

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Lucien spends the next few days juggling the ongoing animal farm program, connecting amaliens with Vira to work on fund raising projects, trying (and failing) to convince Deet to come and manage people, and finding Po and talking with him about Amentans. It's a busy schedule.

As the widget indicates Meelia is about to land, he checks on Neh and asks him for transport to (and later back from) Keetim. 

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"Oh. I can explore there for a bit and then bring you back home later?"

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"Yeah, that'd work."

 

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Neh nods and Meow takes them there.  

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Leaving Neh and Meow, Lucien lets the city guide him towards where the ship bearing Meelia landed.

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Continued in catching up with friends.