"How long do you think this category of solution might take?"

"I'm nooooot at all sure you should have him visit Amenta. For a similar distance from here, without the sovereignty issues, how about Katme, it's a rocky planet in the Amentan system and reasonably Amentalike apart from the lack of air and water."

"Okeydokes!"

"And it really depends on the density of habitable planets compared to uninhabitable ones. So far it looks pretty low. How many can Meow scout in a day?"

"No idea! Gonna have to 'speriment!"

"Then, yeah, I have a ballpark guess of 'probably he will find at least one in a season or two of dedicated searching'."

"My impression is you thought we'd need many planets before helping reds that way was feasible?" 

"I think you will need at least two and a plan to keep them coming - the value of land will respond to expectations almost as much as actualities. If Meow is faster than my ballpark guess, or about at my guess but willing to keep doing this for years, I think it's doable."

"How long do you think it would take to make a very substantial impact on red lives this way?"

"What you should probably do is find a couple of planets, and then offer to a country other than Tapa - currently pouring lots of investment into this planet and liable to be stretched thin trying to deal with more right away - that they can have the one, free and clear, if they will put in some extremely basic infrastructure groundwork down on the second and transport reds there, their own and then everyone else's. Voa is a possible candidate for a good country to do this, but the reds I actually know who I'd be prepared to recommend to put together a government are Anitami; either country could probably outlay the resources necessary. You could try offering the deal to both of them and see if one gives a better bid than the other. Maybe ask Cene too. Play up that you also care about chickens while you're at it, it will come off much better if you sound like you're saying 'we care about lots of weird stuff' than 'reds are moral patients and it's a travesty that you don't already treat them that way'."

"Could we skip parts of that and just find one planet and offer to transport reds there ourselves?"

"If you have capabilities I don't know about relevant to supplying such a population, uh, maybe? It might be wise to have a plan to do that with some reds if their local cleans act jumpy like they might not successfully ship them to their planet, but I don't think you can do it with millions of them without any stuff from Amenta - seeds and tools and drugs and knowhow."

"Vira?"

"I know how warp drives work I think? Gotta make a bubble in sub-space, and then move it around and that way you can bend things round you and there's a bunch of math. We have Neh and also we could use the blowing things into orbit things to get things in space and that is one of the harder parts all done. Some monsters could help with a warp-drive 'm pretty sure? Like mimic or maybe Keetim or the fast blurry one who's name I can't remember. Hm..."

"Hard part is getting all the bits ready and all correct enough to build it up big. If I gotta build one big enough to trans-port whole pop-ulations... couple of Amentan years if we all work together? Prolly faster if we can get lots of info from Amentans on how to do it."

"I'm not trying to impugn your ability to construct a warp capable ship. I am seriously dubious of your ability to build enough warp capable ships and other infrastructure that you can transport fifty-five million reds to even a remarkably hospitable alien planet and not have them all promptly die of exposure. I think you are more than capable of raising enough money to just buy a ship from Tapa and then if a district says 'our social worker is acting shifty' evacuating those, specific, reds, while Voa or somebody does all the heavy lifting of all the other reds and their supply needs in exchange for a planet of their own."

"I'm... against on prin-ciple the idea of paying people to let us help with a prob-lem it sounds like they are caus-ing."

"Deet I understand but. I don't actually think you should be pushing your principles to the point where it hurts reds."

Deet does not have a response to that.

"If it helps you can think about it as paying them to demonstrate as a proof of concept that shipping reds out works, and then doing so with the other countries' reds; or think of it as buying their debt to the reds, which you are able to collect on where the reds aren't, on the reds' behalf."

"That second one sort of makes sense I suppose. Though I think..."

Deet is quiet for a bit,

"I think if they thought of it like that I'd be more confi-dent that they would follow through and not act in a way that hurt the reds and ruin-ed this plan?"

"They are extremely unlikely to think of it like that but you can require that they meet some metric - you can't expect literal perfection but you can set the bar high enough that there's not room for intentional top-down malfeasance - before they get the planet. You don't have to tell anyone which planet you've scouted and are offering them. - I guess it's possible that they'd double-cross you once they know which planet you want for the reds and try to take that one, I'm not immediately sure what to do about that..."

"Could ask them to give us the ships and take them ourselves? Might be possible to follow but may-be I can fix that."

"They might be able to trace your warp signature but I'm not sure... it might be that I should enroll in pilot training myself and then I can teach you and also learn more about that kind of thing."

"Would be good to know about all the things!"

"Oh and also it would help us save reds."