Like a still-red-red or will an Anitami ex-red do to supplement the Mioleen "clean casteless person".

Anitami ex-red will do for now because that sure is a face they are making.

They send him Shasali Aven! He should be impressed because they let some ex-reds be blues.

"Hello," says Shasali Aven, an ex-red who is now a blue.

He is not clear on why that is impressive. 

"Hello. I've become aware that theological rulings about uncleanliness of Yeerks and current and former hosts of Yeerks are going to be relevant to Amentan involvement in the war, and everyone sounds rather stupid when they try to explain things so I asked to speak to a red in case they sound less so. And was dissuaded because apparently it would be a logistical nightmare."

"Both you and reds are awkward to transport," she says. "If a phone or online conversation would suffice that would be much easier to arrange, if I can't answer your questions - which I may not be able to, I'm a judge, not a theologian."

"I am supposed to be very impressed with Anitam about you being a judge but I am not sure what background facts make it impressive."

"The original plan was for all ex-reds to be purple. Anitam allows arbitrary recasteing. Tapa was convinced not to limit ex-reds to purple, but doesn't allow blue in particular."

"Why not?"

"Blue is aristocracy. It seems likely they felt threatened by the idea of a disenfranchised population being entitled to a chance at positions like 'judge' - not that it's an especially sought-after role; I chose it for other reasons."

" - the system as explained to me was that your species displays strong heritable tendencies in aptitude, which means you can gain from specialization by tracking people into training for careers for which they can with high confidence be anticipated to have an aptitude. Is the disagreement over whether there exist, uh, unclean persons with an aptitude for careers that are designated blue, or whether given that they exist the - specialization benefits - are outweighed by costs to the - credibility of the ruling caste - or..."

"- oh, no, I think it's mostly that ex-red blues would push policy in a direction the current blues wouldn't like. With of course a strong backing expectation that none of their ex-reds would be qualified, though they haven't checked or done any statistical predictions. Some of our blue ex-reds had to do blinded interviews to check if they were capable; I got in first, as a test case, and the ambassador to Miolee was also able to skip that step."

"In what direction would ex-red blues be expected to push policy?"

"I'm not sure what Tapa's specific reservations, if they are specific, might be. Blues are... cliquey, and privileged, and have tended to make choices that reflect that."

"I want starships to throw at a galactic menace, I don't need ideological purity, but I think I would benefit from a more detailed picture of what you mean by that."

"...Most blues have very little idea of what it is like to not be blue."

"Andalites would find among the strangest of the local eccentricities the tendency to have wars ordered by people who have never fought in them and whose children do not go off to fight in them."

"I am sure there are some blues who marry grey, but it does create certain - tension, yes."

"But this is a bit afield from - precedents set now with respect to pollution seem likely to be somewhat enduring. It is not clear to me what those precedents ought to be, or how - flexible for pragmatic reasons - they are."

"They are not totally inflexible but they need to be able to create a path of logic. Defying the premises outright will accomplish nothing."

"With aliens it seems like many paths of logic are available, I just don't know which of those paths it would be wise to encourage people to explore down."

"I have no theological background whatever, I'm sorry."

"I don't know what outcomes would be desirable."

"It will presumably be most convenient if Yeerks are declared nonpollutants or at least easily washed off."

Nod. " - it seems likely Amentans are going to be a significant force in the galaxy eventually and I would like to see the societies you create be humane, well-governed and flourishing ones. The uncleanliness thing is - not helpful."

"Tapa following Anitami example seems likely to be a powerful role model for the rest of the world, even if Miolee doesn't succeed as a state."