"Cheap unskilled labor and, uh, hardwood export?"

"And we did some foreign decontaminations for a while but now Tapa's doing it domestically."

<And this is superior to being red in any other country.>

"Anitam's ex-reds are doing all right. And they have seasons I miss seasons -"

"They don't have room for us though."

"Evalee was going to fucking slaughter us. Orvara and Biyan were enough warning, thank you."

< - what happened there ->

"Orvara trained some purples to do red jobs and then drove the reds out. Couldn't go anywhere, if they tried they got shot."

"Anitam took a couple hundred. But they couldn't find room for more."

"Biyan started trying to do that and their reds started fighting back and they kidnapped a bunch of kids and tortured them till their parents taught the purples. Someone broke in and shot all the kids and then all the reds committed mass suicide and Biyan sure regretted that."

Andalites look distressed. Some of the unmorphed ones have tails swishing dangerously.

"So we - I mean not us personally, some of us - kidnapped six blue kids - blues run shit - and told 'em we were going to Anitam and then here and they were paying for it. And they did."

<I am mildly surprised that worked.>

"It was dicey but we had to do something."

Nods and tail-swishes.

"We didn't hurt 'em, they all went home safe."

<Honorable of your enemy to follow through on their commitment, at least.>

"I'm sure they considered obliterating us! Anitam helped, they sent a bunch of university students and researchers here to do stuff and be kinda shields."

<How many nations does this world have ->

"...two hundred fifty ish?"

<My.>

"A lot of them are small."

"How many is normal?"

<We have one. I think it's common to unify around or shortly after encountering other civilizations.>

"...huh."

<Not much prospect of that here?>

"Maybe after the red transition is over with."

<Why is that essential?>

"It's just kind of tense. And we won't unify with anyone intent on killing theirs..."

Tail-swishes of agreement.

They watch tails nervously.