instead of Tapa having the prettiest buildings, Calado does
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They circle the planet and look at the architecture. They are somewhat disappointed. 

"Maybe the aliens think they're pretty," someone says dubiously. 

        "No," someone else says. "Some things are universal."

"Maybe the aliens are all blind."

        "That makes more sense."

"Well we have to pick somewhere."

 

This place has a lovely large statue-garden-monument thing that Elves would not go out of their way to avoid if it were in Tirion, though they'd probably walk through it quickly. They go for that one.

       

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The aliens are running around in a desperate panic, some of them trying to figure out what they are authorized to do and others deciding that that's not important! They are met by three different groups of blue-haired people with various yellow and green subordinates who have decided to each ignore the other two groups and approach from different directions.

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...okay. It would probably be a bit bewildering to have aliens drop on you. Aliens bounce eagerly out of their shuttle! They would like to learn the language! They look a lot like locals except all of them have black hair.

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Group 1 is assuming they already know the language. Group 2 has flash cards collected from the nearest elementary school with which to attempt to teach them colors and numbers and nouns. Group 3 brought an actual linguist.

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...aliens will split up to entertain all of these people after these people miss cues that they could just collect into one group and save time. Colors and numbers and nouns take them no time at all and they switch to implausible combinations to try to elicit some syntax. Group 1 will just have to quickly realize otherwise. Linguists are appreciated! Linguists can be properly impressed at how very fast these aliens are learning the language.

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The linguist is very impressed and manages to adapt pretty well to their unexpected speed! This is the first alien to communicate that the people of this planet wish to go to space. Soon. They want more planets. Are there more planets they can go live on.

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There are lots of planets! Every star in the sky is a sun and lots of them have planets.

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Yes but can they go live on them, do they have air, is the way they made the spaceship learnable. (Some more green haired aliens unaffiliated with the preexisting groups attempt to sneak aboard.)

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(Elves tolerate this. The spaceship is ridiculously big with ridiculously high ceilings and outrageously pretty artwork and tapestries and sculpture and, for some reason, water features. Despite the fact that it's clearly designed to not usually have gravity. There are more Elves on the spaceship, looking at what appears to be the local internet and singing.)

 

It is not very usual for planets to have air but not unusual there are surely some. Lightleapers are learnable but they might take lots of time to teach from the present tech level, this seems to be where the aliens were - there is a digression to figure out the length of years - sixty or seventy local years ago? Lots to catch up on before they could make lightleapers.

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(Sneaking-aboard greens attempt to make friends with internet-browsing aliens via methods including plying them with snacks, smiling and waving, and pointing out the best video on Streamworld.)

They would like to catch up faster than that. They really, really want to go live on more planets.

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Is something the matter with this one? It does look very inhabited. 

(Internet-browsing aliens would love to make friends!)

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Yes, it's too crowded, they would rather spread out.

Yay friends!

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Aliens are probably amenable to taking the locals places themselves until the locals can build lightleapers. Valinor is not very crowded. Valinor is so pretty. Unlike this place. It is. Uh. Elves are sure they were trying.

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Can they see pictures?

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They can!!! Here is Tirion and here is Alqualondë and here is Valimar and here are a hundred smaller cities.

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Those are definitely pretty. That must take forever.

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Yes but it's important. How could they live in cities at all otherwise. They thought maybe all the locals were blind.

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No, most of them are not blind. They live in cities because that way there is room for more of them.

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That makes sense. Elves will be open-minded. ...what's the story with the hair. Also for their information Elves always wear their hair up except in bed. When married. Like specifically the kind of 'in bed' that goes with being married.

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Oh, hair color is a caste marker. Do the aliens have castes? That is an interesting custom, the braids thing.

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They're surprised anyone gets by without it. The aliens have never heard of castes.

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People who don't want their hair in the way usually just cut it. Castes are this thing where, due to heredity and training, people are suited to certain classes of careers based on who their parents were.

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...that doesn't work for Elves. Sometimes people are suited to the same things as their parents but often they are not, at all.

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Oh, well, it works here, maybe a little fuzzy around intercaste marriage but people mostly avoid that.

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How interesting! What jobs go with the colors?

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Blue is aristocracy and green is intellectuals and artists and yellows are fussy technical sorts of things and greys are warriors and cops and athletes and oranges are caring professions and purple is general labor and reds are gross things. Are the aliens clean, by the way.

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