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.
This yellow thinks the ambassador from Tapa is nice. That one likes his boss, who just left.
Elves are vaguely judgmental of anyone who runs this country but maybe some of them don't do that and the ambassador from Tapa surely doesn't.
The ambassador to Tapa would probably love to talk to them but no one present has an incentive to let her.
Will they promise that whoever goes and gets her can come live on an Elf planet and have four kids?
...there is a shoving match at the door followed by a race.
Two of the three racing yellows come back, apparently having decided to share the ambassador. She looks exasperated with them and very excited about the aliens. "Hello. I'm Hatepa Inaf, ambassador to Calado from Tapa."
"I am Curufinwë Fëanáro of the Noldor. I'm not a diplomat, we were expecting first contact with aliens to have, uh, more science than politics to it." He looks around at Calado somewhat despairingly.
"- have they not been demanding to know how you got here?"
" - they seem, uh, unable to reassure us that they'd handle a project of that expense and extended commitment competently. I could teach anybody how to build a lightleaper, I invented them. I just have no idea how to evaluate who is going to be responsible and who is going to - threaten their neighbors, threaten us with guns again..." He is much more irritated than upset by this last point.
"Calado's, ah, virtues are mostly not what you seem to be looking for. I'm very sorry to hear that they couldn't pull it together enough not to threaten you."
"What are Calado's virtues?" he asks dubiously. "- threatening us isn't very much of a concern except with respect to their competence, we have backups. We were terribly saddened to hear that you don't."
"- backups?" she asks, interrupting herself before launching into what is no doubt a well-rehearsed list of some virtues Calado arguably has.
"We make copies of our minds. So if anything happens we can have a new one built. It'd be inconvenient, all the way out here, but - not so inconvenient we'd comply with people just because they are threatening us with weapons."
"I see. I'm glad that you're safe."
"We can look into doing the same for you, though I take it the population pressure is more important."
"The population pressure is very important. Calado uses the old Imperial style child permissions system, which creates - tension. Most places including Tapa sell credits, a few have per-family allocations."
"Instead of saving money or getting it from family members to buy credits, Calador people have to earn them via credentials or awards or personal attention from someone empowered to award them."
"It encourages high-variance strategies and competition."
"Space colonization, particularly when there are other aliens out there, is not a project best governed by high-variance strategies and competition."
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