sad Cam in Milliways, with company
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"We noticed that some planets we were monitoring were visited by the Prometheus."

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"I survey inhabited planets as well."

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"We concluded that the most productive way to pursue our goal of giving more pre-warp civilizations warp technology was to consult you and offer you resources."

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"I'm not sure I understand what you mean."

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"Do you want our technology. It might help you with your project."

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"What technology exactly?"

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"The means by which we remotely monitored all the pre-warp planets in the sector and noticed you. - among other things."

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"I... am potentially interested..."

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"Can we answer some questions for you?"

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"I'm not really sure where to start."

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"I'm Xertfl. The other people on this ship are Telkam and Assadra. Telkam's talking, I'm just translating. Uh. Telkam is Amentan. I am a fairy, we're not native to this universe. Assadra's a demon, they're not native to this universe either - there are other universes, a bunch of them -"

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"...I see. How did you get here?"

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"It is possible to summon people from our universe into yours. People typically do this to employ our abilities. Fairies are telekinetic. Demons can make arbitrary material objects."

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"What do Amentans do?"

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"Suck," says Telkam. Fairy does not translate that.

"Amentans are native to this universe and learned how to employ summoning. We don't have magical abilities." Fairy does translate that.

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"I see. Is there a reason you don't want to speak to my government about this?"

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"Several. Firstly, summoning is extraordinarily powerful and destabilizing. My impression is that the Federation would be unusually responsible with it but I don't have enough information to gamble they'd be responsible enough. Secondly, there are constraints on the use of summoning becoming widespread here. Thirdly, it really does make it easy to do what I did and notice what you're up to, and what you're up to is important. Fourthly, Amentan governments have agreed on a treaty regarding the manner in which we'll make contact with the Federation and they'll probably kill my family if I do something different."

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"...oh dear. Ah. Can you elaborate on points two and three?"

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"There are a few billion each of demons and fairies. There is one civilization dependent on regular access for all aspects of their ten billion citizens' lives. If everyone starts summoning, wait times will go way up and that civilization will lose essential infrastructure. There are efforts underway to mitigate this but they'll take a long time to bear any fruit if they do. In addition to that, demons can make black holes. This has happened recently to an inhabited planet. In addition to that, the kind of ship I'm flying has no range limit and takes five days to get anywhere, which will complicate some stalemates and maybe start some wars. 

You're giving people warp. I noticed when I checked whether any aliens had yet visited a recently post-warp civilization. Lots of people might check that, and then they'll notice, and then you'll be in trouble."

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"I'm expecting to be caught anyway."

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"I know the feeling. But the longer the better, yeah?"

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"Well. Yes."

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"So I'm not in a hurry to help them out."

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"...thank you. How were you, uh, flying around outside your ship?"

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"Fairies are telekinetic. They can take a person and some air out and around for a flight. This ship isn't local technology, it took a while to figure out ship communications."

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