"So impressed and bewildered. And astronomers everywhere will be bemused that all the nearby stars had habitable planets at the right distance, because why? I think we might set up a couple planets that are particularly resource-rich, too, so we can trade dilithium and so on with people. There's a social justice movement calling for one person one vote, too." He shakes his head.

"Good for them."

"Jury trials, on the other hand, everyone thinks are ridiculous."

"They do sound that way, don't they."

"It's hard to sell people on the idea of missing work to go do another job that is not their job and that they're not trained at and won't get paid for."

"Oh, from that angle. Although people do get paid for jury duty, just not very much."

"Maybe we'll be a less money-obsessed society once credits are cheap, but I'm not entirely sure."

"Is Voa less money-obsessed?"

"Yep. But we're going to still have credits, just cheaper ones."

"If they get to the price of a sandwich they probably stop affecting things much."

"We're aiming for 'a year's salary' - not that we'd contrive to keep them high if they fell lower than that, but space on the planet itself is still very much at a premium -"

"You can get more planets, can't you?"

"Yes, and the planets aren't doing population credits at all, nor should they. But Anitam itself only has so much space."

"I was assuming people would move if it was too crowded."

"We'd rather not have more people born than we have space for and count on conditions being bad enough to force them to move."

"Fair enough. Drive 'em out ahead of time with the price of buttercreams."

"That's the idea, yes."

Cam makes and consumes a buttercream.

"Going to have a hard time finding anyone to go in on kids, people won't want to potentially endanger them."

"...well, demonic conception is still available if you can afford a surrogate. Your lesbians bailed?"

"I would have too. Some things you don't take chances with."

Nod.

"Unless you are Telkam, who really likes taking chances."

"Including with precious, precious butterscotches?"

"See, that's the problem with being a green who's only mediocre, you're never going to get kids and have no reason to be conservative - but I think he'd risk everything he had over this kind of thing even if he had, well, more."