"Yeah. Hopefully the angel thing catches on and I don't have ever greater numbers of colonial reds followed by an eventual even larger genocide on my conscience."

"We're doing robots on the colonies, just haven't advertised it yet because the reds'll all riot."

"It would still be an even larger genocide."

Nod. "I think the angel thing'll work."

"Hope so."

Isel writes the Anitami reds.

If I send this email and then you riot I'll be in a lot of trouble, because I'm not allowed to tell you this. So please, if you decide you should riot, wait until there's something else to plausibly have triggered it.

Some of the aliens have robots. The government hasn't published this yet because they're doing the cleaning thing and they want everyone else to do the cleaning thing also. They are going to keep not publishing it. They are not planning to kill anyone. If the cleaning thing doesn't work they'll send you all to your own planet. (If they instead try to kill you the aliens will stop them and it'll get really violent really quickly, and they know that, and also planets are turning out cheap. This is worth it for them.) I really think you're all going to come through this alive, and if that changes I will tell you.

But, since the government is expecting to be switching to robots in the next five years or so, they're going to be doing terrifying stuff. In particular: they're going to increase everyone else's credits, but not yours. They're not going to set up for permanent red districts on our colony planet, though there'll be temporary ones to serve the construction workers. Some people will probably slip up and admit in public that the long-term plan is for robots to do the red jobs. I have tried to explain to them that this is a horrible way to do it and they need to behave completely normally until we're committed to the cleaning thing and ideally until we're done with it. They're trying, kind of, but they're stupid about reds, there's a lot of 'well, we decided not to kill them, so they have nothing to be upset about' and 'who knows what'll spook them, they get set off so easily'.

I am here to answer any questions you might have so you can figure out the safest thing for you to do. I'm sorry this is all so horrible.

why weren't you allowed to tell us this?

We're 18 and finally just barely have enough money, there will be some credits, right?

how are they going to get everyone else to do the cleaning thing?

There'll be the same number of credits as always. They're just going to increase the numbers for everyone else and leave them the same for you. 

I'm not allowed to tell you this because everyone knows 'if you tell reds about robots they'll riot' and the aliens will be so so mad at them if there are riots. So they said 'okay, no one tell the reds about robots'. I tried to explain why they were missing the point but I'm kind of trying to win a lot of different fights at once right now and that didn't seem like the most important.

They're trying to get everyone to agree that the cleaning thing is good enough so that no one stops trading with us. Once everyone agrees that the cleaning thing works, the hope is that everyone else will do it because it'll be cheap and easy and lets them stop having reds without making the aliens really mad at them. Some places probably won't let their reds be normal citizens but as long as they clean you and send you off to the casteless colony planet that's good enough.

If a bunch of people do that what language will they speak on the casteless colony planet?

Maybe Anitam should charge other countries some money to take their reds and then spend it to clean them??

Charging to clean peoples' reds is a good idea, I will talk with them about it. 

The casteless colony planet is taking immigrants from everywhere. I don't know what they'll all speak. You all are allowed to stay in Anitam, though.

I'm worried my children will be afraid of the process it sounded terrifying even if they said it doesn't hurt.

Do we all get to be any caste we want? I'm not clear on how the test batch decided

The process is scary-sounding but the angels are really friendly and don't mind touching you and it doesn't hurt. I can ask if people can do it in their sleep.

Uh I think we're going to have to have politically expensive fights over prospective blues so if you want to be blue maybe talk with us about how we can come out ahead from those politically expensive fights. I think children who are not yet four have to match their dad. Otherwise, yes. Try to go something you can get a job in, it's easier to get people on board with cleaning when we can say 'and they all got jobs, no problem'. They're not very willing to consider you eligible for welfare programs.

My husband is an idiot and wouldn't do well anywhere but purple but our little girl is BRILLIANT though

What makes it so you come out ahead from political fights? Is Shasali okay?

It's kind of hard to find out what the job market is like from here

will we be safe at our jobs

That happens to clean castes too. Smart purples can found successful companies and get really rich.

Shasali's doing great and we think the benefits of having her around openly interacting with everyone outweigh the costs of getting permission for it and the stupid internet rumors. It's worth it if you're going to interact with lots of blues and yellows and leave them thinking 'yeah, that's a clean person', basically. 

I think lots of job stuff is listed online. It's okay to take a little time to find your feet.

I do not recommend telling people at your jobs that you used to be red. (Maybe if you're blue or green?) I think you'll be safe in a few years once the idea sinks in, but not right away. They will go to jail if they hurt you, though. 

 

What about the ones who own land? That's divided up a lot now but we could consolidate?

That's an easier sell. Consolidate pretty strongly, I think they'll still balk at a lot of ex-red blues.

One to a city? With an heir. Should the heirs be men who are married already or not necessarily?

With a city's worth of land they could probably find a spouse. Maybe mostly men so they can marry down if they can't, though.

They start colluding amongst themselves - "my great-great-granddaughter is the only one of the bunch I'd pick, she can marry your grandson if he doesn't do well courting blues and then their kids'll have both neighborhoods to throw around", "I'll sell you my half for an annuity under my income cap until you've paid me or my heirs out according to this guess of the value of the place qua place minus cleaning costs"...

Isel tells Aitim to make this happen.

He works on it. 

Anitam will clean another batch of reds, no one having pulled out of trade deals over the first batch.

The angels can totally work on unconscious patients.

They're not doing kids yet but that'll be good when they get to doing kids, or anyone else squeamish.

There are more purples and some oranges and yellows and greens and a couple people who are willing to go to bodyguard school and follow Shasali around.

Anitam can offer potted plants, fuzzy mammals, and media recommendations.