high-energy physics

[warpfairy]

Federation political prisons are not particularly uncomfortable. She's not going anywhere, but she can read, she's considering taking up an instrument, the only really awkward thing is that she doesn't particularly want to be supervised while she's sweating her way through her next pon farr one way or another but that's years off. That and she wishes she'd taken longer to get caught. But she was running out of the really low-hanging fruit anyway.

This is what she signed up for. She makes up imaginary profiles of people on the planets she got to, people who can live longer fuller lives with the stars in reach, one per day. One per day and she'll have loads of estimated impact left unused when she dies. Perfectly reasonable tradeoff and she can still read books.

Someone wants to interview her about Vulcan; they don't want to lose anything that anybody remembers; she gives the interview and then picks up some poetry.

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

"Yyyyyeah. Serious culture design challenge."

[lintamande]

He shrugs. "We'll figure it out."

[subtly_artistic]

"We probably want to start with people known to someone who's already integrated. My parents can vouch for some people, say."

[lintamande]

"Good idea. And then they will hopefully adopt the norms of the surrounding society - if a single elf came through, maybe one who didn't like their system, would they have to adopt it here? Could they have a different attitude?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Oh, yeah, they vary plenty - and most of my exposure was to college-age elves, they seem to mellow out a lot after they hit their hundredth birthdays, there's a thing where stuff they do before that doesn't 'count' as far as other elves are concerned anyway. I think that's purely cultural and some of them start acting like serious adults when they're in their twenties same as humans."

[lintamande]

"Then doing it by recommendation of others seems wise."

[subtly_artistic]

"And then all we have to worry about is the people who keep their unsavory habits secret from their friends, which I'm sure nobody does, ever," she sighs.

[lintamande]

"We can read minds."

[subtly_artistic]

"I don't - I don't want to make that a condition, if we can think of any other way... Also Materia has subtle artists besides me, they could hedge you out or plant false thoughts..."

[lintamande]

"I don't like having criteria at all." He frowns. "Hmm."

[subtly_artistic]

"I am sure there is at least one dragon who wants to live in a science fantasy world and I would view that desire very carefully."

[lintamande]

"Dragons are all amoral?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Probably not. And noble dragons keep their promises - I don't think they metaphysically have to like with Quendi oaths, but they just in fact do - so I might let one of those in if it promised to be law-abiding and I thought we had the right law set for sure. Dragons are just the kind of thing that may eat you in proxy of the universe if you fuck up, and I'm not totally easy about - letting them out?"

[lintamande]

"Yeah. Very much so. It's your world, I'll defer to your judgment."

[subtly_artistic]

"There's not very many dragons, anyway, it's probably not a bad plan to add one species at a time and allow a while to adjust every time."

[lintamande]

He nods. "Starting with humans?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Already got one and a half."

[lintamande]

"And they don't seem to have species-wise proclivities to murder or dependence on other species, so. I'm very glad Valinor didn't get a nymph thrown at us."

[subtly_artistic]

"...the poor nymph. I mean, the Valar could have sent her back... or maybe somebody would have wanted to marry her smart quick, nymphs sometimes do get married..."

[lintamande]

"I am very sure that if she needed to be married to stay alive someone would have married her, but it doesn't seem exactly ideal for either party. Probably the Valar would have sent her back."

[subtly_artistic]

"Yeah. Honestly I'm not sure we'll get any nymph immigration to speak of, Mother Khaele might disapprove and they're all hers."

[lintamande]

"I do not think we should let Materia's gods immigrate even if they're so inclined."

[subtly_artistic]

"Yeah. They can stay put."

[lintamande]

"Will they?"

[subtly_artistic]

"...Probably. I mean, they'd lose their being-epic universe-enforced protection, if they left..."