Doing diplomatic work on Terra is like waking up drunk on the floor of a flat you have never seen before, wearing soone else's pants, with only one shoe, missing your shirt, with a half empty bottle of narcobrew in your hand and your datalink telling you that you have an incoming vid-call for a job. - Dreams of Sothing More, Mantid Diplomat, Second Precursor War
Ensuring that he was expressing pleasure, Violet Flowers Line Paths to Peace straightened up and nodded to the technician. The gold Mantid, Finds Peace in the Maelstrom, who was Violet's lead assistant, looked a bit worried but kept it to herself.
The technician nodded back, his face invisible behind a featureless white mask of a Terran face, and pressed the button.
There was a chi and the large holotank in front of Violet powered up. The holofield was blue, easily large enough for a ground car to be parked in, with silver and red text down the side displaying resolution, power, bandwidth, and contents.
The tank sat silent for a mont.
Violet waited patiently.
A figure rezzed into being. A Terran made entirely out of code, whose face looked slightly stubborn, careworn lines around their eyes and the corners of their mouths. Slightly behind him and to the right a figure appeared, mostly in shadow. It had the head of a tesem, a Terran body, and was clad in a knee length skirt-like garnt that had gold and copper and bronze plates and decorations. The canine-headed being has a necklace that covered most of the upper chest and featured two discs representing the sun.
"Honorable Gestalt," Violet said, expressing humility and pleasure. "And?"
"Anpu the tpy-djuf," the man of code said. His voice was flat, expressionless.
Violet knew that the Terran's voice was flat to hide anger, not out of an inability to express emotion.
"I greet you, Anpu," Violet said.
The canine headed Terran rely nodded.
"You requested to see ," the Terran Gestalt said slowly. "Why?"
"You are the amalgamation of the consensus of humanity. Not just Terrans, but Earthlings, Humans, and more. From the digital to the artificial biologic, you are the consensus. They trust you with their thoughts, feelings, and opinions," Violet said. "I have talked to diplomats, researchers, and others. I've been on talk shows and interviews," Violet motioned at Finds Peace in the Maelstrom, "My assistant has also been touring the talk shows and news opinion and interview shows."
The Terran just nodded, his face still expressionless.
"However, anything I say to the population of Terra, the population of the Sol System, undergoes who knows how many editors and censors," Violet said. "Several tis interviews have been edited so that it appeared that I made a statent diatrically opposed to my true statent."
The Terran nodded. "Yeah, that happens," he gave a short, rough chuckle. "You think you hate journalists enough, but you really don't."
Violet nodded.
The Terran made of code stared at him for a long mont. "And?"
Violet put up an emoji of a thoughtful face between his antenna. "I wished to speak with you, to the human overall conscious gestalt."
The Terran of code frowned. "Instead, you're just going to stare at ?"
Violet carefully waved one bladearm in negation. "No. I am rely taking stock of you. In your appearance, in how your code flows, in your expression and body language, as well as tone and word choice."
The Terran lifted the side of one lip in a sneer. "And what have you learned?"
Violet expressed pleasure and put up an emoji of a greenie in a graduation cap. "You are rightfully angry, having expected
to imdiately demand that you turn over the afterlife records of all non-Terran sentients to their respective species governnts. You brought along a representative of the dead to hear my validations and justifications of why those people should have to be turned over to their species."
Violet combed one antenna. "You were ready to be belligerent, as you are still angry that the other gestalt's first thought was not 'wow, thank you for extending such a literal miracle achieved through technology to us, so that we know that we continue once our allotted lifespan has empty, but rather they demanded that you return the deceased in order to use them to make the lives of the living easier."
"Yes," the Terran said.
"You history, like every other sentient being, is replete with slavery. From basic 'Ugg spare you now you do work Ugg no want to' to the Corporate Town to the Company Store to debt slavery, every species has bloody appendages where this subject is concerned," Violet stated. "Only, it wasn't that long ago for you."
"No," the Terran said. "The Fourth Biological Sentience War happened after the founding of the Confederacy. The Mithril Nebula and Clownface Nebula Conflicts are within living mory for us."
Violet nodded again, cleaning his other antenna. "Your own potential for such things makes you all the more sensitive to it."
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The Terran nodded. "Perhaps."
"It is the official policy of "We Live Here Now and Enjoy This Place as a Bastion of Goodness
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