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defrogI am in the Old Man’s War universe, on a diplomatic team that negotiates deals with alien races. We are on a mission to meet with the Sorvath, who look something like Groot, except they’re not plants.
My boss is agitated because the Sorvath are very formal and have very strict requirements, and he wants to butter them up by presenting them with gifts. He tells me this particular negotiation will only go well if we can present the Sorvath with some very specific items: a collection of music from a late-80s Earth band called Caterwaul, and a James Bond coloring book. He’s never heard of Caterwaul, and he has no idea where we’re going to find a James Bond coloring book.
I don’t see what the big deal is. I open iTunes and download Caterwaul’s three-album discography, then Google up some scans of the coloring book and print them out. I show them to my supervisor and he relaxes. We present them to the Sorvath ambassador. She is rather pleased, and we start hanging out.
It's only later in the dream that I discover the Sorvath’s requests aren’t random selections from Earth pop culture – the song lyrics and the coloring book images and captions correspond with the details of our mission. It turns out the Sorvath ambassador is secretly warning us of a plot by her government to instigate an incident and pin it on our team. They think this will out them in a better negotiating position, but the actual result could be a full-on war.
And then I woke up.
Diplomatic,
This is dF
My boss is agitated because the Sorvath are very formal and have very strict requirements, and he wants to butter them up by presenting them with gifts. He tells me this particular negotiation will only go well if we can present the Sorvath with some very specific items: a collection of music from a late-80s Earth band called Caterwaul, and a James Bond coloring book. He’s never heard of Caterwaul, and he has no idea where we’re going to find a James Bond coloring book.
I don’t see what the big deal is. I open iTunes and download Caterwaul’s three-album discography, then Google up some scans of the coloring book and print them out. I show them to my supervisor and he relaxes. We present them to the Sorvath ambassador. She is rather pleased, and we start hanging out.
It's only later in the dream that I discover the Sorvath’s requests aren’t random selections from Earth pop culture – the song lyrics and the coloring book images and captions correspond with the details of our mission. It turns out the Sorvath ambassador is secretly warning us of a plot by her government to instigate an incident and pin it on our team. They think this will out them in a better negotiating position, but the actual result could be a full-on war.
And then I woke up.
Diplomatic,
This is dF
no subject
on 2020-05-14 05:13 pm (UTC)