You:You pull up a chair and sit down for a chat. The good doctor is more than happy to have someone to talk shop with.##(They also explain that they're genderfluid, so you may encounter shifting pronouns. In the IRL, that's more common than you'd think.)
Info:So! How do you want to spend your evening?|Ask about xeno-sociology=4^Ask about the space program=8^Ask about petting their fluffy wuffy head=20^Go to sleep=25

Dr. Xlookup:Xenosociology, you learn, is the study of alien societies. Drawing from fields like speculative astrobiology and applied exopsychology, it concerns itself with the investigation of social structures formed by non-human minds.##Basically{ We live in a society, yes, but what if that society... °was in space?%|How does that work? You can't actually go to space, right?=6^Ok cool=2

Dr. Xlookup:Well... without a space program, there's no real way to do empirical research. There are theories and frameworks, but no real way to test them, for now. At most you can apply the toolsets used when making contact with isolated terrestrial communities. Oh, and simulations, of course.|I see=2

Dr. Xlookup:Ah, yes. That is, admittedly, a bit of a sore spot. You settle in for a history lesson about the space program.##In short{ There currently isn't one.
IRL:NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, CNSA... the space agencies were all liquidated during the economic meltdown of the '30s. They were bought up by a group of private investors, led by the iconoclastic >Dirk Probalo.~ He merged them into a new for-profit spaceflight company, called >SpaceExchange.~
IRL:The first thing they did was to assert copyright. All their data was proprietary, they declared, and so they took down all previously published works, scrubbing public archives clean of data and blueprints. After that, they launched a few satellites, and... well, that was really the last thing anyone heard from them.
IRL:Their data still exists in a >digital vault.~ We have a copy, but it's encrypted.##Breaking the encryption, or somehow figuring out the password, would let us >resume the space program.~ Without access to the data, Xee admits, we'd have to start over from the 1970s. There isn't really funding for that.
Dr. Xlookup:It's a huge bummer, basically!|Dang=2
--






CAT:You may. Xee sits on your lap, nestles in against your chest, and offers their head for petting. The synthetic fur is warm and soft, and the shiny white material of their clothes is pleasantly smooth.##You learn that, back in grad school, Xee worked part-time as Companionship & Assistance Technology. So they're very good at being soft and purring, yes.|Excellent=2




You:That's enough exposition for today, you decide. You thank Xee for the exposition, and head off to bed. You're still pretty jetlagged, so you fall asleep rather quickly.##You dream about a cat riding on a space shuttle.
