Hahahaaaaa holy shit is it seasonable? Opinions are divided on whether that's the only possible thing that could make this better - some people think it would be better if nobody lived there even though that would be less interesting, and some people think that hurricanes are not inevitable in habitable planets that accordingly have weather and think they could do without those, but everyone agrees that it would at least be an improvement, if the place is seasonable.

It has seasons. The year is 454 days long, give or take some hours. A lot of the landmass is equatorial though. A solid majority of it, even.

Do the natives seem to like living at the equator?

Sure. They're kind of everywhere vaguely arable. They like coasts and rivers a lot. Less dense right up close to the poles.

Then they will not have an inevitable conflict over living space! Lots of equator for natives to gradually concentrate in as the carrying capacity of the planet is improved with Amentan technology. Win win.

Definitely no radio?

No radio is in evidence.

They will just have to pick someplace to land, then. What have they got that's:

- neither equatorial nor polar, so they can get data soonest on seasonability
- prosperous, but maybe having some kind of acute problem Amentans can help with - probably not a hurricane in particular, that wants buildout in advance, but if they've got an earthquake or a tornado that wants S&R followed by rebuilding that would be perfect
- not having any conflicts with its neighbors that are obvious from space (some factions want to find a conflict that is obvious from space and back a side, so they keep an eye out for that too)

The storm season is obscuring things a lot but...

There are wildfires in a likely seeming part of the west half of the main continent.

The southeast side of the biggest secondary continent is maybe having some sort of mass forest die off situation?

There's also some sort of border standoff situation just west of the big mountain range. Stone forts and walls and patrols, no active fighting. Same situation in a few other places, but it's most obvious there.

There is a vigorous debate and then the forest dieoff site wins. Landing party is go. (Air OK?)

The air is Amentan-compatible, and no storm is affecting this region right now.

There are three town-ish settlements (river, copper mine, and university(?)) and a bunch of little building clusters in the patch of die-off.

They land near the ?university? because, to the aliens, they're the aliens, and university types will find them the most interesting, probably, and it allows them to tailor their pitch slightly before news is all up and down the river.

Up close, a lot of the plants and animals here are really aesthetically something. Flower clusters form gentle rainbows. The grain in that field is shimmering pale purple. That bird has enormous iridescent head feathers. The bark of that tree forms neat little swirl patterns. That vine is braided. It's like a video game fairyland.

...Where it's not dead, anyway.

The university town is a big cluster of stone and wood buildings. There are a lot of little gardens and shrines around. Relatively little window glass, mostly wooden shutters.

The first responders to the shuttle are a big cluster of aliens who were playing some sort of ball game, even as more look out of windows and start coming outside curiously. 

They have a head and two arms and two legs, are around the same height as amentans, and have a sort of almost dog-like snout, extending their mouth and nose forward on their face a bit. They have thick hair covering much of their limbs and some of their necks or backs, as well as much of their heads. They have large pointed, swiveling ears like those on foxes or cats, and tails- Long, flexible, and fluffy tails apparently dexterous enough to hold things. Most of this group has one tail, but a few have two. Most of this group is dressed in light clothing in what seems to be two team colors. They also follow the weird almost fairyland type aesthetics. Bright colors, visual flourishes, and very intensely symmetrical bodies and faces.

They huddle and chatter at each other as one large group, slowly approaching the shuttle.

The door opens and out steps a landing party: greys, greens, a blue, a yellow. The blue told them all not to show their teeth - might read as hostile to these toothy folks.

One of the greens is excitedly taking pictures. The blue waves with a big broad gesture.

After a bit more huddled discussion and some checking of pockets and a couple of backpacks, two of the two-tailed people step forward and smile - there is a difference between a smile and a snarl, even with pointed faces - and wave.

They approach, each with a wooden bowl in hand, one with water and one with some of the purple grain.

"We welcome you, guests, to the world Iwami, to the region of Jo, to the area of Naimak's Pride, to the town of Arkens University. You may take water and grain if you wish."

And then they hold out the bowls for a moment. Then lower them again. Hospitality ceremony completed, the one holding the water points to the sky and gasps dramatically before gesturing at the shuttle. "You are from another world?"

They're taking this in stride! A green takes point and points at the shuttle, too, repeating that last sentence.

You know, she kind of always expected the legendary visitors who travel from world to world in falling stars would speak the same language as her, for some reason. But what does she know, she's just the oldest one present here and therefore nominated to take the lead by default. She's just a two-tail farmer, like most two-tails.

"We," point self, "Are from the world Iwami." Point down. "You," point at the group of aliens at large, "Are from the world...?" Point up.

Now the thing about language learning is that it's not magic. For example, is this person's name "we", or is it the species name, or a pronoun, or a title? But they seem amenable to offering local words instead of demanding Tapap ones, so an elicitation is probably looking for a proper noun, not "sky" or "space" or "far away" in Tapap.

"Amenta!"

"Amenta!"

...She focuses on her half-remembered sailing lessons. Everyone learns navigation when they get their second tail. Even if you're not going to sail. And that includes maps.

"Some one*, bring me my chalk and slate!" She calls back to the crowd, which is murmuring 'Amenta' to each other.

A black slate and pink stick of chalk is delivered to her. "Kassam, I'm going to draw Iwami. You keep talking."

She starts drawing. A circle and then a somewhat distorted projection of the major landmasses of the planet.

In the meantime, the other two tail shrugs, then will engage in the pointing and naming game. "Tree. Water." And so on.

*Not a typo. "Some - number" is a phrase referring to "any person with [number] of tails".

The Amentan team is in tight contact with more greens on the mothership and will never forget a word. They do have accents, though, and verbs and grammatical particles are harder than names and nouns, especially since boundaries between words are pretty opaque to a novice. Tree, water. Numbers? Colors?

Colors, sure. One through nine-

-Like people at a university tend to do, a brief academic discussion breaks out, with more slates and writing samples brought forth. It seems there are two sets of numbers in use and this is in some way contentious. A set of nine with weird notations for larger quantities, and a base ten place system set. These use different words and characters, but do both refer to numbers. And the word 'death' can also mean 'zero', apparently.

(Some of the initial group has sort of peeled back off, more watching the shuttle than participating in the conversation. And the first speaker has finished her map sketch by now. And also, a new group is approaching from university-wards at walking pace, including some locals with three and four tails each, dressed quite fancy-in-comparison.)

Do they have a tail-number-based caste system? Well, at least they don't seem to expect the Amentans to have tails. They use their hair as example colors.

Three or four whole huge, long, fluffy tails seem to be nontrivially impeding the few locals who have them. They move slowly and carefully and certainly do seem to have others deferring to them.

These better dressed and more tailed folks would like to gently take over the conversation. They seem quite patient and will do language exchange work for a while, trying to start learning a bit of the visitors' language, too. They're quite patient and do not push to get into any non-academic topics. 

(Twos and threes are writing things down on paper. Lots of people come watch, hanging out looking at the shuttle from a respectful distance and talking to each other. Some one tails come lay out colorful blankets and cushions and then, a bit later, lunch consisting mostly of purple-lilac porridge. Some is offered a bit hesitantly to the Amentans, too.)

The visitors will provide vocabulary for things that won't have any local words like "space shuttle" and "pocket everything", and their names, but they do expect to be better at learning the - what's the language here called? - than the locals are at Tapap, because of their friends in the sky and their computer assistance.

They're not going to hastily eat the porridge but they would love samples to do analysis on if that's okay!

They're calling the language "Iwa-talk". Iwa being the regional name for the upper part of this landmass.

They can have some. It's a gift, so it's theirs to do whatever they want with, of course. (But it does seem to be... Some kind of faux pas, or at least some kind of disconnect. Someone tells a joke about food using a lot of unfamiliar words and yipping chuckles go around.)

Are they not going to eat anything? You're supposed to eat at meal times, you know. -Oh, of course, the meal times must not line up, duh.

If they want to watch Amentans eat the Amentans can go get some food, they did bring some. They don't think the locals should have it, though they are apologetic about this. Amentan food is not Iwami food.