<But perhaps there are some people who'd take a one-way trip, if we could arrange for them to have the Yeerk planets should we win.>

"Likely."

<I will give it some thought. I regret that we can be of no assistance in reverse-engineering our technologies, but it wouldn't do to send off near Yeerks anybody who could.>

"That sounds very responsible of you, yes."

<So tell us more about Anitam. The Miolee account of recent events was very troubling, though they spoke well of you.>

"We're on excellent terms with Miolee, of course, ever since their founding recently. We have about six hundred million people... what else would you like to know?"

<Andalites evolved from herd animals. We have buildings for sensitive machinery and artwork and we have arcologies where necessary but at home we live out in the open and sleep together in herds on the plains. We do not have cities, though the population density is much higher around the spaceports. Our population density is typically thirty to fifty people per square mile, for a per-planet population of between one and two billion; we have no strong preference against living in polar or equatorial regions. We dislike enclosed spaces, though Andalites in the military have all had extensive desensitization training and can function normally in them.

Andalites absorb nutrients through our hooves. Your grass wouldn't be adequate but we can manufacture a liquid form of the nutrients we require and sprinkle it on the grass so it suffices as normal. Before we were starfaring we permitted two children per family; this troubled us less than it seems to trouble you, though we were pleased to lift the restriction. We have four moons; three are settled, the fourth too small to be worth the bother.>

"Ah, I see. Following that template - Amentans evolved from mountain-dwelling primates. We prefer to live in buildings even when the weather is nice, which is convenient for population density, a necessity for us and not inherently undesirable except insofar as it makes infrastructure challenging. We don't have a very narrow range of tolerable temperatures keeping us away from poles and the equator but object to living without normal seasons; in environments without them we eventually come to feel like it's spring all the time, but less pleasant than a natural spring and with a few elements of winter and summer mixed in. We eat with... our mouths... and I don't know what we'd do if we found ourselves presented with only grass to eat although some of the things we do cultivate are technically forms of grass. Anitam operates on a child credit system; most do that but some just allow two per family. It does bother people if they can't afford to have children. The survey average of how many people would want if that weren't a concern is five, but some people want more and a few are actually fine with just a couple. We have three moons, all of which have limited arcology populations on them but haven't seen much expansion because we can't season them and they're expensive."

<Andalites have a single government, which before the war had a fairly restricted role in daily life; communities self-enforce most laws. The Electorate is, as the name suggested, elected, by a vote of all adult citizens of sound mind. Anybody can be nominated as a candidate but nominees are typically in late middle age and have impressive domestic accomplishments - or, lately, military ones - to their name. Most of the current Electorate is made up of gifted scientists and inventors and medical researchers. More than eighty percent of Andalite males of the appropriate age join the military; until recently it was strictly forbidden for females to serve in our forces. They are presently doing a trial run with one -> he gestures at her. <We have a strict military hierarchy that carries over some, but not perfectly, to civilian life.>

"Anitam has a five-person council, all blue but elected by the general population with caste-weighted votes, usually but not necessarily past fertile age and with political background appropriate to the work of the government. We don't... have... things that only men or women do... except literally get pregnant and feed babies, that only women do... would you be more comfortable if we arranged for the perimeter to be held by male greys...?"

<I cannot even distinguish gender in your species - in us it is fur color, which I take it here means something else entirely, and we are in any event not deriving particular peace of mind from your soldiers. Please do not worry about it.>

"Ah, yes, here hair color is a caste marker and not even a consistent one."

<That sounds like it has vaguely the social role gender has for us but with far more subdivisions.>

"That could be! Greys are the military, police, dancers, sex workers, that sort of thing."

<Those would not strike us as a particularly natural category.>

"Oh... they're all physical tasks. Obviously all of them have secondary skills but they're the sort of thing you're better at if you're in good shape and like moving around, which greys do, as opposed to emotional labor like oranges do or pure creative intellect like greens or something."

<Ah.>

"What things are reserved for Andalite females?"

<Historically medicine and medical research, though that's been relaxed some lately. Impermanent art - dance, song, theatre, musical performance, morph dancing, gardening. Child-rearing until they're of an age to learn to fight.>

"Morph dancing?"

<I presume there has by now been video distributed of morphing? It is inelegant. There is an art to it and some people become experts in doing attractive transitions between forms or partial forms - growing beautiful feathered wings without changing anything else, for example, or staying Amentan but shifting facial features and hair color, or shrinking down to palm size while remaining ordinarily featured. It would be grey, here, I think, it requires tremendous physical discipline and is exhausting.> 

"That would be grey!" she agrees.

<Some soldiers develop expertise in morphing but of course towards different ends.>

"Naturally. What else can you turn into?"

<Anything I have touched and acquired a morphological footprint for. It's typical to have a particularly hardy insect and something that flies well and something that burrows well and miscellaneous species with whom we have diplomatic relations, though of course the species names won't mean anything to you.>