It All Started With Magnets

.45.

Three weeks later

Getting over eight hundred people settled properly took time. A lot of fucking time. We had to get more pre-fab housing units set up, we had numerous language specialists working with everyone to ensure languages were translated properly, translators had to be updated and implanted. Which surprisingly had gone well, no one had put up too much of a fuss. Armaan had been one of the first to volunteer and he had insisted because it had been his idea to come to Torin.

The look on his face when the translator took and he realized he could understand the aliens had been hilarious. But the minute he got over it, he had been completely unstoppable. He had all but cornered Loril-ee to talk all sorts of science with her that I barely understood. Loril had been absolutely thrilled with it and those two had been nearly inseparable since Armaan had been able to understand her. Which was sweet, their growing friendship was just straight up adorable.

But it had been a crazy time trying to get everything settled. There had been eight hundred and seventeen people who landed on Torin and it had been a big enough group that every single council had gotten involved and we actually had daily meetings with the Supreme Council. That had been hectic. We had to figure out a way to bring the individuals into the Galactic Union prior to an agreement with the home planet. It hadn't really happened since the grog so we had to go back into the archives to see what the procedure had been there.

Once we had that, we had gone over it, looked over everything, and then used it as a base. Our tentative agreement was, we would give each human one trial year of living on whichever alien planet they wished, under supervision, where they would abide by the rules outlined through the Citizens Agreement of the GU, would be given a monthly stipend to help them live on the planet of their choosing. Then after the year was up, if they wished to remain part of the GU, they would need to have aptitude testing done, would have a choice of job placements, educational plans if required, and would need to sign up to be a GU citizen. That didn't mean they renounced their home planet, just that they agreed to be a part of the GU and abide by their rules.

I honestly thought it was more than fair, I also knew most people on earth would think it was honestly a deal people would be hard pressed to refuse. A year of free living on an alien planet where you could start a new life, free education, and then doing what you were passionate about or super good at? Yah, it was almost a no brainer. That wasn't even including the advancements in technology and healthcare.

But with the 'Temporary Human Citizen Agreement' drawn up and agreed upon by all the councils, we brought it to the eight hundred people, gave individual interviews, explained it, and every single one of them signed up. There had only been a handful that asked if they were barred from returning to earth if they signed. Which the answer was a resounding no. It had been discussed that even if they decided to return to earth, if they obtained a GU citizenship, they would retain that citizenship and travel freely to any territory of the GU if they wished. Just bearing in mind that until the actual Accords were signed with earth, they were not allowed to bring any of the technology back to earth or they would lose their citizenship and would be barred from regaining it. I honestly thought it was the best arrangement there could possibly be.

So the humans were being integrated. Which was amazing for me to see. When I had come, I had the Council of Torin and the scientists helping me so we really worked hard to ensure that every human could be paired up with an alien or aliens as a social group to help them navigate their new lives on Torin. Once we had sent out the tentative question, we had thousands of respondents saying that they absolutely wanted to help out the humans and their homes and lives were open to whichever human they could be paired with. Which did bring a bigger logistical problem of matching humans and aliens appropriately. We had them write down their hobbies and interests and thank god Loril-ee and At'kat had been able to run some programs where it sorted them out into possible matches. We gave each one a week once they had been matched to see if they fit well together and if they didn't then we would try again.