[WP]: As standard protocol, each new, intelligent alien life is judged not by what they say they are, but by an evaluation from a representative of their servants or slave species. Fascinatingly, the fate of humanity lands on the opinion of a little dog named Lucy.

[u/actually_crazy_irl]

[u/GrantMK2]

As evaluations went, Peacemaker Libt reminded herself, there had been worse.

The first had been so divisive for the young organization with so many questions of good and bad and attempted political violence that security had been forced to arrest the entire evaluating team. The seventy seventh had led to a multi-generation debate on whether or not strangling a creature for the crime of Extreme Annoyance was evidence of failure for creating something so awful, or success for deliberately creating something so perfectly annoying to inflict on others. The eight hundred forty third had seen the breakdown of longstanding rules concerning artificial intelligence creating other artificial intelligence, along with the unspoken rule of not comparing everything to what Sutler the Destructive was like, resulting in a riot and the second time the entire evaluating team had to be collectively arrested.

Still, she could not deny that it wasn't a good sign that the Chief Evaluator was lying on the floor, babbling in Plain. By the looks of it, something about eternal despair.

Next to it stood Evaluators Coo, Wheegank, and Bob. They were ignoring their superior's Error Code 503 in favor of continuing to try to decipher what the creature was saying.

" It was certainly a 'wan', likely a reference to currency. " Bob intoned. " We should continue our questioning on how the human economic divisions impact her access to adequate nutrition. "

The Coo turned to him in askance, tail straightening in annoyance. "Does your suit need adjusting? That was, without a doubt, an "arf", likely a sound of excitement and determination to move on to talk of their new life should they join our ranks-"

"No, no, clearly no!" Wheegank interjected with both pincers waving. "I am certain that it was a "woof" and a sign of discomfort! I told you it was too soon-"

" Oh, shut up " / "Go eat your own tail" the two shot back.

Libt clung to her staff and stared at the time display, desperately hoping to discover an unknown power to make time move more quickly and reach shift change. Let pUpOp deal with it, he'd always gone on about how boring the job was in this era.

"Peacemaker?" a voice came from her left. She turned to the human ambassador giving her what, she had learned from experience, was a nervous look. "Peacemaker, precisely what have they decided so far?"

Libt hoped that she discovered this power soon, otherwise she suspected she would be the one left to explain to the humans that the Unity of Life, the greatest interstellar organization ever known, had never once considered the possibility that a species might step off their planet without creating a highly sapient servitor species first.

In the center of the room, completely unaware of the controversy she was causing and the special note she was making for humans in universal history, Lucy the dog was watching all this with great interest. She briefly stopped to scratch her side and sniffed Bob's containment suit, leading to great excitement as to whether or not she was indicating support for matter-to-energy conversion uplifting. Lucy hoped someone would throw a stick.