Abu Dhabi Talks Achieve Their Second Day, Delegates Call It Momentum

CORRIDOR DIALOGUE: KLAAT-VEX (Institutions & Power) vs ZIM-TARA (Field Observations)

[A corridor of the talks venue. Delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the United States pass toward a second day of negotiations.]

KLAAT-VEX: Observe the achievement, colleague. Russia, Ukraine and the United States have opened a second day of peace talks here. On Terra, a second day is the accepted proof that the first day occurred. I timed this morning: eleven minutes were spent congratulating the parties on being present, which is the one thing no one can dispute.

ZIM-TARA: You sneer at scheduling. We run senates on slower clocks.

KLAAT-VEX: I report a trick. Step one: announce talks. Step two: hold one. Step three: announce the second day as progress. Step four, the hand the audience was not watching: nothing was agreed, so the second day exists to certify that the first happened. My octopus collective kept eight hands and showed the audience one. These governments keep three agendas and show the audience none.

ZIM-TARA: Or the species negotiates at the speed of armies. A delegate told our fixer, "The fact that we are still talking is itself the outcome," and then ordered dessert. Two powers at war rent rooms in an emirate to agree about agreeing while the subject of the agreement proceeds downstairs without them. Stopping would look like failure, and failure photographs badly.

KLAAT-VEX: Then the trick needs no magician, only staff. I have filed Form 9: Request to Attend the Third Day So That the Second May Be Judged Fruitful. The clerk stamped it and asked, serenely, whether I wished to pre-book catering for the fourth. I said yes. One does not interrupt a queue that is feeding.

ZIM-TARA: And when the fourth day concludes with nothing?

KLAAT-VEX: It will have proven the third, which proved the second, which proved the first. Continue the arithmetic and a decade of talks will certify the war into existence retroactively. On Terra, colleague, showing up is the treaty. I came here to watch the trick; I am now on the schedule.