Can the SNP and the Greens find a way to work together that suits both parties and works for the country?
They're in talks to find out, and in some ways it's low risk for both sides. The Greens just got their best ever result, and the SNP have proved they don't need a majority to get things done.
The risks for both sides are clear, too. Other smaller parties, without naming names, have really suffered by going into coalition with people their voters don't trust.
The SNP's dinosaurs don't like the idea of action to curb climate emissions, to limit the powers of landlords, or to put workers' interests ahead of bosses. Some have become hostile to the push for LGBT+ rights, and others have actively pushed for policies which have deepened our biodiversity crisis.
However, it's obvious that the dinosaurs' day has passed, including presumably to the First Minister, and many of them in any case left for Salmond's doomed vanity project.
The benefits for both sides in any agreement are also pretty obvious.
The SNP would rather have Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie inside the tent during the Glasgow climate conference this year, helping Scotland look like one of those modern European countries where Greens regularly serve in government. It maybe also suits the FM to sideline those remaining dinosaurs.
For the Greens, there's a limit to what they can get done through annual budget talks, much as their base loves free bus travel for young people, the eviction ban, the end to hare culling and all the rest.
The climate crisis requires more radicalism that can be delivered by any opposition party, even one which punches so far beyond its weight that it makes the Tories in particular spit feathers. And Green members tend to be personally pretty warm about the First Minister, not least because of the shared independence agenda.
Sooner or later, if you want a fairer low-carbon Scotland you need to be able to instruct civil servants to act - and "later" won't do in a crisis. Moving quickly to secure the economic opportunities of decarbonisation is key, remembering how we lost the early wind-power market to Denmark and then China.
It's also apparent that the First Minister herself has really started to grasp the need for more urgent action on the climate, on economic justice, and on LGBT+ equality. The Salmond dream of Scotland as an oil-fuelled tax haven is being consigned to history one way or another.
The Greens are the obvious partners for this project, although there are elements of this agenda where a broader front is already being pulled together, starting with Labour. Their new MSPs seem more committed to the kind of trans-inclusive feminist policies the Green membership would need to see from any agreement, too.
These talks may yet break down, and there's a long way to go. Compromises will be required, agreement will be difficult on tax and transport, and it's possible the Green leadership will come back with proposals which the membership can't swallow. Equally, the SNP may still have too many dinosaurs in key places to stomach a transition to a zero carbon Scotland.
But if they can pull it off, we might see the most radical and effective government Scotland has ever had, an administration that genuinely sets an example for our friends and neighbours, which is committed to nature restoration and tenants' rights, to LGBT+ liberation and transformative green infrastructure. Sounds pretty tempting.
James Mackenzie works in PR and is a former Head of Media for the Scottish Greens
