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There are a lot of Amentan countries. Vanda Nossëo representatives are dispatched to all of them. These Elves (two with black hair, one with silver) take a shuttle down from the lightleaper to a country called Calado, and radio ahead to request permission to land at a elegant modern spaceport.
okay by comparison Voa and Tapa look like thriving modern democracies
"...not really. It's a character defense - it means you're probably not going to go around towing ships out of the sky and holding their crews prisoner under other circumstances - but the point of section 43 is that everyone know that if they run across one of our people, and they hurt them, there'll be a prosecution. If some tourist accidentally wanders across a border and gets tortured to death the court doesn't want to let the perp off because that country doesn't have a law against torturing aliens, and that's the principle the law is written around. It would matter if they'd been acting threatening, of course, but by the transcripts they were just requesting permission to leave."
"...powerful aliens show up and want to do stuff but won't be specific even after there's only one faction talking to 'em?"
"In Calado would it be, like, helpful to kidnap someone, so that then they're spared deciding which, uh, faction to speak to?"
"We didn't hurt 'em. One time my grandpa yanked a new ambassador from someplace into a senator's office when they were confused and the ambassador thanked him later."
"To the Elves it looks like - they've got no evidence this person is even a Senator, they've got no assurances on how any explanation they give will be disseminated or that it'll be represented reasonably accurately, as long as they're being held their captor is actually in a position to claim any number of things about what they've told her... 'I'll consult my superiors about that and get back to you' is a reasonable answer and 'no you won't' is very scary."
"Could offer to testify that the problems all arose from her non-communication about the nature of the situation and her persistence in not releasing them once it became apparent they were not willing to offer comment, in exchange for charges against her subordinates being dropped?"
"We could offer to have you testify in her trial, in exchange for the court dropping their complaint with you."
"It's an option. If I knew what you consider the best possible outcome here, and what you consider a bad outcome, I could strategize better."
"I'm not sure that'll help. Before his grace showed up to rescue the other Elves I just wanted my paycheck and my permissions and to go home, right, but..."
"But now there are lots of places you could emigrate to if you'd rather, and this big confusing system that doesn't run at all like Calado..."
"Yeah. And like, most people don't try to get out of Calado but that's because it's all by swap, it's really hard to find anyone who'll move there. Rich retirees, sometimes, if they like hot weather."
"You could take the illegal orders class some other place, get a free translation effect from the court so you can manage in the class, see if you like that place?"