They would like to start with arresting him. (He warns his security fake-purple.)

Vanda Nossëo notifies them that Soyok's House is under their protection and that aggression against it will not be tolerated.

Soldiers find themselves back on someone else's property. With modeling-clay weapons and sticky notes that say the same thing.

Yvalta says they didn't join Vanda Nossëo and treason is illegal.

Soyok's House joined Vanda Nossëo as a polity of more than one million people in its own right.

It's not a polity, it's a House. The householders' citizenship is Yvaltan.

As precedent there's this case from a world where this empire'd conquered everywhere and the exiled princess of what was now a segment of the empire snuck dressed as a peasant to the shuttleport and then to Vanda Nossëo and then petitioned for her kingdom to become a member state. They said she had to meaningfully administer her kingdom, so she went back to it and demonstrated that laws she passed (conveyed in secret to her people) were still obeyed, and they said she had to have clearly delineated and enforced borders, so in the night one day her loyalists went out to the old borders and marked them all with orange paint and made their stand there prepared to die enforcing their borders and at that point Vanda Nossëo said "...fine."

There are a lot of movies about the princess. She's very popular.

Soyok's contractors aren't loyalists with orange paint, they're contractors.

The borders look pretty clearly delineated and enforced. 

They aren't borders, they're ordinary property lines enforced by Yvaltan federal agreements that Vanda Nossëo is now violating.

"We're really not in the habit of turning away well-organized peoples with internal governance and law-enforcement who want to join. We regret the inconvenience."

The treason. It's that.

To complete the membership process Soyok needs to hold a free and fair vote and allow the signatories to these particular contracts that don't meet galactic standards to withdraw if they see fit without penalty. His planet is all lined up if he thinks letting people tour it will help with the vote.

He does think that.

(Yvalta is very angry. All the other liaisons to Vanda Nossëo on the planet again rehearse their gentle objections that the planets are certainly very nice and all but they could stand to do a better job of pretending to give a shit about the institutions they're bribing Amenta to torch.)

"Maybe we can have Amentans in all the liaison roles on both sides in a season or so, I think that'll help."

(It's a lovely empty planet with lots of land area.)

A lot of people try to skip out on their contracts to sign on with Soyok.

They are found in breach and prosecuted accordingly. This only sometimes involves sterilization or the death penalty.

Mereth, hair now silver, turns rocks into modelling clay and hangs out in sight of the border and frets about this. "If we actually didn't care about respecting local institutions we wouldn't have to let them do that."

"I can't actually tell when you care about local institutions and customs and when you don't," Soyok says. "I keep expecting you to want me to do something awful to get the planet, or keep it, I'm just at a point where I'd do it anyway."

"...I really don't think we ask anything awful of anybody."

"Maybe you'll hire a red to do one of your interfacing jobs here and make people smile at it if they want babies, just to watch them flinch. I wouldn't be surprised."

"We would probably hire a red if they wanted the job and were qualified but you're allowed to turn your interfacing people away if you don't like them."

"Well. Let me know when I need to do something or sacrifice a citizen to your reportedly very cozy prison system or - whatever."

"I'm not even a liaison I'm security - those are less different things without a caste system but they're still different things - but I'm sure you'd hear about it." Modelling clay rock. It retains the coloration of the original; she squishes it into an even gray all around. "How does Yvalta execute people?"

"Depends on the House. Firing squad's popular."

"For leaving their jobs."

"Not if they're free agents, but if they're under contract and there isn't an exit clause. It's mostly greys without exit clauses. Prevents them from going 'I activate my exit clause' right as you're under attack. Sometimes oranges, if people want personal therapists and don't want them leaving with a head full of secrets, or yellows who know a lot of political things."