"So," someone says to the Amentan delegates to Vanda Nossëo, "traditionally we'd give them a couple months to think about it and if they're persistent we'd lift the restrictions on private citizens of member states rescuing Calador citizens. But I think your recommendations are going to carry the day here, it's your world and a society with which you have a lot more history."

"We could just conquer it," says the representative from Cene.

"...that wasn't actually in the vein I was expecting. Uh, why might that be a good approach -"

"Accounts for anyone who doesn't want rescuing but is in a bad place, they get to stay at home and be ruled by Amentan blues, take as long as they need to adjust - with enough fancy stuff it could be very low casualty, too."

"It'll make Oahk angry," says the Celentan representative.

"And Oahk is considering membership. Very slowly, but still. It is not very easy to persuade the courts of the merits of an unprovoked war; if there turns out to be a unanimous consensus that this is the best option I'd be optimistic about taking it to them, but, well, any considerations against are going to get a lot of weight."

"Our ambassador in Calado says their leadership is very hostile to aliens," says the Celenta representative.

"Ours says that too," says the Tapai representative. "She says the exact rhetoric varies widely, though - typical -"

"We realize that the option of emigrating has been very challenging for institutions in permissions-based nations."

"It's not great," says Soyok.

"There's precedent for cooperating with a country to freeze emigration but it's typically a country with which we have good diplomatic relations and which makes a convincing case that an emigration freeze is in the best interests of their people. If any of you need that we can get it approved. But - we don't just have poor diplomatic relations with Calado, we literally cannot safely go within snatch-us-out-of-the-sky range of them, so I don't foresee cooperation on this."

"They've gotten a little less internally conflicted recently," says the Tapai representative.

"I actually did notice that we'd stopped getting eight different answers to every inquiry."

"They've probably banded together over hating you or something."

Sigh. "If you got authorization to conquer Calado how would that go, exactly -"

"We'd want to outfit the greys with whatever fanciness you've got, build some coalition, deliver a clear ultimatum if there's something we'd take instead, and if refused or they fail to follow through in we go, collect surrenders with as high a threat to death ratio as possible, round up the remaining senators and regional executive politics blues plus their military liaison roles and turn them over to Vanda Nossëo prisons for at least token sentences..."

Nod. "I think the relevant demand is 'let people emigrate or work with us to negotiate an emigration freeze that serves your people'. Courts won't convict them just of being responsible for running their country very badly but it is plausible to me that every single one of those people has committed crimes which we would prosecute were it our jurisdiction. I suppose I could have someone look into whether that is, in fact, the case...

"Oh, holding them for processing for a week will do the trick, they just can't be underfoot while we consolidate the place," says the Cene representative.

"Calado has little to recommend it but conquering would be more of a history we'd hope the planet was past," says the Voan representative.

"Do you have a different recommendation -"

"Perhaps you could wait and see if the newly - agentic - government will do anything other than screen the border."

"Oh, we're definitely going to give them a few months to think, it just seems wise to start considering options if they spend the months building a border wall to keep their people in."

"You could lean more on the Free State of Oahk and try to make use of their relatively healthy channels with Calado."

Nod.

Oahkar emissary brings it up. "Do you know for how long Calado intends to restrict travel?"

"They don't have an end date, I think."

"There's some history of our working with a country to make sure that travel and trade are possible but not emigration. We haven't been able to discuss that with Calado."

"You seem to be having a lot of trouble with them. Is there really nowhere else like it in all the everywhere?"

"There are places who tell us to go away. Telling us to go away and then forcing down our shuttle on its way out and then refusing an extradition but offering to shoot the people responsible was...new."