"That implies some interesting things about the succession rules."

"It was right after my self-dedication. Under the circumstances, nobody was going to argue with me about whether murdering him invalidated my claim. And then I discovered that running an empire is actually a lot of work and I'm not any good at it, and it took me a while to put together a functional government that didn't need me for anything, and by the end of that I was starting to notice things like 'the law of the empire works much better if I at least mostly obey it'..."

"The king of the Noldor is planning to abdicate in his eldest grandson's favor after that grandson has raised his children."

"That sounds so much friendlier!"

"Rather. I think the kings of the Teleri and Vanyar aren't planning to abdicate at all though, they don't have superior candidates in mind."

"Makes sense, if everybody's immortal. When you don't have to worry about dying you also don't have to worry about succession in the event of your death."

"Why did you think you wanted an empire?"

"Because being Emperor means being acknowledged to have power, in a way that just happening to be absurdly powerful doesn't."

"Hm. What's important about that?"

"...I'm not sure how to say... it's... the thing that things being important is for. I'm a lot less - caught up in that - than I used to be, but mostly because there's no reasonable way anyone could make me stop being Emperor. And no way at all that anyone could make me stop being absurdly powerful."

"...I think things being important bottoms out at the flourishing of sapient life in general."

"...?"

"As an example of something else things could be important for."

"Sounds a lot harder to - keep - than mine. Harder to get in the first place, too, for that matter."

"Yes, it's both more challenging and higher-maintenance."

"Not a bad goal, though, as these things go."

"Thank you."

"...I know more about what things it's possible to have than I did before I met you. I really appreciate that."

"I am glad to help. Perhaps if nothing else while I am here I can explain electricity and such things."

"From the - 'interesting new uses of steel' category? That sounds like fun."

"Yes. Electricity is a way to make devices take actions without magic."

"Huh! Sounds useful. Maybe you should find someone who's a gadgety sort of person and explain it to them."

"Yes, I likely should. I think - hm, how to put this - I think that insofar as I have objections to how you run the world I can at least be confident that they won't be exacerbated if I provide the world with arbitrary advances, and that makes being here less stressful. I would have no such confidence if I encountered a world with a full-sized unrestrained Eru operating it."

"...I'm not sure I followed all that, can you say it again differently?"

"I don't think any more people get tortured if I teach your people electricity, whereas that is totally the sort of thing Eru for example would set up."