Yeah, it's not really fair to do it while they're practicing.

You got it right away.

People get things at different speeds.

Well, you and Aitim got it fast.

Just two people isn't much trend.

What is a military anyway.

The military is the organization that's there to fight back in case someone attacks us, or does something we've said is the sort of thing we have to attack people over - like attacking other countries we're friends with who want help. Having a military makes those things both less likely. But there are some internal cultural issues in militaries in general, because their whole job is to be ready for fights, so I was nervous about the prospect.

Is trying to be ready for fights all the time bad for people?

Yeah. The people he wants to bring in aren't fighters, they're researchers, but they work for the same structure.

So they're more likely to be Melkorish?

That's really not a good comparison point. But they're more likely to think that violence is useful and important and - cool. Aitim might be very good at picking individuals who don't have that problem, and the structure they work for is very strict about following orders, so even if they would like to do bad things it might not be a problem because they can be ordered not to. That's why he wants them; he can order them to keep secrets.

And he can't do that with most people?

He can but they're not used to it and might make mistakes or run to another country.

Is this the best country to be in for the thing we're trying to do?

It might not be but I don't have good information about any of the others. It's not bad. We did all right on the reds thing and that was hard and complicated.

Why was that hard and complicated?

People got incredibly emotional about it in ways that couldn't be all straightforwardly accommodated.

You didn't like that they were icky so you made them not icky. 

Yes. But it was expensive, and people didn't want to spend the money, or weren't sure it really made them not-icky enough.

Huh.

Some other countries got the whole problem really, really wrong, and a lot of people died. Our solution worked and people are following our lead.

Well. That's good.

Yeah.

Did the military do it?

No. One of Aitim's cousins was heavily involved, though. And his mom invented the way to clean them.