Our only magic is mind-speech and its successors. Bending time and space is something we do with technology.

I wonder if it is a difference between worlds, or if it's possible in mine too and simply hasn't been developed, like faster than light travel.

I wonder also. My people travel faster than light by warping space.

Valar and Maiar, which are like smaller Valar, can communicate with each other instantaneously, but cannot travel faster than light.

Why do you expect that faster than light travel will be developed?

One of my friends thinks he's onto something. He could be wrong, but he's very smart.

I wonder if his method will resemble ours.

I don't know enough about his project to predict that.

That's understandable. A pause. Should I let you get back to reading?

I can read and talk at the same time. She's still going through all the titles.

In that case I think I'll describe some of my goals. I'd like to give the humans all the tools they need to build out this world to their liking but I'd prefer to have a place where they can be safe and well taken care of before they take on that burden. Given how powerful some of my people's technology is I'm also reluctant to give it out without some evidence they'll be responsible with it.

Can you summarize how it is that you make things? And what the technology you have is like beyond what I've already learned?

We cannot create matter but we can reshape it once we've harvested it from other places. I'm powering this place by siphoning matter and energy from this system's star. With enough effort I could transmute elements or even sub-atomic particles but usually that's not needed and it's more efficient to harvest the needed elements. Most of our other technologies are similarly enabled by our ability to bend space and time. We slow down time in areas in order to preserve perishables and reinforce materials. Time manipulation combined with teleportation also allows for treating certain types of injuries in less time than would otherwise be possible.

What form would the effort take?

To transmute elements either requires extracting excess protons and neutrons from an element or introducing more, both can lead to instability without extreme precision. That kind of precision requires a lot of processing power and the energy cost isn't tiny either. I also didn't take my people's entire database so I'd have to derive the proper configurations for each transmutation from general principles. Transmuting subatomic particles requires even more precision and often more energy per unit mass.

Okay. How are you getting all the elements you need out of the star, is it not mostly hydrogen and helium?

It is, I just selectively extract the elements I want. Looking for specific elements isn't free but it's relatively inexpensive in something as close as this system's star. I'm teleporting the correct elements out atom by atom, or more precisely ion by ion since the sun is largely plasma.

Are you in any danger of running out of any kinds?

No, this system's star and planets possess enough reserves of the heavier elements to support a population in excess of several billion with some conservation. It wouldn't be enough to fight a war against my mother but I don't expect to need to fight that war for millions of years of outside time and I would not limit myself to one system's worth of resources to do so.

Where is the millions of years estimate coming from?

That is the time between when my clan looks at a system once and then again. There are many systems in their area of responsibility and each system takes a non-trivial amount of time to examine. I chose this system because it was examined recently but not so recently that any are likely to follow up.

That makes sense. Before I arrived, what was your plan regarding the humans?

My current plan is to rescue some small number with teleportation and scanning as many as possible in the expectation I'll be able to recreate them from that data. I didn't have many details chosen. The translations completed soon before you arrived. 

How were you planning to choose the small number?

I had no precise plan but roughly I expected to find or induce to form a group of younger humans of reproductive age and diverse genetics whose absence would go unnoticed for long enough as to be obviated by the destruction of their world.