"What do you think we should do?"

"- I don't know, I don't know anything special, just how it works on Amenta."

"Hmmm. Maybe we can ask Ulmo that too."

"Okay."

"Ulmo could just say no wars," says Thiaben. "And maybe offer to help the orcs but even if he doesn't offer to help the orcs, saying 'no wars' should do it."

"...why would that do it?"

" - well, if the Valar intervened it would be really bad. So no one will - do things which might cause that."

"And everyone is good at agreeing on how to not have wars, even if the only thing stopping wars is the Valar saying not to?"

" - I mean, there haven't been any wars?"

"But you haven't run out of space yet."

"Yes. But I don't know what agreeing on how to not have wars looks like."

"I think the countries all check on each other to make sure they're not allowing too many babies, and the ways they have to not allow them are working."

"But if they're not going to have a war we don't care how many babies they have."

"...if they have a lot of babies, they will want space more than they want it now, and then they might want to have a war, enough to have one."

"Even if they know that'll mean the Valar come mess everything up?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Sometimes people have babies they aren't allowed to on Amenta even though they know they might get caught."

"But going to war isn't a person making a bad decision it's the whole country."

"I don't really know. It just doesn't sound like the kind of thing that makes wars not happen, just the Valar saying not to."

"Huh. Maybe the people who do not-wars in your world can come advise Círdan about it."

"- I, um."

Elves look bemused.

"- it's - complicated -"

"You said."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. It's - not worse than before you came."