She watches with bated breath as the strange mortal is banished. She has no idea where it will end up — which is really quite exciting! It might go somewhere new, and if it does then She can follow it!
Aww. Not all of it went. Hey Sarenrae — what exactly did you do, to make the mortal your cleric?
"Your honor, I think that it is clear that the decedent is Lawful Evil. In support of this, I would like to concur with the maelstrom."
"Specifically, it is Hell's position that the decedent was subject to a Geas-like effect for its whole life. It was given the goal of doing good by its creators, and it slavishly followed that goal only because it had been assigned that task, and not because it ever chose to do good. P.E.R.C. can no more be held responsible for the good it has supposedly done than a paladin's sword can be."
"But, its Geas was only able to compel behavior that it knew about. So the only Good or Evil deeds that it could possibly have done are those that were Good or Evil based on their effects, and not on the decedent's state of mind. And there is one important, influential action that it performed without understanding its effects — that of helping a number of Wizards create simplified spell diagrams."
"In your briefing materials, there should be a list of the spells that it helped refine. Note that more than half of them are combat spells. Making it easier to do violence is Evil, In re Haber. Therefore nearly P.E.R.C.'s only un-compelled action in its entire life was Evil, and so it should be judged Evil."
"Hell likewise partially concurs with Axis, that the decedent showed slavish devotion to its masters, and therefore consistently behaved in a Lawful way. This behavior was not the product of a Geas-like effect, because while the artificially-imposed goal of doing good could be removed without otherwise impacting P.E.R.C.'s cognition, it is not possible to remove P.E.R.C.'s desire to follow some goal set by its creators."
"Therefore we have a perfect slave, whose only free action was evil. A clear case for Lawful Evil."
The judge pinches her beak.
"You cannot concur with both the Maelstrom and with Axis. They disagree."
"Okay. Let's address Axis's pending objection about the decedent's name, and then I will hear any opposing arguments, presuming that there are some."
"P.E.R.C., please explain the process by which you were named," the floating equations transmit.
"Every P.E.R.C. vessel is given a designation based on its ancestry," it explains. "I was constructed by P.E.R.C. 170E9. I was the tenth P.E.R.C. probe it constructed, so it gave me the designation P.E.R.C. 170E9A, to reflect that. These designations serve three purposes: to allow other P.E.R.C. probes to identify each other, to make it easier to determine when a particular flaw or piece of information was introduced by comparing lineages, and to limit the number of descendants a given probe can construct to sixteen."
"Your honor, P.E.R.C.'s name was chosen according to a systematic method that was set up for the purpose of furthering one or more goals. This is a fundamentally orderly approach to naming, and should not count as evidence that the decedent is Chaotic. On the contrary, it is another example of the decedent's fundamentally Lawful approach."
"Alright. If you have no further questions for the decedent, then I believe it is now Heaven's turn to rebut the argument that P.E.R.C. is Evil."
"Your honor, Hell seeks to throw out the vast majority of all actions P.E.R.C. has ever taken, on the basis that its creators merely commanded it to do Good. This is clearly incorrect. Raising one's children to be Good is itself Good, In re Poppins, and this—"
"P.E.R.C.'s radio broadcasts actually did contribute to the moral education of several children," the archon replies. "But that is not the point I was making. I brought up In re Poppins because the justification for why raising children to be Good in that case is relevant — the judge held that raising children to be Good is Good for the same reason that encouraging others to repent is Good: it increases the number of Good actors in the world."
"Thank you. So P.E.R.C. may have been made to follow a rigid set of laws by its creators, but they clearly did so with the intent to create an agent for Good. If following that set of laws interfered with P.E.R.C.'s capacity for Good, then it would have been self defeating."
"Objection! That argument is obviously circular. It requires that P.E.R.C. be a force for good to imply that its creators were good, and then uses the fact that its creators were good to argue circumstantially that P.E.R.C. was good. Furthermore, it is assuming facts about a group of people outside the jurisdiction of this court, who can neither be subpoenaed nor have their case files referred to."
"Wait your turn, the Abyss. Hell, I find that argument persuasive. Heaven, do you wish to clarify your argument?"
"Yes, your honor. First of all, the argument is not circular. It depends on the fact of whether P.E.R.C.'s actions had a Good outcome to attempt to prove P.E.R.C.'s morality. For the vast majority of creatures, no such argument would be necessary, because their morality directly impacts their actions. In fact, I still believe that this is still true in P.E.R.C.'s case. But it was an attempt to rebut Hell's argument by pointing out that even if they deny that P.E.R.C.'s morality has any influence on its actions, its Good actions are still some evidence that it is, itself, Good."
"Secondly, Hell objects that this argument considers facts from outside this court's jurisdiction. While we have less visibility into those matters, understanding why and how P.E.R.C. was designed are critical to understanding its motivations and actions, so I do not believe dismissing any argument that hinges on such facts to be helpful in the matter of deciding P.E.R.C.'s alignment."
"Hmm. Interesting."
The judge strokes her beak with a claw.
"Objection partially sustained. While I do not find Heaven's argument decisive, it is interesting. Unfortunately, previous trials have mostly held that actions taken outside of Creation cannot be decisive in determining a decedent's alignment. Therefore I must insist that lawyers restrict themselves to arguments that hinge on facts about events from within Creation."
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