"Advising you on how best to keep us under control seems like a bad idea. But even assuming you have some way to get around our brain-defenses in a reasonable time frame, mind controlling us before at least the first stage of the rites is complete would most likely invalidate them entirely."

"I am not going to mind control you. I just want to get through this with minimum loss of life and sanity."

"Good. If you want to keep us in line that's still your problem."

"Some of the other Great Empires probably have manual entries about it."

"Dude, just because I don't want to mind control or kill you it doesn't means that I can't make you trouble. But whatever." To Solitse he says. "Okay. Let's check those then."

All of the other Great Empires have sections on this in their soldiers' manuals besides Vitzaia, which doesn't have a manual. The Agaman manual advises to not allow the rite because it is a heathen ritual and will thus result in damnation. Other than that the manuals all say to have the captives watched by robots set to stun them and take them away for conversion or interrogation if they do anything unexpected. The K'bont manual also explains that captives who completed the rites should be given the option of rebaptism into their choice of either the Reconciled or the Fallen Kiani choir as quickly as possible after conversion is complete and advised to consider the choice during conversion. The Ree Black Fleet manual specifies that during conquest operations the rite is normally only required for soulless captives, not free-willed ones, but otherwise seems to say the same thing once you account for its referring to the officers overseeing the operation in third person and for its referring to both them and the captives using the inanimate gender.

So, they follow the same logic as religion back home. Great. Aside the complications are those Rites possible to implement. 

Yes. The ship contains facilities for them, although they're currently collapsed and will take around a quarter of an hour to assemble themselves.

Alright, they can wait fifteen minutes. Or at least he hopes no one gets funny ideas.

No one gets any funny ideas. The ritual facilities assemble themselves.

"If you keep not wanting to reprogram them they'll probably want to get rebaptized eventually".

"I am not gonna want to reprogam them," Thunder says horrified. "Is there anything special to baptism besides more religious rituals?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay. Anything else to address?"

"We should make sure everyone knows how to get food and water, and where to sleep, and so on."

Nod. "Should be easy enough, well, we probably will have to figure out sleep arragements."

They can assign people bedrooms, and get dinner from an automated kitchenette (Solitse will have something like a cross between a very big dumpling and a pizza, with bacon, soft cheese, and a mix of familiar and unfamiliar vegetables).

At some point, when there is a quieter moment, Thunder will want to ask the new dreamshaper if they can have a conversation before she falls asleep.

Yeah.

"So... I don't know how to ask this in a less blunt way, but do you have anything in the way of goals or desires that relate with your ability to dreamshape?"

"I want to understand what it lets me do. At the moment I do not understand that."

"Okay. I figure that even if you get very basic dreamshaping you still are going to have quite a power. What I am interested in is if you are inclined to use that power to fight or would rather hide with your family."

"To fight. There are empires out there much worse than the Kina."

He makes a disquieted face. "Ugh, good to know we will be busy for a while." He might sound less than thrilled. "Felix might know this or not, but I think he will need to conquer some. At least on behalf of someone else, but I don't know if we can do that. There might be no good candidates to offer new annexed territories to. He also will try to be as pacifist as possible. Which, is more feasible than it sounds, but might not be entirely feasible."

"There aren't any empires that don't use chemical conversion. There are states that don't, but if you want to hold an empire-sized territory you'll need an empire-sized army."

He makes a face. "I don't suppose there are some conveniently hirable mercenaries around?"