"Probably moreso for the projects of this world than ours, where we were just inventing every field of knowledge and no one had any background or advantage."

"I suppose that would affect it, yes."

"Bella told you that she invented writing, right? And glass, and magic, and therapeutic ethics."

"I didn't invent them!"

"But yes, she mentioned having imported the concepts."

"Most of them we would have discovered eventually. Magic perhaps not, since your world never did."

"Which is very curious, really, since it works fine here."

"So does magic music. I wonder if - there's a way to import systems from other planes, in some sense, but they cannot arise organically."

"Fits the data. Did wizardry work as normal after the Valar sent Bella back to Materia?"

"Yes. The Valar could disable it, and have done so with some specific types, but if they're not meddling it works fine."

"So she's not just bringing it with her, causing it to work around her..."

"I don't think so. Or, if so, once she's brought it it will stay."

"I suppose we can do more experiments once we have more worlds to visit. This one's no longer a control group."

A broad smile. "No, we've gone and rather mucked it up. I wonder if planes with magic are safer and more peaceful - or if they inevitably slide towards Materia - there's a lot we really ought to look out for."

"Well, in both the case of Materia and in that of Arda there's a sample size of one planet. If your sole exposure to Warp were Davlia..."

"Arda has stars. It might be possible to explore for other inhabited planets there."

"Well, I'm not worried that the Federation will deny it membership. Although we might have to export dilithium unless it's already a known substance or something."

"Technically Valinor was supposed to have every kind of substance, including ones that weren't stable anywhere else, because Valinor has no decay. I don't know enough chemistry yet to tell you about dilithium."

"It has no radioactive decay either? But that's a completely different process from biological decay."

"I really wish it were safe to send some scientists down to go poke around, it'd be fascinating."

"Alas. Maybe we can send them a few tricorders and get the raw data back in thirty years."

He laughs. "Bella's been working on how to send images, I think. So Fëanáro's parents can see him growing up."

"That would help too."

"Tricorders should be fundamentally the same problem as pictures, unless I don't understand science very well."

"Oh, yes. I just meant they might not get around to tricordering very many things very quickly."