"We can test that," Fëanáro pipes up. "I'll go ask the locals as soon as I have some mana."

"Well, Davlians might be different from other species we could meet, there's tons of variety. - I wonder if your psi works on species that are conventionally immune to it, Ferengi and such."

"We should write up a list of experiments," Rúmil says gently, when Fëanáro looks paralyzed with indecision.

"I should unpack the crystal balls - I have my Valinor one and my Materia one, I should dump all the files onto one of them and T'Mir can have the other." She heads for the luggage. Rummage rummage.

"Experiment list and project list. I'll teach T'Mir to use the crystal ball while you're getting going on that."

They do. Project list is the evacuation of Materia and possibly partial evacuation of Valinor, figuring out how to create a model planet that causes the Federation trouble, teaching pre-warp societies arcane healing, and so forth. Experiment list is mostly interactions of magic with the species of this world.

Bella and T'Mir mess around with crystal balls. T'Mir is enchanted and catches on very quickly and wants to add ball/computer interface to the project list, about which Bella is enthusiastically agreeable.

ball/computer interface is a great idea, and a general education on starships and other advanced science fantasy technology.

T'Mir's happy to provide, although it might be easier if she had the Prometheus or at least its files.

Tomorrow they will steal a starship! The Elves do not even have a concept of theft but promise to do it anyway.

Well, it is technically hers, just impounded.

The Elves do not really have a concept of property rights at all, but okay. Tomorrow it will no longer be impounded.

"...I didn't actually notice the extent to which the gift economy was not a property economy."

Well, taking something out of someone's house would be odd and rude. Unless you had a good reason, and even then, being unwelcome in their house would be a problem. Peoples' houses are theirs, maybe starships are the same idea?

"I did live in it."

That makes more sense. Someone has taken her house, and they're taking it back.

"Property rights in general are more important in a monetary economy. Was this part of what had you so confused when you went grocery shopping, Rúmil?"

"More the way everything was wrapped up, actually. I'd read on the science ethernet in advance and knew you had to trade currency for the food."

"This was on Earth?"

"The post-scarcity places wanted to us to have official standing within the Federation of some kind and we didn't want to interact with that without knowing what we were dealing with and the money place asked fewer questions."

"And it sounds like that was the right call, since we may not want to get the Federation's attention."

"Especially once it transpired that my face is an arrestable face."

"Sorry about that. If it's any consolation they would've noticed you were the wrong species."

"Perhaps we should develop illusions next," Fëanáro says, "after interplanar messaging."