She is not feeling very charitably inclined to Elie Cotonnet at the moment but it is, in fact, a real and significant set of improvements, and the lengthy lecture on political theory will perhaps take some of the steam out of the room. About as well as could be done at this stage, probably. 

....and now the free-for-all starts.

A doomed idea, since it is founded on the concept that people are remotely decent, but hardly an ugly one.

Hell was defeated by three archmages and an archfighter and an arch-inquisitor? She really doesn't think anyone else had anything to do with it.

The moment he gets a chance to go for the podium he's taking it, he's in the front row and everything.

Fernando’s mind is initially almost unable to fit the Archmage’s speech into the framing of the loyalty test he obviously considers the convention to be, but he figures out a meaning:  The Archmage isn’t expecting perfection, just a good showing and effort, with an emphasis on denouncing Asmodeus.  He’s going to make it harder to cheat/copy off other people, but is providing more resources to aid the delegates’ work.

Well, Fernando has put in effort… maybe he could add a few more denouncements of Asmodeus to the constitution he wrote for the Monarchy committee?

Also, good news! Reading off bits of constitutions matches the Paladin’s approach in the Monarchy committee, which means Fernando successfully picked one of the more important committees!  He was starting to doubt he made the right choice!

Blai promptly delegates the task of investigating the free bodyguard situation to Lieutenant Sauer since the archmage did not point out a gentleman with feathers to ask and it might take some several layers of inquiry to find out what the process there is and if the bodyguards will work for Blai's situation.

if I wished to dictate the form of the constitution this convention will produce, I’m more than capable of writing it myself. I’ve chosen not to, not because I don’t think I could write better laws, but because it is not my place to do so. 

She’s really not getting why he couldn’t write it himself, and kind of mad at him for not doing so.

Archmages are like the fae. You endure their presence as politely as you possibly can and think thoughts once they've gone or at least once they aren't paying any attention.

So it sounds like the Archmage is intending to improve the convention.  “the laws of this convention are the laws of Cheliax” means he may not approve of her proposal which would grant immunity, but conversely he means to provide support for the delegates, so Thea could reframe her proposal as a request for legal support (with corresponding protection for any approved or at least not-warned speeches, if not immunity).

He didn’t sound like he’s backing down on sortition delegates though, so maybe it won’t come up.  Thea will maintain her plan to wait for someone else to propose getting rid of them first before she makes a counter proposal to create super-delegates.

And good news, he’s countering the obvious nobility move of bribing delegates, and providing reliable transcripts, so Thea’s worry about reading a critically flawed set of committee notes is relieved.

Listening to the person who destroyed her house and killed half her charges and knocked her from respectable working class to desperate, aching poverty is never going to stop hurting. No matter how pretty the words - and they're pretty, she'll give him that - the man leveled a city and killed thousands of civilians, and then left them there for several days to kill one another in desperation, before anyone on his side even bothered to try holding the fucking city. She doesn't think he needed to. He just saw them as the enemy, and wanted them dead or suffering. So fare the people of Cheliax, at this man's hands.

....but, given that he has evidently not selected the convention to be exclusively full of people who don't think so, and given that she's here and clearly not refusing to participate out of spite, it is in fact good to know that they can choose to expel secretaries from committees, and that they can now get all of the notes from committees that don't without spending a third of their stipend on keeping up with the nobility. She knows something about constitutions now, but it's - a positive sign about the seriousness of the convention, she supposes, for him to actually explain them to everyone.

Laia kind of wants to clap just because it's the sort of speech that seems best punctuated with thrilling applause but - nobody else is going for it? The sense of the room doesn't seem applause shaped? Huh.

It's not entirely fair to accuse the archmage of deciding to burn Cheliax to the ground for the sake of pretending that all men are alike in those virtues necessary for governance, but that's not stopping Jonatan from thinking it.

Right. So he's saying he plans for the sortitions to stay, and wants to prevent any method of bringing them into line from working. From anyone else it'd be a declaration of war, but he supposes the archmage doesn't consider them important enough to warrant that.  Well, so be it. All the more important that they force him to take as many unpopular stands as possible enforcing this.

This speaking anonymously thing sounds like a coward move. When Iker provokes someone, he does it face to face. 

Maybe he should send the man that pamphlet, and ask him to write a response.

She's not entirely sure what he's telling her she's supposed to believe but probably if she just keeps following the important nobles and the paladins she'll be fine. No, wait, if there's a secret ballot that won't work. Hopefully they'll make it clear from their speeches. She doesn't think anything he said is instructions for the Forest Committee, and if it hopefully someone else on the committee will figure it out.

She kind of wants to ask for a bodyguard, in case the men from the riots come back for Ot. She also kind of wants to stay far away from anyone involved with the government. Right now the second want is winning.

Maybe he can have some constitutions sent back home for Joan. It's not that it's a safe topic for him to develop opinions on, but if the alternative is religion it seems hard for it to be worse. Besides, he's never been anywhere near as interested in politics; it's really very unlikely that he'll suddenly develop the conviction that piracy should be encouraged.

...But just to be safe, he'll leave out the Rahadi constitution.

This is boring. Can they go back to the part where they didn't have to show up and get lectured but still got paid?

Wizards must really hate vote selling. Even the wizard who bribed Jordi said to take the money but come up with his own opinions and vote on them. Just like the Galtan wizard says now. But that sounds hard, those constitutions and speeches were all confusing. 

He liked the being exempt from taxes thing, maybe that one will pass if someone proposes it again, now that votes are secret. That’s a political opinion, right?

Jordi’s assistant is taking notes on the speeches and example constitutions, as fits his job as a delegate’s assistant.

The archduchess has asked him to speak up for Andoran's protections, if it looks like censorship will ban them. Speaking anonymously will make it non-disastrous if he can't make it happen? But Sergi is not a public speaker and his rehearsed speech is not that good.

The man means well. He's Good, Sergi's sure, and was even before he did the two greatest Good things available. He wishes that meant it was going to work out well.

Ysabet is trying very hard not to think it in a way anyone might notice, but she's pretty sure that the "secret ballots" thing is an excuse to make it easier for the government to keep track of who voted which way.

It's not exactly the speech Dolor had expected from the man who had her as one of his picks for making Chelish laws, but she's not going to ignore it. The archmage Cotonnet gave her an incredible opportunity here to work towards their shared goals, and if he wants a little more from her in exchange that's a price she's happy to pay.

Felip is one of those different, better Chelish people! He thought that was the whole point of asking him to govern his ancestral lands!

Blah blah blah blah I'm an archmage using your country for my radical experiments because no one can stop me, sit there and bear it. Time will tell whether the archmage will shred Cheliax as he hopes to or get bored while there is still something to salvage.

The movement that expelled the infernal tyrant from Galt was an army organized by the man widely recognized as the most intelligent officer in the Galtan military before the rebellion and lead by a dozen of his handpicked generals who won their titles through sheer ability, and Andoran and its archmage only made peace because Cheliax didn't want to keep fighting them any more.

Victòria really doesn't think he can talk about "expelling" Asmodeus's "servants" as if it's already happened when he didn't even kill most of the Asmodean priests and he left a bunch of the Evil Asmodean nobles in charge! Even if some of them are fighting monsters, they're still here and still in power and definitely haven't been expelled, and the people of Cheliax will never be truly free until that changes. And also, you know, there'll be a bunch of Evil nobles not only evading justice for their wrongs but getting to stay in power.

If the archmage really doesn't want them taking bribes he needs to make committee votes use secret ballots too, but this guy isn't going to point that out.

Silvia listens to the archmage, and then he says they can be secret. Oh. That's how she's supposed to be able to talk. ...maybe if she ever wants to talk to everyone.

(Does she believe him? ...well, why would he lie? She's sure a real archmage can hunt people down even if they were supposed to be secret. She's mostly worried about everyone knowing things about her. And she doesn't think he would say that and then tell everyone about who made speeches, that seems silly.)

Joan-Pau strides towards the podium, teleporting half the distance with a dramatic flourish, but when he turns to speak to the chamber there’s no drama in his voice, which is as serious and as stern as anyone’s ever seen it.

“Lords and ladies of Cheliax, priests of the righteous gods, people of Cheliax and all the other delegates of the Convention. 

“We have liberated Cheliax from armies of Asmodeus, but not from the evils that were left in their wake. Not from cruelty or sloth or fear, not from hate and envy and pride, not even - as the events of the third Sarenrith show - of the wicked murder, spread by lies and terror, of priests and lords and commons alike.”

“We are, therefore, in a less than ideal position to write a Constitution for the nation to last a thousand years, with the needs of the day urgently to be faced and furthermore with a convention divided between those who have devoted their lives to the liberation of their homes and those who have never known a free country. I therefore propose a nonbinding resolution, that we, the Delegates of the Constitutional Convention, should support a plan for a second Constitutional Convention to assemble in forty years’ time on the model of the first, in the holy hope that our sons and grandsons will have more goodness and greater wisdom than we.”

(It wouldn't be "nonbinding resolution" but he hasn't gotten it through a committee yet.)

"Hear, hear!"

A bit early to announce a sequel, but sure. 

"I second this motion!"

Oh thank all the righteous gods a way to check whatever madness passes once they see it's a disaster.

Hmm. This convention was already shown to be a mistake, and repeating it seems unwise. But maybe this will make it easier to argue for the restoration of traditions, as a generational stopgap?

What does he expect to be different in 40 years? Some of his noble political enemies to die off? A more cooperative set of elected representatives, all nobles instead of half?

...Or for the archmages to be gone. Well, she's against it, then. She puts her hat in the ring to speak in response, not that she's the first one to try.

"Aye aye!" crows Kicharchu from the stands. In forty years maybe Kicharchu will have had a Sewer Convention and they can dispatch delegates in more organization.

Let's see. He got so many papers with his bribe it's hard to keep track of everything. He looks through them- future conventions. Vote yes. Okay, he'll do that.

What about all the places Cheliax is going to conquer once the cyprian-style army is up and running? Will they send their own delegates next convention? What if they vote to make all the provinces independent and then they have to get conquered all over again? Actually that doesn’t sound too bad. 

We were allowed to Dimension Door to the podium? it feels a bit unfair to the uncircled, but nobody seems to have objections, so sure, let's do that from now on.

Oh, excellent, a non-radical proposing it. She'd rather thirty years but forty will do.

"I also second the motion; I think we and Cheliax will be better for making law now, but our children will be more able to work further free of Asmodeus."

She knew Joan Pau was planning this and so can arrange to be not far behind him. "One of the most important principles of Old Cheliax, which the Asmodeans needed to go to great and terrible lengths to scrub from the memory of the people, was this one: that we do not raise our children just to obey us but to surpass us. Where we are strong, we hope that they will be stronger, and where we are in error, we hope that they will correct us. It is by that wisdom that Cheliax once grew to be the greatest empire in the world, and it is by that wisdom that Cheliax will rise again.

I can see that some of you are thinking, 'this convention is a terrible mess, must we inflict it also on our children'? But precisely because this is a terrible mess, we must not inflict it on our children. We must do our duty, to the very end of our strength, and then learn from our errors, and then hand off the work of repairing this great land and these great people to a new generation. Are we to create a cage, within which to contain the future generations of our great Empire? Or a walking-stick, by which she may limp while she relearns how to walk, and walk while she relearns how to ride, and ride while she relearns how to fly? Forty years, and may we dedicate them diligently to raising a next generation that can do better."

Okay it's definitely a radical Galtan madness proposal somehow, all the radical Galtan madwomen are speaking for it, but he can't actually see....how. Maybe they just expect that sensible people will win out overwhelmingly from here and are conceding defeat in advance. But why do they imagine the sensible people won't win in forty years?

Probably by forty years from now they'll have replaced all the Evil Asmodean nobles. Sounds like a great idea to her.

...she'll be fifty-seven. Which is young enough that she might still be alive, only — only she's never thought about her future in enough detail that the idea of being fifty-seven feels real, not since she didn't get chosen to be a wizard.

She'll be fifty-seven or she'll be dead, but it genuinely could be the first one. And — it's not that she's planning to go back a second time, with any luck there'll be much less that needs to be avenged in forty years, but — she should probably, at some point, figure out what she wants to do once the convention is over.

Anyways. Her personal future aside, this is obviously a good idea. She claps enthusiastically.

Being back in the convention hall feels like being back in a temple, which he hasn't set foot in since the war. It didn't feel that way the first two days. He's not sure why it feels that way now. Just crawling terror terror terror terror, relentless and everywhere, making it impossible to hear what any of the talking is about. He has the mad thought he could commit a murder and then get the Final Blade and then never have any experiences again. 

Gods above and below, she does not want to attend a second one of these fucking things. Especially not if the lesson the archmage took from his earlier mistakes is 'pontificate expansively until all delegates fall asleep.' Probably it's some kind of civilized witchcraft, to keep people from going mad again, but Voshrelka doesn't particularly require it, or particularly care about how the non-forest bits of Cheliax governs itself. Just how the choices they make affect her, and those she cares about and is responsible for.

She'll accordingly be staying out of this... whatever it is.

His (to be proposed) constitution actually has much more frequent meetings, but he supposes meeting again in 40 years doesn’t preclude lesser meetings every year in the preceding 39.

So the nobles fear the convention and want to wait out the archmage's attention span. And if he turns out to be the sort of archmage whose attention span is measured in centuries... they plan to be dead or retired.

Speeches and votes will be anonymous? Won't that make them like the pamphlets she's been hearing about?

Feather is coming around to the point of view that making Cheliax Lawful-and-not-Evil should not have been left to a Chaotic person, even if he is an archmage.

Seems like a sensible plan? In forty years more of the lingering after-effects of Asmodeanism will be gone. Theoretically this should reduce the incidence of Terrible People among Chelish humans, although Liushna firmly reminds herself that humans were being terrible long before the terrible storms that apparently signified the death of Aroden and she should not get her hopes up too far. 

If this had been proposed last week he'd have gone 'let's institute an absolute monarchy right now and revisit in forty years if Her Majesty wishes' but he no longer has any confidence in the Queen's ability to rule the country, so.

Huh, a surprising number of the people in line are holding their spot. She's not sure if this is because they're saving it for a response to any objections or just because they don't care about this debate, but either way is fine by her. She makes her way from her seat near the front of the sortition seats to the central podium, and takes a deep breath. Hopefully this doesn't burn her bridges with Archduke Xavier; after seeing the glorious reclamation in action, she's even more convinced that she ought to be on Lord Cansellarion's side of the army issue than ever, but she's still going to have to work with the man to get her program done.

"The purpose of a constitution is to build the foundation for the state and all of its laws. Not all foundations are equally sturdy, as any builder with sense can attest, but once you have built a castle upon them it is the folly to abandon it for another lot on slightly more level ground and begin anew. Worse still would be to declare your intent to do so before you lay the first brick. It will inspire careless work from those who know their creation will not last anyway, both from those here in this convention and those without tasked with building on what we do here. It will give those mistakes rightfully rejected by this body a second chance to threaten Cheliax. It will give those who seek to profit at the expense of the Cheliax the opportunity to repeal whatever laws stand in their way. And it will impose all the great costs of rewriting the nation's laws upon the country again, without the clear and pressing need of excising anarchism to justify it."

She's not explicitly bringing up the tax exemption proposals here with that second example, but she's thinking it really loudly.

Do any Good priests look like they're prepared to say 'yup, the Good churches support this because people will be less evil in forty years'?

"I support this proposal," says Andreu, who isn't a priest of a Good god but sure looks like one. "The people of Cheliax are corrupt, swollen with evil and incapable of imagining better. They envy their neighbors, despise their betters and pillage their inferiors, and few have contemplated even the slightest change to this, for few have heard the words of the gods of Good. Give us forty years to spread the word of Sarenrae, and then we will have a more just and holy convention than we have yet seen here." 

"While I do, as it happens, support Count Ardiaca's proposal, as someone who has in fact built fortresses I cannot help but object to Delegate Rado's metaphor. The first step in the construction of any fortress in ground not securely controlled is building temporary motte-and-bailey fortresses to shelter your area. Permanent fortresses are constructed on secure territory, held by your trusted lieutenants. When someone proposes that your fortress is being constructed in a swamp, you don't say 'the first stones have already been laid', you check the ground and, if it is as unstable as it looks, you build it somewhere else, somewhere that can bear its weight, and construct a quick, temporary fortification instead."

Hmm, no one seems to have much to say opposed. "I call for a vote."

Passes, 261-130, lots of abstentions. 

Well. That'll limit the damage of the incredibly stupid decision to hold this event at all, and the damage of the upcoming efforts to force the government to behave itself like a real government, and the damage of any countercoups the radicals successfully manage. What more can you ask for.

This was an easy vote against, though it was clear it would pass. More important is the knowledge that the nobles fear the convention.

...not that she can think of anything to do with that knowledge.

May they do better than us. And if the world is very kind, he may even be there to see it.

Wait what was that about forts? Does the boss want to move the convention somewhere else with sturdier ground? Or is the sturdier ground a metaphor for moving the convention to a stable city with less riots? That's a good idea.