"Of course it does. Why's he not here, are we just keeping this trimmed to operationally necessary people because on the one hand that's reasonable on the other hand, centuries..."

"No one specifically asked for him yet?"

"I want to ask him if he'd hook up with a fork of himself and I expect something we need him for will come up in the next few decades but there's nothing important yet."

"Is that not an impolite question on your Arda?"

"Not really? I mean, forks are new, it's not a question that'd come up - anyway, I'd totally do me, I bet Macalaure'd hook up with himself and he's straight, but I have no idea on Maitimo and sitting here for the next few decades trying to feel the gravity of the situation sounds like it won't actually help make the situation better so I'm definitely going to ask him."

"Huh. My Arda is rampantly homophobic. I dropped the Library of Hell on Valinor - before - used to amuse myself reading their censorship reports -"

"That sucks. And is kind of weird. We have the library of Hell already, maybe that's what made the difference? Poor Maitimo, he actually cares what people think of him, that'd mess with his head so badly."

"I'd be interested in jointly seducing someone with a fork or in hooking up with a male fork but I'm straight enough that that just naively hooking up with a fork doesn't appeal."

"Is this what we're doing now? I would totally do a fork but I'd rather not make one. However, if the other Earth's got a me after all..."

"It's not any more inane than making small talk about sleep."

"True."

"Could you make a boy you, Edie, or would that not work?"

"I could make one who was physically male but I don't know if it's possible to mess with the chips to the extent of getting a me who was actually a guy."

"Probably not, like you couldn't get one that doesn't do backups or doesn't do oaths. Have we tried summoning Cam-in-this-dimension or would it not work normally in Milliways."

"I don't want to risk it fucking with the time-pausing."

"Makes sense."

"Why would 'being a guy' and 'not doing oaths/backups' be comparable?"

"Efforts to summon 'this chip with this thing different' when the thing that'd be different isn't extant?"

"I mean, there exist chips of guys, but point taken. I was thinking more in terms of having Emily fuck with it than creating it naively, though."

"No idea if that'd work. If she can make peoples' chips not back up to Mandos everyone is going to want that -"

"No real ethical way to test it, though."

"I bet you'd get volunteers, but it'd admittedly be kind of gruesome."

"I think the best way to deal with Mandos is just to wreck his setup rather than performing horrific experiments on people."

"I would say 'and how do we do that' but I guess the answer is that we let the geniuses work for as long as it takes.

...have they been told about the other Arda, maybe we can help there, too, somehow, invent some way to bring Maiar back - come to think of it, demons should be able to make Maiar, shouldn't you-"

"Their Maiar are different."