"Nice people they have here."

"Lovely. I'm slightly tempted to figure out what was up but they haven't actually been anything but adorably excited about trains."

"Trains are cool! I think we should heavily favor trains in any situation where we get to do ground-up infrastructure, they're a less obvious tradeoff when there's lots of stuff already in place but great from a standing start."

"If the multiverse is in fact infinite I think we should exclusively work in preindustrial places first anyway, we can do a lot more good and the magnitude of the complications we can accidentally invite is smaller."

"Makes sense."

"And if people do try to use train-granted advantages to go on a holy war it is fairly straightforward to take the trains away."

Nod nod.

And they are not poisoned at all! They go back the next morning.

They have an audience with the Empress, if they want one!

That sounds lovely.

Markess's wife was totally not hiding poison.

She was hiding that she was the empress. This explains a great deal.

"I apologize for the deception," she says, smiling, "but I find I often get a better idea of a person's character when they don't know who they're talking to. It's why I never let them put my face on any coins."

"Television might rob you of some of your fun but that seems a very sensible approach to me."

"Television?"

"Technology to make and distribute live to the entire population vivid moving pictures of ongoing events, so it's like they're watching them up close. It mostly gets used to distribute art, at least back home, but they do cover affairs of state."

"Oh, I see. Yes, I could see that interfering."

"The palace guards are interesting, how do they know peoples' names?"

"The dreamshapers maintaining them receive sensory feedback and have access to a list of the names of those permitted within the palace grounds."

"Ah. I am very impressed with your country and with everything I have heard about you."

"A high compliment. I've heard good things about you and yours, too."

"How can we be as helpful as possible here?"

She has a list! Some of it is pending further discussion about what technology they have to give, but it's fairly comprehensive! Trains are on it!  Hospitals are on it! Infrastructure is on it! Sending Kilaiuossari engineers and other academics to Noldor universities to pick up as much of their advanced knowledge as possible so Kilaiuossa isn't dependent on a foreign power for all their stuff keeping running is on it!

He will express tentative interest in that one - "our standard programs are a hundred twenty of your years long, we might need to develop human-paced ones..." The rest they can do right away!

...Yes, that makes sense. Although she knows some people who would happily have done it anyway. In that case, it's probably best to get the infrastrucrure as ubiquitous as possible so that dreamshapers will be able to maintain it if technology fails.