"Good to know." Presumably the Freedom Democracy does not do it right, seeing as they destroyed the shrines.

She's not sure what to make of his amusement, but it could be worse.

"Sorry - people at home think democracy is the best way to do it, I haven't heard someone say it's bad like that before. I do understand that they've hurt the Lei very badly."

Okay maybe she likes him again.

"...Because democracy makes it easy for the Force to change what a country does?"

"I'm not sure it does! Maybe a little. The important part is that it shows the people making the decisions what's important to everyone, things like making sure there's enough food, and makes them do that instead of things that are just good for them."

"Okay, so I'm imagining that I'm making decisions about food because the democracy says that's my job. I want to take some sunflower seeds and, instead of letting people eat them, feed them to rats because I'm a werewolf and I like rats. My catfolk friends will be happy about this too. If I already know that people will be unhappy about this, and I don't care, how does democracy help? Most of the people saying what they want are catfolk and werewolves."

"There are different ways to do it and I don't know a lot about democracy, but one of the easiest ways is to have a few different ways of counting what people want and only do things if all of the ways say you can. So one way might be to give every person one say, and another way might be to give every species one say, so if there are a hundred werewolves and a hundred catfolk and ten elves and ten equartiers and ten breeders, and the werewolves and catfolk want to give the seeds to rats and the elves and equartiers and breeders don't, then one way of counting says you can - two hundred is more than thirty - but the other way says you can't - two is less than three - so you can't. Or maybe the breeders like fruit and don't care that much about seeds, and you say 'if I can give the seeds to the rats I'll also grow more fruit', and then the breeders say yes, do that, and you can give the seeds to the rats and the breeders get something they want too, and maybe next time it'll be the elves or the equartiers that get something that way. Or, maybe you give the seeds to the rats and the equartiers get upset about it, and decide that they're not going to go places with people until you stop, and it's a big problem for the werewolves and catfolk and they say that someone else should make the food decisions if you're going to upset people with them - and if you know that will happen, you won't give the seeds to the rats even if you would want to by yourself."

"Interesting... Yeah, you'd need more than two ways of counting, because sometimes species isn't important, but place is, so also count once for each town, and maybe also for each housechief, and each shrine continuously attended for a hundred years, and each species again but you count twice for the species that don't have fur or were created from bugs or plants...

So," she shrugs with one arm, palm up, "claws, but I think there are still good things that this kind of democracy would stop and bad things that it would do? Like if there were two things... or we needed a new swamp...or... oh actually here's a simple bad thing:

Suppose I want the rats and I say, it's good if the equartiers are upset, we don't need equartiers. If you want to go somewhere, we have sleds and ships and bicycles, and if you want to tell something to someone quickly, we have kitsune and tengu, but I think you never need to go someplace quickly - both go there and do it quickly. So the equartiers should just go away.

And the werewolves, who haven't eaten a rat in the last deci-year and are thinking only about how it would feel to crunch one, and who don't know that I'm wrong and we do need equartiers, say that sounds great. And also they don't care about finding new things for the equartiers to do or helping them go to a different country.

So every way of counting says great, we don't care about equartiers."

Or, you know, elves.

"Yeah, that can be a problem. Usually the way democracies solve it is by having a few people make the decisions and all the people choose those few people every few thousand cycles. And have a way for people to say things to the few people. So you know that if you get rid of the equartiers and that's bad for everyone, then everyone won't choose you again next time, and you want to keep doing that work, so you won't do that, even though if you asked all the people they would say to do it. And if you don't know that it would be bad for everyone then the equartiers can tell you, and if nobody knows, well, then you have the problem, but you'd have it no matter how you decided." He shrugs. "Every way of doing it has problems, but the planets in my home have tried lots of ways and democracy usually has the least."

"So if I wanted that job, I'd say to everyone, choose me to make all the decisions because earlier when I made the decisions for a town people were happy with what happened? So if all the werewolves and catfolk in my town liked the rats, and there weren't any equartiers in my town to be unhappy, it looks good, but if I made the decisions for the whole country then it would actually be bad. Maybe I like rats, maybe I listen to everyone and make very good decisions, but both things look the same.

Or would I say, choose me because I know lots about how to make decisions for a country. I've never done it before but I know lots."

"In a good democracy you need to say more than that, and probably for anything important there are at least two people who want it, so you have to say something better than the other person. One way of doing that is to have someone who knows a lot about how things are run ask everyone who wants the job a lot of questions and let everyone see the answers before they choose, and if they're good at their job they'll ask about how you're going to make sure all the species have what they need and want. Also, if everyone is doing it that way for a while, they'll learn what kinds of people are good to have making decisions, maybe they do pick someone who upsets the equartiers once but then next time someone thinks it's a good idea to give one species' food to the food of another species they'll know it's important not to do that."

She sighs. "It still seems like a complicated way to do, badly, what elves already do, but I guess if you don't have elves it might be the best substitute."

"What do elves do?"

"Okay so what I meant was, it's a lot of trouble to have everyone choose a person to make decisions and remember what makes a person good at making decisions and remember how to ask questions and remember what the country did wrong in the past, instead of just letting the elves make all that. But I should have said 'Lei', not 'elves'.

What do elves do, at least in Lei and places like Lei? Not make decisions. The shrines make the decisions, not the elves. The elves... Live. Observe. Talk to people. Make sure the shrines 'want' people to be happy. Travel between shrines to spread good ideas and fix bad ideas."

"Huh. That might work better than democracy, yeah. I don't know if it does, but sometimes there are things that can - the Jedi don't do democracy either, but what we do wouldn't work without the Force." That also adds some context to her horror at the FD having destroyed some shrines.

She looks only slightly smug.

"...So we were talking about the lies. I forgot about this one because I'm used to speaking in a simple way with you and sometimes using different words because of that, but breeders are actually called 'humans'. The person or people who created breeders are called 'metahuman' but different people have different ideas of what the 'metahuman' was like.

And... when you asked about the person who put the word 'apple' on the plant, I said I would tell everyone that you wanted to talk to them, and I did, but he had already been killed at that time."

"Ah." He's clearly not pleased about it.

"Tomas is a human? Tomas and I are the same species, according to the Force."

"Yeah. Huh! Have you used the Force to look at a female of your species?"

"Yeah - in detail, mostly Jedi, but I've been around non-Jedi humans too, and there shouldn't be anything that people who can't see the Force can do that we can't."

"Hm. I think it would be interesting if you looked at a female human from this planet, but i don't know if it would be important.

Is there anything else you want to talk about before going to the FD?"

"Do you know anything about Tomas? I don't think I understand him very well."

"I don't know much about him. Male humans in general are very rare, made by people who think that humans should be more important than everyone else, or people who want a diplomat, or people who just don't care if their kitten is male. Only catfolk have 'kittens', by the way; the general word is 'child', and most species have a particular word too.

We asked for a male human to do a job that required lying and speaking Elvish. Originally because we thought you were a metahuman and one of the people who think humans should be more important than other species.

This is probably close to his home."

Human men being rare is disappointing but he can figure out what to do about his sex life later. "Well, I'm not either of those, I don't think. Male humans don't have magic?"

"Yeah."

"All right, I think that's everything. Are we walking to the border from here? Can you find out how long it would take to see an apple plant first?"

"We'll have to walk the last two klicks, yeah, there isn't a sled or a place to ride a bicycle. I'll ask about the nearest apple tree."