"The quality of the poetry is a factor but we can't improve the whole endeavor by replacing it with better poetry - Fëanáro, how much have you explained -"

"Honestly I spent the whole time learning vocabulary. I explained about the Valar but I didn't explain Eru at all."

"Do you want me to explain Eru now or do you have more than enough to think about already?" Mirelótë asks 97816.

" - you can explain Eru if it isn't - uh, if you don't have other things you need to do?"

"It's sort of my job, actually. Uh, so there's the Valar, who are very powerful and can do lots of things, and then there's Eru, who is much more powerful, to the point that it barely makes sense to speak in terms of 'more' - he created our whole universe, including the Valar with all their power. He is not the sort of person who should be creating universes. He likes sad stories, and he saw the universe as a place to play out a sad story. We eventually figured this out, and told him that was not okay, and suggested that he consume stories in a less destructive fashion, such as sad poetry, and he agreed, and sometimes he gives the Valar pieces of his power so they grow while he shrinks. That's the 'gift basket' I was talking about. And he still thinks in the same terms that led him to invent a universe set up to be a sad story, and I think he will be very moved if you arrive alone on his moon terrified and holding a present that you are not at all sure is going to help in order to try to save your friends who are in short-term-urgent terrible straits, you see?"

" - OK," she says. She thinks about asking whether he is likely to kill her if her poetry isn't very good, but she thinks maybe she's not worth very much compared to trillions of people, so it doesn't really matter very much anyway. "Yeah, I can do that."

"I wouldn't normally suggest anyone talk to Eru, let alone if it was likely to scare them, but it probably wouldn't work as well if you had someone along to reassure you and it almost certainly wouldn't work as well if someone else went instead - you're here first and that's your predominant qualification, you'd be being very brave, you write poetry..."

"Oh I can definitely do it. Uh, if you think he's not likely to hurt anyone else because I tried. That would be bad. But if it's likely to help and the worst thing is just that if he doesn't like it then he kills me or traps me in a pocket hell or something then yeah, I can totally do that."

She seems weirdly certain of this for someone who was cowering in front of perfectly nice people, like, two minutes ago. 

"I'm reasoning from narrative and past behavior, and I'd understand if you didn't find that very compelling, but it's neither the sort of thing he's done before nor the sort of thing he seems likely to find amusing, to directly harm anyone because he was asked for help. I don't think he'll harm you, either - or, uh, do the pocket hell thing. I'm not saying it's out of repertoire but he did it by setting up Melkor to be the sort of person who'd do that, not by personal intervention, and Melkor's in prison now. I apologize if it seemed like I was suggesting something that might result in that."

- wow these people are weird about questions, if even their deities can't be offended by them.

"Oh," she says, deflating a little as she realizes she doesn't need to summon literally all the courage she has right this second. She's trembling a little now, though she still has her hands clasped in her lap and that makes it a little less obvious. "Well - I can do that, then. Try, I mean. If you think it'll help."

"I think whether you do it or not we'll be able to come up with a plan to free captives on Alteri planets before word reaches other ones and resettle them safely. I do think it'll help."

"OK," she says quietly. "I can do it. Try. Do you - have more questions about the situation? I know it's - it's a lot."

"How are Alteri planets organized? Who is in charge? Do they have diplomatic contact with any independent peoples?"

" - none except the Carthons and I'm not sure that counts as diplomatic contact. Earth - uh, the planet I was orbiting immediately before I arrived in space above one of yours - was independent for a while but it isn't anymore. Nobody's in charge of the entire Confederacy, they have a central government but they don't have a singular head. Houses, the big family dynasties, have heads. Planets may or may not have a singular ruler, depends on the specific system, they have different kinds of governments on that scale. Heads of houses and heads of state are always daele. I'm - not sure I know how to answer the first question, they have governments and they have families and they have markets and they have slaves. The specifics vary."

"What is a daele?"

Oh good, an easy one. "Started telling - " uh-uh, no, she's not gonna try referring to Fëanáro again, " - uh, we talked about that some on the ship. The Alteri have nine genders - daele, kriale, visle, nirle, sorle, nanye, kivye, mise, and suke. Not counting monsters. Daele are the ones who can be mothers. Uh, technically mise can be mothers but they can only have other mise and they don't, like, control anything. All of the real political power belongs to the daele, usually, though lower-level bureaucrats are other things."

"Monsters?"

"Sometimes they make an Alte that has special qualities and doesn't have a gender. I've never met one but they make them sometimes."

They have babies all the time, he adds while she is explaining this, over osanwë. Constantly from adolescence to - I don't know if it ever stops, I didn't ask. 

I'll add that to the list.

"If the people in charge on each planet agreed to work with us, would there be any other problems or would that solve it?"

"Um, well, they won't all, but if they did then I guess at that point they'd just have to find some way to replace the entire backbone of their economy, and also find a way to either keep up a successful defense or end a war that's been going on for hundreds of thousands of years?"

Nod. "How many people would that be to convince on each planet?"

How do you feel about you and a team of Dwarves replacing their economies with something tolerable? Mirelótë asks Carnistir.

I'm sure we could do much better. There'll be appalling transition costs - maybe with a lot of help with enforcement -