"It is! So there's not much risk that if anything happened to all the ships at once no one could ever build more?"

"If something did happen to all the ships at once we might be in trouble, but that seems very very unlikely to me, to be honest."

"Do you think the gate breaking seemed unlikely?"

"I wouldn't know. But - there was only one gate. At a guess, there are something on the order of ten thousand airships."

"I guess that's probably enough redundancy. And we'll fix the gate eventually. ...Actually maybe we shouldn't fix the gate until we're powerful enough to conquer anyone on the other side."

"...Uh, why?"

"Because otherwise if we fixed the gate they might come and decide to take us over. And it would be really weird if they just happened to be even better than this place, so they're probably worse. So being taken over by them would be bad."

"If you're that concerned about it, just rig the gate to explode again and do it if they make invade-y noises. I bet they'll be better than us. Or richer at any rate."

"So I'll figure out how to make things explode and then I'll fix the gate. And all that comes after making metals and introducing new technology, so I guess it's a little early to be talking about it."

"If you don't manage to take over the world through the power of shiny things and stop piracy and so on on this side, being taken over might even be better, you know. I don't know what if any government exists on the far side of the gate but one shouldn't just assume it's awful and will go to war with us. We don't know enough... Actually, if it is awful and unstable, yes, we have to be able to win a war. If someone really really wanted to invade Cloudbank they could still come the long way, see. It'd take six hundred years or something, but they could."

"Then I guess we have to become powerful enough to defend ourselves against whatever is on the other side of the gate. Without even knowing what that is. I guess we just have to become infinitely powerful. And then open the gate and if they're great we just let them conquer us instead of turning them all into silver. So, any ideas for becoming infinitely powerful and living six hundred years?"

"No conquering will necessarily happen. Not all conflicts end with the destruction of one side, you know... I'm hoping for Milliways, to be honest. Apparently anyone could come in, with any kind of power. Not that we shouldn't put our backs into it now."

"If I'm ever bored of everything else I'll open all the doors, I guess. But how do conflicts end without anyone conquering anyone?"

"You agree that leaving each other alone is cheaper than fighting an awful war, compromise on some of your conflict points, and go home."

"...I guess that should've been obvious. That's another way this place is great, you know that? Being able to avoid wars when you meet new people."

"I was simplifying. But keeping in mind you haven't seen the nastier parts of Cloudbank yet - I do like this place as much as you do, I think."

"We'll just have to take over those parts and fix them after we're rich from selling metal and have lots of technology they don't."

"Probably not us personally. Taking over things generally being dangerous."

"Maybe if we stockpile metal first so it doesn't matter if I die... it doesn't stop being metal without a sun mage, right? So we can just make enough and then there'll be enough?"

"I think if we find Milliways, you'll be able to get a door into Har. We could, perhaps, hire other mages - that's a high-trust thing though. And it assumes you'd tolerate risking going back. With enough tech I might be able to build things to mine metal from the surface. I don't even know what I'd need to know to do that yet, though."

"If we find Milliways we can ask if they have books about mining that could help. We still wouldn't need to visit Har."

"True, and we might find other kinds of magic that aren't mages, but a structure mage and a defense mage and heat mage would make engineering wondrous things very fast and easy. Not something we have to decide right now, though."

"I don't think there are any worth inviting. People there aren't like people here. ...You probably shouldn't have let me in your ship, either, I'm not planning to kill you and steal it but you have no way to know that."

"I did have a way to know that. I knew another you, briefly. Normally I'm not quite so trusting."

"You only had to know him briefly to know I wouldn't want to kill you and take your stuff?"