"- well, I think sometimes because they don't know how to not, because they want to do the right thing but there are lots of competing concerns and it's hard to juggle all of them correctly all the time? And I think sometimes because, like - I don't know how much of this world's theology your council of two has informed you of, but we're all, you know, fallen. No longer in sync with the game plan. We chose knowledge and power over being... simple enough, I guess, to only ever do the right thing. And so now we know what our options are, but we don't always have the strength to pick the right ones. Because, um, being good in a world where lots of other stuff isn't is hard, and it gets you hurt, and we're not really as constant as God is? So - it's bound to be hard, starting from sin and pride and selfishness and pain, to become someone who can take all that and only ever dish out love."

She pauses. "I, uh, I'm not like a theologian? I'm like the opposite of a theologian. So that may or may not have made sense."

...She smiles. "People are pretty much people wherever you go. I--the Garden of Eden didn't literally happen, in my world, there was no actual physical Snake and Apple, but people are pretty much the same. All you can do is try to line them up so they don't make too much of a mess when they fall over. Because people do. Everyone does, even me." 

"That sounds like kind of a downer ending, in all honesty. But this isn't the ending. This is, uh, trying to navigate the chapter where space aliens come to visit. Which sounds like it could in temporal terms go either really well or really badly."

"Yeah. Maybe the answer is to go on television, resurrect some more babies, and then come absolutely clean about everything, and then announce that whether or not I'm backed by any kind of divinity I'm not planning to tolerate people being cruel in my name, or for any other reason I can prevent."

"So kind of a might for right deal? I - think I like the concept when Camelot does it. But I think Camelot was less divided on what 'right' was than we are, and it also had that thing where all the key players killed each other off or were forced to become nuns at the end. At least in the movie. I, uh, the point is I don't know how stable or sustainable even benevolent fallible absolute rulers are, especially you don't first win over the people who have to live with them."

"I don't want to be a ruler. I just want to tell people to knock it off when they're doing things that are really flagrantly bad."

"That's - kind of what being a ruler is, actually. Unless you're working in someone else's name, in which case it makes you a cop, a gang enforcer, or a kindergarten teacher. Although the last one is arguably a kind of ruler."

"I'm pretty sure being a ruler is more complicated than telling people to knock it off."

"Well. I am given to understand that getting people to actually reliably knock it off requires something akin to a state monopoly on violence, plus lots and lots of logistical stuff for figuring out which things people are doing and how they can be made to stop without breaking other parts of the system."

She considers. She takes a moment to breathe deeply and reflect on how insane the current situation is.

" - so I've never been a super powerful godlike Star Trek alien before, and you should take all of my suggestions with a grain of salt? But - if I were gonna nonviolently transition to something really good, and try not to stomp on truth, justice, and the American Way in the process, I'd - I'd wanna know if I could terraform Mars?"

"...I could probably terraform Mars."

"'Cause if you could terraform Mars then you get all this obviously bitoxiphosphene-free real estate that doesn't have an existing government to destabilize, and if you can teleport more people than just you, then you can get people out to your, uh, whatever you're running on Mars, and countries whose people have another attractive option have a lot less obvious power when you're trying to discuss what they should or should not within their own borders. And, uh, then you can take it from there without being totally dependent on existing deeply sketchy infrastructure. And you can accept as many refugees as you want, medium-term."

"That's probably the best solution I'm going to come up with. Although I have stripped the bitoxiphosphene out of Earth's atmosphere already, I did that first thing."

"That's cool! Hard to prove to everyone's satisfaction. But cool, that was good."

"Babies dying horribly is pretty much the worst thing. Ugh, not looking forward to figuring out how to actually administer a country, though." She sighs. "Governments do lots of stuff besides having a state monopoly on violence, and roads and other infrastructure is mostly not that big a deal for me in particular but that still leaves, like, a bunch." Another sigh. "Suck it up, Christina, knowing what you have to do next is a hard thing is way better than having no clue what to do next."

"Well, I mean, you don't have to do it all by yourself. You can get Commander Waterford to defect and do housing administration for you, or whatever."

"Is he, like, actually good at that? I like his taste in literature but he didn't seem to get why I might object to adultery and statutory rape but not gay people, so."

"I feel like that's actually a sort of a complicated set of beliefs that the vast majority of people throughout human history have not come to," says Keturah, diplomatically. "Um, but he's like, not entirely grossly incompetent, and he knows about housing? And if you collect an advisory council that consists entirely of random housewives then they will probably not be so good on the 'not grossly incompetent at housing policy' front."

"I mean even if you don't think being gay is fine it seems like an obviously different category of not-fine than the other two. Self-debasement seems like a different category than harming others. But I take your point. I suppose he's a better place to start than, well, any other idea I have right now."

"I don't think all instances of adultery and statutory rape are more obviously harmful to others than homosexuality is. But this seems like a thing the Earth theologians and the Martian theologians can debate later, when the Earth theologians are in better shape and the Martian theologians exist. Do you, uh, need anything else?"

"...D'you mind if I come back later? You're sensible. And you give good hugs."

"Yeah! Yeah that's fine. Dante's gonna be back in a few days but it's not like I'm doing anything important in the meantime. And I wanna go to Mars if you end up opening it up for business."

"That can definitely happen!"

"Cool! I mean if it's OK with Dante. I guess he has stuff here. But I'll ask him."

"...Do you want to continue being married to him? Take this as an entirely academic question if you have moral objections to divorce, it's just, you know, you didn't get married under the most romantic circumstances and my guess is that most people-who-make-that-kind-of-decision would be swayed by the part where he's apparently a Satanist. And no one's going to attempt to forcibly impregnate you on Mars."

"Oh we're not actually married! At least not in the, uh, actual sense."

She appears deeply unsatisfied with this wording.