Regarding the legal code: Independent elves have fraud, but it isn't very advanced. They commit assault, but not rape. (She's not 100% confident they're not interfertile with humans, they have the right chromosome count.) In the absence of fire their capacity for vandalism is harshly limited.

Also, most concerningly, someone else could subvert her elves. She's all in favor of exit rights and there is technically a process for resigning one's citizenship, but the tests she's had Mona run suggest that it's not just really a free choice. There are some precautions she can take, but ultimately they'll just have to cross that bridge when they reach it.

Furthermore, the number of photographs of her doing ribbon-cutting ceremonies and such should maybe be lower, it might creep out visitors. As might the "we're democratic because the Consul says so" summary, even if it's not wrong.

Ceanothus is distracted by all these concerns by the fact that she can use singing to move the earth! No more earthquakes in her territory! She can take a choir and go out to the fault lines when there's an expansion scheduled and lead everyone through just the right notes to make it proceed slowly and gently.

If she does it right she can even get the expansions to include surface-level deposits of useful minerals and pre-flattened areas for buildings. Mining is a harsh industry and the elves will be doing a lot less of it now. Also, she suspects that if Marley Kiefer sells a bunch of synthetic gems and synthetic-gem jewelry online for around the market rate, nobody is going to do a detailed analysis to confirm they're not made through the usual synthesis process.

There aren't any other states right near their borders that they've mysteriously failed to notice. There are some unclaimed fortresses that would be convenient to expand into, though.

We'll take those.

If you have multiple fortresses you can have the same person use rebirth tanks in multiple fortresses!

It is now much less likely that at any given time Cean will lack a mature clone in storage. Thus, she doesn't need to maintain a routine that she would feel safe maintaining with zero clones, because she doesn't need as much ambiguity.

She can lead scout parties without bodyguards, and attend a lot more ceremonies, and show up at the grand opening of any business she wants to. It's very nice. Mona, who still hasn't completely stopped aging, can be a bit less careful to make the most of a body's time.

There's actually a claimed fortress, not that far from Literate Elfland. It doesn't seem to have warped much to differentiate itself from the unclaimed fortresses, but it doesn't fall over itself to answer to the Consul.

Aside from that, there are no flags or signage or any real indication anyone was here.

It's possible she could take the fortress but she's not going to. Alliances are useful and she doesn't know what its owner is capable of. If the Tribune whose fortress this is doesn't really care about the local elves, they plausibly won't even have conflicts.

They leave behind a stone tablet near the main entrance with a brief discussion of their intent in a lot of Earth languages, and contact information.