She stands up to get in line, though of course Cerdenya’s allies are ahead of her.

Most peasants would be lucky to scrape together 10 crowns, so it’s more like 10 years hard labor.  10 years hard labor over something being ambiguously a public or private letter.  10 years hard labor over loaning a book previously legal and currently legal in Lastwall.  

Fernando didn’t previously think to question arbitrary and cruel laws, but the convention has pushed something loose inside him.  Genuine moral opinions might be new to him, but the hate he feels is very familiar, and this is the first time he’s been close to the chance to do something productive about it.

He gets in line, but loads of nobles have already gotten in front.  Probably to jerk themselves off to the chance to impose brutal punishments.  They’ve got to fill the mines now that they can’t have slaves anymore. 

Another day, another attempt to end basic freedoms by foreign nobles who apparently don’t understand Cheliax.

Well, Thea herself hadn’t appreciated the sheer number of books out there until the past year.  She can’t exactly do the math, but it would probably take a while for a censorship board to get through even fundamental basic uncontroversial books.  And leaving it up to local lords to add their own censorship is begging for arbitrary and capricious decisions that commoners can’t reasonably track.

Well, she can think of one angle to attack the proposal along.  She gets in line.  She brings Estella with her in case she needs to send any last minute messages.

Felip walks slowly to the podium, first in line from having lined up with Cerdanya.

"Citizens of Cheliax. We are called to the duties of statesmen; to shape policy wisely. But what does that mean? It is to foresee the effects of those policies, to carefully weigh the tradeoffs, and to choose the best of options. It is, with the benefit of experience, to admit your mistakes.

Along with the narrow majority of this convention, I was a vote in favor of yesterday's law; better any law stemming the tide of tumultuous pamphlets than no law. The question of whether we needed a centralized censorship office or could trust an open market of self-appointed censors was unclear to me, and I thought it worth giving the market a try.

Conde Cerdanya has brought to your attention the first work widely published under yesterday's law. I ask you to not let the particulars of that case weigh too heavily on your mind. You have no need to fear the Badger Lich anymore, thanks to the heroics of Lord Marshal Cansellarion and his companions.”

He gratefully nods in the Lord Marshal’s direction, allowing a moment for applause.

“Instead, I direct your attention to why yesterday’s law allowed for this to happen, and to consider whether the only hole in this law has been plugged, or others remain. The lich was able to teleport to Osirion and return within a day, which is only the province of powerful spellcasters, and attracts the attention of the protectors of the realm. But a Vile Scribe could write them a letter on a pamphleteer’s salary, and receive permission to publish something similarly harmful to the public. Would the censors of Osirion, focused on their country’s culture, be able to correctly judge what Chelish commentary is in the Chelish public’s interest, and which will disturb the peace? By shirking our responsibilities, we wrong our allies by asking them to pick them up and judge cases outside their experience. The Pharoj is confused.

Some worry that a single censorship board, even amply staffed and tasked with haste, will be an impediment to the country. Our current law does not reduce the amount of work required, merely spreading it to any who volunteer. But the only provision it makes for who may volunteer is that they be willing to bear the costs of failure, and that failure is described in chaos and destruction. If a publisher approves of the autobiography of a lich, and its wide dissemination turns some enterprising young wizard from the path of righteousness to a darker one, will their victims know who to sue? Will they even be able to, on the grounds of “chaos and destruction”? Will the publishing house have closed, and received their bond back after thirty days, and be beyond the reach of the law? With a single censorship board, there can be oversight and clarity. With a multitude of them, we open ourselves up to Geryon's machinations.

And when censors compete, will this improve or degrade their judgment? What stops an author from shopping a work around to every publishing house, to every allied country, trying to find one credulous enough to let their work through? Cheliax will have the worst works from every country, from every publishing house. 

I think yesterday's law was insufficient, and needs mending. Let us have clarity; let us have public decency."

"This is a good law. It only stops people who want to publish bad books, not good books, and it means people can't publish bad books just by going to another country or paying a lot of money. I don't think people should be allowed to sell evil lich pamphlets, even if Osirion says it's okay."

Maybe next time he should see about giving his sortitionate recruits some guidance on speech-writing.

"I like that this law says we're allowed to add our own parables at the end of the Parables. I talked to one of the other priests last night and he said that the other one wouldn't allow that, even if you were just writing advice about farming and not anything that could hurt anyone."

No, there are people here who will find that speech more compelling than his. Simplicity has its own virtue; it's not a very statesmanlike virtue, but they have the convention they have.

Here we fucking go. She gets in line.

"I'm a little concerned about the penalty for obtaining banned works, it seems somewhat harsh. If someone gives you a book they say is legal, should you really be in debt for twenty crowns? Lots of people don't have that kind of money. And it's especially harsh for people who can't read very well, since they can't even check if the censors approved something."

"The law only punishes people for intentionally obtaining banned works. If you mistakenly believed a work you were acquiring was allowed, such as because the bookseller forged a mark of approval, only the man who distributed it to you will be punished for it, not you."

"Thank you, your excellency, that satisfies my concerns."

"I do not think this is a perfect bill; indeed, were I tasked with making one myself it would look somewhat different."

This is only trivially true, of course, but it's not a lie.

"But I think it is a good bill, and one that will serve well to prevent more inflammatory or disorderly pamphlets going forward.  This proposed law is not a new, radical construction that we seek to experiment on Cheliax with, but follows the standards for such laws used across the inner sea from Osirion to Andoran. It bans those publications that are injurious to Cheliax no matter how rich their author, and ensures that any who flout this law will face the punishment their crimes deserve, while preserving the ability for her subjects to publish good works. And it will certainly accomplish this task of keeping order far better than yesterday's law, which failed within the day."

Narikopolus does not have much confidence in his speech-giving ability, even when he has prepared thoroughly, and he hasn't. But he has to speak, this time.

"I am strongly against this proposal. I voted against it in committee, and intend to vote against it on the floor.

I have three reasons, any one of which would be enough, but all rest on one belief. That is the belief that we do not, at present, have the manpower or money to staff a censorship board with men of sound judgement and character. We do not even have enough men of sound judgement and character to staff our own criminal justice system, with nearly all cases being heard by members of the Glorious Reclamation. If we were to staff a censorship board with an adequate number of experienced Chelish censors, I expect that we would see far worse than this pamphlet. Our own people have far less sense of morality, and are no more impervious to a spell caster's dominate, which I suspect is to blame for the lich situation.

This law says that the board must instead be staffed by at least twenty men. Perhaps we can find twenty. But twenty men, I think, will not be anywhere near sufficient. I do not know the specific numbers, but I would guess that the previous regime employed more than a thousand censors. Why? In part because the old regime was very censorious. But in part because Cheliax is very large, and very literate, and even many of its peasants view reading as a daily activity. I believe that the vast majority of worthy and actively helpful existing books will not make it through such a board within the year, to say nothing of works which are merely harmless. I believe that censorship boards work. I believe in censorship, and I believe in public order. But I do not believe in relying on a Chelish censorship board, not this year. I cannot imagine it morally outperforming the Osirian board, let alone the board of Lastwall. I instead believe that this law will outlaw the buying and selling of nearly all books in Cheliax for the foreseeable future, if it takes any amount of care with them at all.

Given that - I turn to considering what will happen, if we ban more than ten million literate people from obtaining anything but a small list of holy books.

In the first place, I expect many wizards to break this law. Not because they are fundamentally lawless, but because we have in the last two years done away with most of their options for employment. We have closed down the schools, leaving the teachers out of work, and the boarding school students to search for anything useful to do with themselves. We have closed down nearly all government bureaucracy, which once employed many wizards. We have limited mandatory conscription of wizards into the army. If we additionally close down the bookshops and the academies - if the academies find that they cannot function without books - even fewer will have any plausible way of buying bread. I think it takes very great strength to follow a law which outlaws one's profession, and that many men will risk what they see as a harmless crime, if the alternative is starvation or life as a plantation hand. I believe that many of the people copying the now-illegal pamphlets are not just ordinary men who lack such character, but children - boys and girls of fourteen or fifteen, copying things for pennies because we shut down their schools. The current law will have the city watches jail them en masse this week, and they will learn their lesson. This one, I fear, will send hundreds or thousands of them to the mines, where there are no more lessons to be learned.

Second, I think of how I myself felt immediately after the war. I was able to find a copy of the Acts themselves, and ordered many copies made from it. But I did not understand it. I went on doing horrific things, not knowing I was doing them. Commentaries, sermons, explanations in plain language - these were hard to find. They had not been officially allowed, and many people would not sell them or attempt to obtain them. I was fortunate enough to directly petition the government of Lastwall for a lay priest, who came to answer my questions personally, but this is obviously not an option for most of the people of Cheliax. I fear it is not an option even for most nobles. I think that many of us need Lastwall's books like we need food, right now, and I do not wish to put any barriers in the way of us obtaining them.

Third - and perhaps this is my truest reason - I must think of all the people who I have ordered killed, for breaking Thrune censorship laws. Brave men and women, risking their lives to bring people works by Desnans, Shelynites, and Iomedans. Men I wish were here today. I do not wish to be made to kill such men again. If the law provides a way for those works to enter the hands of Chelish people who desperately wish for pictures of virtue, then I believe that the vast majority of people with good intentions will use it.

But if, in practice, it does not, and they once again feel the need to risk their lives, to bring my people books which speak of virtue - I will serve, if the Queen orders that I should return to killing men who smuggle Shelynite hymns through my territory, even if it happened because because a team of twenty men was scrambling to approve Iomedan prayer books instead. But I beg you all not to ask her to."

There. He has no idea if it was good, or will help, but - he had to try.

Where are they finding these archdukes.

If someone tells you to do something evil, don't do it. Nobody is saying it's easy, but it's not complicated to not do things you know are wrong.

She's not sure what else she should have expected from a holdover noble, though, obviously anyone who wasn't willing to do evil when they're ordered to couldn't have been a noble under the Thrunes. That he should have learned better? Maybe she should count her blessings that he at least doesn't want it to pass.

"Honored archduke, I certainly agree that it would be a great wrong, if our censorship board proved so inadequate that virtuous men were forced to turn to smuggling merely to bring the teachings of the righteous gods to the Chelish people. But I do not believe this statute would bring such a thing about. It sets a minimum of twenty men, yes — but we can have a board of twenty men by nightfall, selected from virtuous men vouched for by wise delegates of good judgment" that is to say, people his allies thought would be competent and trustworthy "and expand as necessary to meet the needs of our subjects. Such men need not be exclusively Chelish-born, if we cannot find qualified Chelish censors in sufficient quantity, but even if they are not of Cheliax I believe they can do a better job of evaluating the worthiness of publications than men instructed to judge only according to whether it conforms with Osirian law. 

Perhaps you may wonder why it is necessary to restrict access to the teachings of the righteous gods in the first place. In the past week alone, I have seen writing attributing all kinds of reckless and incorrect teachings to the righteous gods, claiming among other things that Iomedae wishes Evildoers to commit suicide, that Iomedae's church is intentionally working towards the destruction of all Cheliax's people, and of course, that she wishes Chelish subjects to form anarchic mobs and rise up against the Queen. Many of these claims, I believe, were made out of ignorance rather than malice, but they are no less dangerous for it; a censorship board of virtuous and learned men is better-positioned than a pamphlet smuggler to evaluate theological claims.

So long as the board works swiftly, our wizards need not find themselves without employment and our subjects need not find themselves without instruction. If in a month your fears have come to pass, and the censorship board finds itself so bogged down that it is unable to approve even clearly-permissible works promoting the righteous gods, I would certainly support modifying it; but I do not think they will."

"This law bans the making, sale, and lending of all books save a handful of holy books, across the whole country, until a board of censors we have not hired, have not trained, and will certainly be pulling off of other urgent duties laboriously read and reintroduce each book. That would be a very grave error, for all the reasons that the Archduke has already spoken of. I wish to speak of a different matter, which is whether our existing censorship law is adequate, and if not what should be done about it. 

I was as unpleasantly surprised as His Excellency Cerdenya to see the latest edition of the Badger when I departed the convention hall last night. I had presumed that the Badger was a daring and foolish child with a moneymaking gimmick, not a genuine lich living in the sewers of our city. But where His Excellency concluded that the problem was that Cheliax did not have a board of censorship, this was not my conclusion. Osirion, after all, has a board of censorship. This pamphlet was published by it. I do not know whether the lich Suggested that the censors approve it, or Dominated them, or merely intimidated them, or did some more horrendous thing yet, but this problem was caused by a pamphlet approved by a board of censors, and I see no reason to imagine that it would not have happened if that board of censors had been right here in Cheliax. 

He will of course applaud and cheer the heroism of the lich-fighters.

Aww, there was a cool fight and he didn't get to see it? That sucks. (He claps anyways.)

He applauds an evil wizard getting her comeuppance more sincerely than anything else that's happened this convention.

Dolor frowns. That rubs her the wrong way, but it's probably just that the duchess didn't know why, not that there wasn't a good reason. The archduke Requena and the Lord Marshal are unusual as nobles go, and not allies besides. She doesn't clap, but doesn't stand up either.

As things nobles do go, killing liches is pretty much the best thing they could be doing. Delegate Napaciza is still basically a murderer but she can clap for the ones that aren't awful. Hooray for avenging the lich's innocent victims.

She's not sure what side she's supposed to be on about the law but it's easy to figure out what side to be on about stopping liches. Liches are bad.

Why did the badger-lich have to get killed immediately after starting to pay preposterous amounts of legal fees. Can she sue over this somehow. Can she inherit the lich's estate. Can liches curse their estates to polymorph lawyers into undead badgers.

No applause from Lluïsa, that was her money fountain. They probably looted everything like the wretched tortfeasors they are.