It's getting hard to keep track of which places hot boy wants to fight wars with.

"If Galt invades Andoran and Cheliax doesn't come to Andoran's defense, even if it doesn't support Galt's invasion, Cheliax will be at war anyway. To its west."

"I do not have the power to prevent the Silver Ravens from taking Kintargo and Ravounel independent, if I can't persuade them it's wrong to do it. I can't overpower them, I can't out-persuade them among the people, their militia is superior to any forces that would listen to me. They think the Archmages Cotonnet will support them if they try to secede, even if the army gets sent in against them, and they're probably right. If the Queen permits Cyprian to annex Andoran, Jackdaw will reject her authority and they will secede, no matter what I do to stop them." And so Jilia won't try to stop them.

"Ravounel obviously can't win that war if it's fought conventionally, not even holding at the Gap. But it does change the calculus for what should be expected in the eventuality where Galt invades, and that's important enough to this strategizing you ought to know it."

"Which is to say that we need to prevent the Galtan-Andorani war," he says. "There's no complexities here. It will divide the nation, expose our greatest vulnerabilities, permanently damage relations between queen and consort, and lead to the death of tens of thousands of people. Whoever wins, we lose."

"We cannot meaningfully do this by signing a defensive alliance with Andoran, first because that would we have no meaningful effect on the war without the support of the archmages, which they are not prepared to give, and second because it would be a serious blow to our relations with Galt and probably not pass." In part because he would speak against it. "The best solution, therefore, is to find some way to prevent the war by negotiating a solution genuinely superior to both parties, providing Galt with a form of the unity it needs without destroying Andorani democracy.

"Yesterday I mentioned to Lord Cansellarion an idea that has long been popular among many of the liberal members of both Parliament and the legislative body, the establishment of a supranational body to ensure freedom of trade, freedom of travel and mutual defense between the former states of the Chelish Empire. It strikes me as a potential solution to this problem, especially if its remit covers slavery, since Galt would no doubt play a leading role in such an alliance. Andoran could obtain its independence while still permitting Galt passage for its ships and preventing the continued deterioration of the Empire into a thousand states as feuding as the River Kingdoms."

"I like the idea. But unless you came to the convention with the proposal for it already drafted and people in Galt and Andoran ready to lobby for it there I don't see how we can possibly get it through in time to matter."

"I have various texts," he says. Some of them are more than a decade old, from the radicals drawing up their utopian maps of what Cheliax might look like when the war was over. "I don't want to get too focused on this at this meeting, if anyone else has an idea that might work. We need to consider multiple possibilities, and someone else may have come up with a better solution than I did. But if we can get some sort of commitment from Cyprian that this is a workable model - if we can come up with something that he prefers to a bloody conquest and popular resistance - we can have another archmage casting Gates for the war in Razmiran."

"Presuming the Queen doesn't have all our heads for trying it. I agree it should be on the table."

"That is a priority, yes," Joan-Pau says. 

Oh she didn't actually mean that that was a priority, just that it was a possibility. It's a dangerous game having the Queen having promised not to intervene in a war that you have yourself decided to intervene in by doing international politics for her country.

Glad to hear that's a priority!!

"It's a good plan if it can be done quickly. But if you'll let me distract from it, I have another question for Ser Cansellarion, which is less urgent but... likely related, and if it is not, plausibly even more important in the longer run."

"Ser Jornet expressed to me in committee today that a proposal that relied on the Queen herself having access to an experienced lay priest of Iomedae on an intermittent basis should have a fallback to another church. Which is a much sharper and longer restriction on Her church's ability to intervene than I expected, and frankly made my first thought be that She expects to die. Is that-" Wait, no, paladins can't lie and this is subtle, more like with Rexus in the old days... "Should we assume that's related, should we assume Iomedae's death or something equally severe is a realistic outcome here, and if not in either case what can you say about what we should assume?"

"No, absolutely not, Iomedae does not expect to die and while we are to expect a reduced number of empowered clerics and paladins for the next few years to a decade, I don't expect any shortage of lay priests... Or, rather, I expect we may be somewhat short in the next year or two, but only because there is so much more for them to do and it takes time to find and train new candidates."

"But any laws you write should have a fallback to another church because it serves an empire very poorly if they assume their god will definitely never die and then build things such that they shatter if he does."

"Thank you. I expect that's what ser Jornet meant."

"I must have misunderstood, thank Heaven. The outcome of losing Her for that proposal would be legal stasis, not catastrophe, so I was alarmed that Ser Jornet seemed to suggest it was likely enough to be necessary to fix upfront. Please, ignore my distraction."

"I do not know international politics. Will Andoran absolutely refuse alliance or similar schemes unless slavery is completely ended? Do we know?"

"I have not met any Eagle Knights personally but by reputation among the Andoren expatriates, they will not stop provoking us until we have full abolition. I don't know whether that would sink an alliance or other arrangement but I'd imagine it would make it more fragile."

Ugh.

"Does Codwin know about Razmiran? Can we speak with him?"

"Yes, Codwin knows."

"Then unless someone else sees an obvious reason not to, I am inclined to ask for a teleport to Almas. And for a note from you, Lord Marshal, if you believe that speed on this matter is important enough that Codwin ought to want to speak about it. I would prefer to be more courteous, but full abolition by Oathday with no additional thought will see three thousand women and children massacred by the end of summer. I will order that to fight hell, or because the Queen or the Church commands it, but I will not support it on guess about what looks good to Andoran, not without checking."

"My lord, should I...?"

"I'll take you if you want to come, yes. Thank you. Count Ardiaca, does your scheme give you any business in Almas?"

" - acknowledging Alexeara's advice that we speak to no one of this I think that we need to give the Queen the chance to object before we go to Almas to do diplomacy." If it were an order she'd have cover but it's advice and so she doesn't.

"No doubt, Your Highness" he says to Archduke Narikopolus, "but unfortunately I think Her Grace is right; this convention has already been enough of a headache for Her Majesty that I'm going to want to confirm that she doesn't veto all my grand ideas before we do anything. - I'm sure Andoran might require full abolition to agree to an alliance, but I'm less sure they'll need full abolition to discuss it." And then they can bribe Andoran with abolition to join the league! The real question is just how much authority Galt will be willing to let anyone else have over it, other than they and all of their sister republics all wanting an independent vote.

"All right. As long as we're not rushing that element in the meantime."

"I'll have something ready just in case but we won't introduce it unless there's a plan that it'll benefit. I think it'd be a bad idea, naively implemented. To buy an archmage, sure, but - you are right to make sure we get the archmage for it and can't have her for cheaper."