My kin aren't likely to trust anonymous voting any time soon, for the reason that it makes voting fraud possible in principle. When there are so many of us that counting votes becomes plainly impossible, perhaps.

"The idea is that mandatory secret ballots prevent pressured voting."

I can see the appeal of that from a certain perspective. Has that historically been a problem?

"Some times and places, yes."

In Voa? Oahk? Or did they not bother to even put up a pretense of democracy?

"Oahk in the modern day is a democracy; in Imperial times it was not. Voa has had local democracy for longer and some instructive episodes of vote manipulation."

My impression is that most Draak won't think it's a major concern, and will probably stick to public voting for now.

"That may well work for your psychological setup."

He speaks with all the blues present, asking questions about everything from environmental regulations to recent court cases to how the internet spanning countries works and what they have to do about it to the kinds of things that go into treaty negotiation to how transfer of power and maintenance of knowledge works when they have old age to deal with.

They have regulations intended to protect air, water, and soil quality, but only incidentally protect from habitat fragmentation or destruction. Voa doesn't have many capital crimes but aggravated rape is one of 'em. They have treaties about complying with foreign censorship requests. Treaties usually depend on a lot of implicit considerations on top of the explicit ones; here is a good book on it. They have succession rules of various kinds if someone dies; a number of positions are elected, sorted by seniority while in office, and follow the seniority order if someone must suddenly leave office for any reason including dying.

He already knows they don't preserve habitats per se, he tries not to show his vague disappointment at that.

...I would guess it's a capital crime because it can lead to a child, and thus is particularly damaging or distressing to the victim. Is that correct?

"That's one of the possible aggravations but there are others."

The Seeker is glad to talk with interested blues about governance for a while. He comments that it's valuable perspective on Amentan countries, even though he's probably not internalizing it all correctly.

Eventually, I've been so focused on teaching I haven't looked at what you organized for a school closely. Is someone here the best person to talk about the continuation of my teaching beyond anti-nuclear-weapon devices, or is there a blue in charge of that who isn't here? Should I make an appointment about it some other time?

"I'm here," says one of the blues. "I've been working for Governor Avalor's office on that."

He swims a bit closer and sits mostly underwater.

I estimate two months until I have taught what I intend to teach for free, the theory and foundational construction of the anti-nuke devices. And seeing greens in action, I estimate a season and a half until you're able to build passable fusion power plants, or three seasons to teach everything I can reasonably quickly teach about the subject, if I kept to the same pace with the same students. No offense to Voa, but I think I'm likely to ask several countries for bids to teach the latter things, with various factors offsetting bids.

"No offense taken," the blue assures him.

Well, it seems he's about done here, then. He thanks everyone for their time and heads back to the makeshift lecture hall.

At the ongoing conference in Tapa, a Draak with a particularly long neck muses to a Tapai diplomat, Secrets come in many forms and have different value to different people. Things cannot be un-said, so in many cases, you can sell them only once. There is a secret I know that I think all of Amenta would like to know, but I am somewhat reluctant to say anything more than 'I think you would like to know this', lest I give it away for free.

"...you could ask someone to sign a nondisclosure agreement," suggests the diplomat. "Though there's some risk they'll break it if it's something they'd urgently think everyone needed to know at the expense of their reputation and whatever penalties the agreement carried."

I find it difficult to predict your Minds. Perhaps. Of course, it is difficult to find buyers when you cannot say what you are trying to sell without ruining it. 

"Can you remark on the general topic?"

I suppose it is necessary to garner interest. The topic is the exploration of space.

"That's definitely interesting. Uh, can you say if it's good news or bad? Or why it's secret?"

It is good news. I will be happy to explain why it is secret to whoever I speak the secret to. I swear by the Onesong that I am not trying to deceive, but I will be conservative in this. Any information I give risks allowing inference of the whole.

"Is anyone going to be angry with you for selling the secret, or your recipients for buying it?"