Two wizards and two soldiers appear in the desert, a few feet away from a tired slave caravan.
They nod at each other and disappear again.
Two wizards and two soldiers appear in the desert, a few feet away from a tired slave caravan.
They nod at each other and disappear again.
"Some of the arrivals have been kind of conveniently timed. - for one thing I would've killed many of these people if they'd arrived first."
"Although if I understand correctly one of those spells would in fact have killed me if I didn't count as lawful and some of me do not."
"I was not expecting ANY of this to happen," announces Rubelite, when she's read the whole thing.
"Well, neither were we. What - were you expected to do? Is Anaander right that you were made by aliens to communicate with her?"
"I was STOLEN. I am a human built AI with biologically human ancillaries just like humans' spaceships but the Presger brought me up. I was made to talk to humans. The Presger do not really understand about different humans but I noticed that my humans don't know anything about what anybody else's humans are doing! It's interesting."
- nod.
She looks at everyone else.
"They don't understand that humans do not act collectively, as one unit. The treaties all presume that we do, which means I have to enforce them internally, if anyone anywhere does anything that violates them they'll understand that to be humanity deciding to go back on them."
"You're the expert. If humans outside the Radch war on another sentient species, is the treaty I signed with the Presger violated?"
"I know. Stopping them from doing that also involves doing lots of bad things but I have been doing it anyway."