"I'm sure some of the children dreaming of being pilots specifically want to be military ones."

"There are war planes? Like dragons but - mechanical?"

"I suppose you could think of them that way. Since we control the whole planet, most of the military force is in starships like mine."

This attracts more people, interested in starships and how wars are fought in space and what traits make someone a good starship soldier and whether there are any places in the worlds he knows of endangered by Evil.

"I'm still not sure I'd be accurately classifying things by your scheme. There are worlds that are in various levels of conflict," he says of that last.

Conflict where two countries both have a history of rivalry that escalates whenever they have the resources and an excuse? Conflict where one is trying to conquer others and others are trying to hold it in check? Conflict where one people is trying to wipe out another entirely? Slavers? Independence wars?

"A mix. I didn't specifically study foreign affairs - a lot of other planets prefer Outer Sohaibek, which has a more similar philosophy to the rest of the galaxy, and that makes it awkward for them to interact with us very much."

"What's the - similarity in philosophy?"

"I think it's mostly that they still use money."

People are confused by this. "That's a philosophy? ...do they also not have gods?"

"Nobody does except on this planet that I know of."

"There is a god of commerce but I don't know exactly how there'd be a philosophy of commerce without a god of it. I guess you could - believe all the things but think that there's not yet anyone guiding the world in that direction, that'd be coherent...all the other planets do that?"

"There aren't any gods there. - I believe on some planets there are superstitions to the effect that there is a omnipotent omnibenevolent deity but I don't know much about that."

"....is everything a wonderful paradise there?"

"No. I'm not sure what the rationalization is, Ibyabek doesn't allow them to send missionaries."

"...huh, why not?"

"They tend to foment unrest, dissent against the state, that sort of thing. I couldn't tell you what that has to do with the omnipotent god."

"...is dissent against the state a very big problem in Ibyabek?"

"Well, no, but apparently the missionaries threatened to make it one."

"...I guess we don't let Asmodeans in here," someone says, which makes people look slightly less confused. 

"That's because they'd be spies, though, not because we're scared that hearing about Asmodeanism would confuse people - or because Asmodeans have objections we don't want anyone to raise -"

"But," someone else says, "if it did - I know it didn't, I know Asmodeanism is kind of transparently horrible, but if Asmodeus came up with something that was awfully compelling and did confuse lots of people, we'd ban it, right?"

"I guess."

"Seems like a bad habit to get into -"

"You need a counterargument -"

"Sure, some people should study it, but -"

"Nirmathas wouldn't ban it, and - and we could see how that worked out -"

"Nirmathas?"

"One of our neighbors. They're chaotic good, so they don't have - the capacity to ban things, really, and they don't want it - it's not very good at winning but it's valuable for many different forces of Good to be trying lots of different things, in case we have blind spots we can't recognize."

"Hm. And they didn't ban Asmodeanism?"

"They don't really have any way to ban things. Probably if you start talking about Asmodeanism they'll all look at you very pityingly."

"I see. It sounded very peculiar from what Carissa told me."