"Maybe somewhere there's an instrument that can mimic singing."

'I have seen and used synthesizers which were decent imitations, but not come across any sophisticated enough for real-time use rather than requiring substantial asynchronous adjustment.'

"Hm, that makes sense. The bar inside has things from many worlds, doesn't she?"

'Yes.  Searching for something with this capability has not been a priority of mine thus far.'

"That's fair. If you've never sung before it wouldn't tend to seem important."

'I am also uncertain whether I will be capable of singing songs with lyrics correctly, which seems like much of the appeal.'

"Hm. If you could make the sounds you could memorize the lyrics by rote, couldn't you?"

'Plausibly.  I am uncertain.'

"Well, I hope you figure out something that works well for you."

Ancora nods.  Their wing nearer to Alassëo twitches lightly.  'You are a skilled and woe-lessening vocalist.  But I came here to speak of your species's souls.'

"Ah, what about them?"

'I am considering using magic to enable the digitization of human minds.'

"Ah! Well - it has many advantages -

- some disadvantages, too, of course -"

They attempt to nod solemnly.  It looks pretty much the same as their default nod. 'I came in part to determine whether you had ideas for mitigating those disadvantages.'

"Copy protection, I suppose."

'I expect that to be feasible.  Should forking be entirely disallowed or permissible under certain circumstances.'

"I'm... not sure. I suppose under some circumstances it should be allowed - without the Valar that would be how we'd do resurrections -"

'Hmm.

The limitation as I currently imagine it would be on the number of simultaneous extant instances of a soul, rather than forbidding the creation of a new instance when there is not already one.'

"- no, no, that wouldn't do. Then someone like the Enemy could make a copy as long as the first one had been destroyed."

'I imagined a system where the destruction of an instantiation instantaneously prompted the creation of a new one in a predetermined location.'

"Oh. That could work. Unless - something happened to the location."

'I could likely specify contingency locations.'

"Maybe..." He seems doubtful though.

"Would these souls be like ours? Chips?"