"And then, what, set up a civilization there?"

"There's arcologies, in my world, because nobody ever let me talk so I couldn't offer to properly terraform it."

"That sounds useful and safer than having you on Earth. You can send us care packages."

"Yeah. Maybe eventually if you find somebody who could harmlessly cast the Imperius on a daeva they can be ferried by drone to Mars and get a nicely bound fairy to try it on whose summoner is safely elsewhere ready to dismiss the fairy if it goes wrong."

"I feel much better about that approach. Also circumvents some of the political problems I'm anticipating if people can immigrate to Mars."

"Howso?"

"Uh, if the church declares we're evil or something - I don't know much about the Muggle church but Muggles definitely listen to it about that sort of thing - we can still make stuff available to anyone who wants to emigrate, we don't have to overthrow any existing governments or convince them to go along..."

"People get more secular but I'm not sure how to speed it up. Starting a polity from the ground up on Mars sounds fun."

"Doesn't it? I still want to do some things on Earth because most people won't move but a new polity on Mars would be significantly easier to get right - you probably don't want any wizards in it, that obviates the safety benefits of having you all the way over there..."

"Depends on the results of the fairy test, but assuming I can't presume immunity, yes."

"You'll still get some, Muggles have wizarding children occasionally. But it should be feasible to ensure they don't have access to any mind control spells."

"Should it? How are spells invented?"

"Mostly trial and error. If someone causes half your subjects brain damage that'd be a sign they're trying to invent mind control and you might want to stop them."

"My -?"

" - who were you imagining running the place -"

"Somebody who hasn't holed any planets lately!"

"I don't know any Muggles that well but I can probably find someone halfway competent if you prefer that - or we can look at who distinguished themselves historically -"

"I mean, maybe I'm again holding 1802's ethical zeitgeist to too high a standard - goodness knows monarchs committing atrocities on smaller scales have never been that hard to come by - but eventually it won't be 1802 anymore -"

"And once Muggle Britain stops handing out death sentences for theft or adultery or blasphemy and conducting the trials in Latin, and once the slave trade is abolished, and once the colonies stop picking wars with the natives because they want their land - then maybe people will want someone else in charge of Mars, yeah."

"But in the meantime you're among very few people who even thinks any of those things are a problem. If you don't want the job, that's one thing, if you're just worried that eventually we'll grow up far enough to be upset about it and not far enough to agree it was right -"

"Suppose I could prioritize training a successor."

"Sounds good to me."

Sigh.

"Sorry."