Riley explores Cthonica (OTC)
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"I'll go. It's my responsibility as the horizon chair for foreign affairs."

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"In that body or your adult one?"

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"I haven't decided yet."

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"What about my digitization proposal?"

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"Clearsky should do an active scan for magics first. If there's any sort of copy protection magics I don't want us triggering them but more information would be good. I'm in favor as Horizon chair for Exploration."

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"I'll accede to that modified plan on behalf of long-term planning."

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"The library is open to anyone. We can offer compensation to the publishers later if necessary."

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"That's an acceptable modification to the plan."

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"There's going to be a lot of work for the research teams. The books will help. I agree on behalf of research."

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"I just hope we're making the right choice."

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"Caroline, can you accelerate your teams and determine their cultural norms around apparent age once we get the scans? I'll make my choice based on that and transpose to meet Clearsky in the park the map said was nearby."

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"I assume nobody objects to me using discretionary resources for this?" She waits a moment and when there are no objections, "It'll be our highest priority," she agrees.

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A minute later and back in the library Riley receives the new plan and smiles. Finally a chance to actually flex her magic instead of keeping the lowest possible profile. She releases several scanning effects to search for magic in the library.

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There are simple preservation effects on all of the books, and a few are inherently magical due to containing runes or suchlike, but there's no visible DRM.

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Slurp. Information floods her mind, channeled through her implants and queued for compression and transmission through the pairstone.

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Once it's received, Caroline and the others working in the archives dig in. Is there any indication about whether OTC would respect someone wearing a young body more or less than someone wearing a more mature one?

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Full morphological freedom - including such bodies as eye-and-wheel angels and floating cubes - is a luxury good in the OTC, achievable at about the same cost as an average immortality insurance policy. (Agelessness is standard, and medical care is magical and highly effective - immortality policies protect largely against accidental death.) It costs an order of magnitude less (about as much as commissioning a fork of oneself) to get something that's humanoid and doesn't come with major inherent magical powers. This is achievable for most individuals but very expensive. (It's a bit like a car payment or medical insurance policy in a 2000-Earth world.) 

Different worlds come down differently on the subject of neotenic morphs in specific. Arcbright and Cthonia allow them, Valimer bans them. Trade worlds are more likely to allow neotenic morphs than Half-Tamed worlds. (About two-thirds of Trade worlds allow them, while only about a quarter of Half-Tamed worlds allow them.) In the worlds that allow them they are largely considered to be a personal choice on the part of the person wearing the body and it's impolite to ask "why are you a neotenic" or similar. 

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It seems that diplomacy would be better served by wearing a more mature form then.

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In the meantime, Riley walks to the park and tries to find somewhere at least a little discrete. She stops to give a thank you and a goodbye to the nice helpful librarian.

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"See you around!" 

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There's a small glade that looks like it's specifically set aside for spell meditation. There's a privacy-screen device at the path in that will allow her to reserve the space for up to a half hour.

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That seems ideal. She reserves the space.

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"Hello Clearsky."

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"Are you here as an envoy or chair for foreign relations?"

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"Both, I enjoy working as an envoy but this is higher stakes than normal."

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