"Our primary holdings are in a solar system in each of two realms, we also claim a demi-realm there's another seven realms with polities we're in the process of integrating. We have outposts in a further hundred and fifteen inhabited realms and two hundred and six with no known inhabitants."

Morning-Glory's eyebrows rise. She looks at her smartwatch and taps an icon. "Verify."

A green checkmark comes up on her watch. 

She flicks away the app, brings up a phone. Taps a red button, and selects from a short checklist.

There's a muted flash of red light from out in the hallway, and a woman with rich red hair steps into the room. She's wearing a perfectly tailored suit, just like Morning-Glory's, and carries herself with an air of utter confidence. 

"Executive Morning-Glory is not authorized to treat at the multiversal level. I am Director Grey, and I speak for the OTC as Chairwoman of the Directorate. It may take up to three days to convene a full meeting of the Directors regarding this First Contact but I am available to you now." 

She sits down at the table. "Executive Morning-Glory, please take minutes for the meeting."

"Yes, Director."

"I admit I wasn't expecting one of the directors to get involved so quickly. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us."

"This is the first time we've been contacted by another multiversal sovereignty. Naturally I made time. Tell me, what do you know so far about us?"

"I read 'The Project' our archive teams have also read a large number of historical texts from this city's central library and the basic catalog provided by your employee at this location. Your goals seem broadly aligned with ours, save Director Black's obsession with profit, though your methods seem strange."

"Historical accident, mostly. The two-tiered economy brings deity-level talents to the OTC's attention and grants the ability to meaningfully trade services among that elite while providing a hands-off framework for bringing OTC standards of living to the planes. Director Sunaira would call it a humanitarian project - I call it good business."

She steeples her hands. "What would you say your diplomatic goals are for this meeting?"

"Our primary goal is to retain independence. It seems that your organization has the ability to force the issue if you chose to. Beyond that we would be interested in a broader exchange of knowledge and possibly to offer some assistance in building places for refugees to resettle given that seems to be one of your pressing concerns."

"So long as your sovereignty is not slaveholding we are content to allow you to do what you like. If you are slaveholding we will take the necessary steps to end that, preferably peaceably. We would like to negotiate for the ability to open OTC branch stores within your territory and to terraform uninhabitable territory in your worlds to house refugees, but if for whatever reason you would like to refuse either of these we will accede to your desires. We would greatly appreciate knowledge exchange and humanitarian aid."

"No areas we're politically in charge of have slavery that we're aware of, I think there is some amount of it on some of the worlds we have outposts on. We don't single out slavery in particular among abuses against sentients and in general a more gradual approach is our preference. We have concerns about allowing OTC stores in our territory though we don't have the authority to prevent you from making the offer to other polities in our sphere of influence."

"The OTC sees its goal as allowing the full flourishing of the autonomy of all sentient beings. As such, Director Sunaira has pushed very strongly that we not allow slavery to continue within our sphere of influence. It is theft of time, and time is our central and most valued currency." 

She smiles. "That's the company policy, but we prefer softer methods. Applying diplomatic pressure is common, leading to 50-year phaseouts or similar compromises, preserving the company's bright line stance while preventing casualties from war."

"What concerns would you have about opening OTC stores in your territory?"

"Primarily the economic implications, we're a functionally post scarcity economy and it's not clear how that would interact with the introduction of additional currencies. There's also some concern about you selling weapons that might make it easier for people to do permanent damage to each other without coming to the notice of our emergency services, though given that some of your magics work with knowledge alone we'll need to face that regardless."

Director Grey makes a cutting motion with her hand. "The exact content of the stores is relatively unimportant, we will happily ban any items you wish us not to sell. How does your post-scarcity economy function for things such as concert tickets and rare magical services?"

"Most concerts popular enough that they are likely to be sold out either use lotteries or a first come first-served system depending on the preferences of the artists. Rare magical services are generally at the discretion of those who have the ability to offer them. People can post requests and magic users fulfill the ones that interest them. Practically speaking magic is only critical for research work and instantiating new resonator factories. Magic is otherwise mostly a novelty. Perhaps that will change with the introduction of so many new types."

"I see. This does produce some natural concerns about free trade and immigration between our two polities. Do you have any proposed solutions? We would like to negotiate for open borders."

"Our current infrastructure is scaled to support up to 200 billion people which is four times our current population. About half of that is currently allocated towards providing humanitarian aid to other polities in our sphere of influence while a the remaining quarter is focused towards infrastructure upgrades and various non-critical projects at the discretion of the Assembly. I can't predict exactly what the Assembly will do when they next meet in full session but I expect they will be reexamining priorities. We have budgeted for immigration of about 100 million per year on average based on historical trends and adding a generous allowance on top of that. Though we have refugee facilities built to house up to two billion people on short notice."

"I see. Well, there's no need to be hasty. You seem to be getting along quite well on your own."

"I like to think so. On our last census people 81% of people rated themselves as very satisfied with life and only 6% rated themselves as very dissatisfied."

"Impressive! Our figures aren't quite so good. Depends on what you're optimizing for, of course, but..." She shrugs. "The people being as happy as possible is a worthy goal."

"Satisfaction and happiness aren't quite the same but that's a quibble. It's certainly something I'm quite proud of, though I can't take any significant credit."

"What are your figures for mortality?"

"Last year forty-four thousand two hundred and sixteen people died. Mostly from people with religious or philosophical objections to mind backups though there were a few murders and accidents."

" - what's your average price for -"

She pauses. "That's of your own people, yes? You're not counting contacted civilizations and you have - seven Trade equivalents, a hundred Half-Tamed worlds - your population is on the order of a hundred billion?"

"Yes, our fully integrated population is about 50 billion the polities we're in the process of integrating amount to another 75 billion. Among the inhabited realms where we have contact but no major holdings it's considerably more I think the last estimate was on the order of two trillion people all told, about half of that is in a realm with faster than light travel."