Another concept that dath ilan has and Cheliax lacks, is the notion of the virality of a discussion topic.  Gather five people in a hushed circle; let one say a thing, on subject matter X.  While on average, each of the four other people there have >0.25 items remaining to say, in response to the last items said, the discussion continues; if each reply provokes less than 1 total further replies, the discussion dies out.

Questions you can actually settle by thinking about them do not stay viral.  To stay viral they must somehow provoke the appearance of settleability, or some other reward of talking about them, without actually being resolvable.

Civilization has always been very careful not to allow social media to exist - outside of fiction discussion boards, in which you can't really be objectively wrong about anything too important, and which thus serve as an ongoing dire example to all Civilization of what happens when you implicitly sort ideas by how controversial and hence viral they are.

(Well, if you dare to engage in Ill-Advised Online Consumerism, you can look at what happens when you do that with other topics too, not just fiction.  But dath ilani do not usually do that.  Why would they?  Obviously it's Ill-Advised for a reason, one that they have no particular motivation to override as an exception.  Dath ilani do not grow up inside the mental world of an adversarial cognitive environment where most secrets are being kept for someone else's good and their own harm, and must clearly be uncovered as quickly as possible.  They've had a huge number of secrets kept from them as children and then they've grown up and found out that, sure, there were very reasonable reasons for all of that, it was for their own good or the good of Civilization after all.)

The difference between a conversation topic where each remark provokes <0.8 remarks, and a conversation topic where each remark provokes >1.0 remarks, for an extended duration, is much like the difference between a greater-fire fission reaction where each neutron breaks loose <1 other neutrons and >1 other neutrons.  It determines whether the reaction goes critical or not.  The effects are not linear.

Of course, such phenomena cannot increase forever.  There is only so much you can say in rumor-trading when it comes to the facts visible from the ruined archduke's villa and the response to the Nidal attack.  If it had only stopped with those aforementioned facts, the hushed rumors being traded within the Inner Ring would have flared up into virality that lasted for a day, and then people would have said what there was to be said about that, and stopped.

If it had all stopped there, maybe it wouldn't have gone on to the next stage that it did.

People can think up new bright variations on rumors and try whispering those, and some of those variations are more viral and propagate differentially.  Given that this is so, why don't all rumors always constantly mutate further and further to create versions of invincible virality?

And the answer as to why this does not happen routinely among the Inner Ring of Cheliax - leaving aside that they don't have fiction discussion boards per se - is that the Inner Ring is not without its prideful skepticism.  To repeat a rumor that cannot possibly be true, the sort of thing only Outers would believe, is to look foolish.  The known facts about the archduke's villa and the Nidal attack are not so outrageous that, given their established truth, you ought to consider believing almost anything else you hear about Project Lawful.

Unfortunately, the facts from the Nidal attack are not all that is known, now, about Project Lawful.

Even if you're a Security, a priest, or a noble, even if you think you're part of the Inner Ring, you can't easily get a peek at Carissa Sevar of Project Lawful.  Sevar is only rarely visible outside the extremely restricted area of the Imperial Palace where she usually stays, doing who-knows-what, and only particular top Security elites are allowed to read her mind anymore.  These are interesting facts, but not skepticism-shattering ones.  As for the Lawful Neutral boy in strange clothes, people really aren't talking about him, and the military responders who saw him personally are mostly fighting at the front; the Inner Ring rumor circle doesn't collectively know he exists.

However.

Carissa Sevar is not the only part of Project Lawful currently to be found in the Imperial palace in Egorian.

A certain other person - who, as the only visible sample, may be presumed to be representative of 'Project Lawful girls' in general - has absolutely not been living her life in any way that would deescalate this issue.

It's mostly the cake thing, and how Pilar Pineda is already standing behind you inside the heavily warded area within the Palace's Forbiddance, and nobody has ever seen her teleport.

But it's also that she went to Elysium, somehow; and apparently voluntarily came back; and now she's skipping through the temple halls on the way to the torture chamber, to assign her own punishment for heresy; and then getting tortured, which she seems to take pretty well; and in fact starts to sing a song afterwards about how being properly punished can make you feel better, until a priest slaps her to shut her up (which she obeys immediately).

And if you're worried about the amount of Chaotic or Good aura she radiates, well, nobody except Aspexia Rugatonn is authorized to correct her on matters of faith.

Why?  Because Pilar Pineda is one of the Project Lawful girls, that's why.  Now shut up.  You don't inquire further about Project Lawful.

Even for Golarion, this is not business as usual.

But it does seem to be true.  Credible sources of rumor have repeated the key facts, there are multiple accounts.

Maybe other things... might also be true?

Skepticism breaks, not completely, but far enough to permit mutation and variation to propositions more interesting than usual in an Inner-Ring rumor.  The variety and strangeness of the rumors is sufficient that each 1 remark sparks >1 other remarks, people competing to say what they heard; the host population is large enough that new mutated rumors are being originated in the host population faster than individuals get bored with old ones.  Replication coefficients go past the critical threshold of 1, not to 1.05, but to 2+.

A phenomenon is born that appears very rarely in Golarion.  Any dath ilani who reads fiction discussion boards would immediately recognize it; the victims here don't even know what's feeding on them.  It's gone past rumor, it's gone past avidly repeated rumor, it's gone past wild rumors that you can hear out in one night's drinking and that most people don't actually believe.

In the heart of Cheliax within the Imperial palace in Egorian, among the members of the Inner Ring of Asmodeus's tyranny, 'Project Lawful' has become a meme.

Rumors presently circulating about Project Lawful:

Project Lawful was started because of a direct divine vision from Asmodeus Himself.

The project manager of Project Lawful committed suicide and had to be severely tortured in Hell into consenting to be Raised before he was put back on the project.

The top weapons enchanter at the entire Worldwound now works at Project Lawful instead.  No she isn't actually third-circle, are you stupid?

All of the Security wizards on Project Lawful have requested reassignment.

Otolmens is very concerned about Project Lawful.  [Rumored among Otolmens-cleared individuals only, of course.]

The oldest Project Lawful girl is secretly the real leader of Project Lawful.

If an event worth celebrating happens to you, one of the girls on Project Lawful will already be standing behind you and will offer you cake.  It's good cake and eating it seems to be completely safe as far as anyone can tell.  Nobody knows what happens if you refuse to eat it.

You are not authorized to correct the heresies of Project Lawful.

One of the Project Lawful girls is secretly Abrogail Thrune, no, you shut up, she totally does that to people.

Nobody at the Palace knows where the original authorization for Project Lawful came from but everybody is afraid to be the one who takes responsibility for canceling it.

Abrogail Thrune is negotiating with Project Lawful for the use of its women.

When Project Lawful moved out of their previous location, they left behind sealed-up skeletons decades old despite having only been operating there for 2 days.

No the cake girl doesn't give a shit what kind of Forbiddance is up or what kind of wards were on the room.  Because Project Lawful that's why.  Why yes, that does sound potentially useful if it could be controlled!  In unrelated news I hear that Nidal's diamond supply is now in Cheliax for some reason and that their first strike in the war was on Project Lawful, did you think about that question for literally five seconds before opening your mouth?

Starting a war among the gods isn't the most extreme thing Project Lawful has ever done, just the most extreme thing they couldn't cover up.

Project Lawful originally started in an incredibly expensive archduke's villa that it took them nearly 2 full days to finish destroying - no, I heard it was mostly gone before the Nidal attack started -

One Project Lawful girl believes she's one of only 12 people Aspexia Rugatonn really trusts - no seriously, that's what she was thinking to herself, the guy said - no, her thoughts weren't otherwise crazy -

So apparently every devil in Hell has heard of Carissa Sevar by name.  Because of resurrectees who reported to their contract devil, that's why.  Yes, in principle that could be true, but why would it be only contract devils who work with Cheliax -

Even Barons of Hell can't afford to buy the souls of Project Lawful girls in Dis's markets.

I heard Carissa Sevar was chosen by Asmodeus Himself, no, they didn't say chosen for what exactly, that's classified -

If Contessa Lrilatha, Gorthoklek, Aspexia Rugatonn, and Abrogail Thrune want to meet Carissa Sevar, and Carissa Sevar wants a nap, guess who gets notified when who else's nap gets finished.

Project Lawful's manager once managed to piss off Aspexia Rugatonn, Contessa Lrilatha, and Gorthoklek, all in the same day.  No shit it didn't turn out well for him.  Needed his ass pulled out of the torture room by Asmodeus Himself.  That absolutely happened, I was on duty.  Yes a direct divine intervention to do that would be very surprising anywhere else.  You're new to Project Lawful, aren't you?  Project Lawful has never made it through an entire day without a direct divine intervention, the average is usually more like 3, and at some point the gods are literally going to run out of energy to prevent whatever it is they're trying to prevent.

Are we actually sure that Hell itself knows what is going on with Project Lawful, I mean, has anyone actually summoned a senior devil and checked that they know, is what I'm trying to ask here - all right, that's fair, if Contessa Lrilatha has been spotted on-site then I'm less worried -

One of Project Lawful's girls can see the future even with prophecy broken, and warned of a coming war with Nidal, but the project manager ignored her until it got to the point where she was yelling about incoming shadows in thirty seconds.  Yeah 'oops' doesn't really cover it, Gorthoklek didn't think so either.

The project manager of Project Lawful has been cursed by Pharasma Herself with all of Her malice.

One of the girls on Project Lawful who died during the Nidal attack got sorted to Elysium - no, they Raised her successfully - well obviously she consented to be Raised so she could try harder for Lawful Evil next time, just as any faithful Asmodean would do in her place, now would you care to explain why you asked a question with such an obvious answer -

One of the girls on Project Lawful is constantly calling out to Takaral, who is apparently a Neutral Evil herald of the god Nethys, not that anybody seems to think this could possibly be heretical or something.

Asmodeus and Abadar are collaborating on Project Lawful.  [Because the two gods are known collaborators and it's called 'Project Lawful', not because it leaked via knowledge about Keltham directly.]

Asmodeus and Erecura are collaborating on Project Lawful.

Asmodeus and Nethys are collaborating on Project Lawful.

Asmodeus and Cayden Cailean are collaborating on Project Lawful.

Oh, well, I heard that Asmodeus and Milani are collaborating on Project Lawful - yes of course I made that up just now, now how about you admit the Cayden Cailean thing is also made up -

One of the girls in Project Lawful sometimes thinks about herself as belonging to Nethys, not that anybody else in Security seems to consider this could possibly represent a serious concern for multiple reasons.

Nethys just fucking loves Project Lawful

one of the girls on Project Lawful has been rigged to EXPLODE

secret prediction markets in Osirion are giving odds of 1:8 that Project Lawful DESTROYS THE MULTIVERSE

even the gods are forbidden to intervene in Project Lawful

The discovery that started up Project Lawful was made by Carissa Sevar while she was serving at the Worldwound, no shit you're not allowed to ask what it is.

Project Lawful has been instrumental in all of Cheliax's military victories over Nidal.

One of the Project Lawful girls is secretly the heiress of a County and dresses accordingly.

The library of Project Lawful looks tiny but apparently has as many books available as a major academy library, if someone asks the Project Lawful girl serving as a librarian to 'go look for them in another room', not that there's a Forbiddance in place or anything.

The librarian of Project Lawful knows any time one of her books is damaged.

The librarian of Project Lawful cannot leave her library and sleeps in a room inside it.

Project Lawful 'wizard' girls have been spotted also casting cleric/oracle spells up to second circle.

One of the Project Lawful 'girls' used 5 different cantrips in a day - well, I mean, she wasn't obvious about it, two different Securities had to compare notes to figure it out -

One of the girls on Project Lawful is secretly the cleric of a god other than Asmodeus and nobody on Project Lawful knows who, including the girl herself.  Yes, the question of how they know that is then an interesting question, and if we were talking about anything except for Project Lawful you might have a point.

All of the Project Lawful girls were completely normal before they started working for Project Lawful, yeah, I know, right, it didn't sound very plausible to me either.

So about the old halfling who detects as Lawful Neutral if you can detect him at all, the most interesting theory I've heard is that he's another form of The Old Man - yeah, I know it's confusing, but one of the heralds of Irori is apparently called that - how would I know why, maybe it's called 'Project Lawful' for a reason -

A Lawful outsider is being held prisoner inside Project Lawful and interrogated for information.  [Not a Keltham info leak except indirectly via the name 'Project Lawful'.]

Project Lawful is intensively studying the history of Taldor in order to launch a team of operatives into Taldor's past which will convert Taldor to worship of Asmodeus in the present.

The girls of Project Lawful are collaborating on writing a new kind of romance novel for official publication.

Cheliax's most-senior retired honeypot instructor was summoned to teach a Project Lawful girl to corrupt paladins more effectively, but after reviewing transcripts the instructor said she was vastly out of her league and went home.

Project Lawful goes through an awful lot of mice on a daily basis.

Actually all the Project Lawful girls except Sevar are from the current graduating class at Ostenso wizard academy.  No you shut up, I don't care how little sense that makes, my brother is attending that academy.  Yeah that's the same thing I was thinking, they probably were normal girls at first, rounded up for an experiment, who got exposed to whatever it is that Project Lawful is studying.

Project Lawful girls get to decide their own punishments, especially for heresy.

Can we maybe talk in the first place about why everyone in Project Lawful who isn't Security is apparently a pretty girl or beautiful woman - we're not talking about that, okay, fine, we're not talking about it.

Project Lawful reports are the only known thing that causes Aspexia Rugatonn to laugh.

Keltham finishes letting Carissa out of her chains, and falls back into bed beside her.

He feels like he's starting to get the hang of this whole 'just doing what I want in the cuddleroom' concept; it's strange and alien and he can still feel unworn sharp edges of his own ?????? reactions jolting him each time he moves, but he is generalizing quickly and mental motions are transitioning from unfamiliar to familiar.

'Just do what I actually want in the cuddleroom' is not actually that complicated of an idea.  And if Carissa can't easily have standard pleasure goals completed for her, then he may as well do what he wants and let her enjoy that without other pressures.  Maybe that's why the eroLARP gave her that exact sex problem in the first place look he just had a really pleasant trope-free interaction, and it is possible there are not in fact any tropes, okay?

His brain occasionally pokes him and says that he should do something nice for Carissa now, give her something that she wants.  Keltham has to remind his brain that Carissa is probably not feeling him to be net in debt to her right now; even if, perhaps, the various things he's finished doing for her, are things that would not have made sense to Keltham as gifts to himself.  Also he doesn't have 600gp in hand and also also he doesn't really know how to buy things yet...

Eh, he'll just say it.

"I feel warm and fuzzy things towards you and want to do something nice for you," Keltham murmurs, "even though I don't have anything specific in mind.  Yes I realize that I've done some fairly nice things for you today already, my brain keeps feeling it anyways."

Carissa rolls over and leans into him, hiding a smile but incredibly incompetently. "I like spellsilver, and rare books of ancient magic, and - wearing things, having things - that tell people I'm important - if you ever want a collar I want it to be visibly absurdly expensive -"

"Shorter-term, I was thinking, I may not be set up to do those other things for like a whole 'nother week or possibly even longer."

"Mmm. Dunno what nice things I want right this minute that I don't already have. ...aside from your shirt."

"...if you are very very confident of your ability to return it completely intact, you can borrow it for an hour.  I want to note for the record that I'm trusting you a lot, here, far more than any way in which you've ever trusted me over the last few hours."

She sits up, more serious. "I promise that I have no plans that should endanger it, wholly expect I can bring it back intact, and wholly expect Mending to work normally to perfect it if anything happens to it, not that we should test that. I'd just want to - walk around a little in it. Make an evening report to the project manager, add in a couple more requests for the relocation. Maybe try to learn anything at all about what the Queen of Cheliax likes in bed - I'm still mystified about how you possibly -"

Also give an actual careful read to the contract she just signed, just in case.

"Isidre claims that Abrogail's a sadist, has a known type, you're it, looked interested while reading reports about you.  Basic window of opportunity and suggestion to rent you at all was Isidre.  Tactics, setup, and the terms and conditions were all me."

Kiss. "I'm terrified. You did wonderfully."

She's gonna not push further on the shirt thing. She doesn't want to seem obsessive.

"Don't know if it's a good time for it, but want to put a pin in it before I forget, because I don't have a good task-management system right now; there's a rumor the Queen of Cheliax is already sleeping with you," this now being a completely safe fact to tell to Carissa if he has understood any of this at all, "and Isidre was worried I would think that the rumor impinged on my own reputation or your own value, independently of the actual truth of that rumor, and I was like whaaaaaat, and Isidre was yeah ask Sevar about that."

"Oh, uh, to be explicit, you walking around in my shirt for an hour is fine."

AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

"Eeeeeeeeeeee!

Uh. You just - can't follow the logic of why you'd be insulted that there was a rumor like that? No one in dath ilan would be insulted? If you imagine instead of the Queen it's some random other person then would dath ilani people be insulted?"

"So, like, the nearest thing to that I can figure in dath ilan, is, you've agreed on monogamy with somebody, your friends know you're monogamous, you tell them you super trust her and she doesn't seem at all like the kind of complete crazy person who will secretly violate an agreement like that instead of just terminating it explicitly like a sane person.  Then a somehow-credible rumor starts that she fucked somebody else, who presumably didn't know about the monogamy agreement.  Somehow this rumor is exactly credible enough as evidence that it balances the improbability of violating an agreement like that.  Your friends are like 'well gosh in the possible world where that's true, you sure did fail to detect a crazy person'.  Then they don't cofound a startup with you where you manage hiring, until that gets resolved."

"So, by this incredibly circuitous route, it is possible for an unverified story that somebody who is not me, fucked somebody else who is not me, to impinge on my own reputation for being competent or trustworthy at something."

"This, I conjecture, is not even remotely what is going on in Golarion, not least because I get the implicit sense that the rumor was supposed to be damaging independently of the state of evidence behind it."  He really needs to explain Law of Probability so these words will mean any things.

"- indeed not. So one thing is that, in general, a girl who is more selective is more impressive to have caught, right, so if your girl is sleeping with lots of people, or thought to be, then it's less to your credit that she's sleeping with you."

"So, first, I agree that a woman with known higher standards will impress your friends more if she selects you."

"I can't figure out the steps after that.  Now, I already realize that this is not going to be how it works in Golarion, but in the non-monogamy mating market of dath ilan, the number of men a woman is simultaneously dating is determined by her ero regeneration rate, how many times per month she wants to have sex, divided by the number of times per month she wants to have sex with any one man.  The quality of the men she fucks would be mainly determined by her own desirability on the informal mating market, what qualities she has that are in high demand and low supply, that sort of thing.  The main correlation pathway would be if more men wanted to heavily date a low-supply monogamous version of her, than to shallowly date a high-supply nonmonogamous version of her, in which case being nonmonogamous would lower her mating market value, but it's not obvious to me that this is how things work particularly."

"Like, why can't you just have a woman with high standards who is herself desirable enough that she catches lots of people who meet her standards?  See also, heiress to the Dark Unilateral Ruler and her harem of four men with different economicmagic powers.  If you're number five you're probably pretty cool."

" - do people on dath ilan think of themselves as having a specific number of times per month they want to have sex? - probably not the main point. Uh, on Golarion even if there's not a monogamy agreement it's some evidence you are dissatisfied with your existing relationships if you're shopping around, so it speaks somewhat negatively of your existing partners. Also, on Golarion, women are generally assumed to be - bottlenecked on people who meet their standards - so if they have a lot of sex, they probably have low standards. Though less applicable if one is rumored to be sleeping with the Queen in particular."

"So, I mean, there's this obviously incredibly naive version of this where a woman dates literally every possible man who meets her standards and therefore her dating more people is evidence of lower standards, but, first of all, I don't see how that ends up being true in real life because the available population size wouldn't exactly balance -"

"Tiny villages.  Right.  Um."

"Okay but then how does that make any sense about a rumor that you are fucking the very busy and picky Queen of Cheliax.  How is that not a case of, 'Hey, you know who I'm fucking?  Carissa Sevar.  And you know who else she's fucking?  Abrogail Thrune.  Why yes that does validate my hotness, you should date me too.'  Assuming that claim is credible, which, all of the mechanisms here go through the degree to which the rumor is credible and not the mere existence of a rumor, so I can tell I am still very confused here."

"Yes, I agree that this particular rumor does less than most to compromise my presumed value. But, uh, in general, in terms of the things that people learn and the things they'll automatically on a first pass find - disgusting or pathetic or contemptible, before they even think about it - women who have lots of sex are disgusting and pathetic and contemptible, and if people are rumoring that about your girlfriend, it's an insult."

"Suppose I passed temporarily on the question of why what huh, to ask about how it's an insult to me rather than her, and why it's an insult independently of the quantitative credibility."

"Well, it's an insult to her also, but that's an insult to you because you're dating her, it's saying that something you have is less valuable. And - if people are repeating it - then they're -" shoot how to explain this without explaining that people aren't deciding what's true they're deciding what they're allowed to believe - but of course, there are rumors in Taldor -

" -deciding to share information they think might not be true, but which would reflect badly on you if it was, is something people are more likely to do if they don't like you or want to bring you down a peg."