Oh really? He isn't even that tired—

—except he passes out the moment he becomes horizontal.

He is awoken by a soft chiming sound the next morning.

He's immediately up.

It's another day like the last. Quiet breakfast, history lesson, meditation, dinner.

Sounds like the makings of a routine.

It begins to turn into one. Over the course of the lessons, he can see that the Voss hold a strong regard for the Mystics. Their society is quietly and uncontestedly dominated by the dictates of their visions as determined by the interpreters. Interpreters are called from all walks of Voss society by random draw, similar to the way Republic worlds distribute jury duty. Each individual group of interpreters works together to explain one vision, and then they disband. Interpretation may take fifteen minutes of discussion, or a day, or several weeks. There is one attested case where the interpreters could not settle for sixteen years. But no matter how long it takes, only the original group can give a proper explanation. Once the meaning is clear, any Voss will do whatever they must to fulfill the vision, make any sacrifice, put aside any pride, because it is for the good of all Voss.

Do they explain how exactly they know it is good to fulfill the vision...?

The Shrine keeps an archive of past visions stretching back thousands of years, and a record of the consequences for each.

Can she look at this record?

She's considered a Mystic-in-training, so yes.

Okay so, what happened when they failed to heed their Mystics' visions?

She has to go pretty far back to get any but- one where the child healed grew up and burned down a building with twelve people trapped inside; a couple military defeats that led to the Gormak taking more territory than they should have; a populist leader whose economic policies caused a ten-year depression.

Are these the only examples of failing to follow a vision?

Those are typical examples. If she searches diligently, she can find perhaps thirty more.

And they're all terrible disasters?

More or less. Sometimes the causality chain is kind of hard to see if you're not looking for it.

Sometimes? How some are those times?

Around a sixth.

Hmmm. And are visions' results universally positive? As in, are they always things one would desire if they weren't vision-influenced?

There's a few that relate to sustaining the system of training that produces the visions, but overall, objectively positive results.

Huh. Interesting. He'll tentatively believe the visions are mostly good.

Any clue why they're confined mostly to a single city?

Because the Gormak are everywhere else.

And why a single planet?

This is Voss. There is no need to go elsewhere.

Yes but what about want to go elsewhere?