"- well, we don't have a lot of random attacks on travelers, but I imagine here they'd bring guards. Anyone can take self-defense classes but there's not usually much call for it at home."

"How do you manage to have the roads and all be safe? I bet the King will have all sorts of questions for you about that! It'd save our merchants so much headache if they didn't need guards for their caravans." 

"It's probably just better enforcement, maybe better social services?"

"How does your world actually do enforcement, and catching criminals, things like that?" 

There are a few greys on the ship; one speaks up. "Cameras help, and enough police presence everywhere that as soon as a crime is reported there can be cops following the trail - they use DNA evidence and stuff you couldn't have yet, but also asking questions of anyone who might have seen. We live more densely than you do."

"You wouldn't have Truth Spell, though. How can you tell if people are just lying about what happened or what they saw?" 

"I've never done interrogations, I wasn't even a detective when I was on the force, but you ask a bunch of people and see if their stories match and keep track of who has an incentive to lie? Also lying to cops is a crime, so people mostly don't."

"Lying to town magistrates here is also a crime but people still do it! That's one of the things that the Heralds on circuit end up dealing with, is local court cases that weren't resolved to anyone satisfaction, or where one of the parties raised an appeal." 

"- well, what happens when someone's found to have lied to a town magistrate?"

"...Depends what the lie was covering up, and there's a lot of room for judgement calls on the Herald's part - the flexibility is part of the value that the appeal process offers. Lying to cover up someone else's murder or rape would - often get someone a punishment almost as severe as the murderer's or rapist's. Which is usually exile; Queen Elspeth didn't like having too many executions and King Randale's mostly stuck to that precedent. Lying about, hmm, a property dispute with a neighbour or something would usually just be a hefty fine. ...Caveat, I'm not an expert on the law, Bards do get some education in it but that was decades ago for me." 

"We can't use exile - the neighbors don't want our criminals. I don't think that alone would be much of a difference though..."

"- Huh, you know, that's a good point. Somehow I never really thought through the fact that exiling people means they end up in Hardorn or Rethwellan and - probably keep getting up to mischief there. Though I do think it's harder to get away with a life of crime if you're an exile from another kingdom and don't know anyone." 

"Is it? Nobody would know your patterns..."

"I guess that's fair. Reckon it depends what sort of crime? ...Oh, and I think exiles often head north. To where there's no government or law enforcement at all." 

"Amenta doesn't have any regions like that."

"Wow! Really? Literally everywhere on your entire planet is part of a country?" 

"Basically! Not everywhere has someone living in it, we don't like to live on the poles in particular, but someone owns basically all of it even if only to - charge money to go on a visit to the Arctic, say. The middle of the ocean isn't owned by a single country but it is governed by international law."

"How do you even govern an ocean? What sort of ocean crimes are there?" 

"Well, piracy, for one."

"Smuggling, illegal dumping of hazardous materials..."

"Fleeing justice."

"Excessive fishing."

"Interference with communications and travel."

"You have laws against doing too much fishing? Huh! Why?" 

"Well, if you take too many fish, there aren't as many next year, you need fish to make fish."

"I guess that makes sense! It's like the thing where nobles have to prevent poachers from getting into their hunting-land or else all the deer get hunted. The oceans are so big, though! How many people are even fishing in them, in your world?" 

"- well, a lot? People like to eat fish and wild-caught is better in some ways than farmed and there are more than thirteen billion Amentans."

"There are - what - just to check, you said 'billion'? As in a thousand million? Thirteen thousand million Amentans????" No goddamned wonder they want more planets to live on! They must be absurdly crowded! 

"- yes, that's right. And we have less land area than you, on our planet. We live much more densely, though."