"I agree it is a sensitive subject.  I cast nondetection and undetectable alignment on Tanya earlier."

One obvious potential conclusion, especially to someone entirely unfamiliar with alignment and unfamiliar with Golarion's Gods, is that alignment is a tool of manipulation by the Gods.  Jon suspects he failed to distinguish Pharasma and Iomedae sufficiently to Tanya earlier.

Of course if you give a church mind-reading powers they'll delegate them to the literal Inquisition. Terendelev holds an unclear role in the city government and is clearly powerful and rich in her own right but she can't give them orders. Which implies this is a theocracy, de facto and possibly de jure: the divine backers naturally want their direct employees to be in charge of everyone else.

Questioning suspicious foreigners who didn't exactly pass a border check is a reasonable power for law enforcement to have but she's not even suspected of any crimes - no, of course they can pin crimes on her if they want to, starting with 'entering the country illegally' and 'manslaughter through reckless use of magic' and probably ending with 'refusing to worship Iomedae'. She was banking on Terendelev's influence and goodwill but now Terendelev is saying even her hands may be tied when it comes to the local church, and all she can guarantee is that Tanya will be able to leave freely and presumably be treated as a fugitive from the law?!

"I would greatly appreciate a positive statement on my legal status here and an understanding of the rights I would have under local law if the local law enforcement demands to question me. Assuming they agree to refrain from mind-reading. I'm aware I can be - construed as having broken some laws, for example by entering the country illegally, and I presume I'm unaware of many other laws that might be applicable. I hope this doesn't require you to personally talk me through it, but I would like to head off any possibility of - legal troubles."

What else did she ask... "Jon did mention alignments, but I'm not sure I understood them very well. They're philosophical concepts that are associated with certain gods?"

"The more advanced understanding is that they are philosophical conceptions by which the oldest and arguably most powerful God, Pharasma, likes to categorize morality.  The more commonsense understanding is that Good is helping others and kindness and altruism, Evil is harming others and cruelty, Law is obeying the law and keeping your agreements, and Chaos is feeling free to break the law or your agreements as needful.  Does this make sense so far?  There are spells and spell like abilities to detect what someone's alignment is.  I would assume these concepts would mostly make sense even if your planet does not have alignment detection, but maybe you divide them up differently or combine them together?"

Heaven knows Hulrun certainly conflates Evil and Chaos sometimes.

"Jon gave me a longer list of - behaviors associated with each alignment, and we don't usually group them that way; Good is the only one that's readily recognizable." Uh, she knew an exam on this was coming at some point, what were the other ones - "Evil is causing harm either instrumentally or as a terminal value, or even allowing harm that you could prevent, which I would treat separately. Law also includes being predictable, and I don't know why that's related..."

"When you say you detect what alignment someone 'is', do you mean it's a spell to - ask Pharasma what he thinks of people?" Wait, wasn't Pharasma the one who - "...and then I'm guessing Pharasma sends people he doesn't like to be publicly tortured in the 'afterlife'." She already knew this was a dystopia; it's good for the rules to be clear. The 'gods' will get what they want, but at least there will be fewer misunderstandings along the way. 

"Pharasma is usually identified with female pronouns."  Maybe her planets main God (or chief of the leading divine faction or whatever) is male?

 "And what afterlife someone is sent to isn't easily discernable publicly from the material plane, scrying is the most direct way and it's a 4th circle spell for wizards and 5th circle spell for clerics.  Which makes it dysfunctional as an incentive system on top of some other reasons it doesn't effectively work that way, which is kind of secondary to the entire problem that three of the afterlives are full of torture.  But yes that is in broad strokes correct basically correct."

"You detect as Lawful Evil with a moderately strong aura..."

She really isn't prepared for this conversation, she is aware of how to give the 'so you detect as Evil' talk to adventurers that just crossed that threshold of power, but not how to give it to already powerful people that the entire concept of alignments (and afterlives?) is new to.

"People who can detect alignments will make certain assumptions.  A moderately strong aura means you are at the power level of a 6th circle or higher wizard.  If they are making optimistic assumptions they will assume you are reliable to keep your word and will strive to obey the law when remotely possible but maybe have one incident of, for example, civilian collateral damage.  In the more median case, they may assume you are generally reliable to keep your oaths and have one or two legal but harmful values or sets of actions such as owning slaves, abusing animals, or in general taking advantage of legal opportunities to hurt people.  In the more pessimistic case, they may assume you are only reliable with the exact letter of direct oaths and have strongly held harmful values or habits, such as torturing slaves or deliberately maximizing civilian casualties in war."

He is getting worked up, with noticeable irritation in his voice.  

"Mortals with alignment detection often tend to make overly strong assumptions from detectable alignment: refusing any business dealings with Chaotic people, assuming Evil people must innately value Evil, assuming Lawful people can always be trusted... the list goes on and I digress yet again.  Mortals aware or who recently became aware of their detectable alignment sometimes reason badly about it: deciding since they already read Evil they may as well cause whatever cruelties or harms they like even if there original Evil was circumstantial or all but accidental.  I could go on with this list.  It's a dumb system that is only useful for a crude first pass of evidence about a person but you should know people will read too much into it."

"I was going to get to those implications after figuring out how to address the afterlives to someone that hadn't heard of them before.  I'm sorry for explaining it this way, this must be really horrifying news if you didn't know about the afterlives or your alignment already."

She is putting all the sympathy she can into her voice.

"Humans are almost always capable of changing their alignments if they put their mind and efforts towards it."

Ha. Hahahaaha. Well, she can't say she wasn't forewarned. This is probably the starting point of everyone in this world: a threat of torture in the afterlife unless you submit to a church that promises you salvation. Or at least anyone who is rich or powerful enough to come to the attention of the churches or their divine backers, which the 'detect' spells neatly encapsulate.

And they can claim their hands are ethically clean, too! It's Pharasma who does this, and totally not Iomedae who merely signed up to a multilateral set of treaties that doubtless oblige her to enforce the status quo! They will proclaim loudly that they disagree with Pharasma while instructing people how to best please Pharasma! Ah, the benefits of a franchise system with a multi-brand strategy!

Tanya is a rational creature and as such she will follow clearly outlined incentives. But she'll keep in mind that she's only heard local faction's story so far, and in fact has spoken to a total of two people about it. It would hardly be surprising for different religions to disagree, or at least make contradictory demands for reaching heaven.  However, she also despises religious hypocrites enough to rub their noses in it at least a little.

"What does Pharasma think of killing in war? If a soldier or a mercenary follows orders and obeys the law of their nation, who bears the blame?"

Terendelev seemed irritated at his interruption, so he'll let her take this one!

"Killing enemy soldiers generally comes up Neutral, maybe Evil in the case of a war of conquest you voluntarily participated in, maybe even weakly Good in a defensive war against an aggressor, for a sufficiently strict definition of defensive.  If the orders and laws permit killing civilians, such as participating in a sack of a city or using spells with excessive unnecessary collateral damage, that usually comes up Evil.  Following the laws and orders of your nation in the process mitigates how much Evil it counts towards, and makes it additionally count towards Law, but it doesn't prevent it from counting as at least some Evil.  A variety of mitigating factors can apply, such as trying to reduce the harm of a sack a military force the soldier is part of is participating in.  Or if a spell with a lot of collateral damage was the best option for ending a war swiftly and decisively.  If using such a spell was the best way to save other civilian lives, it might come up Neutral or even Good.  Fighting undead and demons are something of a special case, because undead and demons are innately Evil beyond any mortal, and also won't keep to any surrenders or negotiations."

"As for who bears the 'blame', both soldiers and commanders?  With mitigating factors for the soldiers and worse on the commanders based on how tight control the commander has?  In the hypothetical where the commander has enough mind control for all the soldiers the soldiers would get barely any Evil or maybe none?  I don't think that actually happens, spell slots are too limited, even for sorcerers... well I guess a vampire could manage it."

Pharasma isn't actually operating off a mortal concept of punishment and arguably not a mortal concept of blame, but explaining finer theological points usually doesn't help most people undergoing a crisis about this.

"In practice, in most wars between mortal races, lots of soldiers end up Evil, sometimes almost all the soldiers on the side of an agressor in wars of conquest.  Lastwall manages to enforce tight enough discipline on their soldiers that soldiers that simply follow their laws and military regulations don't end up Evil."

Yeah, that would all sound really fake to him if he just learned about alignments and just learned demons were real.  He does think of one useful clarification.

"Industrialized* nations are often capable of enforcing laws of wars sufficient that their soldiers don't all end up Evil.  Post-industrialization*, a lot of wealth is tied up in industrial capital and warfare is destructive enough that looting isn't economically viable, so some of the dynamics and incentives shift.  On this planet, sacking and looting a city is a major morale incentive for soldiers, so it takes either enemies that don't bother with having sackable wealth, like demons or undead, or exceptionally well disciplined forces, as is the case with Lastwall, to avoid that dynamic.  Industrialized* nations do have more capacity to utterly slaughter civilian populations, so the net effect on alignments of post-industrial* warfare depends heavily on the laws and standards of war."

(He's decided Terendelev is safe to share that sort of detail with about industrialization, and it wasn't one of the topics Tanya requested confidentiality about.)

*he uses the Germanian word

That is interesting, and kind of confusing, but hopefully relevant to Tanya with whatever industrialized is?

"So killing 'demons', the people you happen to be fighting, is totally fine. Everything I did today is fine, in fact, slaughtering one side of a conflict I knew nothing about at the time. It was just fine for me to kill them all, the first people I've ever killed in my life without being legally ordered to. Not because they attacked first and threw a bystander's corpse at me and tried to cut your head off after you had healed and welcomed me. Not because they're teleporting anarchist hordes swarming an outpost of civilization the moment its wardstone goes down. No, it just so happens that Pharasma thinks 'demons' are 'evil'," the air quotes hang heavy with sarcasm, "and also thinks killing 'evil' people is a morally neutral action. Everything we did today was fine! Bravo!"

"But if I happen to have fought to defend my homeland, a unprovoked war forced on us, fought in an army that conscripts all mages and half the able-bodied population besides, following the laws of war even when our enemies blatantly didn't - well then, I am probably 'evil'! Perhaps Regional Command ordered a tactic with too many civilian casualties for Pharasma's taste! Perhaps I ended up with more of the blame because I was an officer, surely it would have been less evil to manufacture failures so I wouldn't be promoted and someone else would carry out the same orders in my place! Probably it's Germania's fault to begin with for not having established the church of Pharasma! But be of good cheer, sons of Germania, ye who gave everything for your homeland, your lives and your very souls! Be of good cheer, for your enemies who fought a war of aggression will join you in the torture afterlife! This sermon is surely better for the troops' morale than 'you should have mutineed and laid your arms down, for the meek are promised Heaven!'"

"So what was that about 'changing my alignment'? Should I sign up with Pharasma's church or will Iomedae do? I promise to be very amenable to incentives!" ...all right, that might have been too far, she doesn't want to offend them so much that they don't want to work with her. One outburst is permissible on being threatened with torture.

“I’m… I’m sorry?”

Terendelev is suddenly remembering how humans mature and age and wondering if Tanya isn’t small for her age… which would make her a child soldier which is really bad for humans!  She is kind of at a loss for words.

He isn’t good at emotional support, but it sounded like Tanya has some key factual misunderstandings and he is competent to address those!

“Killing Evil people is not automatically Neutral or Good.  Undead are composed of negative energy and as a result almost always have innate impulses hostile to living creatures.  Demons are composed of Abyssal quintessence and shaped by the Abyss on a deep level and thus have innate urges that make them hostile to all other beings and utterly incapable of keeping to agreements.  Thus killing them has a strong presumption of helping prevent harm to innocents and there is usually not any alternative to killing them.”

“There a variety of viable strategies for mortals to shift their alignment.  Abadar’s theocracy has a research project on the exact monetary value in counteracting charitable donations of various Evil acts… which isn’t really how Pharasma’s system works but is enough as a rule of thumb.  There are a variety of Good acts besides charitable donations.  For example, you could retire comfortably on the money Terendelev has promised you, defend innocents by occasionally hunting hostile megafauna (this planet has a megafauna problem), and make Good in a decade or two.”

He is deliberately not mentioning atonement given the whole mind reading aspect.

She actually would like Tanya’s help at the worldwound but this is the wrong time to discuss that.

What is she apologizing for?... oh, it's just conversation filler.

Our enemies are blah blah blah ontologically evil soulless abominations blah blah blah who are literally incapable of being rational!  Unfortunately this doesn't prevent them from learning magic and making clothes and weapons and teaching their children to hate us, so we must kill them! This usually saves (our) lives down the line so it's fine!

The Abadarans aren't just selling indulgences, they're empirically researching the right market price! Of course they're getting it wrong, because god is unknowable by humans, but surely it's better than allowing rampant price gouging?! 

It's really worrying how readily the speaking in tongues spell translates all this to Germanian (with some Latinisms like quintessence, the fifth element, how authentically Aristotelean!) Even if you accept the absurdity of instantaneously translating any alien language, there's no way religions on different planets just happened to evolve the same concepts when these concepts don't reference any objective, empirical discoverable reality. No, everything points to one conclusion: the aliens influenced religion on Earth too, if far more covertly than here. Indeed, hadn't Being X claimed as much? He might be an employee of this Pharasma, if the 'divine factions' are even real and not an elaborate front put up for the local's convenience, considering Being X conflated Christianity with Buddhism...

Terendelev didn't reply, so Tanya focuses on Jon. "I don't understand what you just said about demons," she mostly-lies. "I certainly didn't understand it when I was killing them for you. Did you ask me to commit Evil in your name or does intent not matter, only results?"

Is she doing the Evil Arodenite thing of trying to label Neutral and Good acts as Evil to justify her actually Evil acts to herself?  Possibly?  Or maybe she just is that confused?  Either way, he will continue to address factual questions.

“Intent can mitigate or increase how an action’s results affects your alignment.  In rare cases it can entirely reverse an action.  If in fact it was not a factor in your decisions that the demons were the attackers and invaders, or that they were targeting civilians and noncombatants, then the otherwise Good acts of slaying them and in the process protecting civilians might instead be Neutral.  If you were slaying them for purely the joy of slaughter and all the rest of the circumstances were merely an opportunistic excuse, then your actions would count towards Evil.  My expectation at the time was that you had realized enough context to at least accurately assess that you were protecting civilians.”

His expectation was based on quasi-mind reading from Iomedae, so he should actually get clarification from her if she want him to entirely discount that information (at the expense of treating her with more suspicion).  He has an even larger confusion to resolve.

“I suspect you are concerned we are describing demons as ontologically Evil out of mere convenience or moral confusion.  This is not the case but I’m not sure what evidence will change your mind, and I don’t have an explanation that is both concise and sufficiently complete, especially with our difference in context.  It makes sense, morally if not pragmatically, to withhold further assistance against the demons until you have resolved this concern.”

She is trying to think of who to have brief Tanya and address her moral/alignment crisis.  In between Tabya’s apparent distrust of this planet’s Gods, the massive cultural gap, and the ongoing defense against the demons she is kind of at a loss.

She winces at Jon’s suggestion Tanya withdraw entirely and half nods, but no actually-

“I would have thought it would be very apparent by now that the demons are attacking bystanders and civilians and performing pointless acts of destruction?”

The skepticism in her voice is clear.  

Well, maybe that’s normal conduct of whatever military Tanya was a part of, and that would certainly explain the Evil reading.

"It was immediately clear that they were the attackers, and indiscriminately targeting everyone including civilians. It also rapidly became clear that the attackers were not disciplined or trained in unit tactics, had no cohesion or overall battle plan, and could barely bring themselves to band together for survival, never mind actually concentrating force at a point." Which makes perfect sense, considering most of them probably teleported here from different distant locations and might not have met each other before today. "Considering their attack on a civilized city, and as each of them could individually retreat without suffering retaliation, I helped defeat them and I do not regret doing this for its own sake."

"However, I did not know that doing so might cause Pharasma to torture me." And you did, she leaves unsaid, or at least they must claim so for their religion's sake. Of course, it would be too mich to hope they'll consider themselves to owe her something for this grievous wrong; religious people are almost always hypocrites like that. At least Jon, as the more senior employee, clearly understands her skepticism so she doesn't need to rub it in. He's probably used to talking to followers of Iomedae's rivals.

"Naturally, I don't expect you to put my interests ahead of your own. But for future dealings, I would like to be made aware of any ramifications of the actions I undertake on your behalf that would naturally concern me."