"I will put some questions out for you to think on while I get some handbooks.  You do not need to answer them out loud to me, in fact, it may be easier if you are keeping your thoughts on it private for now.  Can you think of a time you harmed people for little or ambiguous strategic or tactical value?  Can you think of a time you harmed civilians noncombatants or ambiguously civilian or ambiguously noncombatant people?  Can you think of a time you harmed enemy soldiers when you had the capacity to accept surrenders?  Can you think of anytime you issued orders which would have caused your soldiers to answer yes to any of these questions?  These questions are just some initial guesses based on what I know of your background.  Try to answer them to yourself as honestly as possible, putting aside rationalization focused on self-justification, at least temporarily.  I will try not to take too long getting those handbooks."

He turns to leave.

Has she... ever... harmed people??? She is wearing the insignia of a lieutenant colonel of the Germanian Imperial Army, right? A worker in a job known as 'soldier', whose basic job description is 'harm people to achieve a goal'?

Strategic or tactical value to whom? To herself, personally? To her official role as a soldier and commander? To her subordinates, the larger units she's embedded in, the Army? The nation?

Tanya is to be clear not in the habit of harming anyone for little or ambiguous value. That is because she is not in the habit of doing anything for little value! The definition of 'harm' is value lost! Of course she wouldn't make someone else lose a lot of value without a prospect of a corresponding gain! How in hell is she supposed to measure what counts as 'little'?!

Has she harmed civilians or noncombatants? Has any soldier who ever served on campaign not harmed any civilians or noncombatants? Are they really talking about the same thing when they say the word 'war'? Maybe in this world opposing armies teleport to a nice level field empty of noncombatants to fight it out, but on Earth armies march through populated territories and they fight over cities and deal with masses of refugees and there is absolutely no way that a commander, however much he goes out of his way, would categorically avoid harming noncombatants. Every law and regulation Tanya has ever heard of spoke of necessary harm proportional to the objectives achieved, not of - categorical statements of doing no harm at all!

Take Arene. Obviously there were civilians there! Thousands of them died! And Tanya participated in it - under lawful orders, but she agreed with them. Because what was the alternative? Let the rebels hold the city and block the railway junction, watch the front collapse and let the Francois republic massacre both soldiers and civilians on their way to Berun? War is a terrible tragedy, but you don't get to just say 'don't do that' without explaining what one should do instead! If Pharasma thinks that the non-evil thing to do would have been for Germania to surrender, or for Tanya personally to betray her oath of service and refuse to follow orders - which would have changed nothing in Arene except delaying the end by an hour or two in the confusion, so maybe she was supposed to fight on the enemy's side too?! - anyway, if Pharasma thinks that's what she should have done, then Tanya can learn the damned rules and follow them, but she is not going to derive them on her own because Germania's laws of warfare make sense. They already take into account all the right desiderata. They just don't take into account Pharasma.

Did Tanya ever harm enemy soldiers when she could have accepted their surrender instead? Tanya can honestly say that she never refused to accept surrender when the enemy asked for it, because that would have been illegal, and she instructed her men likewise and has a reasonable belief they followed through. 

Did she ever miss a chance to make the enemy surrender? Obviously yes! All the fucking time! Any soldier who catches an enemy unaware or from behind and shoots them instead of demanding they surrender does that! Any soldier who can't hear a plea to surrender because they're shooting from two miles up in the air and so kills an enemy who couldn't raise a white flag in time does that! It's the enemy's job to surrender, not her job to make them ask for it!!!

If she tried to maximize surrenders and prisoners of war she's sure she'd have a lot more of those on her record. She's also sure she'd get many more of her own men dead in the process. You don't favor the enemy in war. That's not what war is. If you're going to do that you might as well just surrender.

This is not productive. This is not actionable. She can't think of examples of rules when she does not know the rules yet. 

Tanya paces and fumes until Jon returns.

Sorcha is back first.

"Where did the Archon go?  Anyway, Lastwall will get a confessor by the time they have the teleport organized, but they aren't sure if they can someone well suited for you unique circumstances in such a short time frame.  Are there any details about you I should convey that might help pick among whatever candidate confessors they can get together on short notice?  So far, I think they are assuming your background includes 'individually powerful' and 'fought in a war' which is at least a starting point..."

"To find reading material on the laws of Lastwall and on - not being judged Evil by Pharasma, that I should read before talking to a confessor in the interests of efficiency."

"To answer your question, a more detailed explanation of my background would commit not just the confessor to secrecy but whoever hears it in order to choose the confessor. ...for operational security reasons, to be clear, not because of the privacy of the confessional, in case Cheliax or Areelu Vorlesh or someone else later tries to gather information about anyone who knows about me or was in contact with me. You can tell them that I'm not from any nation on this continent," so please don't send someone specializing in defectors from Cheliax, "I'm not familiar with the theology of any of the local gods, and I'm specifically not familiar with Pharasma's standards for good and evil. I was a middle-ranking army officer" - and maybe she still is, depending on how much time has passed on Earth and whether Germania or a successor state still exists, but there's no reason to get into that - "in both field and staff roles, and commanded - over a thousand men - that was more relevant than my individual magical power... And I don't know that my background before that doesn't factor into it, but it's much harder to explain. Do you want the more explicit version? Honestly, it might be derivable from what I've said already..."

"Right, they are already aware of the operational security needs.  Hmm... I think they were thinking of you more as an individual uniquely powerful adventurer with rank and not as a relatively typical middle ranking army officer, I'll correct them on that if it makes a difference among the options they have.  I've probably heard enough to need a longer debrief anyway if you want to explain more?  I don't think I was particularly at risk of being abducted or mindread by a hostile force, I don't think it is obvious from the outside that I was called in to help you in particular, but I could consult a security officer if you want a better estimate on the marginal risk of telling me?"

Tanya has no real understanding of the infosec picture. Things might be disorganized enough that everything will leak regardless, or has already. And Areelu or whoever held her knows everything and can tell others...

"Very well. Here is a very brief summary."

"I am a human not from this planet. I lived on two other planets. Both had mundane technology - social, economical, industrial - far in advance of what seems to exist on Golarion. The second also has magical abilities far beyond what is locally available at least in some narrow domains. Both have local religious traditions without any evidence behind any of them - no empowered priests like you have - and which contradict each other, and similarly no evidence of any afterlives. I learned about Pharasma, the torture afterlives, and that I was slated for one only hours ago."

"It is unclear how I was moved from the second planet to Golarion but I was evidently in someone's power for several years. They performed unclear magical rituals, caused this curse, erased my memory but in a way that Terendelev could fairly predictably restore, and then dumped me bleeding and unconscious outside Kenabres a few hours before Deskari attacked. I remember them looking like Areelu Vorlesh but that could easily have been faked with an illusion. We don't know their identity or goals and so we fear Areelu, or someone else of comparable power, might try to kidnap me again or to kill me."

"Earlier today I winged Deskari and would have killed him if he hadn't immediately run, and killed several thousand demons who attacked Kenabres, without particularly exerting myself or being at any risk. That was without any preparation, without using resources difficult to replenish, while I was unfamiliar with locally available magic and weapons and with no local support other than a spotter. This isn't very relevant to choosing a confessor, I just assume every competent intelligence agency will learn of it soon. And that is why Terendelev owes me money and is helping me, and through her graces Lastwall, and why Morgethai might want my magical technology to use against Cheliax." And so will everyone else once they hear about it, but that should go without saying for a diplomat.

That is a lot to take in.  She tries to  take in the implications....  there magic is impossibly good at offense, but maybe no divination or even necromancy to learn about the afterlives?  Tanya is both immensely valuable as a combatant and as a source of knowledge of a civilization that possibly surpasses Azlant?  She tries to orient on how she can help Tanya and what she should be explaining...

"I think you might be overestimating how many nations meet your standard of competency at spycraft?  Or maybe underestimating how outside of context your magic is, for a mortal at least?  Uh sorry, that isn't the urgent part.  I think you might want a few experts instead of just a single confessor.  Like maybe a theologian to work out implications of your technology and magic that don't have a clear precedent on this planet in addition to a more typical confessor?  And maybe if you could get an Outsider (I mean like an Angel or Archon or Agathion) that has also worked as a lawyer on court cases for souls from one of the planets you've lived on, they could probably provide some really useful expertise.  I don't think we'll be able to pull together the right team now, but if you can stay alive a few days we should be able to manage something."

Ha! She was right, they need to convene a specialist committee and Jon is a poor manager for insisting it could be done in a day that is not objectively good news.

'A theologian to work out the implications of your technology.' Those are words to make any hardened soldier quake in their boots. Aerial mages outside combat fly in a V-formation; this makes them a kind of geese and so they are fish on Fridays and may be eaten, and what may be eaten may be killed without sinning... perhaps this is the kind of argument that is presented in Pharasma's court, in which case Tanya will have to grit her teeth and grin and bear it.

"...checking for precedent in trials of people from my planets is an excellent idea." Tanya should really have thought of it sooner! Why didn't she - because she was implicitly assuming that people from either Earth were not judged by Pharasma, because Jon said they were from 'alternate realities' - although they have their own Earth which may be relevant - Tanya is entirely unsure what is going anymore.

Suppose people from Earth-2 are judged by Pharasma. Does that mean everyone she knew in the army has been sent to eternal torture? Worse, does it mean she is in part responsible for that as their commander?! She told them their cause was righteous and she invoked God publicly and she was the only there who knew entities claiming to be gods existed and afterlives existed and, and she never expected to be believed if she told them that but should she have tried anyway -

Tanya imagines Visha reincarnated as an abyssal worm. Tortured, forever, for loyally following her comrades and her commander and defending her adopted homeland from invasion. Judged for not following rules she was never told about, for trusting the locally popular priests who blessed the army in God's name and her famously pious (if unorthodox) commander -

SHE WILL RAZE THIS SYSTEM TO THE GROUND FOR DARING TO --

Tanya will rationally follow the incentives laid out before her, in the interests of self-preservation.

"Thank you for the advice, and the offer of help. I will do my best to stay alive, and trust your judgement in choosing the best team for this." Tanya tries to keep her affect flat, but the emotion she is trying to conceal is FURY.

Sorcha picks up on the edges of Tanya's anger.  She needs to approach this carefully... it might be something she did to cause offense, or maybe something Tanya has realized.  Sorcha knows some cultures prefer indirectness, or not showing emotion, while others are wildly expressive.  She has a spell for helping herself fit into cultures, but it is better on helping how she presents herself and not with interpreting cultures.

"Is there an error you believe me to have made?"

Direct, but her read is that Tanya prefers directness.

This is such an unexpected question that it shocks Tanya back to reality. Why is Sorcha asking - what did Tanya just say, was there a cultural mismatch, she's speaking Germanian but doesn't know how it comes across - she mentally replays her last words... oh. Oh no.

"I apologize for my unseemly display of temper. You have been nothing but helpful and did not deserve it. I only - imagined the possibility, hopefully remote, that people from the worlds I lived in are also processed by Pharasma when they die and not by - another entity." 

Tanya visibly deflates. She is so lucky Sorcha is a trained diplomat, she is trusting her life and more to the locals' good will and must not antagonize them!!!

"That makes sense."  Tanya had a number of soldiers under her command...

"Pharasma's system can be cruel even to people that had a chance to know about it in advance, it seems more horrific that people entirely ignorant of it might be judged by it."

Sorcha tries speak calmly and solemnly, but lets some of her own empathy and sadness come through.  She should have realized this implication sooner when Tanya mentioned her planets were ignorant of Pharasma.  She hopes their religious traditions aren't outright Evil, it seems they would at best end up very misguided with no clerics to be empowered or unempowered by righteous Gods.

She would offer to pray for Tanya, but now that she is thinking carefully, she is worried it might come across wrong.  She'll find a moment to pray by herself once Tanya leaves.

Good, the situation seems to be defused! Tanya is so thankful for professional diplomats right now and does not envy them their job of talking to professional rude soldiers Tanya probably shouldn't think of herself as primarily a soldier anymore but she's had less than a day to adjust and she spent half of it shooting people. She's lucky she didn't get angry at Pharasma in front of the professional theology committee. (The diplomat will of course say soothing and validating things regardless of what she actually thinks.)

"When Jon gets back I will ask him about hiring a lawyer with relevant experience. That was an excellent suggestion, thank you. Do you think you have enough background to help choose the best confessor for now or do you have questions for me first? That is, I hope someone is available who could help me get a head start, even if we'll need the expert team eventually."

"I have more to work with now at least.  If you don't have any other pressing questions, I'll be off to see to it?"

She waits a moment before turning depart in case Tanya has anything else.

No, Tanya has nothing to add.

She is - not tired, obviously, she was in retrospect perfectly rested when Terendelev healed her - whether that's part of the healing or just because she really was rested apart from her cursed chest wound - and the day wasn't strenuous physically or magically at all. It would be ridiculous to suggest she could be the least bit tired after this day of all days. And since she's physically fine and reasonably rested and not short of sleep, she should be mentally fine as well, right? Mental functioning is essential in battle conditions! Why is she having problems controlling her emotions, of all things?

This is unacceptable. She needs to be at her peak performance. She is in active, immediate danger and cannot spare a thought for her comrades, because she cannot reach them. It's been years for them anyway, they cannot still be fighting. Either they survived, or they didn't. Such is the soldier's lot.

Either they survived, or they're being tortured this time she firmly squelches that train of thought. First she must avoid being tortured herself, and also avoid dying. Then she can explore contacting Earth; there are excellent reasons to do it (and potentially excellent reasons not to) quite unrelated to the fate of her men. After that - when she's a free person again she'll have the luxury of choosing her actions, but right now they're overdetermined and having unproductive emotions about things will only harm her prospects, so she will do her very best not to have them. 

Soldiers can't afford the luxury of emotions. Forward, ever forward.

He continues to stand at the ready.  …he should have asked for a chair but he’s stood this long so it feels kind of awkward to ask for one now.

Jon is back, with someone helping him to carry books.

“I have Lastwall’s standard military handbook, as well as another handbook for procedures for high level wizards, which should hopefully touch on spells of the right power (if not quantity) relevant to you.  Should I start reading to you?”

"Consular Sorcha came back. They were having trouble choosing a confessor, so I told her the essentials of my background. She now estimates it will require a team of specialists, which will itself take some days to assemble. Of course they'll still send whoever seems best right now." Tanya really should stop feeling validated in having a bigger problem than the expensive advisor thought she had. "She also had the excellent idea of checking whether someone from your or an allied divine faction has ever represented people from Earth at Pharasma's court - either of mine, or yours as a similar example - and if so if they had pertinent advice. ...would they be allowed to tell us if so?" There is client-attorney privilege and unrelatedly there is also the bullshit information-given-to-locals tax.

"How long are the handbooks? Who are their normal target audiences? Are they explicit and reliable in pointing out what things are judged evil by Pharasma, separately from them being illegal here? And yes, please start reading."

“I don’t believe you will be able to get an outsider called from the alternate realities of your Earths, we don’t have regular or even irregular access to alternate realities like that.  It would be possible to call an outsider with experience in Pharasma’s court for this creation’s Earth.  Normally calling an outsider associated with another planet wouldn’t be allowed for any reasonable intervention budget expenditure, but since you are from an Earth it becomes vastly cheaper.  Calling outsiders with experience as lawyers in Pharasma’s court for moral advice or guidance on nuances of alignment is in fact a relatively standard practice on this planet.  It is already the plan to call another outsider for generally advisory purposes for you, if they don’t have enough relevant knowledge or experience on this subject we could do another calling the next day.”

”Does that answer the first half of your questions?”

"It does, thank you. Although, if you believe Areelu could kidnap me from an 'alternate reality', it's odd that you don't have even irregular access to them. Did you mean only that the people on this planet can't receive or buy such access?" Inter-reality trade and alliances (and kidnapping) are confusing to think about but if they're possible at all then it feels like people should have many incentives to do it.

"...I just had another thought, should we perhaps call an outsider who works for Pharasma or the courts themselves and not just an advocate? Would they agree to work with us, and would they know anything helpful the advocates don't?"

"As to your first question, archmages can match Gods, and sometimes even surpass them, in areas which they have specialized in.  You are correct there are cases where the Gods have capabilities they have agreed not to utilize, but I think the case of alternate realities the agreements look more like not researching or developing capabilities in that direction in the first place.  And we don't know the details of Areelu's method, it could be something expensive or finicky or unreliable or maybe she got you by chance... an experimental wish wording could do unpredictable things."

"As to your second idea, the right outsider of Pharasma might be moderately more informed... but there are several problems with this idea.  For one, to call an outsider based on your specific needs (as opposed to a general type of outsider, or a particular outsider you know the true name of) you need a cleric of the God to cast the spell and the God to cooperate helpfully.  This would mean informing a cleric of Pharasma, and thus Pharasma herself, about your situation. I would rather not do that.  I can explain more of my reasoning about why if you want.  The wizard version of calling doesn't need the God's cooperation, but requires much more specification on the part of the caster and thus getting the right outsider of Pharasma would be very difficult.  The other issue... I believe a typical outsider of Pharsama would be much less inclined to try to be helpful than a Good outsider.  An outsider of Pharasma will probably carry out the job as specified and agreed upon, but they aren't driven by any compassion and empathy and you won't get as effortful or committed service from them."

It's not terribly surprising that sufficiently smart individuals or organizations can build capabilities that some 'gods' don't have. What's moderately surprising is that the gods don't act to acquire those capabilities, or to deny them to the 'archmages'. This is evidence that the divine factions really are competing and sabotaging each other, letting their proxies amass dangerous amounts of power while being officially prevented by nonintervention treaties from going after their rivals' own proxies. (Of course, everything Jon says is subject to the disclaimer of 'as far as the locals believe'...)

"I'll take your word about not letting Pharasma know yet. Let's return to the handbooks."