Tanya takes some time to figure this one out.

Does Tanya have a 'strong personal code' such that she behaves 'predictably and consistently'? Yes, absolutely! She's a career soldier with an exemplary record! ...admittedly this involves being unpredictable to her enemies, which inevitably means her commanders can't always predict her either, but she always acts within both the letter and the spirit of her orders. The Germanian Army's doctrine prioritizes goals over plans and gives even low-ranking field officers very wide latitude in accomplishing their objectives. They win by reacting quickly, flexibly and if needed autonomously on all levels of command. In other words, they invest in training superior human resources who can be trusted to think for themselves.

Flexible decision-making probably doesn't make her behavior not 'predictable and consistent'? At any rate, Pharasma thinks she's "lawful", so she hasn't worried about it until now.

Of course Tanya doesn't want to break any laws. That's, well, wrong. Laws are how people coordinate to live good lives. Without laws there could be no technology, no safety, no... anything. Criminals are still free-riding on the backs of everyone who does follow the laws. A truly lawless society isn't just red in tooth and claw but also naked and starving to death.

Something still feels wrong about the suggestion that, if she had known about Pharasma's rules, she could have told everyone up front what things she was and wasn't willing to do.

Laws are contingent. They vary between nations and over time because they are responding to different needs. Growing up in Germania, Tanya could not have actually known about Pharasma. If people in Germania had known about (or believed in) Pharasma, or for that matter if they had seriously believed in Jesus, then they would have written different laws. Tanya isn't special; no Germanian citizen wants to end up in a torture afterlife!

The counterfactual of 'Tanya in Germania except believing in Pharasma' isn't realistic, and you can reach any conclusion you want by assuming some state of (unfounded) belief in your counterfactual. Tanya wants to follow Pharasma's rules now because she is no longer in Germania and is responding to new incentives. The rule that correctly describes Tanya and makes her consistent and predictable is that she rationally follows the incentives she is actually given, just as she always follows the local laws. Living in Germania is what made her Tanya and not, say, a Japanese salaryman. Now that she is in Lastwall she might need to become someone else again, but her decision procedure hasn't changed.

So what, exactly, is she supposed to repent of?

"I would like to clarify something I might be misunderstanding before we discuss Lastwall's code. The way in which I am consistent and predictable is - not like a personal code, if that means a specific set of rules one follows. I am simply - rational. I try to make correct decisions and follow incentives, so my behavior predictably changes in response to new information and new incentives. I obey laws because I understand the value of people obeying laws, even ones that seem stupid or wrong or personally disadvantageous, value that accrues to everyone including myself." She doesn't normally say this to people! People tend to freak out when told she doesn't hold specific laws as sacred or that she needs a reason to follow the law. Relatedly, most people greatly underestimate the benefits of laws. But this is a discussion about how she's going to conform to a new set of laws, so it seems worth clarifying.

"I followed the Germanian laws because I lived in Germania. I followed any set of laws because I lived in a society where enough people followed the law to make it worth following and had done so for a long time. One where even if order hypothetically broke down, it would have been possible to believe in and worth fighting to restore it."

"If everyone in Germania had known about Pharasma and expected to be judged by her, they would have written their laws to avoid being judged harshly. A scenario where I have to tell people I won't follow evil orders is a contrived one because if those people agreed with me - about facts, not about valuing me personally - they wouldn't give such orders, or at least very much not lightly. Now that I am here I will commit to behave according to Lastwall's rules, but if - entirely hypothetically - I found myself elsewhere again and became convinced I could not be judged by Pharasma then I might stop following them. I have my own morals but they are not related to Pharasma's because until this morning I did not know Pharasma existed."

"So from my perspective I wouldn't really be committing to anything new. If placed in the same situation in Germania again I would predictably choose differently, not because of a commitment I can make but because I now have new relevant information about the outcomes of my choices. Is that sufficient for your kind of atonement?"

He hasn't properly met an Axiomite before, but the way Von Degurechaff talks is about how he imagines an Axiomite might talk.

"Rationally following incentives in a positive sum manner is a Lawful Neutral sort of attitude.  Obeying laws because everyone values obedience to the laws is likewise a Lawful Neutral sort of attitude.  I say sort of, because in a society that collectively allowed or even actively endorsed or incentivized Evil enough things, you would need some additional rules to follow to not end up Lawful Evil."

He pauses a moment.

"For the purposes of atonement, you would need to be firmly committed enough to following those additional rules enough that if you ended up reborn on some fourth planet, in a society that endorsed Evil actions as the norm, you would not simply follow that society's endorsement.  Um... Having learned new information and acting on it is fine... but I'm not sure if making your commitment entirely conditional on the threat of Pharasma's sorting would weaken it too much for an Atonement to Lawful Neutral to go through.  I think it might, especially if there is any real chance of you ending up outside Pharasma's system again?"

He glances at the Archon and the Theologian to see if they can help him.  He really isn't sure.  Being outside Pharasma's system really is kind of an abstruse hypothetical!

He turns to Rosin to let her speak first, on the off chance she can save him some marginal amount of budget (not that he hasn't already spent prolifically, as fitting the importance of this entire situation).

"Unlike many other Good Gods, Iomedae doesn't require a specific mindset relating to guilt or seeking forgiveness, but as standard for Atonement, you need to be committed such that if you were in the same situation again you would choose differently.  I've read some scenarios and case studies before... but I've not actually seen one as extreme at not only being entirely ignorant of Pharasma's system but also making commitments around potentially ending up outside Pharasma's system, so I'm not sure.  My first guess is that being willing to discard moral rules intended to meet a Lawful Neutral standard in the event you are beyond Pharasma's sorting would in fact prevent an Atonement to Lawful Neutral from going through.  Atonement is supposed to represent a God's prediction of your actions and behavior going forward..."

"Rosin's explanation and first guess are basically correct."

Iomedae has some leeway with Atonements, but if Iomedae is not very careful with how she uses it, a judgement from Pharasma could weaken the standing of Iomedae's Atonements in Pharasma's courts, which would be bad for everyone that might get an Atonement from Iomedae.

Well, yes, obviously they're talking about her continuing to follow the rules even if she finds herself in a society with different laws. That is in fact the whole point of the exercise; she's not trying to naturalize as a citizen of Lastwall. But they're describing a thing where she keeps acting as if Pharasma threatens her even if, counterfactually, Pharasma doesn't. Remove the cause for the behavior but keep the result. In other words... stop rationally responding to new situations?

Tanya very much doesn't want to do that and, more relevantly, doesn't think she could if she wanted to. How do you commit to stop being rational? She tries to imagine having made a promise in the past - under duress and for no other reason - and then having to decide, today, whether to follow through with the threat gone. Her first instinct is to rebel, to disavow any commitments made with a gun to her head, but if she forces herself to consider what's best for her -

Obviously one should keep to agreements (and obey laws and so on) even when this turns out to be disadvantageous. In normal (sane) law systems agreements made under duress are unenforceable, but the principled thing to do about that is either to refuse to make the agreement or to lie, because it's permissible to lie to someone threatening you - except that you can't lie when the counterparty can read your mind. And Tanya, empirically, is not the kind of person who would rather go to eternal torture than make an agreement under duress.

The agent who makes and keeps the agreement under duress (assume the postulate that it's impossible to make but not to keep it) is plainly better off than the agent who cannot. So she should agree, but she doesn't know how to do something like that (maybe with the local mind-editing magic?) and is coming to realize she's not even sure what it is she would be agreeing to. She still needs to find a more diplomatic way to put it than "obviously if you stop threatening me with eternal torture I might rethink some life decisions."

"I think part of my problem here is that I don't know yet what Pharasma's rules actually are. Perhaps when I learn them I'll be so impressed that I'll decide to adopt them for their own sake. Perhaps I'll discover they're not very onerous and so worth committing to. But right now I'm being asked to commit to follow forever a set of rules I don't know yet. So I'm having trouble thinking of that commitment as not being conditional or limited in scope."

"I don't expect to find myself outside of Pharasma's reach tomorrow. Except that - I don't even know, and Jon doesn't seem to be sure, whether Pharasma is operating on both of the worlds I lived on; I certainly didn't face her when I died for the first time. I don't know how I got here. It's not impossible that I'll end up somewhere else. For all I know, I could end up somewhere with a different God the Judge who will damn me if I keep following Pharasma's rules and not his!"

"The plan as I originally understood it was for me to atone to lawful neutral quickly - because I'm in danger of dying soon - by committing to following Lastwall's rules of engagement, which are simple enough for all soldiers and apply only to combat situations. And that that would be enough until I learned Pharasma's rules for myself, which apply to all of life and are more complex. If it's now your opinion that this won't work, and that I need to commit to following the full rules forever no matter what my external circumstances are before even knowing what the rules are - I don't want to say I won't do that, but I don't think I know how to do it." Hopefully this crack team of inexperienced confessors can teach her how. It would be so much simpler to say a hundred pater nosters she can't do that and mean it and they're reading her mind.