He can do so. The prisoner repeats it.

"Welcome to the Condemned, Mr..."

 "Gert."

"Mr. Gert. I expect your new comrades in arms will be able to show you the ropes."

 "Yessir."

"If I were you I'd thank the Knight-Commander for being so merciful."

 Oh shit, that guy's in charge of the whole thing? "Thank you, sir."

"You may repay it with your service to the cause."

And off to see if anything else has popped up and if it hasn't to correct Various Misconceptions About Illegal Orders And Also Raping People.

No one has urgent issues to raise to his attention at this time.

...So, they hear he thinks they have some misconceptions about illegal orders and/or raping people? They mostly thought they'd understood him! What kinds of 'misconceptions' is he thinking of?

He's glad they asked! Perhaps it wasn't any of these people in earshot but it might be some of their friends and they can clear things up for their comrades better with an idea of ways people tend to misinterpret things, like so.

Why does he even care so much what they do to cultist prisoners? They're all going to the Abyss anyway, nothing that happens to them here is going to be worse than that.

Is he really sure it's an illegal order to order someone to break an oath they made to a cultist, or to swear an oath if it's a totally reasonable oath like an oath not to desert, or to do something that's technically a crime but not really a big deal, like skimming a little bit off the equipment fund to pay people's salaries?

Is he really sure it's not an illegal order if your unit commander just makes the people he likes the least be the ones to dig the latrines every single time, or orders you to fight a really powerful demon that's almost certainly just going to kill you all?

He cares about it because he works for Iomedae, and they are going to have to care about it because they work for him even if for no other reason. Even if someone is about to go to the Abyss, being one more instrument of their suffering puts you in the company of demons.

The handbook does not list exceptions for ordering people to swear oaths being okay. Anyone who is having trouble making payroll needs to report it up the chain immediately so the problem can be fixed, and not turned into a Dire Problem Swarm.

Those are not illegal orders. It is permissible to be annoyed about orders for reasons other than that they are illegal.

Is he saying people who don't care about demon cultists don't count as real Iomedaeans? 

When you think about it it's really the cultists who are the instruments of their own suffering, because they chose to be demon cultists even though this was obviously going to get them hurt.

These people are really skeptical that reporting financial problems up the chain is actually going to help with anything.

Has he considered making the second thing an illegal order? It makes sense when you think about it, it doesn't really seem like it serves any Lawful purpose to get all your soldiers killed by a demon, especially if it's one of the kinds that raises all its victims as undead or something.

Well, you can be a real Iomedaean and struggle with aspects of it, but someone who was in fact fully embracing all of the teachings of Iomedae would find some way to not rape demon cultists because Iomedae is not big on people being rapists or exposing stupid weaknesses to the enemy.

Is this person suggesting that demons who remain in the Abyss and only harm other demons are morally in the clear because all their victims deserve it and did something to wind up in the Abyss where this would predictably happen?

Blai has never paid a man late and would very much like to keep up this record.

Blai does not think that the illegal orders rule should be reworked to permit cowardice in battle and it's especially a bizarre contrast with complaining about latrine-digging duty, which is quite safe. Maybe this person could pick one of the realities of warfare against the Abyss to complain about and then take refuge in the other one as at least not being that?

He's never raped a demon cultist! Or anyone else! Are the new rules only about rape? He had heard a rumor that they were broader than that.

They're not in the clear because they also did something to deserve being in the Abyss. If someone got Maledicted to the Abyss and went around hurting demons that seems totally fine though.

How come they're allowed to execute demon cultists but not to hurt them in other, smaller ways? In Qadira where they worship Sarenrae they never execute anyone because their king is just so persuasive that he can talk any Evildoer into repenting. Maybe the Knight-Commander should convert to worshipping Sarenrae and try it.

There are more new rules but Blai is going over them gradually so as to avoid too much propagation of misconceptions.

Being a demon cultist is certainly very foolish in terms of self-interest and people who are self-interested in a more rational fashion should take steps to not perform Evil acts, such as tormenting prisoners, as advised by the Good gods, even if they struggle to understand why this might be the nature of their advice.

The Knight-Commander is an Iomedaean but if any of the army's attached Sarenrites, whose expertise he values greatly, manifest this ability, then he will be no end of delighted to make use of it as many times per day as it can be deployed. In the absence of such a resource they may have to kill prisoners in order to safely and sustainably continue their other operations. It would become extremely difficult to do anything but operate a prison if they attempted to do this, and then after a while of doing nothing but that they would fail to fund the operation because it would not be in any of their funders' interests, and the prisoners would either be released into the world to do more evil until and unless they ran into (apparently) the king of Qadira, or they'd be executed then, or they'd starve to death in abandoned dungeons.

This guy is Taldan and wants to be absolutely sure the Knight-Commander knows the story about the King of Qadira isn't true. This is why it's not safe to put Sarenrites in charge of anything important. If he's looking for a god of redemption Shelyn is a perfectly good one.

This guy is pretty sure he could talk cultists into repenting, it doesn't really sound that hard, can the Knight-Commander let him try it?

This guy wants to know whether instructions given to prisoners count as 'orders' that can be 'illegal orders,' or no because they aren't in your chain of command.

If the Shelynite manifests the redeeming prisoners ability that would also be great. He's not picky about where his magical foolproof prisoner-redeeming powers come from and since he does not employ the King of Qadira it doesn't really matter whether he's got them or not.

Blai would like to hear a clear disciplinary report re: treatment of prisoners from the guy's CO and then he can shadow a Sarenrite to see how they do it and they can go from there.

It is possible to illegally order prisoners because you are in a position of formal power over them which entitles you to coerced obedience from them about a wide range of things and it is possible to abuse that position. Don't do that.

This guy can produce such a report after a brief delay.

Do adventurers and such attached to the army have to follow all the new rules? Here are half a dozen situations with slight differences in the extent to which they are subject to Mendevian discipline.

Is it Lawful or Chaotic to refuse to follow an illegal order? What about to follow one?

What should they do if someone gives them an order and they're not sure if it's illegal or not?

These people have additional suggestions for things their unit commanders do that they don't like and think should be illegal orders, mostly in the same vein as the suggestions he's already heard.

He may convey to the Sarenrites that here is someone interested in learning to redeem prisoners and Blai would like them to introduce him to their practices.

Adventurers have slightly different rules because they do not need to cooperate across many hundreds of men in the same way. They could of course conduct themselves in such a way that Blai can't countenance them but they are exempt from a lot of the practical rules about chain of command.

It is Lawful to refuse an illegal order because it is every man's responsibility to do so when it comes up, though you could also refuse an illegal order (or a legal one) for Chaotic reasons. Following an illegal order could again be either depending on underlying mindset but they should not do it.

They can say "sir, I believe that may be an illegal order" and see if whoever's on the scene can together come to an agreement on the matter or if necessary get outside parties.

None of those are illegal orders except maybe that seventh thing which might depend.

So, they know they're not allowed to rape cultist prisoners, but is it against the rules to strongly imply to them that bad things will happen if they don't sleep with whoever's guarding them? 

What should they do if they're issuing someone an order that might sound like it has no Lawful purpose but that's actually really important for reasons they don't have time to explain? 

All these rules about illegal orders are complicated, can't they just go back to the old illegal order rules? 

They are actually not allowed to have sex with prisoners at all even if their prisoner is their wife or something and asks very nicely, let alone under any more dubious circumstance than that.

Can this person give an example?

Did they have old illegal order rules?

Let's say they were ordering someone to shoot a toddler (which would actually be doubly illegal because normally it's a crime to shoot toddlers) but actually the toddler was a succubus in disguise and they needed to stop her from teleporting away. 

They had rules about not following orders if it seemed like your commander was enchanted, including some specific orders that they were supposed to always assume meant their commander was enchanted.

"Demon" does not take longer to say than "kill it" and seems in that circumstance to be slightly less likely to produce reactions like "I cannot possibly have heard that correctly".

It's useful to have rules for if your commander is enchanted! They should keep those. But ordinary unenchanted people can also do things wrong and should not be supported in this.

A lot of the things on the illegal order list don't really seem like they're a big deal.

He should just replace all the unit commanders with paladins! Paladins Fall if they do anything Evil, so everyone could be confident they weren't doing anything wrong no matter what orders they gave.

What the fuck. No. He should not do that, that is the worst idea.

Which things do not seem like a big deal?

Not every paladin is suited to command. Many different skills go into command; "not being Evil" is relevant but cannot be his sole criterion, he also wants experience and rapport and common sense and a head for tactics and good organization, and many people are not blessed with the talents that make a good paladin and also all of those things, in both directions.

This person thinks it's not a big deal to order people to swear oaths. This person thinks it's not a big deal to order people to commit crimes if they're not serious crimes. This person thinks it's not a big deal to order someone to do something that requires specific conditions to be legal even if you can't prove those conditions are true, as long as they actually are. This person disagrees with the entire idea of there being punishments that require a court-martial.