Is there a way for it to become possible for Amentans to channel orgone while continuing to be Amentans? What governs the strength or weakness of a given psion's powers? Is the psychic effect transmitted through nonmagical recordings or do you have to play the media off a magical artifact?

(Nenad does not allow Rauha to explain how there are more pluralistic-in-form Crowned nations which have orgone.)

Rauha will say that he thinks it's possible that orgone batteries could be used to enable Amentan psions, if they wear portable batteries. But they have no prior art of doing this.

It's half innate talent and half deliberate cultivation. There are practices for it like meditation. The different psionic skills correlate but not perfectly — someone might be good at mindreading but not telekinesis, like him. Rauha also says that it's possible to link minds together with psionics to enable synchronized work, which they used when they sang. It's difficult for a regular psion to do this but their Hierophant's priests give specific instincts that make it much easier for them.

Psychic effects are not transmitted through nonmagical recordings. They have a lot of regulation about labeling media with direct psychic effects and when and where they are permitted to be played.

However, it is possible to use psionic mindreading to gather a lot of information about how a mind is structured, which can inform one's creation of nonmagical media intended to perform a specific effect. Rauha gives the analogy of inverting a classifier neural network to see what sort of input would give the maximal value on a classification...okay that might be too complicated so he gives the alternate analogy of optical illusions: there are no magical effects there, but because of the particular way sensory processing occurs, we are given to think that they look different from what they are.

These are called hypnotic effects and media, though it's a loose term and it's not necessarily the case that mindreading is required for them to call something that. Rauha gives the example of a very touching play that moves one to tears. Unlike psychic media, which is a strict term since it's any wind magic effect that requires orgone, hypnotic effects don't have such a clear definition.

Hypnotic effects would be transmitted through nonmagical recordings.

Rauha emphasizes that they have not attempted to influence the Amentans in that way except insofar as the song they sang in the beginning they tried to sing in the most beautiful and pleasing-to-the-senses way they can.

The Amentans appreciate how polite and aboveboard they're being about the psychic powers. What is a "priest", please?

A priest is someone appointed by the Hierophant — not necessarily him himself but under his authority — as someone who is an exemplar of his Edicts, and who has the authority and knowledge to speak and advise people about them. Also to perform various rituals that are pleasing to Teiatat. You have to go to school or apprenticeship for it, typically for a year.

During your service you receive powers such as the aforementioned psionic ones, but also a few other rituals like the fertility bestowing and the species transformation. Doing these things is also part of their job.

There are three levels of priest: deacon, presbyter, and apostle. Rauha is a presbyter. Most people become priests temporarily at the level of deacon, for two quadrums. This enables the Accord to have a way higher number of psions than other states — while they lose the easy and instinctive power, they retain their experience with wind magic. Presbyters and apostles serve much longer terms.

Who is the Hierophant and how did he get his job? What does Teiatat get out of people performing rituals, do they like, watch, or something?

Nenad taps Rauha on the shoulder and silent, presumably psychic, discussion ensues.

:My apologies, I've been using my telepathy for several people for hours now, today and yesterday, and I'm getting tired. It's mentally exhausting in the same way difficult intellectual work is. I'm going to ask another psion to step in for me — they are qualified to perform the lie detection via mindreading and work out a contract for the crystal.:

He bows and then goes back into the airlock.

Another person drops down from the airlock!

:I'm sorry for the abrupt transition, Rauha was very excited about this momentous occasion and forgot to pace himself. I am Constance Way.: Mild embarrassment, endearment. Constance's mindvoice is richer than Rauha's and carries more overtones.

:If it would please you, we would like to call: and he mentions the purple who gave the estimate about the crystal's price to come closer.

Here's the purple!

:Hello! What's your name? I am so happy to meet you!: And then Constance will offer to shake their hand.

:Are you fine with being mindread? It's fine if you don't want to. If you would get in trouble for saying no, we'll say that we're 'having trouble' with reading you and that another person should give the estimate.: He says only with telepathy and not speech.

I'm fine with it but my supervisor will have to remotely sign off on anything we want to make official, so's you know.

:Okay! I am only going to inquire and probe about things related to the crystal manufacture, but psionics is messy and I might get some stuff outside of that. I will try my best not to do so but make no guarantees. You may choose to refrain from answering a question, though I'll record that.:

Constance will ask, this time both verbally and with telepathy, various questions about the proposal and the estimated costs of each step.

He will also ask, and at the same time probe, about the following topics: whether they actually expect they can create such a large crystal, whether he thinks the prices (both the total and the price of each component or step) are fair or reasonable and why, whether these prices would be the prices they would charge if the customer was an Amentan, how likely they think there will be cost overruns, and how likely they think complications or delays would arise and what would cause these.

The purple thinks they can do it. It has not been done before - they don't have uses for crystals that are any bigger than a throw pillow in their present industry. But they do know how to make artificial rocks, and there is no obvious reason they should not be able to scale it up. It'll just require a lot of bespoke high precision equipment and that's going to add up quite a lot.

They are if anything giving the aliens a discount relative to what they'd charge Amentans who wanted such a crystal for... like... decoration or something. Aliens are important, everyone knows that, they need the money to buy the equipment because otherwise the equipment won't actually exist to use but they don't need to add very much surcharge, it's the sexiest possible job in the field, making a giant crystal for the magical aliens to do alien magic. He kind of thinks the high-end thermometers they buy might not be better than the slightly cheaper ones their competitor on Shi Alassei sells but that's not his call, and maybe they're actually worth it. There will on priors probably be cost overruns, that's how everything is always even if you try to account for it. The estimate includes some padding for delays but it might not be enough, though he's actually optimistic about that part because everybody's going to want to be a part of this and that should smooth things along. Though maybe it'll actually slow things down, if everybody wants to touch the project and it's more people than it needs? Unsure.

Okay that's great! Constance reports this to Nenad. Some discussion ensues, with the people inside the ship also looking it over, but it seems good. They agree to it.

:We thank you for your patience and would be willing to purchase it at this price.:

They now seek the lawyer. Constance will introduce himself and ask permission and give disclaimers in the same way. Does the yellow object?

The yellow is okay with being mindread if it's strictly business, but it's hard to keep one's mind on strictly business in the middle of spring surrounded by aliens when you have an aliens kink.

That's okay and he feels similarly! He also thinks Amentans are hot. He says that the Asteralians' plan is to formally offer the possibility of sex between the two delegations once this is settled. He would offer to use his psionic powers to keep their mind away from non-business thoughts but that would constitute greater-than-telepathy-mind-effects and so is procedurally fraught — that is to say, it exposes them to accusations of having coerced agreements out of people.

Is the yellow fine with mindreading now after these statements or are they still reluctant.

Oh if the alien is also into it they can have Slow Burn Workplace Drama Psychic Flirting and that is spiffy.

Burst of amusement and interest!

He will ask, and at the same time probe, about the following topics: what is the state of the civil courts in Tapa? (Implicitly, in the mind voice, he's asking whether or not they're fair or corrupt, but he doesn't say this part out loud). Supposing that a Tapai entity has reneged on their agreement, what options for legal relief are possible? Do they expect that the complaints of Asteralians would be taken seriously? Given that they might contract with other nations but that their spaceship is on Tapai soil, which court would have jurisdiction over those contracts they sign? Are there international courts they can appeal to?

Constance will say that they'll ask about loan details later when they have more details on what they have to sell.

There is a moderate amount of corruption in the civil courts? Not more than most countries, though. There is a province where they're trialing letting both parties to a case refuse a couple judges before they're stuck with the next randomly selected one, but the Apta Desert is not in that province. They really don't want to CHEAT the exotic and attractive MAGICAL ALIENS though, they're not going to pick a blue who'd be biased against the magical aliens.

More complicated is the extent to which the Asteralians have standing to make a complaint as opposed to a de facto excellent in to ask the feds to do this on their behalf. Like, they aren't citizens or residents or anything, they are space aliens, and technically speaking there is no box on the paperwork for "complainant is a space alien" instead of their name and credit number. If the Asteralians got into a tiff with the crystal manufacture folks, the federal Tapai government would put in a civil court complaint for them, probably. So if the Asteralians are worried about the feds not behaving well for some reason, they probably want to do something like have another country on the back burner for backup negotiations, so they can walk away from Tapa if it misbehaves, which will make the feds smarten up. To be clear it is not likely that they need this extra incentive. But if the Asteralians wanted to make extra sure that would be how - "see to it that our complaint about the crystal factory is treated appropriately or we talk to insert-other-country-here".

There are international courts for international treaties but there's not an extant treaty about aliens - past attempts to write one have run aground on all the material facts they did not have available at the time about aliens they had never met and were only hoping might exist and have sex with them. That having been said, she confidently predicts that if the Tapai pissed off the aliens and then tried not to let them talk to, like, Anitam or Cene or something, Tapa would have an extremely serious international problem on its hands, just not a pre-prescribed one.

(It's a little saddening but it seems it's the best they're going to get. Oh well. They suppose it's good that they would give them a judge that wouldn't be biased against them.)

Thank you! Constance is glad that Tapa has a functioning legal system. In that case they are willing to agree to and be bound by a contract in the jurisdiction of Tapai civil courts, even though they are not necessarily legal persons. They understand that this is an unprecedented situation and are thankful that they are being understanding with them not following more typical channels. They want to make contact with many other countries in Amenta for the purposes of communication, of course, but they understand that they landed in Tapai space and that it is therefore their host.

(It is very good that that is the case and that Tapa doesn't have the capital to force them to buy from them. Nenad is very happy!)

...Constance will apologize and ask Estimator Purple whether they are willing to give a time estimate too, for the crystal manufacture, and also be mindread for this. (How long they expect to be here will determine the sorts of things they ought to sell).

Yeah, the Estimator Purple - himself working off estimates, from various equipment suppliers - thinks it will take about three months if there are no truly novel technical challenges in scaling up, more if there are.

Okay, he's going to report that and assume it will take a quadrum. Thank you!

They offer the following list of things to sell.

Water magic services to diagnose and treat diseases.

This has startup time in the form of figuring out Amentan biology and calibrating their tools for it. They are confident that they can get it to work, since water magic works fine for other species, though when is another issue

Provided there aren't issues, it would take a week to a few weeks and they would need to scan people to get data for it. The scanning is noninvasive though for safety they would want stuff like tissue and fluid samples.

At highest throughput they would be able to treat a gross people in a week. They would be best placed to treating injuries which cannot be healed by Amentan medicine. They can do restorations of lost body parts (they can do up to "you got beheaded and we grow a new body for you"), deaging, restoration of fertility, cosmetic changes, sex changes, etc.

Wind magic and psion services for mental change and for treating mental illnesses. 

This theoretically requires no startup time, but since mental issues are highly culturally dependent, they would want to study this at least somewhat before beginning. They are confident that this will work because their telepathy and mindreading works fine.

They can treat stuff like depression, anger issues, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, et cetera. They can also do more mundane things like "I want to develop a habit of X". It is possible they would be able to treat bad springs, but it seems like that is a physical as well as a mental issue. They are unwilling to perform value change treatment at this time, nor prisoners or those remanded to mental institutes involuntarily. Value change is stuff like "I don't love my spouse anymore and wish I did".

Wind magic can't do lasting magical effects. For something to stick, the application has to be either strong enough to affect nearby mental structures such that the mind is fixed into that new shape, or applied repeatedly. They greatly recommend the latter because it's more reliable and safer, but it's slower. How many times a patient needs to come in is very variable. For inpatient treatment, a week to a month is typical. For outpatient treatment twice a week, a month to a season.

Time in the zero-g rooms can be rented out.

Sex work! Also psionic sex work! You can do lots of cool things combining the two. Some people are good enough with their psionics to share a lot of their qualia so you can feel what the other person is feeling.

Also they are willing to act in porn and receive a portion of the profit.

Regrettably, a lot of their trinkets cannot be sold because they involve magic, and so would stop working (though not instantly) once they leave the hands of the Asteralians. Also, it doesn't seem like there are any fire or stone magic services that they can offer, only infrastructure, which would take too much time or would stop working/not work if there aren't Asteralians managing them.

How much would the Amentans value these?