Dinner does not get them to stop having questions about dath ilan's government! What sorts of things do you tell your delegates about? The whole thing actually sounds kind of like the Chelish system of baronies and counties and duchies, except more intentional; maybe there's a way to preserve Cheliax's existing system but turn it into that?

Keltham kind of didn't bother his Delegate all that much?  He didn't particularly want to change Civilization by voting at things?

Keltham just paid off one of his friends to do some research on the Network to find him a Delegate.  (Professional political matchmaking is not looked kindly upon for all sorts of reasons; it would be an absurdly concentrated target for corruption attempts.)  His friend came back with a 52-year-old-but-not-grandfather-troped Individualist type, formerly the beloved manager of some small company, living fifteen minutes away in Default, who was just starting out as a Delegate after retiring.

Keltham went to a dinner party with three other potential voters to check the guy out, he seemed pretty gung-ho on pushing out the Private Sphere against the Public Shell relative to the current balancing point.  Keltham tossed the guy his vote along with a spreadsheet of Keltham's personal preferences over some Civilizational desiderata, yes he was serious he'd like to see much less altruism in future generations, and then mostly forgot about it.

Now and then Keltham would check in, and see that his guy's Elector had switched votes to a Representative who was negotiating with one of the Legislators to switch their vote in exchange for influence on the next Chief Executive being an ex-business-manager type instead of an ex-trader and with less of an emphasis on pondering that person's effective-philanthropy bets and more emphasis on how they'd run their business.

...Keltham was not under the impression that current Counts would take well to their Barons handing them spreadsheets of utilityfunction weights, or Barons warning Counts they were about to change their allegiance to a different Count.  He thought that Counts would tend to have militantly strong views about keeping their current jobs.  Is Keltham wrong about this?

Oh no they totally would, they'd be furious. But they're going to be furious about most possible solutions, here.

Welp, they can try to pay an unreasonable amount so people will be more cheerful about it, but Keltham expects that some point or another it's ultimately going to come down to 'You can have ten pounds of spellsilver in exchange for going quietly, or you can have zero pounds of spellsilver and also have to pay for a Raise Dead afterwards.'

....it might come down to that but it's not very smart to be saying that now, because, well, then if any of them find out they might decide they'd rather stop things getting to that point.

They'd better leave it out of any reports they file about dinnertime conversations, then, and Keltham will be sure not to say it during class.

You can't actually make spellsilver cheap enough to produce +6 intelligence headbands for everybody and not have your society change at all.  Especially insofar as your current 'social-system_design' is, in fact, stupid.  But anybody who can't work that out on their own gets to be taken by surprise, Keltham supposes.

How was the Share Language (Baseline) and Keltham's use of Baseline loanwords thrown into Taldane, by the way?  It made his life easier, definitely, but he's not sure how it felt from the other end.

It mostly made sense? The extra specificity seemed worth the occasional needing to mentally rewind several sentences and try to piece together what they were saying. 

Probably various people will catch on that they're going to lose their hats, and some of them will rebel about it, but if they find out at different rates it'll be harder for them to coordinate on rebelling about it.

Well, if they don't tell any other Counts about it, maybe they can have some of the ill-gotten stuff of any extra-'extractive' Counts who didn't go quietly.

Keltham does remember how all majoritarian coalitions are theoretically unstable because a subcoalition could kick somebody out and redivide that person's gains among themselves - if for some odd reason they weren't using logical decision theory, that is.

People will be doing those calculations, yes. As long as the Project has the backing of the Church and the Queen the outcome's not really in question, but it's still better not to advertise anything worrying.

Are there places or people outside the classroom to whom Keltham should avoid saying particular things?

Probably he shouldn't say this stuff to the spellsilver consultants or people like that? Security's been screened and anyone Asmodeus has chosen is safe obviously.

He had in fact worked that out himself, but Keltham thanks them nonetheless for the advice.  Why trust what you can verify? as the saying goes.

PL-timestamp:  Day 17 (13) / Still Evening

After dinner, Keltham, who previously sent off a certain letter discussed with Carissa, now receives a reply on the evening Teleport!  It comes with a package, even!

To Keltham out of dath ilan:

I cannot, alas, afford the time to properly monitor and control your possession's shaping, at this remove.  As such, take all this advice with a grain of salt, and consult Subirachs perhaps.  She can forward further questions on to me, if she cannot answer them herself.

Your basic concept of treatment appears to me sound.  I am in fact impressed with you for inventing it, including such details as warning your possession that she is not at all to punish herself - though I would have phrased it as saying that the responsibility for punishing her while she was chained lay entirely with myself, and I would not tolerate my prerogative being usurped.

I would be greatly interested in hearing if there is Law governing such matters, known to you.  I do not expect, under the circumstances, that dath ilan taught you how to torment one's possession while she is chained to a bed - but I wonder if they taught you other principles that were relevant?  What shaped your intuitions to suggest that?  Most people I need to correct about that sort of thing, and then even after they are corrected they do not really seem to understand.  If there's favor due for my answers and actions in the rest of this letter, I'd call in some or all of it for a detailed reply there.

Your concern that teaching your possession to show you truthful pain, might in the end not teach her truthful pleasure, is likewise sound.  The objective is to train her to allow any of her real reactions through unimpeded, when you demand it so, not only pain.

I am enclosing a collar which increases sensitivity to tickling.  This is loaned to you, not given, but I do not expect to need it back anytime soon.

If you can press from your possession screams of pain and laughter both, that she cannot think about and cannot stop arising from herself, I expect you can make some progress on teaching her body to show its true reactions once more in the realm of pleasure.  There are cheats for that directly, items enchanted whose touch causes ecstasy, but to use those cheats comes with its own dangers.  It seems prudent to try things this way first.

When it comes time to test her pleasure again, do not neglect the fundamentals of Carissa's sexuality: real power over her, real possession of her, that no other could take her from you if you wished to keep her, that you have gone and will go to great lengths to keep her, that she could not escape you, that whatever kindness she has of you was your own choice between that and cruelty, that nothing within or without would restrain you from greater cruelty if you felt any wish for it, and so if she happens to receive kindness that is your true gift to her unobligated.

My imagination of Isidre is yelling at me not to press you too far, too quickly - but be it clear that if I were Keltham testing his possession's capacity for pleasure, I would be forcing her firmly into the bed-chains, allowing and indeed demanding her sincere resistance and then overcoming whatever resistance she offered; to do otherwise would pointlessly handicap myself.

I enclose a 5-charge rod of Curse of Magic Negation.  A charge will last one and a half hours when applied to your possession; I would advise enhancing it with your own Bestow Curse (3rd circle) targeted narrowly on her ability to overcome the resulting Spellblight of Negation.  (You will also need to have requested a Remove Curse, to negate your own Bestowed Curse afterwards.)  A Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace should do for yourself, and allow you to physically overpower her once she cannot cast magic against you.  The 1st-circle wizard spell Ray of Enfeeblement is a possible backup here, but it is better if you can overpower your possession without handicapping her apart from her magic.  Don't flinch back from fighting in a way that requires you to heal yourself during or herself afterwards; there is nothing you can do that Subirachs cannot undo.  Being overpowered now and then by her Keltham is good for a Carissa.

I enclose an order commanding Security to drag Carissa Sevar to your bed, should you so wish, in case it's easier that way the first time.  You will however be more likely to get the results you desire if you can manage to do it yourself and without flinching.

A possibility for avoiding that flinch:  Quietly take one of Carissa's stray hairs, and then ask one of your other relationships to Alter Self and Disguise Self to Carissa's appearance, so that you can rehearse the subdual, with your target voluntarily not using her magic.

I enclose a signed requisition permitting a woman of your choice to borrow a rod which will extend the duration of Alter Self when used by her.  I'd expect there to be one of those on-site, or if not, it can come by Egorian.  Feel free to try other games of that variety using the same requisition.

It would be foolish in any of these regards to do any such act for your possession's sake rather than your own.  She is liable to notice the difference.  What you cannot enjoy for yourself, want for yourself, you should not do.

It would however be equally foolish to want something of your possession and not take it, for what you think is her sake.  She wants above all for her owner to be Evil, powerful, and unrestrained.  Without those qualities it is not possible for somebody to really be in possession of her.  Kindness means nothing from a boy obliged by binds of Goodness to be kind.  It is necessary to find your caged cruelty and free it, to lay forcefully to rest her fears over whether it is your will or hers that governs, before she will be freed to fully appreciate those other times when you choose kisses and gentleness instead.  Others could give her a soft touch, did she wish that.  She would, in fact, have a hard time finding another boy to face down the Queen upon the throne and extort control of her from Cheliax.

Think first of your own wants, and when you are done thinking of those, you should find that there seems hardly any need to think of hers.

-- Abrogail Thrune II, Queen of Cheliax

PS:  It's fine to owe me favor, or call it due; and better yet if you wish to repay by answering my question in the third paragraph.  Any morsels of Law about this matter would be greatly precious to me.  But one hears reports that you may be more comfortable if I disclose what some prices would ordinarily be, and you may pay those instead do you wish.

These amounts are not particularly significant to myself - my time in writing this letter would cost more, if I knew how to put any sensible price on it, which I don't - at least, not short of you using your god's spell on me?  I would much prefer the answer to my question, even if it's only that you don't know how you knew.

Yet, as I'd have you understand our ways, I will also stretch out my hand for yours.  So:

Collar that increases tickling sensitivity:     Loan-price 20 gold / week.
Metamagic rod of spell extension:              Loan-price 150 gold / week (for outright loan, however, not occasional borrowing).
Rod applying Curse of Magic Negation:     Loan-price 30 gold / week + 300 gold / charge used.

    Stay Evil,
      Abrogail