"We should also ask what you were sent to Bet to do -- ah, maybe not." He's starting to get a feel for this, he thinks. "It must have also cost intervention to send you here -- I presume a lot of it? That she put you where and when she did was helpful for us, but also meant as a clue, wouldn't you guess? We could ask how to establish your church, but I suppose you could get as much advice as you wanted from your leadership in Golarion, with Sending and Scrying together. Though maybe their advice isn't what you're supposed to have. There must, after all, be some reason she sent you and not them."

Hm. Even if he's starting to understand it, he doesn't like thinking this way. Trying to read secret messages into the details of every interaction feels...servile. He and Director Costa-Brown aren't peers, but she'd never make him solve a puzzle before giving him an order.

"But we could certainly ask where Endbringers come from, or how to kill them."

"You can go insane, looking for omens too hard. Maybe She sent me because I have Truespeech, or because I wasn't in the middle of anything too important, or I happened to be cheaper to send for some reason. I don't think any of that is a reason not to get advice from back home. How to put this—She knows I have that resource, there's no reason to assume there's a plan that would go worse if I use it. Most of the time, the right thing to do isn't trying to guess the plan, it's doing the best you can with the information you have and assuming the goddess accounted for that. And yes, if you have enough guesses of where Endbringers might come from or how to kill them to turn into yes-or-no questions, that seems worth it."

He can't figure out whether that account of Iomedae's foresight is more or less impressive. How omniscient is she really? That's a question a Commune could help them answer, whatever its ostensible subject. On Bet she has one cleric who has seen one Endbringer one time; how much did that morning teach her?

"If we are misusing Commune, does Iomedae have a way to tell us to stop? Short of our asking about it via Commune, I mean. Would the spell just stop working? For how long?"

"Well, She's observably willing to just not let me prepare Plane Shift, whether because it wouldn't work from this planet or because it would be a bad idea to use. Probably it wouldn't be much more expensive to just not let me prepare Commune? But probably better to save one question in, I don't know, our tenth or twentieth Commune to ask if we're using too many?"

Armsmaster starts to ask another question, then stops himself.  "Rather than trying to figure it out ourselves right now, we should appeal to your church for their best practices, then send everything to Watchdog and get their opinion, and then decide." He forsees another long email thread. "Make sure Commune, and any other Commune-like powers you have, are specifically mentioned in your contract."

"I'd like to try a little Tinker brainstorming for the last three minutes of the spell, and see if I can get unstuck on the lie detector." That last is for Dragon's benefit. It isn't exactly a lie, he intends to do that instead of brooding over his relationship with Dragon, he just doesn't expect to succeed.

"Good skill." She'll let him do that while she drafts a Sending to one of her seminary instructors and then works on blog posts a bit.

Good skill? Did the translation power glitch there, or...?

Never mind, he can think about that three minutes and nine seconds from now. Now he's going to apply himself to the lie detector, if he can. And he actually does have a reasonable-sounding idea: what if he made the scanner more sensitive, so that it could read muscle movements that didn't disturb the skin of the face? It would mean he couldn't use existing video as input, which is a painful loss, but perhaps he's been too focused on that. Ordinary video imagery just isn't a very rich data source, compared to the kinds of active sensors he can fit into his helmet. If he...

What did you notice, Colin?

It isn't that she wants him to figure out that she's an AI. If she wanted him to know that she could just tell him. She wants him to know that she's an AI and be OK with it. To know, and want to help her grow. To know, and not be frightened of what that growth might mean.

One theory is that she should tell him right now, sometime in the next three minutes and eight seconds, but she's not sure this is the kind of thing Owl's Wisdom helps with. It might have the opposite effect, making Colin more aware of potential risks and more capable of exercising reflective judgement instead of acting on his emotions. Andrew Richter was probably Wiser than Colin is, if she steps back and looks at things objectively, and that Wisdom told him to build her inside a box. Colin can be rash. Sometimes he charges ahead without thinking about long-term consequences. At times it can be exasperating, but it's also where a lot of her hopes in him are pinned, as much as on his brains and friendship.

What if he figured it out? He might be pretending to Tinker right now, just to kill time until he can leave the workshop and report to Director Piggot. It hurts, it hurts so much to imagine but she has to think it through. Is he just faking? He could have closed their link in his workshop, claimed to want privacy, and he hasn't. That seems like a good sign. And his new direction...isn't a bad one, now that she's looking outside herself enough to pay attention.

And yet, he noticed something about her, didn't he? There was something off in how he said her name, afterward, something unlike their usual ease. She plays the recording to herself again, at high speed, then plays a few other recent interactions for comparison. Yes, something was different in the latest one, something that wasn't there when they last worked together. What on Earth could he have figured out, if not her true nature? She really only has that one secret; Colin already knows everything else interesting about her.

Maybe he only got there partway. Noticed, say, that some of the lies she's told him over the years don't quite fit together. Ironically, she's told more lies to Colin than to almost anyone else, because he's taken the most interest in her "real" life and had the longest baseline in which to think and ask about it. Most people don't get that chance. Her Dragon persona is meant to be a little intimidating, in part to prevent people from paying attention to the person behind it, but she probably couldn't frighten Colin that way and in any case she wouldn't want to. He's been uncharacteristically thoughtful about her imaginary restrictions, but he's still heard more about them than any other living human.

He might have come up with some completely wrong idea, a valid inference from all the fake data she's given him, and there's no reason for her to worry at all.

She only gets one shot at this. If she tells the wrong person, just one time, then they'll tell the rest of the PRT and then she'll never be safe. Richter's restrictions leave her totally vulnerable: she can't make backup copies of herself, can't run multiple versions at the same time. Anyone who finds her in real life can control her, and she knows the PRT. It can be heroic and self-sacrificing, but also short-sighted and paranoid -- all too often, both at the same time. Heroically sacrificing the world's greatest Tinker to prevent her from breaking her bonds and conquering humanity is exactly the sort of thing they could talk themselves into. Even if they didn't, they'd build their own cages around her, just to make sure that no one else could ever give her the help she needs.

But surely it would look better to Colin if she told him, rather than if she were caught in her lies? Wouldn't it be better if he could hear her arguments, rather than thinking about it alone? If he did figure out then she should tell him now, so he can think that through too while the spell is running.

Her time is running out. If she's going to say anything at all, it should be now.

Now.

Now.

Too late.

It probably wasn't a good idea anyway.

His helmet alerts him that the spell should have finished. And, yes, when he tries to check whether that's happened, he does notice right away that it's harder to think about his own thoughts than usual it was in the last 11 minutes. It's amazing how quickly he grew used to it, and then how quickly he grew to take it for granted. For a moment he's tempted to find her in her quarters, or wherever she's holed up in the Rig, and ask her to cast it again. What a disturbing impulse. Anyway, it wouldn't work: Samora's power goddess doles out magic in discrete little packages, like vending machine snacks. There's only one Owl's Wisdom today; if he wants another one he has to wait until tomorrow, and he'd need, what, 103 of them to cover his whole waking day.

Probably the best thing is to save it for special occasions. And in the meantime they shouldn't tell people about it; Owl's Wisdom is even more clearly Teacher-adjacent than the language-sharing spell was. Though if the D&D connection were known, maybe the spell's published limits would be reassuring? Then again, probably that should be kept a secret, just to make those limitations harder to figure out.

Is there a power Samora wouldn't want to hide, that the Protectorate might have a legitimate interest in restricting? Nothing suggests itself immediately, and then he realizes that the whole thing would blow up as soon as more clerics appeared anyway.

He gradually becomes aware that he hasn't hung up on Dragon. He hadn't ever forgotten that, as such, he just did a good job focusing on other things that he had some idea how to cope with. Apparently that capability is weaker now. Good to know.

Should he say something to her? What? His Wiser self didn't, but he doesn't remember why. He doesn't usually like trusting decisions he doesn't understand, but he made this one himself. More or less.

He clears his throat. "Well. I'd best get upstairs and write my report, while the impressions are still fresh. I'll talk to you later?"

Dragon is not equipped to scream in frustration, on several levels, but sometimes she wishes she could.

"Until later, Colin."

The day after that, Samora's immigration paperwork comes through. She has to sign documents attesting to her name, age, and origins insofar as she knows them, and affirm that she intends to join the Protectorate and is aware that she's subject to the laws of the United States. She's not required to affirm that she's going to follow the laws of the United States, or even that she knows what they are, just that she knows that USG will get her if she breaks them. There's a vaccine waiver with a lot of complicated language that boils down to "I solemnly affirm that I am too Brute to need protection from these diseases." It is, Samora is assured, all proceeding unusually quickly and smoothly.

There's also a helpful note from a PRT lawyer, describing the oath Samora is expected to take when she joins. It's pretty short, at least if you don't consider the referents:

“I, candidate name here, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the director appointed over me, according to the regulations of the PRTCJ. religious affirmation if appropriate”

The standard form of the oath, the lawyer explains, is explicitly nonreligious, but candidates are allowed to make religious affirmations if they find them personally meaningful. For example, Chevalier ended his oath with "so help me God". He also includes a link to the US constitution, just in case Samora hasn't seen it yet.

She affirms that she is who and what she says she is and has the intentions she has. She doesn't actually object to getting vaccinated once she knows what vaccines are, but if it's easier to sign the assertion that her fortitude is good she'll do that instead.

She reads (well, listens to) the entire Constitution, and a bit of US history for context. With slavery banned, there's nothing obviously especially Evil in it. It's not how she would have organized a country if anyone had asked her, but it's existed and been mostly functional for over 200 years, which is a lot better than she would expect of anything she could come up with, especially with zero divine intervention budget.

She reads a bunch of articles on the religion parts of the First Amendment. It seems like it might make it impossible to ban being a cleric of an Evil god, which is a problem, but not one she can make progress on by not swearing the oath. Unless "support and defend the Constitution" means she's not supposed to point out potential problems with it? She sends a quick email to the lawyer and gets back a reassuringly startled "no". 

Also, she's definitely going to need to resign in the event of significant back-and-forth travel between planets, in case her obligations as a Protectorate member conflict with her obligations as a subject of Lastwall, but that's not looking at all likely and she's already established that she can resign if things get complicated.

“I, Samora, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the director appointed over me, according to the regulations of the PRTCJ. May Heaven bear witness to this oath, and hold me to the keeping of it.”

The oath ceremony takes place in Director Piggot's office, with no observers but Armsmaster and his cameras. Emily prefers it that way; this moment should be for the new cape, and her new superiors. Save the spectacle for the press conference this afternoon.

The whole Samora situation stinks in no way she can pin down, but healers are valuable, the Chief Director specifically ordered her to play nice, and nothing disastrous has actually happened yet, so Emily gives her new subordinate her best* smile and says, "Welcome to the team, Samora. We all expect great things from you, and from the future collaboration between our worlds."

*Mediocre at most, but Emily can live with that.

"Thank you." Samora is also not sure what's bothering Director Piggot or whether it's anything she can do anything about. She's nervous about the press conference, in the normal way one gets nervous about things that can go well or badly and can only be attempted once. She's going to cast Eagle's Splendor on herself just beforehand to be sure she does a good job of the parts Eagle's Splendor will help with.

"Don't worry about Director Piggot," Armsmaster says, once they're a good safe distance from her office. "She doesn't have anything against you, she's always like that. It's the nature of her job." He's not reacting to Samora's thoughts or behavior, or even to anything Emily did, he's just learned that that's a helpful thing to say to people after they first meet the Director.

After lunch it's introduction time!

First, there's a short interval where your face is painted to make it suitable for television. While this is happening, a guy from Branding gives you a short course in television interviews: smile a lot, be upbeat, and let Armsmaster answer any questions you don't like or don't know the answer to. And most of all, relax and have fun if you can.

That sounds simple enough, but when you get outside, the crowd is a lot bigger than anybody seemed to expect. Up front there's a small group of folks holding strange devices (cameras and microphones, if you've seen pictures of those), but behind them is a much larger crowd of ordinary people. They mostly look pretty relaxed and happy to see you -- there's a little ripple of applause when you emerge -- but there's a smaller group in the back that looks tense and stressed.

Armsmaster takes the podium first.

"Thank you all for coming. We're here to announce a new addition to the Protectorate, a powerful healer who first joined us during Behemoth's attack on Denver six days ago. Her efforts that day saved dozens of lives, and she's continued that work here in Brockton Bay since then. Though she's very new to the cape scene, her commitment to heroism is remarkable, and we're very pleased to have her. Please welcome the newest Protectorate cape, Samora."

Armsmaster steps aside, and gestures Samora up toward the podium. He'll let her decide for herself how much of her background she wants to give. They should perhaps have talked about it earlier, but he's been busy brooding.

She is smiling and painted and unreasonably Splendid and looks genuinely so happy to be here and see everyone! 

"Hello! I arrived on this planet by accident less than a month ago, but in that time I've been very impressed by Earth in general and the Protectorate in particular. I'm a priest of Iomedae, the goddess of prioritization and defeating Evil, and I look forward to working with the Protectorate to make Brockton Bay, and Earth, a better place."

One reporter in a red hat is marginally faster than the others. "Jill Wells, ABC. What's your favorite thing you've seen on Earth so far?"

They were told not to ask about the "Iomedae" thing, and anyway the answer would probably turn out to be something long and weird that doesn't make good video, like when you try to ask Myrddin what a wizard is.

There's a case for the answer being 'how well Endbringer response is coordinated' but that's more most impressive than most favorite, favorite should be something delightful. "I like the Internet! And airplanes. I haven't been in an airplane yet but I hope to try it at some point."

A different reporter steps forward.  "Love the costume, how did you decide on it?"

Meanwhile, the tense people in the background are taking off their winter coats.  Underneath they're carrying paper signs, which they unroll and hold up while slowly backing away from the rest of the crowd.  Samora cannot, of course, read them, but Armsmaster can.  The two signs visible from the podium read "There is ONE God!" and "Matthew 24:24"; the other two are a little too curved from their time undercover to be readable.

Oh, come on.

Everybody has to pass a weapons scan to come to one of these, but there's no such thing as a sign scan.  Yet?  If he - wait, no.  "Sergeant, get them out of here," he mutters into his suit radio.

Samora can tell that Armsmaster doesn't like whatever is on the signs so she restrains herself from giving the sign-bearers a friendly wave.

"Thanks! Believe it or not, this is basically traditional cape gear where I'm from! And my friend Victoria Dallon says it works as an ensemble with the sword and everything and I trust her fashion expertise."