"The entire - conceit of Vanda Nossëo - is based around everyone being free to leave. As individuals, first and foremost, but downstream of that námor can leave in coordinated ways too, if they're bought into a structure for collective decisionmaking. I can certainly imagine a multiversal empire that spread through conquest and wouldn't let territory secede or citizens emigrate without a fight, but Vanda Nossëo fundamentally isn't built that way and doesn't have a way to transition into such a thing. And... I don't know how to put this, anything I say might be wrong in some detail or just translate horrendously, but if you'll try to account for that, uh... they weren't trying to preserve option value for versions of themselves who didn't want universal flourishing of sapients. If some option value in that situation remains, that's an incidental effect of something else."

"I think I see what you mean. Is there more to that being the conceit of Vanda Nossëo than it having been the founders' goal, is it just that they made it easy for the teleporters to help anyone secede or would it be - humiliating to admit they'd gone back on their commitment, or against some oath they swore, or - I can work with either, though, this isn't even going to be hard to spin."

"Spin?" asks Tarwë.

"I mean, I think setting things up this way was their goal because they believed it satisfied the desideratum of universal sapient flourishing in sort of the way that you build the bottom of a building first because it satisfies the desideratum of not having the whole thing fall down. None of the Bells, if we're still talking about Bells, are from cultures that treat oath-swearing the way you do or species that have it as a feature the way Elves do," Nelen says. "I suppose it would be - embarrassing, among other things - if someone high up in Vanda Nossëo decided to start murdering námor or keeping them captive, if we assume for the sake of argument that they hadn't just taken personality-altering drugs that made them feel like that was a reasonable thing to do."

"Spin is when you choose how to frame a set of facts most usefully," he says to Tarwë, with a mostly suppressed half-smile of confusion. And turning to Nelen, "For whom exactly would it be embarrassing and what would they identify as the reason it was embarrassing?"

"I know what spin is, I don't know what you're spinning to whom," says Tarwë.

"It would be a - shameful lapse of self-control?" Nelen ventures. "For them. And a very worrying failure of judgment of character on the part of anyone who trusted them, because they're trusted on the premise that they don't do any murder."

"I'm spinning Vanda Nossëo to Sesat, really. To the king, to the people... I mean, when the Star of Stars acquiesces, he needs to be able to tell his people it wasn't an act of cowardice or weakness, and this will all go over better if our people aren't honor-bound to die rather than join you. So we aren't, in fact, as great as those who are important in your society; but we can strive to reach such heights, in time, and there's no sense in denying it when we can fix it; and those who matter to any teleporter have some protection, even setting aside that the peal have all staked their pride on not... is it just not randomly killing their inferiors, or is it not breaking any of Vanda Nossëo's three greatest laws?"

"There would be similar fallout if they tortured or raped people. ...worse, actually, there are reasons at times to kill and basically never reasons to torture or rape that hold up to scrutiny, some peal members have killed before but I don't think I've heard any of them accused of the other two."

" - How was it decided that their killings were acceptable?"

"I believe Cam actually stood trial. Loki's were all in a warfare context, Kib too, Butterfly too, Gem was in a time loop, killing Melkors and Saurons is just default okay because of how horrible they are, Golden was overthrowing a government that itself killed a lot of people and enabled killing more."

"...I don't find that last thing reassuring for obvious reasons, but at least it's not wanton cruelty. Why did Cam allow a trial to take place, is it widely believed it would matter if a court found a Bell guilty of something?"

"...there are planets he's not allowed on, and he doesn't go to them, does that count?"

"Yes. Why doesn't he go to them?"

"Because... he isn't welcome there... because of how he killed people."

"And he just accepts that?"

"Yes."

"And if he didn't, that would be - what, implying he needs them, or implying he can't win over enough planets full of people to satisfy anything he could possibly want a planet for, or something else?"

"If he went to one of those planets he'd be implying that - he didn't respect the people who the planets belong to and their right to disinvite him."

"Why does he want to be known to respect those people and their right to disinvite him from their planets?"

"I think the answer is that he just, does, actually, respect those people and their right to do that."

"...Why?"

"Because his having certain powers and privileges oughtn't give him unrestrained license to invade people's homes when they've said he isn't welcome. I presume he wouldn't have wanted to live in a society where the powerful could show up in his house whenever they wanted, back when he was a human with no special powers, and he continues to not want to live in a society like that now."

"...That doesn't feel - oh - that doesn't feel as though it should follow. Because if I were a serf I'd want to live in a society where serfs were well-treated, but I'm not, so why should I want that? But if I wanted to coordinate with all of my alts, and my alts could be anyone, then - I should - want to arrange society so that whichever of them wanders into it will like it - no, never mind, I still don't see it, surely with transmissible magic that shouldn't matter."

"Cam did in fact use to be a human with no special powers," Nelen says. "Though I don't think that's actually essential for the mindset, it's just how his life went. Being powerful just... doesn't interact with deservingness of rights like intruders not showing up uninvited in your home. It could conceivably interact with some practicalities of enforcing that right, but not the deservingness."

"Hmm. Ah. Because all námor have that right equally?"

"Yes."