"Would be refused entry into Vanda Nossëo unless they were entering our justice system, but actually we wouldn't object to you harboring them if you wished to."

"Then perhaps we will decide likewise. And in general I expect that if those kidnapped are able to follow our laws and not considered slaves in the polity they came from, we can simply treat them like any other people, all of whom have a right to freely access public spaces. However, for those kidnapping victims who don't know our laws, is there any way you'd find it objectionable if we treated them as your stolen property to be returned to you, ideally undamaged, and prevented from causing problems in the mean time?"

"Hm - prevented how? Off the top of my head, my species spontaneously dies of being confined."

"Normally, we would use magic to prevent them from taking unauthorized actions."

"What actions are typically authorized or unauthorized in the normal case?"

"It varies and I don't personally write procedures for it but it would not surprise me to hear that someone in that situation was prevented from using magic, prevented from doing violence, prevented from leaving an area which could feasibly be large and partly outdoors, or prevented from leaving such an area without an escort, or watched."

"All right. I think we can work out an arrangement where a kidnap victim here is kept according to your safety needs till we can pick them up."

"Good. What other common problems have you run into already when you've met new societies?"

"Religious objections to various things such as birth control are common. Sometimes we land in the middle of a war, or a - more population-level oppressed class than slaves where the central case is minor children. Sometimes there's a non-war ongoing crisis, a disease or disaster we have to deal with. On a smaller scale sometimes people try to attack our representatives or scam each other about how to access the services we have to offer but I don't expect that to happen often here. - I have a question about enslaved children. What tends to underly the decision to free them if it's never obligatory?"

"Different people have different reasons. Slaves don't vote and free people often vote like their parents - candidates tend to appeal to specific species or industries or linguistic minorities, and in two of those cases the correlation is nearly absolute. Slaves are not responsible for their own behavior - if one finds a way to get revenge, that's legal, unless it causes collateral damage to someone other than the owner, in which case it is the owner who is tried for vandalism or battery. Some slaves will work harder if promised freedom, and if the owner went back on such a promise, that would not be illegal, but it would be the kind of thing that anyone dealing with them in the future might bear in mind. Some species commonly exhibit substantial parental investment in offspring and members of these species will sometimes free people out of a personal preference that they be free. Caralendri, ah... Saran?"

"For the dignity of the clan and so they can join other households and perhaps become heads of household themselves someday," says Saran. "And for personal fondness, and because competent slaves with very valuable skills aren't necessarily easier to get what you want from than free people that you pay."

"Huh," says Alassë. "- it currently does not seem likely that you will want to take an Empire-wide vote on joining Vanda Nossëo but if you do it will be necessary to allow the slaves an opportunity to submit their opinions."

"That would be... impossible in some cases and a substantial logistical undertaking in others."

"In what cases would it be impossible?"

"Those who could understand the question but not answer, or answer the question but not understand that it was being asked - it is possible that telepathy would solve some of those problems, but to solve them that way would compromise ballot secrecy - or those who have been taken away to hidden islands and may or may not even be alive."

"If they're not alive we can check for them among the stasised dead," Alassë points out. "And we allow proxy vote registration as long as the proxy can testify that they didn't pressure or misrepresent the vote."

"Then perhaps it would be possible, if it ends up seeming like a good idea. And, regardless, the empire and Vanda Nossëo will likely - if clearly not immediately - both be better off for having met, do you agree?"

"I do!" says Alassë. "We're big believers in positive sum trade. I don't see any reason to think we can't accomplish that much here."

"Likewise. If you want a business tip, which is worth less than the rest of what I have to say because I'm no businessperson, I think healing will sell well."

"It usually does," agrees Alassë.

"I find that easy to believe," says Haria.

"What if the kidnapping of some incompetent person were the other way around?" asks Seihra. "Would you return them to us?"

"By default, yes, though if they wanted to stay we'd be inclined to harbor them."

"And so we might have a situation where one of your people steals one of ours and you might be reluctant - I assume because of internal political pressure about handing people over to be slaves? - to return the stolen property."

"Yes. For many possible applications of slave labor we could replace it, we have nonsapient constructs that can do a lot of things, but it won't work if the slaves are seeing, for example, sexual use, or if their individual identities are a factor for the owner."

"There might be some way for us all to get more of what we want than this but my first thought is that you'll need to pick your favorite two of 'Vanda Nossëo doesn't return stolen slaves', 'Vanda Nossëo doesn't turn criminals over to Hari justice', and 'there is free trade and travel between Vanda Nossëo and Har.'"

"I appreciate that even if we aren't coming from the same underlying values we at least have plenty of clarity on what's realistic, that's surprisingly rare," says Alassë. "I anticipate picking the first and third, with the border control situation informed by having to give up the second, if there's no way to avoid compromise there."