:You are very welcome.:

He's curious who this Idealist friend is (he thinks friend is probably but not certainly appropriate, from Leareth's body language), but will refrain from commenting.

:The political background to the arrival of superpowers was... complicated. Powers had theoretically existed before that, but had been broadly unknown; history had instead been shaped by the development in one region of the world, Europe, which had ended up with skills at engineering, trade and warfare superior to its competitors in other parts of the world; these developments lead to an ‘industrial revolution’ by which my world shifted from more than ninety percent of the its population being farmers to roughly a quarter, with the energies thus released turning to scientific and technological development, as well as to war:

:Europe used these skills in warfare to found colonies in low-populated regions as well as to conquer the rest of the world, barring a few countries who adapted European methods and joined the ranks of the imperial powers. Conflict, however, arose between those European countries that had gained an early colonial lead, and the latecomers, European and non-, triggering two nearly planet-wide wars:

:The second of these occurred shortly before my birth; it brought with it the collapse of the overseas empires of the European empires, thanks to guerilla warfare, military exhaustion, and the recognition that a hegemony founded on trade was easier to maintain than one founded on conquest:

:Do you follow, so far?:

They got as low as 25% of the population required to be farmers??? On one level Leareth isn't surprised, he can extrapolate and he can do math and he's pretty sure a real industrial revolution, one that actually has a chance to get some momentum going, can actually get a lot further than that. 

He has feelings about this! It's actually kind of hard to figure out what his feelings about it are! One of them is anger, which is unusual, and this is a new flavor of it too, it's - itchy, restless, an almost physical heat and pressure...

His feelings about the global-scale wars are a lot stronger! He actually physically reels back in his seat a little, some of the color leaving his face. 

But he can stay in control, mostly. :- Yes. Following: 

Huh. Leareth is still reacting to everything so much more than usual, and not the sorts of reactions she expects. 

:The political situation into which I was born, then, was one of feud between the victors of the ‘Second World War’. Both the United States of America, the country into which I was born and a nominal republic, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - more commonly known as ‘Russia’ - were on the winning side during the second World War; both of them possessed arsenals of apocalyptic superweapons - the ‘nuclear bomb’, first among these weapons, had been developed during the Second War and used, once, to end it. Both of the victorious Powers had developed overwhelming stockpiles of them, which they intended to use for the purpose of annihilating the other, should war threaten; most likely both would, and take either the majority or all of humanity with them.:

:It was known, to me, as a child, and to all the other children I grew up with, that one day these weapons would be used, and all life on earth would end, and then it would be over. This was the sword, hanging over our heads. Political crises occurred in which threats were made particularly loudly to use them; politicians suggested ways of stopping them, and other politicians argued that ‘the other side’ would use the weapons the moment before any defense against them could be implemented.:

:It was, you understand, politicians who claimed to make the decisions; the United States of America was a nominal republic; in theory, the citizens of each region elected representatives, these representatives forming a legislature, with the legislature sharing power with a national leader elected by the entire country. In practice, power had largely passed to a collection of bureaucracies, intelligence agencies and military organizations more focused on retaining power and wealth than on serving the people of or even the interests of nation. With little influence on genuine decisionmaking, elected leaders focused more on redistributing wealth away from their competitors towards their own constituents, each plundering the nation to please a portion of it. Russia was in a still worse position, with an even thinner democratic facade and direct attempts by its corrupt and incompetent government to run every aspect of its national economy directly, producing mass famines.:

He does, in fact, believe what he is saying, though it is also rhetoric.

:And it was in this world that superpowers came to prominence. It was an age in which the dreams of utopia of the past were crumbling and men were divided on whether they should be replaced or repaired or we should surrender to a dreamless world, a world where doom would one day come on wings of flame, and none would know its coming. And then… some people had powers; individuals, chosen apparently randomly, who were suddenly strong enough to affect the world.:

The vision, to him, so young, that he could actually do things. That fate had placed him in a position where he was not a slave.

:They were, by and large, divided into three groups. The first was the unambitious, who went on with their normal lives, and they have added to the wealth of their nations, but they have had little effect on the world at large. The second hold that the system as it existed functioned, should be supported, and that their essential duty was to protect it from its enemies. They have been called heroes, and while some are merely vanity-seeking, many of them truly are among the best the world has to offer. The great majority amongst them, though are simply taking the simplest path; all the world hails their decision as correct, and they are rewarded with fame and fortune provided they stick to the pattern that has been laid out for them - a bargain with the machine which limits their ability to truly change anything. They catch criminals and cannot make any change to the rules that make them, for the system is slow, inflexible, lacking in precision; a few adjustments have been made to make it less of a tyranny, after great effort by many of the cleverest people, but it remains fundamentally incompetent, and so those bound to its will can save a life or two, but not stop the clock that ticks to destruction.: He is thinking about the "Sanguinary Laws," because the killer's name was more famous than her victims; they were the climax to forty years of work by a political genius and were mostly obsolete before five more have passed.

:And the third is mine. Those that cannot - or will not - live in the world as it is. We are called villains. Not all of us have ambition; there are those that are merely criminals, though I try to make better use of them than a life of crime, guiding them to see what they could truly work for if they accepted genuine freedom, and realize their true potential. Some are villains because desire to make glorious inventions to broaden the world but cannot find the permits and licenses they need to do it under the law; some have powers of tremendous scope to shape the lands around them and yet are barred from its use; others, and I am one, have seen the troubles of this world, and do not think it can be mended peacefully. I grew up in a world where the governments of the world had no better plan to save humanity than to destroy it, and I decided I could run the world better, and, frankly, had to. I will not yield to the law; I declare that I have my own rights and will trample the law underfoot if it is for the sake of my own world; I am called a tyrant for I am free, and those who follow my banner share in this; I advise them and guide them and they accept my rule by their own free choice, and admit no other:

:Today, the balance between the factions is this. ‘Villains’ outside the law steal the tools they need to implement some plan, occasionally intended to permanently improve the world but usually just some ploy to win wealth and fame; they are foiled by ‘heroes,’ backed by ordinary law-enforcement and occasionally the army, and, should they be considered not overly dangerous, or should they have the power to bribe the government, they are imprisoned or recruited. If they are thought too dangerous they are killed.: There are a number of images going through his head, of fancy costumes and dramatic speeches and plots to steal sunlight and robberies of marble-faced buildings where people in masks and costumes go in with deadly weapons and come out with bags full of paper.

:‘Heroes’ devote their energy to fighting ‘villains’, for they have no better way to improve the world, and are honored in exchange, and told they have made the right decision.: He’s thinking of exceptions to this; Minerva has genuinely tried to make things better, even if she’s not very good at it, and various people who are just out to make a lot of money have also done some effective healing in the process. :Meanwhile, the occasional entity in the ‘fourth category’ appears - something that is too alien to the world even to be called a villain - engages in a rampage, causes great devastation, and is put down temporarily or permanently.: The Necromancer, at least, is gone. :There are powers that have appeared that are dangerous on a potentially apocalyptic scale, and so far it is coincidence that they have not been misused to wipe out all life - coincidence, and a handful of people, primarily the true heroes, : (and also himself, though he doesn’t say that) :who have so far solved individual crises. These problems will fail eventually.: Voidwrath has not noticed he can destroy the world; when he does, they will all be dead unless someone destroys the indestructible. (And there’s another example he’s deliberately not thinking of.)

:My solution, which I admit is imperfect, is to individually recruit as many of the ‘villains’ worst misusing their talents as possible, found a new nation, shaping a society in which they can flourish, recruiting immigrants from the most desperately mismanaged dictatorships to provide manpower, and then use the resources I am provided with to try to find permanent solutions to the world’s problems.: His solution is imperfect in large part because he is tired; one of the things he most needs to do is to cure mortality, before all the people he’s relying on, himself included, lose all their energy and then die. :I am very eager to see what a new world can provide in terms of better solutions.:

Leareth is doing his best to follow along closely.

He is also still operating under some deeply inconvenient cognitive constraints! Letting himself experience emotions does seem to be helping, in terms of how far he can follow a particular line of thought, but it's still hitting his working memory capacity, and he really can only follow one line of thought at a time.

Fortunately, he has paper to take notes on, and failing that he can Mindspeak one of his clerks - not Nayoki, she would be justifiably offended if Leareth just wanted her to be a scribe for him where did that thought come from he's confused again - 

- nevermind, focus - 

Leareth is very concerned about the 'apocalyptic superweapons' involved in their global-scale war! Apparently not even the first global-scale war! 

and used, once, to end it.

Sandor doesn't add any details. Leareth isn't about to interrupt - it seems like it might be a sensitive topic - but he has questions. And concerns. 

Nayoki is more on top of actually relaying note-taking requests to one of her assistants outside the room. She isn't delighted to hear about the overwhelming stockpiles of world-destroying weapons, but said stockpiles are still in another world, one which they won't be able to access again until Leareth is more functional and can figure out Gates - 

- or until someone with a superpower their visitor isn't even aware of - which seems not-implausible given their bizarre magic system and baffling politics - manages to follow him to this world? 

Nayoki isn't that worried, at this point, but she sends out a warning anyway. Leareth doesn't have any prepared contingency-plans that exactly match this scenario, but he has one close enough to be useful. Hopefully. 

Leareth...almost can't feel anything about the massive stockpiles of apocalyptic superweapons. He's trying to guess at what 'apocalyptic' actually means - destroying an entire city in a single blast, maybe, and - 

- and

 no, even though it's clearly appropriate to have strong emotions about the weapon(s) that Urtho deployed that set off the Cataclysm (whatever those weapons were, he still doesn't understand what happened but he thinks or at least desperately hopes it wasn't his doing) - he still needs to keep listening to Sandor's explanation.

It was known, to me, as a child, and to all the other children I grew up with, that one day these weapons would be used, and all life on earth would end, and then it would be over

Great now he feels like crying again, this is so distracting– 

Focus. Why is this upsetting? He can afford a second or two to chase that thread....

Bizarrely, it's mostly not because he's imagining being the child growing up in a doomed world? It's - that he's imagining being the parent of said child– this is almost certainly not a useful line of thought, but Leareth apparently can't help but follow it -

- Leareth zones back in just in time to catch in which threats were made particularly loudly and he can follow the incentive structure being described, he can make sense of it as a logical construct - obviously the premises of this bizarre logic simulation are stupid but he's not thinking about that right now that's for later he's notthinkingaboutit–

In theory, the citizens of each region elected representatives, these representatives forming a legislature, with the legislature sharing power with a national leader elected by the entire country.

Leareth can see where this is going. 

(...Can he? It feels like it, but - what's his actual prediction -?) 

In practice, power had largely passed to a collection of bureaucracies, intelligence agencies and military organizations more focused on retaining power and wealth than on serving the people of or even the interests of nation. 

....Yeah, no, this perfectly fits with his prediction (that he didn't have time to even finish defining, so it's unclear how meaningful it should be, but– but actually he isn't going to dwell on that right now, he has more important priorities, for example being incredibly angry about the concept of institutions focused on holding onto their power and resources rather than accomplishing their ostensible goals - 

what– 

he doesn't think this is an emotional response he's tended to have before, although it's hard to tell because his past self was wrong about everything

no stop that doesn't seem right

because his present self is under foreign mind control  

NOPE NOPE NOPE– 

(what) 

....This continues to be a very annoying set of mental constraints to be under while trying to deal with an actual urgent situation, and Leareth is 

(carefully not leaning too hard into thinking about his true enemies in Velgarth, since that's probably its own new pit of unexpected emotions which he does not at all have time for - yet - it's apparently very important for some part of him to include the yet there -)

- and, again, Leareth is pretty sure he missed some words there, because even the most situationally-appropriate emotions are deeply inconvenient - 

(He's distantly annoyed with whoever did this to him to try to "fix his ethics" or whatever their goal was, it still seems like a rather poorly-thought-out process - if he were in charge of how the ethics-editing magic worked, he's pretty sure he could make it less violating, less - denying someone their freedom and not even admitting to it–) 

((Leareth does not, quite, have enough available metacognition to notice explicitly that his already-mostly-subconscious objections are not the usual flavor of objection he would have, but he almost notices, at least enough to feel vague unease -))

He has more important things to focus on, though.

And it was in this world that superpowers came to prominence. It was an age in which the dreams of utopia of the past were crumbling and men were divided on whether they should be replaced or repaired or we should surrender to a dreamless world, a world where doom would one day come on wings of flame, and none would know its coming.

Well that's horrifying and upsetting!!! And not in any way acceptable!!!

- somehow he's having to remind himself again that the emergency isn't happening right here right now right in front of him – that Sandor is recounting events from years ago in another world. It's just that he really doesn't have any engrained habits for reminding himself of this sort of cognitive mistake, if anything it's the opposite of his usual errors - 

- the opposite. Huh. Leareth...feels like this isn't the first time he's noticed. Just, maybe, the first time he's named it explicitly. But...yes, it does suddenly feel like he's making the exact inverse errors of his previous mistakes - which, of course, didn't feel like mistakes from the inside, at the time - and his current intuitions feel deeply right, in a way that makes his past missteps so starkly obvious, but he's not blind to the symmetry there - 

Sandor is talking again (though he is pacing the speech so that Leareth can mostly keep up, despite his mind constantly falling into unexpected pit traps that didn't used to be there). 

The unambitious don't make any more sense to him than they ever did, but it's their prerogative, obviously, to live their lives the way they want - and, just like Gifts, the superpowers of Sandor's world aren't chosen. (He wonders if they require training to use to their full potential. That would be its own challenge, given how varied they are, how each person's set of powers is unique...) 

The 'heroes' – well, he has some sympathy for them. They sound a little like the Heralds, actually, though perhaps not recruited quite so involuntarily. He can understand wanting security, stability - wanting someone to tell you that you're doing the right thing - and it's not enough, of course, it's never been enough, that's no different in Sandor's world than in his own. He's tried it that way, tried being the one writing the laws, and look where the Eastern Empire ended up. It feels like a fundamental truism, that a system designed - or, more likely, emerging by accident over centuries, like most governments - in times of scarcity and turmoil, is never going to be the tool needed for bringing a world to the point where all the problems are fixed. 

(...Is that a new intuition? He's having a hard time telling, which is its own kind of unnerving; he thinks the observations he's calling to mind are all real, and all things he had already noticed and updated on, but did he lay out it from that angle before?) 

Nayoki is pretty curious about the "Sanguinary Laws", but she doesn't interrupt. Leareth is having enough trouble following, and besides, she's enjoying the speech. It's being carefully presented, of course, framed to be persuasive to its particular audience, but she can appreciate skill at persuasion. 

- and Sandor isn't accepting the unacceptable, any more than Leareth himself would. It's giving Leareth some new flavors of surprisingly strong emotion - for once, positive feelings. Of - kinship, recognition, and something he doesn't have a better word for than 'the opposite of loneliness', because he's not sure he's ever felt it before. 

(He can notice that the phrasing is probably carefully-chosen, but the parts of him that are usually running suspicion and paranoia don't seem to be working.) 

I advise them and guide them and they accept my rule by their own free choice, and admit no other

In his best moments, he's tried to follow that vision. To do right by his people now, not just promise to do better in the distant future. But he's been willing to compromise that ideal, hasn't he? There are people in his organization still under involuntary compulsions. He kidnapped children, and told himself it was justified, that it would be worth it in the end, but how could it possibly be?

Sandor isn't wrong, that you can't get from here to there with peaceful, incremental changes made within the limits of the system. That breaking the law, including violently, needs to be on the table. But suddenly it feels - not even just unjustified, or unlikely to succeed, but incoherent, that he could ever have thought he could build a freer world by enslaving people. 

Nayoki probably isn't going to let him reverse those policies, while she still thinks something is wrong with him. 

He feels sick again. 

Even if that's being carefully presented, which it obviously is, it says something about the man how he's choosing to present it. Nayoki likes him. 

...She's also very confused about what Leareth can possibly be upset about now. 

Meanwhile, the occasional entity in the ‘fourth category’ appears - something that is too alien to the world even to be called a villain - engages in a rampage, causes great devastation, and is put down temporarily or permanently

There are powers that have appeared that are dangerous on a potentially apocalyptic scale, and so far it is coincidence that they have not been misused to wipe out all life 

That's terrifying. No wonder Sandor is desperate. Leareth would be too, in his position. He hasn't felt that kind of existential fear for his world and its civilization since the years just after the Cataclysm. 

He wants to help. Wants it with a force that he's rarely wanted anything, that pushes him off-balance but, oddly, not in a way that actually bothers him; it feels correct, the only appropriate response to a situation this dire. Sandor deserves better, his allies deserve better, than to be called villains for being the only people brave enough to protect their planet and its people. He has an intense urge to say something, to convey that he understands it, that he knows what it's like to live in a world under threat - his mind doesn't seem to have actually formulated any words for him - 

My solution, which I admit is imperfect, is to individually recruit as many of the ‘villains’ worst misusing their talents as possible, found a new nation, shaping a society in which they can flourish, recruiting immigrants from the most desperately mismanaged dictatorships to provide manpower, and then use the resources I am provided with to try to find permanent solutions to the world’s problems.

Imperfect, maybe, but a start, and maybe the only winning strategy here. Not just a base of resources, that - unlike the resources of the government and supposed 'heroes' - can be flexibly directed towards the ever-shifting needs of the moment, but - spreading the vision that generated this plan in the first place, showing them a microcosm of what's possible, of what succeeding even looks like. Giving them the precious gift of believing they, personally, can make things better.

It makes him imagine a man with a torch, conveying that little flame to others, building a pocket of hope in a world under siege. It's not just the resources - with every person added to the mission, they can take a step closer to the world where they've already won... 

(Another regret to add to his infinite list: all of the times when he didn't follow that precept, when he did treat his people as nothing more than tools, and how can you possibly do right by the world if you start by wronging the people closest to you?) 

He can tell that Sandor is tired. He wants to say that he understands that, too, that he's felt it for a thousand years, even if he eventually learned to bear it well enough that he wouldn't have said he was ongoingly tired. 

Intellectually, he's not sure what he's hoping to actually accomplish by telling Sandor that he understands this and that, so he doesn't say anything. 

Nayoki makes a mental note of 'Necromancer' - she does not like the connotations of that concept at all - and resists the urge to go digging for whatever Sandor is deliberately not thinking of. 

...She's not sure immortality actually helps, that much, with the tiredness problem. Leareth may not have admitted to it, before, but she's not blind. In the rare moments when he lets down his guard, she can tell how heavily the centuries weigh on him. But immortality does give him time to be patient, and careful, and to learn how to carry that much weight on his own.

(In moments, she's wished she could do more to share that burden, but not very hard. She's not sure she could even if she tried, and Leareth has never asked for it.) 

Leareth takes almost a minute of silence to make sure he's digested all of that, and that his notes are even slightly legible.

:Thank you: he says finally. :All of that makes sense, I think. I - am also eager to see what we can do to help: 

(It's probably noticeable to Sandor that, despite Leareth's emotional ups and downs throughout the explanation, he's overall calmer now, and - not more in control, exactly, but steadier. It turns out that when he stops trying so hard to be in control of his mind and his emotions, and just rides it, the resulting state doesn't actually bother him nearly as much as he would have expected.) 

:Thank you: he says. :Let me know if you have any questions.:

A pause. :I think my three highest priorities are attempting to return to contact with my organization, attempting to update myself on the limits of your gods at long range, and research on the limitations of your Gates for establishing exceptionally long-range travel - such as to other planets within one of our universes - with broadly developing my understanding of your magic as a fourth:

Leareth nods. 

:Re-establishing contact with your organization is going to require Gate-research in itself. Ending up in your world was not the result I expected from my experiment, so clearly there are factors here that I do not yet understand, and I doubt I will be able to reliably reach your world again on purpose until I have studied them in more depth: 

He considers for a moment. 

:- It might go faster if I combine that research with teaching you about our world's magic? Even if you cannot yourself wield it, you might have useful thoughts: 

(This is maybe not how he would normally feel, or what he would normally recommend? Leareth isn't sure. It's confusing.) 

(Nayoki is definitely making a quiet mental note that Leareth would not normally try to pull a not-necessarily-trustworthy stranger from another world into his research process with this little consideration. She isn't surprised, at this point, but she's still unsure how it fits into the overall pattern - it's not just that Leareth is more trusting, it's more complicated than that...) 

:I understand and would be honored:

(That's actually not an accurate description of his feelings, which are much closer to "EEEEE!!!" than they are to "honored". Trying to understand how weird superpowers work in enough detail that he can mercilessly exploit them is one of his favorite hobbies.)