A flash of light surrounds her card for a moment, and then a bowl of fried rice appears with built-in dividers dividing it into quarters.

The Vendian chicken tastes like it's seasoned with ground peppers (in addition to the peppers alongside it); the sauce tastes somewhere between Worcestershire sauce and Hoisin sauce.

Morell nods.  "Yes, I understand - there's been a debate about farm animal treatment in Ev for a while.  Different nations have different standards, and nobody's quite willing to make a territorial law about it..." He shrugs.  "If we're making territorial laws, there're more important things I'd want first.

"Speaking of politics, how easy is it to change between nations in your world?"

"There's only one 'nation', but different areas have different customs, expectations of behavior, and economic regulations."

She offers a fork to Morell.

"Moving to a different area is pretty optimized, you just have to find someone willing to sell a place to stay and someone selling moving services.

"How many nations are there in your world?"

"Just one nation!?  How did that work - or even, how did you get everyone in an area to agree on the same rules and expectations?"

Morell takes a fork and scoops up a forkfull of the fried rice.

"I wouldn't even know how many nations there are in Ev.  At least ten thousand.  Here in the territory of Iliron where I live, there're maybe thirty.  They're all non-territorial, of course."

He pauses, twirling the fork thoughtfully a moment, realizing he'd better explain that as if he were talking to someone pre-Flowering-period.  "That means anyone can choose to change which nation they're in whenever they decide they'd rather live by different rules or they feel more ties to someone else.  Of course, Iliron has a government of its own to handle things between people of different nations.  There're a few actual territorial nations in Ev, but I'd never want to live there, and most people would agree with me."

Valin eats some of the fried rice.

"What do you mean by 'ties to someone else'? Family, leaders? I think that the non-territorial nations are somewhat equivalent to cities, in that they have local rules and you pick the one you want to live in the most and move there. I'm not sure how many of them there are, at least thousands, but they get smaller in population the more specific in laws or isolated in location they are until they become towns and then small communities.

"The society-wide laws, the ones that apply to the mega-nation, are about things like... public good distribution, medicine, schooling minimums, and archiving. Not really about expectations or rules beyond the complexity of 'Don't assault people'.

She has a thought!

"How much of your planet is oceans? Paulum is a little over 80% water with two large continents and a bunch of islands."

It's good fried rice, if a bit blander than he'd like.  He eats some more of his chicken with peppers.

"Yes, ties to family or friends or leaders, or to ideas.

"Maybe I can see how your world's system would work if you don't mind moving?  But wouldn't that be a bother?  Especially if you've got friends or a job or you like one location's mountains or sea or such more?  At least I can see how your world could be one nation if it keeps the laws down to that - we've got occasional assemblies that do sort of the same thing.

"Ev has... I forget, maybe two-thirds water?  We say it has eight continents, but depending on how you define it, it could be anywhere down to three."

"It is a bit of a bother, anyone who has good ideas to make it less of a bother stands to make some money. In most cases, people are able to find a spot with a job, good scenery, and accepting culture and they stick around there and make friends in the area.

"You mentioned stories a few times, what sorts of fiction does Ev have? Be it physical books, online stories, or video."

"We've got lots of adventure stories set in history.  Political adventures, physical quests, mysteries... Also lots of magical fantasy.  Elves who live in a different world weirdly close to ours are so common that now that I'm here, I'm sure there were some real Elves visiting Ev sometime in the past.  Sometimes it's just a story set with the elves or wizards or other magical people; sometimes the elves or wizards show up on Ev somewhere back in history and send it off in a weird direction; sometimes you get isekai stories where people from Ev visit the Elves.  I was just reading one fun isekai story last week.

"Video isn't so common as it could be; I don't know why.  Maybe it's just that it's harder to film than to write?"