Asatyyl's latest diplomatic endeavor ended up becoming rather more aggressive than he's used to; only technically can he assert that he arrived back on his home planet in one piece.

He's been recouperating at his parents' new house in Tem-mitzni for the last couple decadays. Father has been moving up in the world, and this place is palatial compared to the small cottage Asatyyl grew up in. He's still familiarizing himself with its myriad rooms.

He doesn't, at first, find it completely unbelievable to discover a bar on the other side of one of these doors. Amassing political power often involves entertaining a lot of guests, after all.

However, the more he looks around, the more things don't add up. The decor involves some sort of wholly unfamiliar foliage. He'd thought he was on an underground level of the house, which should not contain a disturbingly realistic window into some overactive region of space. There's snow? Falling from somewhere up above him that he can't quite figure out?

And it doesn't smell like a place where a lot of adult Oukhim or even juvenile Tergen  congregate. In fact, it smells much more like any number of off-planet establishments he's visited, frequented by all manner of alien species.

But by the time he's sure something questionable is going on, the door has clicked closed behind him.

If he looks around for a little, he'll find a napkin on the table of the bar. Which was not actually there when he stepped inside, despite the apparent lack of anyone to have placed the napkin there.

Welcome to Milliways! it reads. This is a restaurant outside of space and time, where you can meet various exciting people from universes other than your own. We also offer any form of food and drink you might be interested in. The first drink is free!

As he reads the note, Asatyyl finds himself unconsciously checking whether his translation implant is engaging. But as far as he can tell, the writing appears to be in his own native language.

He feels a sudden sense of vertigo. Outside of space and time? What could have caused him to end up here? Will he be able to get back? He takes a deep breath, then another. He hesitantly opens the door. Sees the same hallway he entered from.

Well, in that case, it may be worth sticking around to meet some of these promised exciting people from universes other than your own. Meeting new people and learning new perspectives was what drove him out into the wilds of his own galaxy in the first place, and this opportunity sounds like it could be all that but more.

He considers whether to take advantage of a free drink. His species does not normally eat or drink publically, but his experience consorting with species who do has thoroughly eroded that taboo. And besides, when is he going to have the chance to sample libations from another universe?

Unfortunately, he sees no one staffing the bar, nor any automated system that he can recognize. "Uh, pardon me?" he says aloud hopefully.

Yes? asks another napkin, which also doesn't seem to have any plausible way to have gotten onto his table.

Asatyyl blinks. This is apparently how communication works in bars outside of time and space?

"H...ello. May I order a drink? I'd love to try something I've never seen before." Hopefully he'll be able to tell by smell whether it's likely to do him any damage.

A drink will end up on the table, accompanied by a napkin! This is wine, an alcoholic beverage made from "grapes," a fruit from a planet called Earth, from which Milliways gets many of its visitors. It will be safe for you, although in large quantities it has the standard effects of alcohol.

He examines the color. Sniffs it--the fragrance is wonderfully complex. He wonders by what process it's made when it's not appearing by uncertain means in an improbable bar. He takes a small sip--the alcohol content isn't very much, and he enjoys the flavors it carries with it. Very nice.

"Thank you," he tells the source of the napkins. "Is it--busier here at certain times than others?" he asks, not entirely sure how far "outside of time" applies, given that causality hasn't broken completely.

The number of people here does vary! But you should meet somebody pretty soon.

In what really isn't a coincidence at all, a man walks through the door right about now, a humanoid yet alien being with a tall, pale head beneath black and red robes.

Darth Plagueis was looking for his own laboratory, when he walked through that door. This is not his laboratory! Is this some kind of strange prank? But nobody at his company is supposed to even know about this lab, and who would be foolish enough to anger him by - is that a window into space?! He was on the ground, the last time he checked!

"What is going on here?" Plagueis snarls at the person sitting at the... bar? Why is there a bar?

Someone! Someone who does not look entirely pleased to be here. That's not entirely surprising, if they ended up here in anything like the way Asatyyl did, and expected to be somewhere else.

Still, Asatyyl trusts in his well-honed interpersonal skills to make something productive out of this meeting. "Welcome! I'm sorry if this place waylaid you like it did me. I don't know much about it, but it claims to be outside of time, space and dimensions. And it did offer me a free drink." He trusts that, based on what he's observed, "language barriers" is another thing this bar is outside. "My name is Asatyyl; it's nice to meet you."

"This is a Force nexus, then?" asks Plagueis. That's not entirely out of the ordinary; there are plenty of places where powerful Force-users have left an imprint of their consciousness, and they generally don't follow the laws of physics. Well, no, that's not it, even the Force does follow some physical laws. It's just been practically impossible for Plagueis to figure out what those are.

Of course, the specific details of this Force nexus are even stranger than usual. These decorations don't fit with any of the standard patterns associated with the Force, and he really wouldn't have predicted this showing up in his lab, even if in retrospect he has a few ideas as to why.

Also, this doesn't feel like the Force, either the light or the darkness. And the person in front of him doesn't have the Force aura that every living being should emanate. Is he just an illusion of some sort? Or he could have cut himself off from the Force itself, somehow, but that should require quite a lot of knowledge and power.

"Force nexus? That's not a term I'm familiar with, so I couldn't say." He waves one of his outer hands (if one looks close, he has four) in a wide arc. "It is as it appears to be, as far as I can tell, though as I said I only arrived here myself."

"It's a place with an affinity for the Force," Plagueis says, walking up towards the bar. "Not much is known about them, nor of all the ways they can form, but the recorded times they were created generally involved very powerful Force-sensitives leaving behind a fragment of their consciousnesses, often at their deaths. They warp space and time, and often generate quite convincing illusions."

"And unless you happen to be one of those illusions, why can't I detect your presence? The Force doesn't seem to be flowing through you at all."

Asatyyl shrugs, sips his drink. "I'm not an illusion, as far as I know. And according to my own senses I seem to be interacting normally with all the forces I'm aware of--gravity and electromagnetism and so forth. You seem to be talking about something a little different though. Maybe it's a phenomenon my universe doesn't have?" He probably doesn't have nearly the scientific background to properly appreciate this, but the possibility excites him all the same. This bar is certainly living up to its promise!

"Your... universe?"

By now, he's close enough to see the napkins. He reads through them fairly quickly, and then stares at Asatyyl in disbelief.

"Who's in charge of this place?"

I am! You can call me Bar; she/her pronouns. I can provide you with food, drink, and several other services offered here. As you read, the first drink is free!

Plagueis is starting to panic a little! But he is a Scientist and if this is anything like what it's represented to be, it is an opportunity for Discovery!

"All right, then. Assuming any of this is real, you came here from... another universe. Where you don't have the Force, you think - it's a sort of energy field, generated by microorganisms called midi-chlorians inside of every living thing. I've been trying to figure out how it works for decades, but that hasn't been going very well so far. One of its effects is allowing people with a high enough amount of midi-chlorians to do quite a few extraordinary things, including this."

Plagueis levitates a barstool with a flick of his hand.

Asatyyl's eyes widen a little. "Impressive! I've heard stories out of the Narad star cluster of rare individuals who can do that sort of thing, but I've never seen it myself. You say you're still studying how it works? How you get from midi...chlori..ans? To--this?"

"Yes, or at least that's the goal. Do you have any idea how we're speaking the same language? Because I'm not sure how Basic would have spread to wherever..."

He pauses for a second, and then looks back at the napkins that Asatyyl had received. When he looks closely, they aren't in Basic, or even written in the standard alphabet. The meaning is still entirely clear. And now that he thinks about it, the syllables he's been hearing from Asatyyl might not be Basic, even if the words sounded like they were familiar.

"How is this translation even supposed to work? Forget the Force, what are the rules here?!"

I'm not sure! I'm not responsible for bringing people here, nor for most of the unusual characteristics I have. I don't know who is. In fact, the rules of how I function don't even stay exactly the same from time to time!

I would advise you try not to think about it too much. This is a place to make friends!

He's not just going to stop thinking about things because someone told him to! But it seems like he should probably be focusing on talking to this Asatyyl, not the... napkin-generating system.

"So. Ah... what is your universe like?"

Asatyyl laughs. "What a question to be asked! To describe an entire universe, which until just now was all I had ever known. Hmmm--I suppose I could start small and work my way outward?"

"I was born in the city of Tem-mitzni, which is one of the larger cities on the planet--let me know if we run into any concepts that need further explanation, by the way. Raishenzë--that's the planet--orbits a star that...I'm not the sort of person that could give you all the scientific details, unfortunately, and I wasn't planning on leaving my house today so I don't actually have my connection device on me, if you could even connect to our planetary network from here. It uses electromagnetic signals for fast communication across the entire planet, I don't know if you're familiar with anything like that.

Anyway, the star is big and bright and whitish-blue if you could look straight at it, which you can't without injuring yourself, we're not even meant to be out and about while our side of the planet is facing the star--the planet rotates, once every...oh, tens of times since we've been here talking.

I don't think I'm going to get to 'the universe' very fast at this rate--our star is part of a much larger collection of stars, we have at least passing diplomatic contact with the peoples of 493 of them, arranged in various levels of govenrments and alliances. There are other groups of stars we have no contact with yet because they're too far away to contact by light-based communication and we haven't yet figured out how to physically travel to them safely, but the evidence suggests they should be just as populated as our own corner of the universe.

Is there anything more specific you'd like to know about?"

"Yes, I suppose the universe is a fairly broad topic."

"Well, my name is Plagueis. I come from a planet called Mygeeto, which is covered in large structures of crystal and ice. It's a beautiful place, really - hang on." Plagueis does have a device on him, and while it doesn't seem to have access to the network from another dimension, there are saved pictures. "We're one of the more plentiful planets in the galaxy; we're actually the home of the main interplanetary bank. Our galaxy has nearly a hundred thousand populated star systems that we know of, and we have technology that can go beyond lightspeed, so we're capable of communication with most of them."

"How does your planet even function if it rotates in less than a minute, and it's so bright? Do you spend all of your time inside? That seems like quite an inconvenience; are you able to leave Raishenzë?"

"That is beautiful," Asatyyl agrees at the picture. He's seen the beauties of many planets, but each new one he sees holds something unique.

"And--oh, I think I got ahead of myself, and misspoke. We've been here for about a fortieth of the time it takes my planet to rotate, so far. We also have the ability to travel faster than the speed of light--I wonder if it's the same speed--but only along known, safe paths. They can be predicted to a degree, but exploration is still dangerous, especially as the distance increases between gravity wells.

A hundred thousand systems! Do they mostly negotiate with each other individually, or are they organized into larger polities?"

"Ah, I thought you meant it had rotated more than ten times since now. That makes more sense, then."

"Most of the galaxy is, ostensibly, under the control of a single government. They call themselves the Galactic Republic. They're... not the best government we could have. There's quite a bit of corruption; a decent portion of the Senators are accepting bribes. But they don't actually have much power to enforce their laws, either, so even when supposedly pledged to the Republic, most planets are pretty close to independent. There are smaller coalitions and trade networks, which depend on a few intergalactic businesses, including the Trade Federation and Mygeeto's own Banking Clan."

"Actually, on the topic of trade, we might be able to use this place to connect our universes, and find things that we each specialize in. It'll be a little hard to fit large shipments through those doors, but we can find materials that maximize density of value, and if we can hook up a high-speed transportation line - "

My apologies, but the current rules prohibit Milliways being used as a highway for extensive transportation or trade. However, we are celebrating Christmas, a holiday from Earth, which is associated with traditions such as the current decorations and people giving each other presents. As such, it seems reasonable for you to each give each other a present, if you wish, in the spirit of friendship.

Plagueis lets out a growl, but it doesn't seem like the entity generating the napkins is actually responsible for this blatant attempt at stopping the progress of civilization. "Very well, then. What sort of things are you interested in? I have a few trinkets with me."

Asatyyl appears rather impressed that a galaxy's worth of planets could be united even under an ineffective, corrupt government; he's heard of plenty of governments collapsing under the weight of merely a single planet's population.

He...may have been subconsciously entertaining the beginning of a notion of inter-dimensional trade agreements, but if it isn't to be, it isn't to be. Still, meeting other dimensions' visitors will be worthwhile on its own.

He's been experiencing another culture's holiday without even realizing it! Amazing! He more carefully examines nature of the decorations.

"How kind of you! Anything of significance to your culture that I might remember it by would be marvelous. I'm afraid I didn't come quite so prepared; my gift to you might have to be informational in nature.

Bar, what else can you tell me about the celebration of 'Christmas'?"

It was originally in memory of the birth of a legendary figure named Jesus, who some of Earth's population believed to have had supernatural powers. In later times, it has become a celebration of family and selfless giving, and has become an essential part of many Earth cultures. In addition to the decorations and the giving of presents, there are also traditional meals, and a great many stories about Christmas have been created, in addition to Christmas music. Some of which will now be audible in the background!

"What would it cost to purchase these meals?" asks Plagueis. He searches through his bag, which contains... a few medical tools, some comms devices that probably won't work well without connection to the network, and... he probably shouldn't give away his lightsaber. Hmm. Maybe... "If you would like a hologram projector, it can depict three-dimensional images, though they're unfortunately only in one color. There should be a great many loaded on, if you want to see things from my galaxy. Oh, and it has a built-in board game, dejarik, although the image quality is somewhat poor. I can show you the rules, if you want."

"A hologram projector! That would be a fine gift, thank you," he says with a smile. "Images from your galaxy will be a wonderful memento of this meeting." And he's sure his brother Taatari will love to get a look at genuine inter-dimensional technology, if he can promise not to break anything irreparably in the process. "And I would love to learn how to play dejarik."

"Bar, what sorts of compensation do you accept for your food and drink? I'm not sure I have much on me at the moment but perhaps we can work something out?"

Any valid currency from any universe will be accepted.

He hears in his head his father's admonitions about how "no computer network is as reliable as physical currency!" as he searches his pockets and comes up with 6.45 Maatsian work-time analogs*. "Bar, what can you sell me for about this much of a traditional Christmas meal that won't poison either of us?"

*Equivalent to about $20 USD

Plagueis will also contribute, with a large sum of credits that should be enough to buy the best dinner the bar has!

He may have an ulterior motive for this generosity; he's worried that if Asatyyl had bought the whole dinner, that might be interpreted as the "Christmas present." Which would be a wasted opportunity! Even if Asatyyl doesn't have anything that would be valuable where he comes from, any kind of artifacts from another civilization might very well be capable of changing his own galaxy. A piece of his clothing might have design techniques that could revolutionize the clothing industry! Or... oh, right, he's being stupid. There's a small but non-negligible chance Asatyyl is carrying data that could help him save every life in the galaxy.

Bar has plenty of Christmas food! Turkey, and loaves of bread, and stuffing, and various fruits, and potatoes, and carrots, and gingerbread cookies, and candy canes, and sugarplums, even though they won't get the reference.

After they've tried out some of the food, Plagueis will hesitantly make his request.

"Ah... this might not be a standard Christmas present... it's a little weird, sorry. But most of my research has focused on how the body and midi-chlorians interact with each other, how the smaller parts build up into a greater, more capable system. And you not having any midi-chlorians, and yet somehow not immediately dying... it goes against everything I've encountered in biology so far. I'm not even sure what a living system would look like, if it didn't have midi-chlorians sustaining it at every second."

"And of course, there's no law of physics that makes it impossible for something to survive without that specific molecular structure. There are intelligent beings made of other things, robots and so on. But if we're able to eat the same food, if we look so similar, I'm fairly certain we're built on approximately the same framework, the same materials and basic cell structures. So having your biology as another data point, for an explicit comparison of two almost identical systems, but one of which can't survive without something the other doesn't even have... would be incredibly valuable. It might help us cure diseases, it might help us change what powers the Force offers... and it might even show me the secret for the overarching goal in my research. Immortality."

"So, for Christmas, can I have some of your blood? And other types of cells, flesh and so on, if I can find a way to remove small amounts without causing you harm, but blood is the one that I can definitely safely extract."

"That," says Asatyyl as he nibbles on turkey, "is a fantastic idea. You may absolutely have some of my blood and other assorted tissues. Consider me your test subject for as long as you need. 

It would be fascinating to learn what you discover, but I suppose you won't know most of it until after you get back to your actual lab."

Then Plagueis will take some blood and assorted tissues! As gently as possible; most people can't handle even the tiniest scratches because they're cowards because they haven't developed as much of an affinity for pain as he has. Any bleeding areas will be sealed back up thoroughly and hygienically.

And then... well, he has experiments to start, but right, he's currently taking part in conversation and friendship and all of those things normal people do. And yes, he likes Asatyyl even for non-economic reasons! To conversation they return!

"So! As for a topic more specific than our entire universes... hmm. Maybe we could just tell each other what's been happening in our lives, and then probably transition into all of the questions and subquestions those inspire due to our not knowing any of the background information!"

"I... hmm. Apart from my work, I've been..." Oh, right. He hasn't been doing anything else. "Well, I'm not actually sure if I have a non-work life, but unless you're interested in hearing about various experiments that might not even fit with your own world's chemistry, I could tell you about the rest of my job."

"I'm on the board of a political activist company affiliated with the Banking Clan. I recently met with a Senator Palpatine, from the planet of Naboo. The planet is mostly undeveloped; it's just unoccupied grassy plains, apart from one sector with a few large cities, and then a separate isolationist faction that lives underwater; we don't have contact with them. The one major industrial product Naboo exports is a large supply of plasma inside of the planet's core, which is fairly easy to access, because the planet's water just about keeps going down to the center. But there are still some difficulties in getting to it, and it hasn't really been worth it for Naboo to start up a large industry just for the small amount their own population would use."

"But the market for plasma on other planets is very active, and there's a great opportunity for Naboo to start exporting it for a profit for everyone. We've gotten a tentative agreement for them to expand their Plasma Refinery Complex to a point where they can become a center of galactic trade, but their King is fairly suspicious of the whole thing. I've been negotiating with Senator Palpatine and trying to arrange a deal that will benefit the King's own interests, which unfortunately might involve some bribery, and yes I know bribery is not the sort of thing that should be in a healthy administrative system but that is the only way to get through to this type of politician. And then we've also been trying to get the agreement of the Trade Federation, which is kind of essential when you're handling a new player in galactic trade, but they're suspicious because they've never heard of Naboo and they think this is doomed to fail somehow. We're trying to convince them that Naboo will end up generating a lot of wealth over the course of the next few decades, but they're not really willing to look ahead that far. And there are separate negotiations with a company called Outer Rim Construction and Assembly, and we might need to get acknowledgement from the Gungans - the underwater nation - and we have to get some absurdly overcomplicated paperwork through various Republic committees in order to register all of this. So we have to also get all of these groups to talk with each other, and the whole thing has just fallen into chaos."

Asatyyl finds all of this fascinating, and is trying not to be too disappointed that this is probably not the beginning of an interdimensional trade alliance.

"Yes, I've found that as distasteful as it is, bribes are the only way anything ever gets done in some places. Sometimes you're lucky to be able to buy access with something as straightforward as money, and not more esoteric currencies like high-context status symbols or interminable chains of favors.

Coordinating that many different interest groups on one project sounds like a nightmare. I can only hope that you're able to find at least an individual or two in each that's really on board with the idea, that sort of interpersonal connection often helps immensely in my experience.

Which group would you expect to be the most intractable, if you could get all the others to a place where they're coordinating to an acceptable degree?"

"Well, the Gungans seem to be the least likely to cooperate, because they have a very strong grudge against the humans - that's the other group, the most common species in the galaxy. But luckily, the Gungans aren't essential to the project. They would help us get started faster, because they already have plenty of ships and facilities around the core, but we can build those ourselves if we can't come to an agreement."

"I have been trying to make personal connections. I'm close to various members of the nobility in Naboo; Senator Palpatine in particular is a close friend of mine. And while I wouldn't really call anyone in the Trade Federation my friends, we've dealt with each other many times before, which at least establishes some familiarity."

"Well, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. It's a blessing to the universe when you can get that many organizations to agree on something long enough to access a new resource for the good of all involved.

Actually, you mentioned a Trade Federation you need to convince, that they're not necessarily interested in a decades-long investment. Is that usual for them? How long has this federation been around? Are they a tyoe of multi-planet trade alliance, how extensive is their influence?"

"They have some level of economic involvement with around half of the galaxy? For over a century, they've been the most efficient interplanetary shipping organization by far, and they've also helped fund many successful startups in exchange for fairly high shares of the profits. They also provide defense against piracy, and own several major galactic businesses. By now they're enormous; they have more employees than most planets have citizens, and that's despite most of their work being droid-operated. They actually have their own Senator."

"But yes, it is quite concerning that they're not willing to look ahead to what might bring profits in the future. It's not that it wouldn't benefit the Federation as a whole, it's just that nobody wants to take responsibility for something that won't pay out for decades. They won't get promotions or bonuses until their projects succeed, so they just stick with things that'll earn a few easily measurable credits by the end of the year. And if it fails two years out, they'll have already moved on. That's only the beginning of the awful system of incentives in the Federation, but nobody on the inside really cares about fixing it."

"Yikes, that sounds like a death spiral waiting to happen. It's bad enough when you can't convince someone to act in their own self-interest, but its worse when your own success depends on them doing so. You can accomplish quite a lot with the application of enough intelligence and hard work, though, and you seem to be well supplied with both.

You really don't have anything going on in your life that's not work related? What's just day-to-day living like where you're from?"

Plagueis shrugs. "For me, mostly just trying to figure out what the midi-chlorians are doing, while being frequently interrupted by meetings. But on average, I've saved hundreds of lives per day, through a combination of some minor cures I've developed and businesses that have decreased poverty... it's not worth it to waste time having fun, being happy, when I could be helping more people."

"What sort of things do you do?"

"Well, saving lives is never a bad way to spend your life, if you can do it. I suppose you could say I have a hard time putting my work away myself, sometimes. I often research other planets and their cultures just because they're interesting, regardless of whether were anywhere close to opening formal diplomatic relations with them. Other than that--I spend time with my family, when I can; I have eight older half-siblings from my father's previous partners, and they're all usually up to something worth talking about. There's a musician I follow, Luchyyl, she's a singer from Raishenzë who's become popular in multiple star systems--half her albums are in Naradese these days. She's wonderful.

Recently I've been exploring traditional Oukhim hunting practices--taking down game with nothing but your own speed, strength, teeth and claws." The tips of his own outer hands are currently well filed down and manicured, but could be sharpened to a wicked point if he had a mind to. "There's a game reserve on the planet Beradon I hope to visit one day, actually get to experience it for myself."

"As far as my actual job goes, it actually got quite a bit more exciting than usual recently. We've had ties to a loose alliance of local planets for a while now, but things have gotten a bit shaky between a few of the other members. We thought it would be worth branching out, making some new contacts. We had a meeting with the Nekk--they're a fairly notable trade and manufacturing power. Their reputation isn't the best--their government is known for its corruption and they engage in some rather unsavory industrial practices--but we thought it was better to have a relationship that we had some chance of exerting control over, than leaving them as an unknown quantity.

My superior Ketosyl and I agreed to travel to Fensattemis, one of the Nekk colony planets, to meet with one of their representatives. I thought it was going well at first--we seemed to be finding common ground,  ways that we could benefit each other.

Before long, though, the entire thing went wrong. I don't think they ever had any intention of negotiating in good faith. I think they figured they could get a better deal out of our Queen with us as hostages. Their guards attacked us and attempted to take us prisoner. They used some truly awful chemical weapons, something psychoactive. I think at one point Ketosyl and I were trying to fight each other, rather than our enemies.

Fortunately, I think the translation implant in my brain disrupted whatever was going on long enough that I could think clearly, and I escaped with Ketosyl in tow. The local guide we'd hired was thankfully not a great lover of the Nekk presence on his planet, and helped us make it back to our ship and off the planet.

I came back from the encounter pretty torn up, though. I'd been recovering when I found this place."

"Hmm. So is the translation imp- no, my language isn't from your universe, I think that's just Milliways. But do you have any idea of what else the implant does? I would think a translation implant would just act as an additional source of memory, which I wouldn't expect to interfere with what I assume would be just a very large release of neurotransmitters connected to anger. Does the implant have any direct control of your thoughts?"

"Also, what sorts of things usually stand out to you, when you're looking at other planets?"

"I am not the person to ask about how it all worked out, honestly; it's only a personal theory. Normally the implant just downloads translation programs and feeds them to the language centers of my brain. It doesn't exactly control my thoughts, but there is somewhat of a learning process in letting it feed me the muscle memory needed to pronounce words correctly. You have to sort if relax into it? And I wouldn't know about whether it has deeper neurotransmitter effects.

When I study different planets, I like to see how different cultures and species narrativize their interpersonal relationships. It's amazing how people can interpret the same interaction so differently depending on their prior assumptions. It"s also fascinating to see how a planets environment can shape the species that evolve there, both physically and culturally."

Plagueis nods. "I don't really know much about how any people typically have interpersonal relationships. As for planetary environments influencing cultures... hmm. I suppose on Mygeeto, just the planet being so cold probably influenced something; there's a much larger need for heating than in most areas of the galaxy, although I don't know offhand how that would have affected our culture, beyond just the economy. I know that the native species to Mygeeto, the Lurmens, still have thick fur to this day."

"Since even the areas that aren't frozen are covered with rocks and crystals instead of much in the way of nature, the people who lived on Mygeeto had difficulty surviving, at least until seven thousand years ago. That was when the rest of the galaxy found it, and they had plenty of uses for all of those minerals - there were even spires of kyber crystals. There was actually a bit of a war for the planet, between all sorts of groups who wanted to conquer it, and... well, the Muuns won." He sighs. "Unfortunately, the Lurmens ended up enslaved for some time, and even now they aren't very well off, even with the rest of the planet being wealthy."

"Interesting! Is a kyber crystal a particularly valuable mineral? What uses does it have in your technology?"

"Oh, do you not have it? I suppose that makes sense, it's only on a few planets and it's very difficult to synthesize. Kyber crystals can generate and focus energy, so people commonly use them in lightsabers - those are essentially long welding torches that are used as weapons." He demonstrates his own lightsaber.

"Oh, would you look at that. It's a short-range weapon?"

"Yes, in part, although those of us with reflexes enhanced by the Force are able to use them to deflect oncoming projectiles. Most people who use lightsabers do have Force abilities. There's a major movement called the Jedi Order who used it as their traditional weapon. They're... certainly an interesting organization. Some combination of a school for the Force, a religion, and a small military. I am not in the Order, but I actually keep one primarily for if I end up needing to fight them."

"Do you find that conflict likely? Would your research into the Force give you an advantage against other users of Force abilities in a fight?"

"The Jedi don't take kindly to those who try to use the Force outside of their teachings. In particular, users of the Force can access more powerful abilities when they're seriously angry. I don't yet know exactly how it works; there are clear ways in which midi-chlorians have chemical bonds with various anger hormones, but the parts that I've been able to model aren't sufficient to explain the full effect. The Jedi call these the "dark side" of the Force, and consider them too dangerous for anyone to use without descending into madness. If they found out I was studying that sort of thing... it wouldn't go well. I can hold my own against a Jedi if necessary, but it wouldn't just be one Jedi."

"I see. It sounds like you're taking quite a risk in order to expand the breadth of your knowledge. I hope you find what you're looking for."

Plagueis nods. And... well, should he mention the other things he's been doing to expand the breadth of his knowledge? He's been trying to be honest so far; this person won't start out with any prejudices against the Sith, and doesn't really have much of a capability or motive to spread his secrets, so he doesn't really need to hide who he is to the same extent that he does with everyone else.

But there are some things he doubts this person will like him for.

Nevertheless, his caution will be won over by the way that he would really actually like it if he could not be in a game of concealment for once in his life; there is literally nobody in the galaxy who he's honest with, not even Sidious. But he'll at least raise the subject gingerly. Or perhaps he'll see if this is someone who's even likely to be aligned with Sith ideas in the first place.

"A bit of a philosophical question for you, Asatyyl. There's an old story about some podracer pilots - those are an incredibly fast and dangerous groundspeeder used in races on the planet Tatooine. They're in a race, on this long stretch of land where they can get up to quite high speeds, and there are massive stands on either side of the track. Now one of the podracers starts veering to the side. It's not on purpose; the ship is breaking down and it can't stop itself. But it's heading directly for the stands on the right, where there's a whole mob of fans. If the podracer crashes, all of them would be killed in the explosion. Now another pilot sees that this is about to happen, and they don't have any way to stop the crash entirely. But they see that on the left side, there's only one fan, all by themselves. So the second pilot thinks that if they can slam into that podracer and knock it over to the left side, then they would kill that one fan, but then the ones on the right would be safe."

"Suppose you're that second podracer. You know that if you knock them to the left, you'll be killing that one person, who would have otherwise survived. But the people on the right will make it out. Would you do it?"

"Ah, philosophy! I seem to remember one of my teachers positing a similar situation when I went for additional education off-planet. Do you take no action, and keep your own hands clean? Or take the responsibility on yourself to choose the magnitude of the harm that will occur?

It all depends on how good you believe you are at predicting the future, doesn't it? And, of course, how good you are at convincing other people that the greater disaster would have occured had your actions not averted it. Plus, even if you yourself have accurately assessed the need to make a sacrifice for the good of many, others with worse judgement may take your example as license to do the same, but with little or no good actually coming of it. And of course, from a legal standpoint, cases even slightly more complicated than this philosophical thought experiment become increasingly difficult to fairly adjudicate if you have to take hypothetical averted consequences into account.

Still, the universe doesn't shy away from putting hard choices in front of us, especially those of us who are responsible for decisions affecting the wellbeing of many people. I have to admit, my natural inclination is to do what would preserve my reputation and status, which often means taking the path that appears most legibly 'good' even when the anticipated outcome does not have the highest benefit for the most people. One might say I am reserving for myself the option to do more good in the future than I might otherwise have the opportunity to, but one might also say I am abandoning the quest for moral perfection in favor of complacency and intellectual laziness.

So I can understand how someone might make the choice to actively sacrifice one person to save many lives that are equally in  peril. I might even call it admirable--assuming, of course, that the assessment of the two dangers is accurate."

Plagueis legitimately can't parse exactly what Asatyyl is trying to say there. Wait, does he literally just mean that he thinks the right thing to do is to save the people, but that he doesn't actually care about doing the right thing as much as he cares about the benefit to himself? Plagueis doesn't think he's ever met anyone who was that blatantly self-aware of their own evil, except for Sidious, and Asatyyl does not seem to be like Sidious!

(There is perhaps a complicated backstory on how the supposed altruist Plagueis ended up recruiting somebody as his apprentice for a selfless campaign to better the galaxy, when that person was not only evil but visibly proud of it. But that is a different story for another day.)

But at the moment, Plagueis is pretty sure that Asatyyl has not just said that he is evil. Is he just saying that it's sometimes necessary to do things that aren't themselves perfect, in order to appease the public? That makes sense; it's actually a very respectable yet ironic utilitarian argument, that it's necessary in this case to sacrifice a lesser chance to sacrifice a lesser good for a greater good, for a yet even greater good.

But it seems like there's something separate in what Asatyyl's saying, something beyond just the reasonable process of making locally suboptimal decisions in order to preserve long-term opportunities. He was saying something that sounded... he's not sure what it sounded like, but there's a sense that something in the way he's viewing the world is... broken.

Something about when he said that it depends on how good you are at determining what's right... in a way that implied... what is he implying, it's like he's saying something about himself but it doesn't fit into any framework that makes sense and... what is it that he's saying here.

Is he just making some argument about people's inherent flaws, and how that limits their ability to - but no, that doesn't make sense, because then he wouldn't have said that he -

That's what feels so wrong, isn't it. That Asatyyl said -

- oh no -

- he said it in a way that implied it wasn't even a big deal -

- he said -

- that maybe he's abandoning the quest for moral perfection -

- he knows he knows there's a quest he can see what the Sith try to see but he -

- but he -

- he -

After a long pause, Plagueis will speak again, and he will not be trembling with horror in any way that is visible.

"Asatyyl... so, if I've correctly parsed what you're saying... well, there's an essential part of the branch of philosophy that I'm a part of, and it seems like you've hit on parts of it, but... somehow not the other parts, which I would think would inherently follow from there."

"So... I belong to the few survivors of the school opposed to the Jedi, the Sith. We're commonly seen as evil, because we push podracers to the left in real life, and we haven't expended much energy on making sure our reputations come out of it. Which is in part because there were some of the ancient Sith who legitimately were evil, and after the Jedi won the war they generalized the label to anyone even vaguely affiliated with them. But the primary purpose of - well, at this point, it's not much more than my purpose - is to make the galaxy a better place. Even when that requires certain sacrifices. I asked that of you to gauge whether it was safe to mention to you that I've kidnapped and killed several dozen people in my experiments. The knowledge that I've gained from that has brought about several medicinal breakthroughs that have saved millions of lives, and I certainly don't intend to stop at millions."

"But the part of what you said that drew my attention wasn't exactly your answer, but... what it said about you, and your goals. Because what makes the Sith unique, even beyond their approach to doing what is right, is a desire for self-improvement, no matter how harsh that journey might be. There's a... as you said, quest for moral perfection... and we strive towards that, constantly. And I may be wildly off on this, but it sounded as if you... know that you're imperfect, but... you don't actually seem that dedicated to becoming as perfect as possible?"

"I... really am not sure what that would even be like. You're aware that you might have inherent flaws that make it difficult for you to make the world better, and... do you not try to surpass those flaws?"

Asatyyl's body language may not be legible to someone not of his species, but if Plagueis has any sense of Asatyyl's emotions he might come off as somewhat self-conscious. He definitely reacts to "kidnapped and killed several dozen people", but in the manner of a diplomat who is used to minimizing his overt emotional reactions so as to maximize his negotiation options. He is recontextualizing what he knows of Plagueis, but not dismissing him as irredeemably evil.

"I think...I think most people only have so much mental and emotional energy to dedicate to surpassing their flaws, and even that they only sometimes spend on improving themselves. There is certainly a part of me that wants to become a better person, along various axes. I have plenty of examples in my life, of people whose characteristics I admire and would like to emulate.

But I admit that my self-awareness often exceeds my strength of character, when it comes to ways in which I might make the world better. And it all depends on what your  definition of 'better' is as well; there are about as many of those as there are sapient beings in the universe.

I do try to...well let me think. There are several different factors that go into my decision making process, when I'm faced with a difficult moral problem. My duty to my Queen and my planet, the promises I made when I took on my current position. My personal ambitions, such as they are, and the impact my decision will have on my coworkers, friends and family. And how much any of my options align with my own sense of morality, which I have to admit has been cobbled together rather piecemeal from my experiences with different cultures, rather than constituting a coherent philosophical theory.

So I would say, I am slowly trying to bring all of this into alignment, but not with the intensity that the Sith do. It sounds like your philosophy is...one that would attract very exceptional individuals, and give rise to great accomplishments, as it sounds like you have achieved. But it's not something I feel that I could live up to, at least not at this point in my life."

"But... why, exactly, don't you try to fix yourself? If you're not currently capable of making the best decision... how would that not eat away at you? If you want to do the right thing, but there are parts of you that conflict with that, then how can you just... let those parts keep existing?"

"I suppose I don't value my own perfection the same way you do. Or at least it doesn't seem as urgent. It will be a while, at least, before I can make of myself all I want to, and in the meantime I have to learn to like myself the way I am, and enjoy my life for what it is."

Then is he just saying that he doesn't care about doing the right thing? That's probably not exactly it?

Plagueis knew that there was something wrong with pretty much everyone around him, but this is not at all fitting with what he thought was wrong with them. He assumed that people failed to do the right thing because a complicated tangle of emotions that they couldn't control made them too stupid to realize what the right thing even was. Asatyyl appears to be smart, and probably capable of figuring out what's right, but... doesn't do what's right anyway? How would that work?

"Hmm. I'm not sure if I'm misinterpreting - no, I'm fairly sure I am misinterpreting at least a few things, because I'm quite confused. Do you in fact want to help people?"

"Ideally, yes, I'd like my life to be a net benefit to the universe. I'm well aware that my ability to help is not limitless, even at my level of influence; choices must always be made as to which people are soonest helped. Hearing what you've accomplished, it's clear that one person can do a great deal of good, if they put their all into it. Perhaps if I rebuilt my life from the foundation upward, I could optimize the amount of good I could bring to the universe. I guess I've just never thought of it that way."

"Well... do you want to... I'm not even sure what it would be, most of the things the Sith focus on are unfortunately just about the Force, so I'm not sure where I would even start - hmm. Are you interested in learning various aspects of the Sith teachings?"

"Absolutely, it sounds like a philosophy that has a lot to offer. I'm starting to think I could be doing more for the well-being of my fellow denizens of the universe. What do the Sith say is the best way of going about that?"

"Well, the object-level ideas are probably not very applicable; your universe is probably quite different from anything I've ever seen. It's more about how you judge what ideas are correct, an epistemology that actually gets the correct answers. It's about looking at the world around you with rigor; not necessarily doing what seems natural but instead asking at every step if there's a better way."

"The basic machinery on which people's minds are built - assuming that even generalizes to your universe's biology, which I think it does - is one governed primarily by associations. When you see, say, a piece of bread - " he gestures to what's left of the Christmas loaves " - it activates different neurons at different amounts - well, neural clusters, not the individual neurons - but it's based on how closely linked to the sensation they are. So on the most basic level, there are quite a few neural clusters acting up based on the visual appearance of the bread, and then you'll probably also have some connections that involve the taste and smell and feel and other sensory experiences connected to bread. Different kinds of bread, things that are close but not exact to the object your brain is generating, will activate too. You'll hear the word bread in your mind, you might recall memories of bread you've had in the past, assuming that you even have encountered bread in the past... all sorts of things."

"But it's not like your brain is querying all of its memories and all of its thoughts that it's ever had, checking each one to see if it contains bread, and then returning them if they fit that. There's no simple answer as to whether something is bread or not; there are thousands of different qualities bread might have, and in any case, it's not even carrying out that manner of search in the first place. It's just expanding out from the specific areas that were activated by this vision of bread, and finding anything that happens to be related to it, and then bringing them to its attention to the degree that they were close to the perceptions."

"Now, this isn't an awful way to run a system! It's very good at what it does, at finding associations; and it's also quite good at learning new information, at least to the extent that it can be related to previous memories. Considering that it was hacked together by evolutions that aren't really intelligent processes themselves, the neural network is actually a tremendously impressive structure."

"But it has its downsides. Particularly when it comes to logical reasoning, and when it comes to creating plans that optimize a given target. Because when you're trying to achieve a goal... what you're doing, on the most fundamental level, isn't searching for the best way to accomplish what you're trying to do, it's the same thing that your brain always does. It's pattern-matching. Things that have been associated with what you're trying to do, will be weighted higher, and come to mind more. And then you'll find something that sounds very connected to the goal, which in practice is usually a result blindly pulled from the cache of how other people have tried to do the same thing before, and then you'll carry it out. Now of course, on the level of cognition that we have, this can result in slightly more advanced procedures than just checking past correlations, but there are a lot of difficulties when we're running on hardware that just isn't made for coming up with new, optimized ideas."

"Of course, a Sith Lord doesn't just see that they're fundamentally flawed, and just shrug and keep going. Even if we can't actually escape all of the problems with our brains any time soon, we can still get a hell of a lot better than the way we started."

"When most people ask themselves the question of how they can improve the world - well, not that most people do ask themselves that question, but most of the few who do - are they going to reason carefully from the problems in the world, and the capabilities that they have, and calculate the best way to fix things? No, they'll reason through the only way that they can. In the cache of memories that are associated with someone trying to do good, to help others, they do something like going outside, and finding a few poor and hungry people, and then helping give them food, or shelter, or something like that. Or politically campaigning for a good cause - not that this will be in any way successful, because the cached methods of campaigning don't actually work, because they're more about signaling affiliation than actually finding ways to change their opponents' minds. Or, perhaps, actually fighting for their cause with weapons and an army, which will usually make things worse. At best, they'll support some charity that is efficient enough to actually help more than two people in the limited domain that it focuses on. But they won't have anywhere near the level of effect they could have."

"I said before that I've saved millions of lives with my cures, which I have. But while I say that when I need to reassure someone that I'm making the galaxy better, I'm not actually that proud of it, because it's not anywhere near what I could be doing, what I can hopefully achieve some day if I can hammer through whatever madness is going on with these midi-chlorians. Curing a rare disease, and saving what seems like a lot of people but is really only a tiny fragment of all life... that's the best outcome, I suppose, when you find something that fits the pattern of altruism, and have a unique talent to contribute to it. But it's not anywhere near making the most difference, it's not the best use of my skills from a perspective that isn't blinded by imperfect associations society has trained in everyone."

"I'm not sure yet what the best way is for you to spend your life; I don't know much about you, and in any case it's far easier to find why an idea isn't the best, than to find the one that is. But I suspect that whatever you should be doing, it won't look like curing a minor disease, or putting food in the stomachs of the hungry people right outside your door, or anything else that would be standard for a would-be altruist. It'll look more like seeing the horror of the shackles of death, and finding a clever new way to tear them off of everyone."

"I'm sure I went off on quite a few tangents there. There isn't actually a standard order to discuss these things in; I'm not sure what you most need to hear about."

He nods along as he listens intently; this is a way of looking at the world holistically that he's never exactly been exposed to before. "You mentioned that current methods of campaigning for a good cause--in your universe, at least--are more effective at affiliation signaling than changing minds toward the cause. Can you tell me more about that?

"Actually, do you have any way of writing this down, or otherwise recording it? I'm sure I won't remember it all as faithfully as I want to once I leave."

"Oh, the hologram projector I gave you can record, and it has a microphone and speaker as well." He briefly recaps what he had said before, once Asatyyl turns it on.

"Actually, as for leaving - Bar, is there a way to get back here, once we leave?"

You will likely find your way back to Milliways at some point in the future, but doors appear mostly at random, and time passes differently in different universes. You may not meet each other again or for a long time.

Plagueis nods, and turns back to Asatyyl. "So what I was saying about politics kind of falls into the category of people doing things that would fit the pattern of supporting a given cause rather than searching for a strategy that would achieve their real goal. Most people, when they argue, are describing things in a way that feels natural to their own side, and often either fails to make sense or even more strongly antagonizes their opponent. If you actually want to convince someone... well, you have to give them a clear route into which they can change their mind."

"It's tricky, because, again, people are tied to specific frameworks and don't usually take actions that aren't associated with that framework. It's not natural, for them, to just say, 'oh, I guess I was wrong and those people were right.' You have to give them some story that'll make sense to them, feel validating for them. Some way that you can change their mind, but still let them think they were in some sense right. The classic method is if you convince them that actually, the side they're on has been lying to them, and so it's not their fault; actually, the only reasonable thing for them to do is to join this side. Of course, you have to be a little more subtle than that, most of the time."

"I certainly wish that people would just step back and logically evaluate what the truth was! But the average person's logical reasoning is far too miniscule to be appealed to. Most people you can simply press certain buttons, and they'll obey the processes that naturally follow from those. And the button 'here's a proof of why your side is wrong' is associated with the process 'argue that no, we're right because of this and this and this.' You have to be a little more clever, to find that right series of pushes to turn them around."

"Of course, the best ways to persuade people aren't really the sort of thing that we want falling into the wrong hands. The Sith of ancient times that were... less ethically inclined... managed to wreak havoc by knowing how to manipulate the masses."

"It's just as important, and perhaps more so, to know not to be vulnerable to such manipulations yourself. To not make decisions based on what naturally flows from the story you've created for yourself, but based on how it would affect the future."

Yes, I...I can see what you're describing in my own thought patterns. We just don't have the mental power to do more than take shortcuts almost all the time. But I suppose the first step is to be aware that you're doing so. Sometimes, though, it seems like fully understanding what 'the truth' is, even as much of it as is relevant, would take so long that what ever decision you were trying to make has already passed you by.

"Should I be worried that you are using your superior powers of thought to manipulate me into doing your bidding right now?" He's joking, mostly; he is not really very fearful that this is the case. "It doesn't feel like it, but then how would I know?"

"Well, yes, that's something for you to look out for. I don't think there's really anything I could say to prove that I wasn't. If we assumed that I in fact was capable of convincing you to believe anything, none of my arguments would really be valid. But... what bidding would I even be trying to manipulate you into doing? If you were some leader of a planet in my galaxy, you might have wanted to be wary that I was really just trying to trick you into helping me, for some selfish goal of mine. But I don't have anything to gain from influencing your actions, in your faraway universe. Except, of course, to the extent that I care about your universe for its own sake, and not for me. So I suppose it's possible that I'm trying to manipulate you into making your universe better, into helping its people, or something like that. But that would be fairly pointless, if you already want to do so."

"Of course, if you're secretly selfish yourself, and don't want to help other people, then yes, you should be worried."

He laughs. "True. There's only so much influence you can be expected to have on me when we're from different universes and you didn't even know I existed a few hours ago! And I don't really mind if you're maneuvering me into doing something I might want to do anyway, like making things better for people in my universe.

"I can see what you mean, though, about giving people a route to changing their mind that feels natural to them, that fits into their existing framework. I think I've picked up a little bit of how to do that intuitively, just in the course of my work. People do respond better when you meet them on their level. It puts a limit on how far you can move them, though, doesn't it?

"How were you first introduced to the Sith philosophy?"

"A man named Darth Tenebrous knew my mother, back when she was still alive, and he took me as his apprentice. There usually aren't many surviving Sith, and usually a master takes but one apprentice, and lets the Sith continue through them."

"What sort of things do you think would be most important for you to learn about? I imagine your own skills are best suited for politics, if you're an ambassador, but what in particular do you try to accomplish?"

"I'm mostly focused on making things better for the people on my planet--negotiating for trade and protection with nearby planets and so forth. Occasionally working out multi-planet agreements in our little corner of the galaxy to keep anyone from declaring war on anyone else for another few years.

It seems like I ought to start at the beginning--how does one even choose which problems to tackle first?"

"Well, based on how much value you would be adding to the world through different actions - although it's fairly difficult to measure such a thing. A typical unit might be years of life you're adding to each person, but adjusted for the quality their life might have - which is of course somewhat hard to determine, as well. And then you of course have to multiply by the probabilities of success, and so on."

"There's likely a lot of research that would be involved, when it comes to something this important, and I'm not familiar with all the background. But I can try to help estimate things, if you want. Such as... hmm. Are there any specific agreements you've come to recently?"

"The last major one would be...hmmm...the adjustments to the treaty between us and the Drey, on our nearest neighboring planet. They just got out of a pretty nasty civil war, and we allowed them to renegotiate somewhat more favorable trade terms while they rebuild, in exchange for similar provisions on our side should we ever find ourselves in a similar position."

Plagueis nods. "Not necessarily the most straightforward effects, I imagine... what sort of trade terms in particular? Why do they want such terms, and what cost is there to you?"

"We'd previously had agreements about what percentage of their production of certain resources, like rare metals that were relatively abundant under their oceans, they would reserve to sell to us, at prices indexed to various interplanetary standards. The war destroyed a lot of their infrastructure, their economy was in shambles, and they were interested in retaining a lot more of what they would be producing for on-planet building projects, and thought they could get a better deal on a lot of the rest from other buyers. We sacrificed a well-priced source of resources in the present for ongoing diplomatic goodwill and increased leverage with a stronger trading partner in the future.

"I'll note that it sounds as though you're trying to appraise plans' value based on how it would benefit Raishenzë, and that if you hope to do the most good, what matters is how much you help all people, even if your own world draws no benefit. Of course, in the long run, you do need to insist on being paid in turn at some point, because otherwise they'll have no point to help someone else if they're themselves selfish. Nevertheless, it seems you have quite a bit of loyalty to your own people, and that's often not a good thing, when it comes to stepping back and seeing what would benefit everyone."

"So, the way I would approach this, if I'm trying to calculate how much a potential plan would accomplish... hmm. I suppose I'd look at the amount of metal they would be keeping for themselves, divide by the amount it takes for the average of these building projects, multiply by how much benefit the average building project would have, which would be a little complicated - what sort of projects would these typically be? And what would the money they would have gotten from trading with you have been spent on, otherwise, we'll need to subtract the benefits from that, dependent on how much money that would be, and how they could convert that to helping people, if that's even what they would be doing. And of course that's just how it affects them, we would also need to separately calculate how much you would gain and lose, which I presume would be a total negative or else you wouldn't have been trading with them in the first place, so subtract that, and then of course add the potential gains in case Raishenzë ended up in a similar amount of trouble, multiplied by the probability of that, which would require a lot more assumptions to calculate, such as the rate of wars like this, and it isn't even just a probability multiplied by an amount because there are different levels of problems, so it might be closer to a continuous distribution, and then - "

He's rambling. "Okay, I'm not sure if we can actually figure all of this out right now. But the point is, this is the sort of process you might go through, when you're trying to determine what actions to take - and of course, you would then calculate what would happen if you didn't rearrange this agreement, and compare the benefits or costs of each. So you try to get a simple enough equation for how much effect something would have, and if any term in that equation isn't something you have statistics on, then you break it down into much simpler terms until you're pretty confident about what each term is."

"Obviously, your final result isn't going to be very exact! It's possible that two plans will have similar results, and the margins of error will be wide enough that this isn't helpful at all, and you're better with just going with what your intuition says. But I've found that most of the time, when you try to break it down like this, you find that actually, the results are very far apart, and there's a clear answer for which is better. Even if you can't get a perfect result, just doing the calculations will help you think about what factors you even want to consider in the first place."

Asatyyl's eyes go a little unfocused; that is a LOT of calculations. And the suggestion that he diminish his loyalty to his own people on favor of "the good of all" is hitting him in a place that makes him feel a bit defensive. "Loyalty to the people around him" is something he's using as a foundation for a lot of other things. "That is...quite a process. It seems like it might take quite a bit of time to learn to apply these teachings effectively. It's not something I would abandon my previous moral guidelines over until I was very sure I had it right. But I can see how this approach could help increase the total goodness for all people if applied correctly."

"What previous moral guidelines are you referring to, specifically?"

"The things I learned growing up, I suppose. The things I had modeled for me by those around me. They're more like intuitions now. Keep your word. Don't conspire with others against your kin. Protect those around you from harm. Take the path that looks like it will lead to the most good, sure, but only by building good upon good, not by falling to small harms along the way."

"But what happens when you can't protect those around you, without breaking your word? What happens when you can't take the path that leads to the most good, without conspiring against your kin? A set of supposedly essential rules not only isn't right, it's not even self-consistent, because there are necessarily possible situations in which you have to choose between them, even if they don't come up that often. Unless one rule logically implied another, I suppose, but then it would really just be the one in the first place."

"But even if we assume we're limited to situations in which the rules are compatible, I... am somewhat doubtful that a set of rules truly are what you want. If you see some opportunity to do something that really matters to you, and then you say no, you can't do what you want because the rules say not to, that sounds more like harmful instincts trained in you some external authority, than anything actually compatible with your own values. I don't try to save people because there's some rule I was taught that I have to make sure people never die - if anything, it goes against certain implicit rules of society, to try to prolong life to such an extent - I save people because I want to live, I want to experience all of the amazing things in life, and because I want that for other people too."

"The way morality is typically framed - as this is what you can do, and this is what you can't - has never really made sense. Actual morals aren't limitations, they're a set of the values that you care about, and then you just do what you can to realize those."

"And of course, the things you've said are valuable heuristics, at least a lot of the time! Keeping your word is nearly always the best thing to do, so that you can take advantage of the opportunities brought by cooperating with others. And I'll grant that, for at least most situations that someone tries to conspire against their own people, it's turned out awfully. But that doesn't mean they're always valid, even if there's a strong correlation. And it especially doesn't mean that they're the source of what's valuable, what you should be trying to do in the first place."

"Yes, I agree that there are ways to make better decisions. There's just--also so many ways to make worse ones.

"I'll have to study this way of thinking quite a bit before I'm certain I understand it well enough to use it. Could you walk me through another decision it helped you make? Maybe one early in your career?"

Plagueis thinks for a few moments. "Well, one of the earlier points in my career would have involved the reformation of the Free Trade Zones. They're a region of the galaxy in the Outer Rim, and the Republic doesn't tax any trade there, unlike the rest of the galaxy. They were originally established during a time of crisis in which the Republic had to lift taxes in order to make the systems out there even capable of surviving economically, but by modern times they were essentially just territory for the Trade Federation's monopoly. A lot of Senators were trying to change regulations there, and make it so that the Trade Federation would no longer be able to operate to the same extent - the main initiative everyone was discussing, would have been limiting the amount the Trade Federation would be able to involve itself, so that at least half of the total profit went to individual planets and companies."

"My company was originally against this, because most of our business in the area was through the Trade Federation, and we wouldn't have been able to profit as much if they lost power, at least in the short term. But I decided to negotiate a compromise with the Senators involved, and support the changes to the Free Trade Zone, in exchange for changing the details of the Trade Federation's Senate representation. Previously they essentially had a Senator of their own, because Trade Federation employees made up a substantial fraction of the people in the Neimoidian system, and most of the time, they were able to select a Neimoidian Senator who was aligned to their interests. But we changed it so that there would be a Senator who was officially, directly representing the Trade Federation instead, which would give them a slightly higher amount of representation."

"So what were the calculations behind this? Well, first off, one of the reasons I was going to do this in the first place, was that it looked like the changes were going to be passed anyway, especially because the Jedi were lobbying in favor of them, and they have quite a bit of influence in the Senate. I would have estimated a 90% chance it would have been passed, based on statistics on how the number of Senators who seem to be in favor at first correlates with the final votes, and how the Jedi influence matters, and Senate beliefs on different issues, and so on."

"Oh, and to establish which of the original options would have been better in the first place - while I do have higher priorities than what's good for the company, especially what happens to everyone overall, there wasn't actually much of a difference, in my final calculations. If the Trade Federation lost its power, it would have given the planets 50% of the total profits from trade in the region, in theory, but that would have been decreased by the ways in which they're simply not as efficient as the Federation - so drop it to 35%, maybe, I don't remember the exact amounts. And I don't remember exactly what that was 35% of, either, but I think it would have been on the order of... hmm, the average amount spent by a system on trade each standard year is somewhere around five hundred billion credits, and there were... maybe a thousand systems involved, so 175 trillion credits? No, that's a little too high, these were mostly smaller systems, I would guess it's closer to a hundred trillion. Obviously the actual numbers were more specific than any of this. So a hundred trillion credits, and I of course have no idea how much that translates to when it comes to the amount of profit they make from the trade; I would need more specific numbers that I really don't know, but let's say twenty trillion? Or something like that? Well, I'm just trying to get a rough estimate of the order of magnitude."

"Anyway, as I was saying, this would mean that if the Trade Federation lost its power, it would have given the planets twenty trillion credits' worth of profit per year, and I'm not even going to try to turn that into life years of certain qualities or anything like that right now, but it would have also brought substantial costs to the Trade Federation itself. Which would have been larger, the actual 50% amount, so that turns back into... twenty trillion times 50/35, or... let's call it thirty trillion. But money spent by the Trade Federation generally doesn't go towards such charitable efforts as money spent by individual planets, just because they spent more on indulging their own leaders. So it might not really be net useful to the universe."

"Okay, I'm getting sidetracked here, trying to figure out numbers I don't have. The point is, taking power from the Trade Federation would have some benefits and some costs and the final amount would probably be on the order of... I guess between ten and negative ten times a typical planet's GDP, per year. And with the 10% from earlier, that means that however the numbers come out, the benefit we would get from trying to resist the bill would be somewhere between, say, finding a typical planet, taking all of the money it makes, and then throwing it into the sun, or alternatively, doubling all of that money, except in reality it's spread out across a thousand or so."

"So is it a good idea to resist the bill, in order to do what would on average come out to something with an effect on the scale of an average planet's economy? Well, I can't really tell you without better numbers, although I think what we finally calculated at the time was that the final effect would be a negative one, somewhere around that of cutting a planet's economy in half. But the point is, the effects of resisting the bill are on the order of a single planet's economy. And so if either side had something much more important than that in its favor, then that concern would completely swamp out the other effects."

"And as it so happens, there was such a thing. That the Trade Federation would have a Senator, in name instead of just in practice. Now, this wouldn't change the votes much. There are thousands of Senators in the Republic; even if the Trade Federation got an entire Senator instead of just a symbolic one they already had, there aren't going to be any tied votes, or anything like that. But the potential advantage of a Senator isn't just what they can vote for, it's that they have authority to resolve various disputes on smaller levels, in the areas they govern. And - yes, I'm definitely aware how ridiculous and vulnerable to corruption this is, but it was luckily something that could be used for good - a Senator who stood for the Trade Federation would be capable of arbitrarily resolving trade disputes that the Federation itself was involved in. In principle, this wouldn't give them any real power, because their opponents could appeal to the Senate and have them revoke it if they so chose. But it would still be in effect until such point as the Senate reversed that resolution, and it usually never would, because the Senate never gets around to anything, and in any case has constant biases both in favor of the Trade Federation, and in favor of doing nothing."

"And would it, in fact, be a good thing for the Trade Federation to gain so much power? Well, in most cases, no, but as it so happens, the Sith have techniques for swaying the minds of those too mentally unstable, too unintelligent to think for themselves. The Senator in question was... not the most intelligent being I have met, to put it lightly." Oh, wait, now Asatyyl's going to think Plagueis could be using the mind tricks on him. Well, he'll keep talking, for now, and hope that doesn't come to mind, because he's not sure how he could prove that's not what he's doing. Even though Plagueis suspects mind tricks wouldn't even work.

"And so, for the past few decades, the Senators of the Trade Federation have been under the influence of the Force, or, for those that were not so vulnerable to those methods, simply the influence of bribery. And they have been intervening in various disputes in ways that failed to bring the Federation as much profit as they hoped, but instead, curiously enough, ended up benefiting more charitable pursuits, that helped the galaxy as a whole. Each of these interventions has benefited the galaxy on the same scale as could have been possible from any outcome of the initial Free Trade Zone dispute."

"So how was doing the math useful? Well, at first, everyone thought the most important part of what was going on was what would happen to the Free Trade Zones. But by calculating out what would happen, it quickly became clear that actually, the effects to the galaxy as a whole would be about the same, regardless of which way we intervened, both because of the low probability of success and the ways that the costs and benefits balanced each other out. So I began a search for more important things that I could trade this relatively small issue for - and there one was."

"As I was saying before, it isn't necessarily getting an exact number that matters - especially when you simply don't have enough information to get something too exact. Like now, when I'm quite sure I messed something up there, forgot a few things, and definitely oversimplified a lot - but it was still enough to see what to do. Most of the time, just by doing the rough calculations, you can see that certain concerns are far more important, or less important, than you might have guessed, and that will be enough to make the best decision clear."

"Did that all make sense?"

Asatyyl recognizes but is very chill about the posibility of mind tricks being used on him. While he is only of average skill at metacognition, he hasn't noticed any overt intrusions into his thought or behavior patterns. And he's come to think of Milliways as a liminal space where nothing he does really 'counts', and the only thing that matters is the experiences and information he'll take away with him.

"Yes, I see. So you calculated that the purported choice under debate, whether to loosen the Trade Federation's hold on the outying planets, would actually have a negligable effect either way on the planetary economies, and the more important result would be the concessions you could gain on the side. You saw a way to increase the Sith's direct influence on the Senate in a way that would improve the galaxy's population as a whole more than the outcome of any one vote.

Seeing the specific considerations you included in your calculation, even if they weren't exact... I can see how having the information it provides could be useful if only to give you a sense of which way things are leaning. Particularly if you're as careful as you can to be aware of your own biases, you could have your whole outlook changed in a way that's hopefully more at one with reality."

He frowns "I'm still trying to understand the breadth of the power of the Force. The way it allows you to touch and influence minds... Is it possible that the Force makes it easier to see all the angles of the problem while you're making these calculations? Is it even something it's possible to do in a universe where the Force doesn't exist?"

"The Force doesn't make people more intelligent as a matter of routine, to the best of my knowledge, although Force-users are rare enough that it's hard to do controlled tests. Occasionally, it allows people to have insights into how things will go, and those especially attuned to it can even see clear visions of future events. But that's not something I can call on at will. And math and reason would work just as well without it, barring those rare circumstances."

"There are many things that people can use the Force for. Things like telepathy, and telekinesis, and visions of the future. And there are a lot of tricks that people have figured out, like creating electricity from one's fingertips, creating an illusion in the air, healing people, putting people to sleep, controlling the weather, and even limited forms of teleportation." He demonstrates the first two. "But in general, the more powerful a technique, the less control one has over it, at least without a lot of training and usually high midi-chlorian counts. The remainder of the control lies in the hands of... well, it's complicated. The Force is generally thought to have some sort of its own will, although I highly doubt it's all that intelligent. There are different theories. I would guess that it's some sort of a remnant of the consciousness of past Force-users, exerting some level of influence over the galaxy even today - there are recorded instances of things like that happening - but it's difficult to tell what it's doing. So for the most part, we have to rely on the smaller things."

"Visions of the future? Fascinating. Do they always come true? What does the will of the force seem to...want?"

"Generally, yes, they do come true, although they often contain misleading elements. I don't know what the Force wants, exactly; there's not much of a visible pattern to its actions. Most of the time, what it does with any given person will help them, but it's often simultaneously be helping opposing people, which suggests it might have multiple parts, aiming for different things. That's part of why I suspect it's left behind by people from the past."

"That"s incredible. Do you know if other people in your universe leave any kind of consciousness like that behind after they die, or only Force users? I've heard of lots of different beliefs about souls and so forth from different cultures in my universe, but personally I've never seen evidence that there's anything about any species of people I've met that exists after their bodies die."

"Not to my knowledge. Given that it's happened on some rare occasions, it seems at least possible that there's still something left from everyone, but... I wouldn't count on it. And even most Force-users haven't left behind anything, just a few who were especially powerful."

"I considered trying to generalize something like that as a way to try to fix death, but it didn't seem like a very feasible route. Most of what I'm working on is more of using the Force to repair people's bodies. Which I have figured out how to do, even when they're at a point where they otherwise would have died, but only one in a couple million people have strong Force abilities, and even fewer than that are at the same level as me, so just running around fixing individual people isn't anywhere near a full solution. I would have to figure out at least one of how to make people more permanently self-repairing, or how to create new midi-chlorians for everyone, neither of which I've succeeded at yet."

"That's disappointing, but I guess no worse than where we started. It makes me wonder what I don't know about my own universe yet.

It sounds like you've got quite a few paths available for making huge improvements to a lot of people's lives. Is spreading your philosophy--teaching more people this way of calculating their decisions--something you've done much of? I suppose you said the Jedi were opposed to it, they probably wouldn't like that much."

"Yes, they're quite a problem. I've found a few people, and one in particular has been a fairly good fit, but I haven't really spread anything on a wider scale."

"Do you ever get problems where different Sith come to different conclusions about what the best thing to do would be? Either because their definitions of "ultimate good" are slightly different or their calculations have come to different conclusions?"

"Certainly. Especially because there are some who are more attracted to the concept of using the dark side, of the power it brings them, than to the final goal of helping others. But we've usually been able to work out mutually beneficial negotiations that capture as much value for each of us as possible."

"That can be difficult enough without powers like what you showed me complicating things, I'm impressed you're able to manage it."

"Thank you," Plagueis replies. "Luckily enough, things that will benefit the vast majority of the galaxy on an unprecedented scale are, of course, decently correlated with the values of nearly any individual in particular. So even if there's a bit of divergence, everybody in theory already wants to help me make themselves immortal, and so they'll be willing to do a little charity work in exchange. Of course, many of the galaxy's people have objections to my methods, or don't even recognize that immortality is even something to be striving for in the first place. Unfortunately enough, one of the most common ways people cope with their approaching deaths is to convince themselves that death really isn't all that bad."

Asatyyl thinks about that for a moment. "Yes, I've defiitwly run across that notion. My species is rather longer lived than most. You'd think if they considered death such a great evil more of them would avoid getting in lethal fights, but they don't. Just following their instincts, I suppose. I'd like to see how much life I can manage to enjoy, personally. How much of the galaxy I can learn about, how many friends I can make."

As they continue speaking, another door will open.

As he had said, Plagueis has been trying to align his apprentice so that he's willing to help Plagueis enhance the greater good of the galaxy, and this has mostly worked, especially when it comes to the pursuit of immortality. But for all of Plagueis's attempts at swaying his apprentice, there are still a great many domains in which they do disagree. And when it seems that his apprentice's power might be at risk... well, that's sufficient cause for them to turn against each other.

Senator Sheev Palpatine of Naboo, Sith Apprentice to Darth Plagueis, steps through the door into Milliways.

His eyes narrow. "What is going on here?"

"Lord Sidious," says Plagueis. "Good to see you. Asatyyl, this is my apprentice. Lord Sidious, this is Asatyyl, an ambassador from far outside our galaxy, and indeed our universe itself. I've been explaining the ways of the Sith to him, in the hope that - "

"You've been what."

"Explaining the ways of the Sith. His worlds don't have anything in the vein of the Sith, nor even the Jedi, and ideally Asatyyl can expand our cause, help not only the peoples of our galaxy but those of an entirely different universe."

"Very pleased to meet you, Lord Sidious. Yes,  I've been learning a great deal about the philosophy of the Sith and how I might apply it to the problems of my own universe. Plagueis has been quite helpful in explaining how he's gone about it in your own galaxy, and I've found it amazingly thought-provoking to look at things from such a different point of view." He notices that Sidious is possibly displeased with some part of this situation, but he's going to remain polite and hope things can be de-escalated if necessary.

He's being polite? To Palpatine? Well, either he legitimately doesn't know that a Sith can only have one apprentice, or he's a very good actor. Palpatine reaches out with the Force, to try and sense Asatyyl's mind, and...

He's shielding himself. Palpatine can't even feel him at all in the Force; that takes more control than even Palpatine himself has. This one's hostile, and also probably powerful.

But if he's able to make his mind entirely blank to Force-users, that probably would stop him from simultaneously using the Force himself, meaning that he won't be able to touch Palpatine's mind. Meaning Palpatine can pretend he's fooled, and then strike when Asatyyl isn't paying attention.

"Evidently my master has failed to mention several of the more important aspects of the Sith traditions," says Palpatine. He subtly turns so that he'll hopefully appear to be hostile towards Plagueis, but not towards Asatyyl; if he knows how to read combat stances, that might fool him. "For all your devotion to the ways of the Sith, master," he snarls, "you seem not to remember that there is to be only one apprentice. We had a deal."

"Oh, I would't really consider myself an apprentice. I do intend to try and make use of these teachings once I return home, but--"

The Christmas tree, along with several assorted pieces of furniture, rocket towards his back. Obviously, he'll use the Force to deflect those, so Palpatine is already rushing at him, with one of his hands shooting blasts of lightning and the other drawing his lightsaber.

Through some combination of Sidious's body language and Asatyyl's own sense of the situation, he recognizes the danger and dodges low and to the side, just managing to avoid being struck by any large objects.

He does not dodge the lightning. Ow this sucks, is about the extent of his conscious thoughts.

Plagueis steps in the way, blocking the energy with his lightsaber, and uses the Force to shove Palpatine to the side. "Asatyyl's not a Sith," he growls. "He doesn't even have the Force. I was trying to fix another universe and you might have just ruined everything because you were so jealous you couldn't even wait to learn what was happening before you had to attack an ally."

Napkins pile up on the table. Nobody seems to be reading them, but if they were, they would see warnings of increasing urgency that combat is not allowed at Milliways.

Asatyyl really feels like just lying on the floor and not moving, but recognizes that he might regret it if he doesn't take advantage of his current state of not being Force-lightninged. He uses a fallen chair to pull himself more or less upright and looks around for a safer place to be while Plagueis and Sidious work this out. Maybe behind the bar?

He doesn't even have Force powers? What?

"You revealed our identities to someone who isn't even a Sith," says Palpatine. "You swore that I would benefit from all of this, you swore that I would be one of the ones who got that utopia you're trying to make, and now you're throwing away my safety for someone who isn't even useful - that's enough. I'm killing this one, and if you insist on meddling with this universe then we will find a safe way to do that with my input." Palpatine jumps over the fallen tree and the bar to reach Asatyyl, and lightning emerges from his fingers again -

- and is blocked by Plagueis's lightsaber, ricocheting back and letting one of the bolts strike Palpatine himself -

- Palpatine leaps at Asatyyl with his own blade, trying to cut through him before -

When Plagueis and Palpatine wake up again, they're back in their own universe. A napkin is pinned to each of their robes, reading We do not tolerate fighting at Milliways. You will not be allowed to return.

No.

No, that's not - that can't happen. He can't just - Palpatine, you little bastard, you might have just killed everyone in an entire universe.

Once he's managed to turn off his emotions, which takes longer than it almost ever has, Plagueis puts Palpatine into an artificial sleep - he'll decide whether to kill him later. And then he thinks.

Asatyyl's not a Sith Lord. Not even close. Plagueis only told him a few things, the basics of utilitarianism, nowhere near what he could have -

But is it enough? Asatyyl had seemed genuinely intelligent. Curious enough that maybe he'll be able to rederive the rest...

That's just hope blinding him. Plagueis can't actually assign any higher than... 10%... that Asatyyl will actually be able to accomplish anything on a galactic scale.

But if he somehow manages to figure it all out... if he actually turns out to be motivated enough, to care enough, to really figure out what's right, and do it...

That's not going to happen, is it.

Asatyyl's not a Sith Lord, and so a universe is gone.

Eventually, after enough minutes of silence, Asatyyl peeks out from behind the bar to find himself alone once more. He reads through the napkins that have piled up--apparently the bar objects to violence and has the power to enforce that preference.

He appears to have had a brush with another sort of follower of the Sith teachings, the type that he only suspected of in between the cracks of what Plagueis was telling him. Well, in his experience, the level of power Plagueis was trying to wield always came with risks.

Still, he did find it an interesting philosophy, and there still may be parts of it he might see if he can put into practice. Oh--he hopes his gift from Plagueis survived the scuffle.

He looks around the bar. That encounter may not have ended exactly as he'd prefer, but he couldn't deny it was both stimulating and educational. And apparently he has at least some guarantee of safety. Who might come through that door next?

He thinks he'll stay here a little while longer.