Well.

If the world's a template they might find fifty of these and they'd better start getting them right; this one is weird and they won't know how till they talk to it, and they'd better get 'talking to it' correct.

Would anyone from the original version like to sign on as an envoy or advisor? Are the alts anyone they've already got connections to?

There are plenty of places where lots of people like Vanda Nossëo and want to help and can slot frictionlessly into the first contact apparatus. More so the less Vanda Nossëo needs their help. The Azani royals they already know are of course on fine terms with Vanda Nossëo.

Feris of Leopard Hill would love to offer them some advice. He thinks he ought to get paid for it this time.

Fere's also willing to do some more consulting if it helps anything.

If there is one thing Vanda Nossëo is qualified to do, it is trading money for expertise. What do their well-paid consultants have to say about the ideal approach here?

The government of the Azan they know has lots of detailed information for them on surprise logistical problems they encountered when they switched over to Vanda Nossëo's prison system, and what they ended up preferring for healing given the constraint that it needed to discriminate well, and how things have been going with expanding public education. The princess might want to visit the new Azan eventually when her schedule permits but not immediately.

Feris of Leopard Hill thinks the main concern here is that Azan has an incompletely-assimilated often-visually-distinct Sesati minority and if they react differently there's probably some risk there. He wants to read some writings by Sesatis in Azan that weren't meant for Azani eyes but of course Vanda Nossëo might reasonably object to that. He'd talk to his alt about it but he expects his alt is dead or in Niazon. (He's in Niazon. Feris still wants to meet him, but it won't help that much with first contact.) Eventually he concludes they probably want to talk to the Sesati who helped spark the revolution; Feris knew the other Valan very well until he got sick of Vanda Nossëo and joined the group who disappeared off the map, and Feris is pretty confident this one will have a useful perspective on public opinion. For now Feris doesn't think he can do much better than the book he already wrote without more information. If it were another Sesat he'd advise just generically pushing less hard, on literally everything, but it's Azan so they'll probably join in a few days if they so much as find out that Vanda Nossëo exists. The Sesatis will presumably eventually find out what happened with the first Sesat and Feris advises sticking to the narrative that they sent an incompetent diplomat before. And if they do talk to any Sesatis, Feris thinks they should be less reluctant to try to pitch those Sesatis on their values if they're literally asked to. (This is in the book but Feris is approximately infinitely willing to repeat it any time it might conceivably be useful or relevant or welcome or tolerated.)

Fere thinks they probably have fewer problems ahead of them with Sesat's former slaves this time, since they'll all have been getting used to Azan. She has some ideas for how to explain restraining orders in a way that doesn't result in utter disaster, though she's not very confident that can be done, the whole concept seems fraught. She thinks in general the cultures in Vanda Nossëo separate out different virtues and strengths more - so for instance the vetting for different kinds of magic doesn't just look like nested matryoshka dolls each of which is a strict subset of the last - and that's something it took her a long time to notice and it seems important to a lot of decisionmaking, especially around magic vetting, that otherwise doesn't make any sense.

(Also some people send in lots of advice about the handling of some cities on the other side of the globe.)

They send a different team to this -

(no firmly official name was decided upon for the first planet of this kind, but with another in the mix one of the candidates quickly picks up traction - it's "Signature" for reasons having nothing to do with anything in that region at all) -

- version of Azan -

(some jokester immediately proposes calling them all things that start with "sig" in English, and nobody has a better idea in time; working title for the second one is "Signet") -

- since Ligaya et al have already been redeployed, Azan having been handed off to Integration ages ago, and Nelen having worked so poorly.

Melda (an Elf), Luca (a fairy), Shila Kolen (a Hork-Bajir), Casjan (a human), and Zua (a different human) descend to introduce themselves.

Outside near the palace they pretty much immediately run into the person Feris thought might be helpful, though if they're just going by what his alt looked like it may be hard to recognize him with all the new scars. He's reading in the sunlight, idly fidgeting with a pair of crutches, and doesn't rise when the visitors appear, though he does look at them and smile politely.

Passersby look at the visitors and make excuses to be nearby, or make excuses to get out of the area quickly. A page with fox ears and a bushy tail openly stares for a moment before catching himself.

Luca waves at the fox-guy.

Melda's eyes are good enough to identify Valan scars or no. She drifts in that direction. "Good morning."

Fox guy waves back.

Valan tucks his book into a bag. "Good morning. I don't believe I've seen any of you here before."

"We got here from a neighboring universe just now. Can you tell me who we'd talk to about that?"

"Depends on what you want to say about it. You're not required to fill out forms to move in but if you want to discuss technology sharing there's a councilmember - Vida - who'd be very interested, and if you're here for other reasons I can help you figure out what to do next. Welcome to Azan."

"Thank you. We do some technology sharing but are mostly here to establish a diplomatic presence with our newly discovered neighbors."

He calls the fox guy over and says, "Go tell Azan she's secretary we have more visitors - and then let Dira know, if you can find him, he'd probably want to know."

The fox guy goes to do that, looking back at the aliens wide-eyed one last time.

And turning back to Melda, Valan asks, "What sort of diplomatic presence?"

"We're envoys for a group of nations and other collectives called Vanda Nossëo. Usually we land with an intent to get people to join, but first we'd like to know more about what you're doing here! How many species are there among you, for example?"

He conspicuously examines the visitors. "At the moment, I couldn't say. It wouldn't shock me if some naturalist had counted all the animals and plants at some point and I know who'd know if that was true and where to find the book about it if so. How about you?"

"I'm not sure we've got all the plants catalogued either, and even if we had, someone would invent a new one. Sapients, a few hundred, though by the numbers most of them are just a handful of particularly common ones like mine."

"Yeah, I've gotten the impression humans are common. So if you normally show up and try to get people to join you, why the different approach here?"

"I'm not a human, actually, I'm an Elf. Casjan is a human, and Zua is too, and Luca used to be." She points. "Usually when we visit a new planet, they aren't already in touch with a lot of other planets. If you're already doing great under your current arrangement, membership may not have much to offer you! Vanda Nossëo has some, I like to say 'friends' but of course these are organizations and not people, with their own umbrella structures over different sets of states."

That sounds kind of off, for a regular voluntary association of states in some sort of mutual defense pact or whatever. They're probably a charity or a conquering empire, or both... but how to tell which one?

He shrugs. "We're doing great in some ways and not in others. Someone I know told me once that having his sort of magic powers is like being helpless, but worse, because if someone attacks his loved ones he can trivially get horrifically disproportionate revenge, but that's all he can do about it. In the specific case all his loved ones have powers more useful for defending themselves but it's - it's a pattern. I'm not sure if that's actually what you're wondering about."

"Huh, I've never heard of magic powers that work quite like that. We have different ones. I can demonstrate a very good healing power, for example, if there's anyone who'd like to be healed very thoroughly."

Who walks up to someone obviously crippled and says that - someone with very good but very specific intel on Dira, or maybe Adrian. Or conceivably someone who knows another instance.

"Very thoroughly meaning what, exactly?"

"Well, for example, if you wanted to keep your scars, or even just some of them, you wouldn't be a good candidate for my healing spell, though Casjan has a different one."

"It sounds like you're saying you don't control which things your spell changes, is that right? Do you know how it decides which things count as scars?"

"I can look up the documentation on it, if what counts as a scar is important, but it's correct that I don't control the details of how it executes the healing."

"I'll be surprised if it turns out there's a reasonable definition of scars or injuries for which I wouldn't rather get rid of all of mine but some people will be downright offended if you suggest the things they'd rather keep are flaws of some kind, and, you know, I've been surprised before. Let's see the documentation."

She pulls up the documentation for Loki's spells! She has to read it to him since it's not in Sesati.