Tavinter and Hansil / Eyyeh Byway

As they come to the end of their announcement pass, Tavinter intercepts Hansil and Eyyeh in a relatively graceful fashion.

"I'm afraid we didn't think to bring a soundproof tent, but if you'd like to come over nearer our portal where some of our people are politely keeping a bit of a cordon, perhaps we can discuss this matter further?" ke offers.

The Imperium and Junilla

Junilla approaches a linguist, who says, "Sincere apologies, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk to you. I'm just a private citizen, and I'm not a Legislator or the Consul – I can't speak on behalf of the Imperium."

He will sign to one of his drones – Imperial sign language appears to involve movements of the tentacles as well as the arms and hands – which will leave, and return after a few minutes.

"I can speak, but only on behalf of myself." And only if he avoids things which have bad optics*, though he won't say that last part.

"I'm Jinam. I don't think they'll appreciate snacks – they're kind of uninterruptible right now. But I can transmit a message for you which they'll read after their meeting, if you want." He looks terribly abashed and embarrassed, in a way which suggests he wants to hide being embarrassed but is bad at concealing his emotions.

* Literally situation-whose-appearance-will-cause-people-to-pattern-match-and-have-an-instinctual-emotional-reaction-rather-than-considering-the-matter-more-deeply.

Junilla and the Imperium

"Oh, I don't want to worry anyone! Here, have a seaweed crisp, they've done analysis on these and made sure they're safe for renma." She holds out the basket very carefully, not making any sudden moves or getting in his face too much. "I don't suppose you can point me to anyone else who might be happier to have a little chat?"

The Imperium and Junilla

"No thank you, I don't feel like eating when I'm anxious. I don't think there's any office-holding people who are available – Restem, Reren, and Lisal are in the tent; Suksub and Cinsal are with the Tetratopians, and Neksil is with one of yours – Jeffinar, I believe. I suppose I can interrupt Neksil, if this would be helpful to you."

He will sigh, and grasp the nearest drone's forearm for a moment, before releasing it and emitting an even more tired sigh.

"It has been very easy to model your civilization and translate for you – the phonology is wildly different but the concepts are similar – but it has been terrible translating for the Bywayeans, since they seem to...think very differently from us. And also, they don't have a standardized or stable language, so we're not as sure about the correctness of our translations compared to Kastakia or Tetratopia. I'm one of the linguists contracted for this project – I don't think I would live down causing war to erupt because one of me or mine messed up".

His drone is going to place a stress ball in his palm which he will squeeze really hard repeatedly.

Junilla and the Imperium

"I'm so sorry to hear that! Would you like to try one of our stress toys? We have several varieties, here," ke reaches into a pocket of kis utility belt and pulls out a brightly coloured but tastefully coordinated koosh ball. "If you want to, take this with-no-expectation-of-reciprocation; I have plenty more where that came from!

It's strange that they haven't standardised their language, isn't it? I guess that's part of how they haven't really learned how to share. Anyway, don't let me continue to distress you, I'll go and hassle Neksil instead."

Ke waits for a moment to see if Jinam actually wants to engage further.

Jeffinar and the Imperium

"I'm sure the mechanism designs are in one of our techniques-and-technologies databases, I'm not sure whether we have exactly that one loaded here but we can find out for you," ke says, and nods at a technician Kastakian who catches kis eye, who then skips off in the direction of the terminals which are in the process of being set up.

"As for evolutionary pressures - that's really not my area? I think I read an article once about how the cliff birds that are likely to be our closest animal relatives, if you believe in that kind of thing, benefit as a species from their willingness to raise a clutch if the original adults didn't return, as food was quite abundant, so there wasn't much direct competition, but environmental dangers and individual frailty were still a big thing? That sounds like the kind of thing that would promote group selection, I guess."

Jeffinar is clearly uncomfortably skirting around a topic here.

The Imperium and Junilla

"Oh wow," Jinam says, taking the offered ball and squeezing it. He makes animated facial expressions. "What is it made of? Is it rubber? Or...I know that people have been experimenting with hydrocarbon polymers? Is that it? Thank you very much.

I know! We have regional dialects, and also languages that hearken back to before the Imperium was founded, and also languages that people make for fun and other purposes, but having everyone converge on a single language as a fallback which doesn't change much just...makes sense. It makes it easier for everyone."

Jinam will let Junilla go if she wants to go to Neksil now, pointing the way to him.

Neksil and Jeffinar

"Thank you, that will be extremely helpful. Likewise, we are very willing to release our standards and building practices to you, if you feel like having them.

Ah, that's fine, although if you could direct me to a person who knows more, I would appreciate it."

Neksil considers Jeffinar's words and frowns. Does that work? Granted, evolutionary biology isn't his specialty either. And what does ke mean by 'if you believe in that kind of thing'? What thing??? These questions will remain unspoken. 

Instead, Neksil simply thanks Jeffinar, since he's seeing Junilla approaching in a manner that suggests ke is about to initiate a conversation.

Junilla and the Imperium

"This one is seaweed-and-fish-glue, actually!" she chirps, happy to see the effect on the linguist. "There have been some made out of hydrocarbon polymers, but at the moment seaweed-and-fish-glue is still more readily available." She nods affirmingly at the idea that a single language just makes more sense, then gracefully takes her leave to go to Neksil.

"Hello there! I was just wondering if your fellows' secret meeting would like any snacks. I'm sure they have all kinds of important business to discuss and I wouldn't want them to be unfairly deprived of anything! Also," she lowers her voice a little, "I must admit I'm a bit concerned about the tensions that have sprung up with Byway, and unfortunately I left my own sound-proof tent in my other utility belt."

Neksil and Junilla

"I don't think they will, but thank you for offering."

He sighs, but in a much more reserved and controlled way than Jinam. 

"Yes, I am concerned too. I – oh, here's a message." A drone holds out a piece of paper for Neksil to read. He makes thoughtful noises. It takes several minutes, and after he motions for the drone to take the paper away, he thinks for several seconds before responding.

"So you don't have a central government either. It's...difficult...to make treaties and agreements with people individually rather than unified states. Not having a government means that there is no means by which to enforce an agreement – indeed, the Bywayeans seem to lack any concept of either coordination or force, which is baffling to us. Likewise, they also don't seem to have the concept of acting prosocially – of acting to benefit non-kin who cannot reciprocate – or of doing informal trade, or illegible trade based on favors. 

How would you propose we deal with your civilization? If you are not qualified to answer this question, or do not wish to, I am happy to wait for someone else to speak to us. How you want us to deal with you will inform our decisions regarding the Bywayeans, since it seems that your society is a middle ground between the two of us – you share many of the concepts which drive our society, but you do not have central government, like them.

We are willing to ignore one person's actions. Although they did not act prosocially, they have not aggressed against us – though this does make us much less willing to act prosocially towards them, and merely act antiantisocially, or function as though neutral, or perhaps in a state of cold war. 

We are also keen to receive advice and information from you regarding the Bywayeans so as for us to help model them better, and avoid...cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.

Something which did occur to me specifically is that the Bywayeans, lacking the concept of aggressive action entirely, instead...'transmute' that aggression into antisocial behavior with regard to information transfer, such as with one of them refusing to permit the others to view their presentation. I believe that both of our civilizations do not do this, and act prosocially with regard to information transfer."

Jeffinar and the Imperium

"We don't have a formal government, but that doesn't mean there's no way to enforce an agreement. That's kind of why you've got two Langhames in the room. It's not quite the case that no Kastakian can bear the thought of not having anywhere to go in retirement, but the holdouts are few and far between.

Not much gets enforced by this mechanism, mind, because the more it is used for, the more likely it is that people will defy it; more than anything else, Kastakians absolutely hate to feel trapped or coerced - but we're inclined to agree to cooperate in a purely voluntary fashion, so it very rarely comes up. Those who want to deviate from the few norms that we do set can just go sailing off over the horizon, but they rarely become a large enough faction to cause a problem for anyone else.

And essentially our entire society is based around acting prosocially - if we didn't do that so much, we'd need much more structure than we can currently get away with.

So I propose you deal with us as follows: present your case to anyone who identifies as a sensible-adult - here, that's definitely at least me, Jupital and Ferek - it's unlikely someone would mislead you about that. We can tell you if it's already broadly in line with consensus, something we think that could be handled and what kind of communication lag / resistance you might expect to face, or something that wouldn't be acceptable; if we can't come to a decision on a particular topic, we can find someone who can, or let you know how long it will take to fetch them - or do the research, I suppose, on a particularly difficult matter.

We do want to continue to attempt trade with Byway, as they have considerable prowess in medical matters which are obviously something we have great need of, assuming the biology is at all compatible. Possibly Meliashae - ke's over by the terminals, which I'm certainly hoping you'll be able to participate in information exchange on once they're properly set up - ke's been talking to them more and might be able to explain further what their take is. But I am a little concerned about appearing hostile to them, because of this.

As my first guess, though - they rely on their innate sense of fair exchange and ownership - as well as their general physical robustness - to make their lack of coordination work for them, much as we rely on our innate prosocial instincts to make our informal cooperation work for us."

Junilla and the Imperium

Junilla just cheerfully tidies and refills a few of the snack containers in the vicinity, and asks one of the technicians to see if Meliashae's got a moment.

Ikkeh to Jeeee . . . and Eyyeh

For materials science, to start, the Kastakians will mainly need stuff that can withstand very high pressures and especially temperatures - especially graphite. Do they have that? And, more as a by the by, how practiced are they at atom-splitting in general?

Wind power - Byway never got very into wind power, but there are some medium-sized off-the-grid applications where Ikkeh can see the Kastakian models having a very high return! Do the organic plastic-likes have advantages besides the easy obtainability of their materials?

Around this time, a grim Eyyeh and a nervous Hansil stop by to explain about the remna. Eyyeh does most of the talking, and afterward looks at Ikkeh with a flicker of something like he's expecting a reprimand, although it's so subtle that Ikkeh doubts Hansil perceives it, let alone Jeeee.

Ikkeh does indeed, to Eyyeh's eyes, look a little disappointed, although more - it seems to Eyyeh - in something only Ikkeh can see, than in the Eyyeh who is right in front of him. Eyyeh wants to want to die.

"If the situation is what it looks like to me," says Ikkeh (lightly, but not flippantly), "I think the remna probably acted very sensibly and even overly altruistically, according to their own perception of things." He pauses and Eyyeh waits for him to continue.

Ikkeh: "Why do even newly-fledged nine-year-olds own personal guns?"

Eyyeh: ". . . oh."

Eyyeh (dragging the words out of himself with all due effort): "Because if someone is completely incapable of physically defending himself against a crazy person who would steal his stuff by physically bodying him out of his territory, then - in real life nothing will happen because there aren't crazy people, we're in an equilibrium where you hear about a few crazy people like that a year, more if you're paying attention because, for example, you have to oversee the securing of a dozen mines. But - if being 'ready to defend yourself' wasn't part of the Code at all, if no one ever had the thought to maintain a personal-defense weapon or secure the perimeters of a dozen mines - then the first truly crazy person to perfect a functional primitive cannon could, in theory, plow everyone else out of their livelihoods and lives like hopscotch.

They - the remna - aren't categorically un-deal_with_able, we're 'in a default equilibrium of fully-connected threat of theft' too, personal guns are obvious infrastructural shims elevating us off it and should be glaring evidence - it's a matter of degree. In theory." Eyyeh's residual incredulity is an afterthought, and doesn't seem to be causally interacting with the degree to which he's reckoning with his fuckup at all.

Ikkeh: "Yeah."

Ikkeh: "Maybe the explicit threat-of-theft stuff should go closer to the big prominent Rights-to-Property stuff in the Code. As game theory slash topology of defense-of-shared objects. Such as codes." Because he's Ikkeh Aineh and he can just casually drop to-be-taken-seriously musings about the Code in the middle of a conversation about something else.

Ikkeh joins in Hansil and Eyyeh's recapitulation of the remna situation to Selno, and then Hansil and Eyyeh go back around to re-update everyone else, two out of five of whom grumble that they would have explained Eyyeh's error on his first pass if they'd thought he'd take it coming from them. He believes them.

When Ikkeh is back - "Sorry, Jeeee. Materials science?" He's watching the remna now, too, but assessingly, to try to get his own grasp on what's happening, and he knows he has so little scaffolding for that task that it can't use his full attentional bandwidth.

Kriv & Ect to Talaskai

Kriv: "Whoever issues that account? Like, okay, I'm thinking that would be like the head-of-corporation you're buying profit-shares with. Okay. But then, profit gets counted in units of milligrams-of-psychostimulants, because that's something concrete and immediate that everyone's preferences weight highly and which - you would in fact probably hit diminishing returns on, if you suddenly sold all your modern-denominated profit-shares and stuff for physical psychostimulants, but which, if all machines stopped working and all contracts suddenly collapsed, everyone would, in fact, to the maximum of his ability, hoard.

If I'm hearing you right, you - Kastakia - operates entirely off individual interpersonal contracts, without a common intermediate unit of value?"

(Ect is forcing his face to say 'politely interested' instead of 'blatantly skeptical'.)

Neksil and Jeffinar

"Likewise. We also dislike the feeling of being trapped, but for us, people aren't entitled to feel trapped once they sign a contract binding them voluntarily – otherwise, they could have just chosen not to. Still, circumstances and desires change, which is why most contracts feature at least one of: a set time when the contract expires and can be renegotiated, or escape clauses that can be invoked – these escape clauses are usually costly but not impossibly costly.

This is the same for us too: people who do not wish to live under Imperial rule renounce their citizenship and live on terra nullius, which is land that is specifically designated as outside the Imperium's borders.

Our legal code is based only on acting antiantisocially. Criminal law prevents people from taking aggressive action against each other, and civil law prevents people from committing fraud – we do not oblige people to help each other. Still, acting prosocially is usually considered beautiful and something to be admired and encouraged, but this is always only an encouragement, never an obligation.

There are debates on what is considered to be aggressive action, but things which are centrally aggressive are those which either cause significant bodily harm to the person, significant harm to their property, alienating them from their property or hindering their free movement – assault, rape, theft, kidnapping, and vandalism are examples of what is considered centrally aggressive.

We do not prosecute lying per se, but we do prosecute lying if people lie having contracted to tell the truth. Let me explain: If X and Y make an agreement and X breaches it, Y cannot prosecute. However, if X and Y make an agreement and have it be notarized by us, then Y can, because by having it notarized, they are claiming that they are both telling the truth, and are willing to be bound by it, and to be tried by an Imperial civil court if they breach it. The notarization also makes it so that the agreement is legible to the state – our citizens do not like us meddling in every aspect of their lives, and nor do we want to: it would be extremely expensive. It is also possible to have the agreement be notarized by us, but instead have a private arbitrator's judgment be what is legally binding, and not the Imperial civil court, if you don't trust the government to handle your case.

Similarly, if X sells something to Y, and it's defective, then Y cannot prosecute. However, if X sells something to Y with the seal of the Imperial Standards Authority – having registered their product with them – and it's defective or makes inaccurate or misleading claims, then Y can prosecute, because by displaying that seal, X bound themselves similarly to the previous example. It is illegal to display Imperial seals of any sort without prior authorization: we take this very seriously, since we need to have our citizens be assured that when they see someone displaying our insignia, that they are actually dealing with us.

This is one case where we will prosecute someone for lying without them previously agreeing not to lie – this is tried under criminal court. The other definition of criminal and civil court for us is that criminal laws are those who you agree to be bound to simply by being an Imperial citizen, whereas civil laws you agree to be bound to voluntarily. This is why tax evasion and forgery of Imperial seals are criminal offenses.

The two basic prerequisites we would want to set up are mechanisms to prevent aggressive action for our people who are interacting with yours, and, in the case where such does happen, ways for damages to be awarded, and the aggressor punished or neutralized in some way, and a mechanism to prevent fraud when our people interact with your businesses or sellers, and likewise, ways for damages to be awarded, and the fraudster punished in some way. Obviously you do not need to pay tax to us – you are not citizens – but we would be very upset if a Kastakian started forging our seals and this was not stopped immediately. Merely adopting our aesthetic is not criminal; it has to be the seals themselves – we will arrange for pictures of them to be sent to you so you know what to look out for.

We are amenable to the possibility of having a third party arbitrate disputes between our states specifically, although we would want to know more about the other two civilizations before agreeing to this.

In this case, Consul Restem – he has final say on treaties with foreign states – will make a decree granting Kastakians similar rights as Imperial citizens on filing criminal and civil lawsuits – normally we do not permit non-citizens from filing lawsuits in our courts.

We will arrange for our current criminal and civil legal codes to be given to you – who do you think will most benefit from it? – and likewise case law from the three gross years."

Ikkeh and Lisal

Lisal will emerge from the tent, drones beside him – though unarmed – and approach Ikkeh. He kind of looks uninterruptible, and he would hate to be impolite by cutting off his conversation with Jeeee, but he'll have his drone write a message for him, which it will deposit on Ikkeh's table section.

Ikkeh,

We notice that you have blocked off your presentation from other members of your delegation, but are willing to talk about and show it to the other delegations. We also notice that while you clearly marked your presentation as being blocked off, it is clearly not a secure block – we believe that you had the capability and knowledge to construct a better block, such as by creating a soundproof and opaque structure with which to let in specific people only, but you did not do this.

We would like to hear your reasoning as to why you did this, and why you did this in this manner.

This information will be very useful for us in trying to correctly model your psychology and culture, and help us both in avoiding diplomatic accidents. Therefore, we implore you to be detailed, accurate, and truthful in your response, and to decline answering or point us to some other person if you cannot fulfill this.

I am willing to talk publicly or privately.

Lisal.

Lisal will wait far enough away for him to have difficulty hearing what Ikkeh and Jeeee are talking about, but close enough that passing a message would be easy. He will wait for either Ikkeh to send a message or talk to him.

Lak to Thessalia

Easy stuff first.

"The goods we use as money aren't standardized - I don't know how standardizing them would be possible? They're just what everyone naturally thinks of, when they ask themselves 'What should I use as money?', because they have high and basically non-diminishing immediate value to everyone, as-is with no improvement required, and they round off to 'light and nonperishable' for most peoples' purposes, most of the time."

Okay. Easy stuff over.

"So, um, just to make sure I understand you correctly, your society has a problem where if you try to use money every time you want to incentivize behavior, your would-be heroes become kind of - hypnotized, by the prospect of earning a lot of money and then paying other heroes to hero, instead of heroing like they want to, themselves? So that less actual heroing gets done?"

Do not jump to assumptions. Clarify first, then analyze. Maybe the reason none of this makes any sense is that you disastrously misunderstood kim.

Jeeee and Ikkeh re Materials Science

"Pressures, yes, temperatures, how high? We don't use graphite for that, but we do use it for lubricant properties, we don't produce all that much as it's mostly a mining byproduct? I think you can synthesise it starting with carborundum, but in high temperature applications we'd just use the carborundum...

Mostly the organic composites are good for their abundance, you can basically make a plastic that does everything they do, it's just the plastic is way more expensive. They're a bit easier to render back down and reshape once you're done with them, maybe, but maybe we just haven't found good disposal solutions for plastics yet.

We have theories about how you split the atom but haven't actually done it yet, or at least not that anyone successfully published - there have been a couple of attempts but they, uh, didn't go so well."

Talaskai and Kriv+Ect re Money

"Well, yeah, I guess? Like, people try to publish things about systems of value all the time, trying to compare different opportunities against each other, but - I think there just isn't a thing that everyone wants, for us, like these 'psychostimulants' are for you? Almost everyone wants a good retirement so those are what backs what accounting type stuff we do have, but even then, it's not everyone - it's just the people who don't really care are usually motivated to do useful stuff anyway, so it all kind of works out."

Jeffinar and the Imperium

"We've, uh, never found that saying that someone isn't entitled to something stops them wanting it, or acting out if they don't get it?

Almost nobody works to explicit binding contracts. Like, sometimes we still use them when we absolutely have to, like - supply contracts between endeavour-groups and the hospital, those have explicit terms and penalty clauses and so on, but those are between groups of people and it's really just to make sure that problems get brought up before they happen, rather than too late to do anything about them. Mostly everything is just about expectations - people who get expensive training are expected to stay and work with the people who provided it, and if key like things to be explicit those expectations will get written down for kem - but usually just the expectation is plenty, it would actually be more likely that key'd break the contract and run off just to see if key could, if there was an attempt at a binding contract?

If someone's acting antisocially - well, first, key'll end up isolated, especially with the modern world being more connected, reputation sticks to you. Particularly extreme behaviour, I guess, people will just - defend kemselves? It's really, vanishingly rare for more than one person to act antisocially at a time, so even a small adventuring boat can generally contain someone who's being a clear and present danger. It's not illegal to defend yourself or your property - if you don't trust someone's judgement about what constitutes defending themselves, you just don't get on keir boat?

Sometimes people do get desperate and we have outbreaks of something worse than that - the usual example is that an endeavour-group running some kind of large industrial process will attempt to coerce people to stay with them and work, because otherwise the whole thing might fall apart and waste all the work that's already gone into it. Or parents get too attached to their children and convince themselves it's in their interests to keep hold of them instead of letting them go. These days, these things are rare enough that people eventually spot it's happening and, well, converge on it and deal with the problem? Kastakians tend to back down once it's really obvious they're going to lose.

We don't really have any mechanism for prosecuting lying or failing to deliver other than saying bad things about kem in the data stream. Usually people just don't want to supply defective goods in the first place, and if they weave a pile of lies to get some resources or a work position - well, clearly they really wanted it, it's usually not a big deal?

It sounds like you want - something up to your standards that visitors can do to anyone who aggresses on them? And some way to enforce contracts and standards, in the case that our people pretend to sign up to them and then go back on that?

As long as you agree with us on self-defence, I don't think that will be a problem - we can make it widely known that anyone doing this set of fairly obvious aggressive actions towards a renma without very clear self defence grounds - that is, they did one of the set of actions first - should be handed over to renma authorities at the first opportunity, and you can do what you like with kem, although key'll probably kill kemselves if you try to imprison kem. I'm not sure what you expect in the way of damages - Kastakians don't tend to have all that much in the way of obligations to each other, so if the original assailant is dead, it's hard to know where to get those from - as long as they're not excessive, we can probably just set up a resource bank which will pay those off, though.

Contracts - we'll probably just make it clear that nobody should use the seals, it's not really the kind of thing people will seriously do just to be contrary, if some kids try it then it'll be fairly obvious and people will stop them? - are a bit more tricky. We can set a norm that if you do enter into a formal contract with renma, you ought to present yourself to the renma civil court and cooperate with them if you screw it up; we can do that forcibly enough that you won't have any major opposition in coming and hunting down the people who run away from it, but you will likely get a few people who completely fail in their obligations, get too upset about it to engage with it and try to wander off and ignore it, which we don't really have any resources available to pursue ourselves.

And you'll probably have more success getting people to agree to stated expectations rather than formal contracts, especially if they know formal contracts have that kind of threat attached."

Thessalia and Lak on Capitalism

"Oh, I see!

I think there's a fundamental difference here - there really isn't anything that, if you ask a bunch of Kastakians 'what should I use as money?', they would agree on at all? Like, adjusted-labour-hours accumulated with a retirement vessel is really the best we've got there, and it still doesn't appeal to everyone, it's just the most common answer that helpfully lines up with something people need extrinsic motivation to do enough of.

So, in order to use money we kind of have to abstract over a set of people's very different utility functions? You can get a unit of value agreed between endeavour-groups that have a particular set of trades they regularly need to do, but it only lasts as long as that whole thing is valid.

Some historical groups have tried to use a very abstract unit of value, that just accumulates numerically and then enough people decide that they want to have easier trade with the people using it that it's useful for things? That's when the psychological problems tend to start, though - people start to want to accumulate this unit because it has uncertain but likely high value, they never feel safe because they think they need to accumulate more of the unit to be safe - people start feeling they have to charge for things in the unit to accumulate enough of it for themselves... because it's an abstract unit rather than an actual thing, people never really feel like they have enough of it, you see.

Most of these experiments died out because nobody sufficiently incentivises childcare, others - well, this was mostly done back in the ages where it was harder to share technologies and techniques, and other people would generally not bother to share them with polities that were doing this because they were afraid they might get offered money, and then the money contagion would come for them as well? We're less superstitious now, I think, but there's still a general distrust of a unit of value that isn't backed by something specific, and as I mentioned, nobody can really agree on the something specific that ought to be used."

There's a loud rumbling sound, and a disorienting minute-long flash of magenta light.

After everyone recovers, the scientists brought by the delegations say that there's about ten hours left before the cave shifts again, so anything they want to agree to should be wrapped up before then.

Jeffinar and the Imperium

Jeffinar looks nervous and lowers his voice.

"I'm probably going to have to fight Jherek about this, but, what are the chances of getting - whatever your minimum breeding population is - of renma through in the next ten hours, in case this never happens again?

I can promise that I won't ask them through until I am sure of their immediate safety, and every person amongst them," he makes it clear he's talking about the controllers and not their drones, "will have their pick of everything they might ask for among us if there's less than, like, a couple hundred, just out of novelty value if nothing else.

If there's something else you'd need in return, I can escort some of your drones to our terminals and they can memorise as much as they like in the time remaining?"

Neksil and Jeffinar

"I...see. That is not how it works with us: people can have all the expectations they want, but unless your agreement cashes out in force somewhere, then it's powerless and people are likely to ignore it. Nowadays people care more about reputation and care more, terminally and inherently, about fair exchange, but in the past this was more of a problem, so we continue to have forceful binding agreements today. I suppose what we could do is simply to have the 'punishment' here be refraining from trading with that person or group of persons – that will suffice for many short-term agreements.

You do seem to have a...distributed social mechanism for ensuring that people don't renege. We are not as proactive as that – we tend not to care about what other people are doing unless it directly affects us."

Neksil's impassivity training isn't as good as Restem's, and he has to put a hand over his mouth to stop himself audibly gasping when Jeffinar talks about lying about qualifications.

"We'll have to figure out something regarding the defective goods thing, because few people will want to buy Kastakian products unless they know there was some mechanism to receive damages from the seller if they get defective goods, or goods making misleading or false claims.

Indeed: the two main things we want to manage are aggression and fraud. That's the core of the Imperium's job. These are also the two main things we want to have in order to begin trade.

Ah, yes, we have similar self-defense norms. That works fine with us, generally – the specifics can be hashed out once we send an ambassador to live on Kastakia full-time. The damages bank is an acceptable arrangement. Likewise, we will deport any Kastakians who would be prosecuted by an Imperial criminal court back to Kastakia, unless they commit suicide while in jail – the cave does not open at predictable intervals, so they may remain there for several dozen days.

This is acceptable to us – both the seal enforcement and the civil court enforcement. I should say that in the case of an Imperial reneging on his contract with a Kastakian, that the latter can also go to the civil court and sue the other – it's not one sided. Again, we can have an ambassador come over to discuss specifics, such as whether you would be willing to permit us to pursue people who reneged and which your state, or rather, society, did not have the capacity to pursue."

"Why do you ask? We'd rather not...rather not do anything which angers other people in your delegation." Ugh, factional politics! The Imperial government isn't categorically opposed to doing that, but Neksil doesn't know whether or not Jeffinar's faction would win out. So better to play it safe. Not that he's going to say that to kim.

"I can answer your question, but I don't have the authority to sign trade deals – I say 'acceptable to us', but I'll have to go to Restem and ask for his approval before any of these can go through. I have a good enough idea of what he'd go for, but it's not up to me, ultimately.

If you only want drone children, the answer is one keeper. One keeper can have as many drone children as they want, asexually. If you want Keeper children, then two Keepers. However, only those two will be able to breed with each other – you don't want the siblings to have children with each other because of inbreeding. I'm not sure what the minimum population of Keepers there would need to be to avoid that. Do you want to make an immigration treaty? We can have Kastakians live on Imperial waters and Imperials live on Kastakian land, since we fortuitously prefer different living environments."

Jeffinar and the Imperium

"If we want to make a general immigration treaty, I suspect I'm going to have to call Jherek over for kim to be suspicious at it," replies Jeffinar. "Uh, if your genetics are like ours then the population minimum for not having the worst inbreeding problems is around fifty if they're happy to engage in a specific breeding program, two hundred if they're going to just arrange families normally, but that seems like a big assumption; it might give you a dancing-space-size-estimate," (this is their equivalent of 'ballpark'), "though?"

It sounds like we're reasonably sure the cave will open again, but if you'd like to arrange for one of you to come through before it destabilises anyway, that sounds like it would make me feel better and not upset Jherek too much?

We might just want to set up shared testing facilities for the goods you particularly want? In practice, people will take a chance on it or they won't, and people who do take a chance on it will get more opportunity? As long as we can hire drones, and it sounds like we can come to an agreement on that based on trade in services to the Keeper... I expect Kastakians who want land-based goods badly enough will sign up to the contract liability - and if they renege on that after all the clear warnings, I don't expect you'll have any trouble from anyone about pursuing them."