"Then I'm not sure I understand how Lastwall turned out the way it did."

" - presumably because I made a mistake? It's not very mysterious that I would! Absalom didn't turn out remotely how Aroden wanted."

"If it wasn't exactly what You wanted, why didn't you tell them to fight Hell?"

"...I'm sorry. Again. That wasn't fair. I've wanted to ask that question for a very long time, but you're not the person who can answer it." 

"Indeed, I don't know. There are - guesses, right. It presumably also doesn't serve Asmodeus for Tar-Baphon to be re-released and the Worldwound overrun by demons. Conceivably Iomedae, the god, bargained with Him for her to not order Lastwall into His project, or to actively order them out of it, in exchange for Him reducing His own interventions there by the equivalent of Lastwall's strength. I... I think I would be very strongly inclined against that, for precisely the reason of - misleading everybody about what actually doing Good looks like, in the world, when it requires radical reprioritization -

- but it's possible. It is the sort of thing that I have not committed I'd never do, as a god.

Another possibility is that for secret reasons I was less opposed than it really seems like I should be, to the power of Hell. There are possibilities like that Hell isn't actually that bad but prefers to have mortals persuaded that it is, as a matter of pride that they care about more than Good does. I know those aren't true in my time, I asked Aroden fairly comprehensively, but I don't know about nine hundred years from now. 

Another possibility is that I turned out wrong and incorrectly didn't care enough about Hell anymore.

And another is that Lastwall did do things, which failed, and couldn't tell you."

"...Hell's just as bad. I've been.

I think the most likely explanation is that Lastwall was subject to constraints I don't understand, and did more than I know, and – still probably prioritized incorrectly, but for reasons you'd probably understand better than I. If - if you'd seen the last time I tried to set up a system of government, you truly wouldn't want my advice."

"I would not say my great triumphs are the battles I've learned the most from.

- do you know what would really help, is the permanent Teleportation Circles. I'd feel better, about representing only one slice of what it is to do Good in the world, if Quantium and Absalom and wherever else were right next door."

"Absalom probably makes the most sense for supply reasons. They're expensive enough that it probably still makes sense to prioritize setting up the valuable trade connections first, unless you're very certain it'll change the culture of Lastwall for the better. 

I don't really – I don't want everywhere in the world to be Lastwall, but it sounds like you don't either. I wouldn't like Lastwall not to exist, and certainly someone needs to be  watching Gallowspire and Ustalav and Belkzen and whatever else might come up. My only real objection to it has always been that it doesn't seem interested in doing much more than that, and I'm starting to think I didn't give them enough credit. Maybe the best thing we could do for them is really destroy Tar-Baphon this time, and see what they come up with when they have a little room to breathe." 

"Well, I'm certainly not going to argue with that. 

- Belkzen. I was - worried about leaving them an eternal war, on that border, and it sounds like I did do that.

I could conquer it. Leave them - three times as much land, and the mountains for a border. They are at war with us; they have murdered those envoys we have sent; there is no treaty and no law against it. 

It'd just be killing a lot of people fundamentally for the advantage of my Church and my state, and if that's not Evil I think it's only because the standards aren't high enough, and so I planned not to do it. Am paying some ongoing costs in the lives of my men for not doing it, but - smaller losses than the number of orcs we'd kill in the course of doing it. 

One thing that occurred to me, when you explained about Asmodeus, is that maybe I got that wrong, because - a larger state, with a larger army and more defensible borders...goes to war in Cheliax, and has a better shot at winning."

" – they're sapient beings, there has to be a better solution. If we imagine the reason they're like this is a wisdom deficiency, worst case, how hard can it possibly be to some up with some sort of ritual that does a permanent hereditary wisdom enhancement over a population – I mean, hard enough that it's obviously not a priority now, but I don't see why one couldn't – "

" - it's an appealing line of thought, though. - well, not being a wizard I was thinking 'could you do it with a Miracle' - but the same spirit. It feels -

- there are orcs in the Shining Crusade, brave and noble warriors, with weaknesses that are fine in an individual and devastating in a civilization, and it seems an immense tragedy, and I am sure that under the right conditions you'd have something better. - rule by my Church isn't the right conditions. I am trying to solve one hard problem, a government that doesn't mainly serve its own members and their associations, and if I assign myself also the problem of the just governance of one race by another then I'll just fail. But I'm sure there's something.

I do think the wisdom deficiency is the important element. You just have a lot more violence that no one wanted and no one gained from, more such violence than the fabric of civilization as I know it can withstand."

"It's not like humans couldn't use more wisdom, come to think of it. I do think it's worth at least a few months of my time, just to see if it's possible. I could pop over to Tian Xia and see if I can dig up some ritualists – I do think it would have to be a ritual – 

"If it can't be done, though, then I'm not sure anything I know about the future should be decisive. Belkzen is very far from your most serious problem. Conquering it might be Evil, but you're not – you don't become the goddess of never doing anything Evil, do you? If you think it's worth the cost, you'd know better than anyone."

"I thought it wasn't. But if there are problems in the future that a larger and wealthier Lastwall solves, then that - changes my thinking. Or might.

The goddess would probably authorize it under circumstances where I would not, if She turned out right. I'm, in fact, mortal, and the obvious propensity of mortal war heroes is to go conquer everything that will fall before them, with plenty of good reason, and I do not think myself so good at avoiding that flaw that I should just naively check if it seems worth it and do it if it does. Even if it does once I've meticulously accounted for all the intangible cultural damage and selection effects on who joins my Church and so on."

"Of course this is an unusually extreme case, but I'm curious, in general, where you draw that line."

"I will do what I believe is or ought to be Evil when it's plainly and unambiguously going to have better results for the world than not doing that, and no one would have expected otherwise of me, and of course where I am not committed otherwise. If it is less plain or less unambiguous, or if people would have expected better, including people who don't exist yet but will probably grow up thinking entirely too highly of me - I generally won't. I would, if it were important, and there wasn't any other reasonable way, but I pay fairly high costs to avoid doing Evil in muddy cases or where it violates peoples' expectations of me. 

If it's very ambiguous, and I stand to attain significant personal benefit from it, if it happens to be exactly what I'd also do if I were wholly self-serving - if I think that the kind of world I mean to build would judge me for it, and that the best people in this world will -

- it would have to be very, very important, and I'd have to be very sure I'd used decision processes I have - vetted to not fail in a predictable direction, and I'd have to convince the people I trust, and I'd ask Aroden."

The first thing he wants to say is that it must be nice to have someone to ask – but he can't afford to invite questions about why he doesn't. 

"Do you actually think you're very likely to want to conquer Belkzen for selfish reasons you can't bring yourself to acknowledge, or are you just worried about being judged? Or – are you worried about not being judged enough?" 

"The last two. I hate killing people who aren't dead already. I do have selfish wants, but that's not the shape of them. But - I think that would also be true of many people who were doing it for bad reasons, who were wrong that it was the best thing for them to do; I think 'this is my terrible but righteous duty' is sometimes what terrible evils feel like from the inside. 'are you killing people who weren't trying to kill you, for a greater good that will accrue mostly specifically to you or those you feel instinctive obligation towards?' feels like the rule I'd want those people to use, not 'is it selfish'.

I am somewhat worried that people who are the kind of people I would like to build my country and work alongside my Church and be my allies will judge me, because it'd be more work than it's worth for them, to determine if I actually had a good enough reason, and they'd be starting from a very reasonable presumption that I didn't. 

And I am somewhat worried that - people, growing up on that land, will be invested in believing that I got it right, that it was good and necessary. And that people everywhere will be tempted to come up with excuses.

And - they're orcs, right. It's not hard for people to convince themselves it's Good to go kill orcs. It's an unusual person who notices when people with different customs than their own are being wronged.

And in a sense - there are almost no true worthy claimants to any land, anywhere, Aroden didn't even manage to achieve that when he raised the land straight out of the sea. Any orc I take Belkzen from took it from someone else ten years earlier, or ten minutes earlier.

I'd rather have Lastwall be different. I would pay - fairly high costs, for Lastwall to be different. But not arbitrarily high costs, of course. If I need an army that can win on three fronts at once or we lose a country to Hell, then I need Belkzen. "

"Maybe if you were certain that Belkzen would make the difference. I'm not. 

That said, I wonder what ongoing costs you're paying to live your life such that you can honestly write it all down in the Acts of Iomedae for people less Good than you to imitate. It's one thing not to trust yourself – gods know, I don't – and another to circumscribe your judgement to the limits of everyone who might ever admire you for the next millenium. You're right to worry that your people will take you as a model, for better or for worse. They do try to think these things through, in my day – but mostly because it's cheaper than demanding your attention." 

"I don't even think I'd have to be very sure Belkzen would make the difference. If it looked more likely than not that'd be sufficient. I'd have to think about lower odds than that, but I'd seriously consider it all the way down to one chance in - twenty, thirty maybe - I'd have to think harder about exactly what I think Asmodeus was getting and what He was paying for it.

It's not common that I am constrained by that. It was an important consideration - among considerations such as the hundred, two hundred thousand orc lives we'd take and the losses to our own forces and the difficulty of governing it without further atrocities and the nervousness it'll provoke in our neighbors - for Belkzen. It is why I'm disinclined to appoint myself ruler of my country once the war's over and will have to do all of my ruling it in my capacity as Knight-Commander of the Shining Crusade - I don't want rule of my country to strike anyone who has otherwise taken my course as the natural next step of it. 

...and it's why we went to considerable lengths to have Shining Crusade heroes of every race of people we could wrangle, I guess I did expend kind of a lot of energy on that. But for nearly everything else - it would, in fact, be setting a bad example, to be prioritizing stylistic things above actually winning."

It's a bit strange to see, how Élie thinks of Iomedae as not being a goddess who would never do something evil. It makes sense - Iomedae is certainly unusually willing to countenance deliberate evil deeds when necessary. Not only in comparison to other paladins, but in comparison to good or even neutral people in general. If Alfirin's experience mostly involves Iomedae being uncompromising on that front - well, that's a fact about Alfirin too.

"The teleportation circles will help, and I'm optimistic that with Élie we'll be able to destroy Tar-Baphon and not just seal him, but without those - I can see why Lastwall had problems. If they had to keep a watch on Adorak without really holding territory in Ustalav and with Urgir still hostile. I don't know how much of a difference the rest of Belkzen would make, but bypassing Urgir now was going to be expensive and risky and doing it for almost a thousand years would be a big drain on their resources."

"I bet I got it wrong. I bet we bypassed Urgir successfully and then - couldn't actually destroy Tar-Baphon, probably tried for a while past the point where we sealed him, and by that point the war was over and I was hardly going to go for Urgir then, when we had a peace, little as they could be expected to hold it."

"Wrong with a centuries of hindsight, yes. It's not like anyone else got that call right, nobody was pushing for Urgir once it looked like we might have another way. And once Tar-Baphon is defeated you're right that it'd be awfully hard to justify coming back to storm the city."

At this point he's really becoming slightly worried that he'll convince Iomedae to conquer Belkzen. He knows it won't matter, but it's not as if he can explain why. 

"In any case, it sounds like taking Belkzen would be very expensive and less significant than destroying Tar-Baphon. ...Not that I have any brilliant ideas on that front."

It's not anyone else's job to be thinking about the field capabilities of Iomedae's country nine hundred years from now. ...arguably Aroden's. But He presumably didn't foresee whatever Asmodeus pulled in the Western Empire, and without that maybe it having been the wrong call in expectation never turned into it being the wrong call in reality. 

" - actually, Elie, I apologize, I notice that this conversation started with you arguing that my country is immoral along a dimension I'm not adequately concerned with and has run off to the question of whether I should double down on it, and that's rude at minimum and conceivably worse. I won't take Urgir on the strength of your future knowledge, if you don't endorse what you know being put to that use. And I do mean to think more about - whether the specific obligations of a ruler to their people ought to bar them from going to war for the benefit of people elsewhere."