"I know the argument that Chaos doesn't think it has to make. The decedent rebelled against her family, broke the law, and—yes, I am aware and do not dispute it—broke an oath.

"First, rebelling against your family for your own notion of law isn't Chaotic, In Re Tsakath, -40. The decedent did not die for freedom in the abstract, as Elysium previously claimed, but for freedom from a system she perceived as unfair, and fairness is a core notion of Law, In Re Oooo, -9331.

"Second, breaking the law isn't Chaotic, it's merely "an interpretative tool in the absence of other actions or motivations", In Re Apprias, -5413, but we have already discussed the decedent's actions and motivations. The decedent only broke the law once; she fled her father's house under the cover of night, breaking Osirion's laws about curfews for non-adventurer women. Why did she break this law? She did not break the law because she thought rules shouldn't apply to her, In Re Dgema, -318. She did not break the law because she was tempted by the gains of breaking the law this specific time, In Re Yubr, 30. She did not break the law because she believed she would not be caught, In Re Gyges, -375. She did not break the law because she didn't agree with this specific law, despite agreeing with the method by which laws were made, In Re Polistex, 867.

"She broke the law because she considered which decision procedures one ought to use when deciding whether to follow the law, and determined that it made sense to only follow a law if the entity which is creating and enforcing the law is dealing fairly, in some sense, with one. This is an eminently Lawful approach to breaking the law, and the argument that one may have decision procedures which allow breaking local law is well established in too many cases to cite, especially the many controversial trials for decedents who acted as spies in Cheliax during the last hundred years, not one of which has been ruled Chaotic.

"Finally, the same is true of her oath-breaking. The decedent swore a single oath, which was made under false pretenses, and later decided that it wasn't worth holding to oaths made under false pretenses, because doing so incentivizes actors to cause one to be under false pretenses when they want one to swear oaths. Historically, the defense of enforcing oaths sworn under various detrimental situations has relied on the fact that being able to do so is valuable for the individual making the oath, and refusing to enforce such oaths would be harmful to the oath-maker, but the decedent considered and rejected that the logic applied in her situation.

"Axis does not, to be clear, entirely think that the decedent's logic was impeccable, but the actions, while they appear Chaotic, were made with enough careful thought that they should be considered Lawful instead."

Nirvana looks at Elysium.

Elysium looks at The Maelstrom.

The Maelstrom looks at The Abyss.

"Bullshit."

"Fine, no one else is going to call bullshit?

"First, in Tsakath the decedent left their family for a more lawful organization the family disapproved of; that's not the case here. Oooo was an argument over whether a strong innate sense of fairness was Lawful or Good, and shouldn’t be considered a precedent for whether 'wanting things to be fair' is sufficient to rule someone Lawful over Chaotic. In fact, many Chaotic individuals decry systems of law for their unfairness, and prefer the less hierarchical systems that more Chaotic societies have.

"Second, blah blah breaking the law isn't Chaotic we all know this, except that the four cases you list didn’t argue the decedent could be Lawful, they argued the decedent could be Neutral. No one at those trials attempted to argue that had they met the relevant criteria that they could be Lawful, merely Neutral. You can't seriously expect us to find the argument that these precedents apply to judging someone Lawful.

"And lastly, the oath breaking. Thinking you're Lawful while doing something Chaotic does not make you Lawful. It just makes you stupid. The decedent swore an oath to reassure her dying mother that she would see her in Axis, and it was made conditional on her brother, quote, trying as hard as he could to get her out of the marriage her father had arranged for her, end quote. The brother tried as hard as he could, failed to do so, and the decedent broke the oath because she decided it wasn't worth being Lawful—so, Chaotic."

"Her brother swore her to the oath knowing and intending that there was nothing he could do. The balancing test is to consider whether or not individuals in the decedent's position would have benefited from having the option to swear the oath or not. What benefit did the decedent derive from making the oath? None. What counterfactual benefit could the decedent have derived from making the oath? None."

"One, the decedent benefited by comforting her dying mother. Two, in counterfactual situations with the same state of knowledge while swearing the oath, the decedent could have gotten out of the marriage. By making all oaths breakable if the decedent is wrong about the state of knowledge of another individual makes all oaths breakable."

"Are there any precedents for any of this? Or are we charting new territories?"

"I do not believe that any of the lawful afterlives have ever shown up for the trial of such an obvious oathbreaker before. It's curious that they showed up for this one, I am trying to figure out exactly which precedent they are trying to set."

"The Court is not allowed to scrutinize the motivations of the representatives, as long as they are making a good faith effort to argue for their alignment. Boneyard v. Abyss -2362."

"We all know Boneyard v. Abyss, the comments of one representative do not constitute the Court scrutinizing your motivations.

"Alright, no precedents, which means we need a ruling. I'm tempted to rule that attempting to understand the nature of law on the level that Axis contends the decedent did is Lawful, but failing to understand the laws and forging ahead to break oaths in your own ignorance and without consulting any other sources is Chaotic. Any objections?"

"Axis is happy with a ruling of systemic Neutral for this decedent."

"Screw you and your entire alignment.

"The Abyss disagrees that this particular decedent has enough Law to balance out her Chaos—and even if she did, Law is not a balancing act. You cannot be extra lawful to make up for a few oaths broken.

"But we have no particular objections to the proposed ruling."

Nirvana doesn't usually argue for True Neutral. Most outer planes are restrictive; they don't want to take people who don't match their alignment, and judges very rarely sort a decedent somewhere whose representative objects. Nirvana and the Evil planes are an exception. Hell because anyone can be a paving stone, The Abyss and Abaddon because anyone can be a meal. Pharasma doesn't like sorting many people True Neutral, so even if that's what the judge rules, he'll open up debate again, using a lower standard of determination.

All of this means that Nirvana would rather sort someone into Axis or the Maelstrom than reopen the ruling if they're evil—but Axis is the one pushing for this. And the decedent probably would prefer Axis to the Maelstrom. So,

"Nirvana has no objections to the ruling or the judgement of True Neutral, your Honor."

Elysium watches Nirvana. The representative from Elysium doesn't quite understand why someone would prefer Axis to the Maelstrom, but Elysium understands Nirvana, and makes the same inferences about Axis' actions.

Part of Chaotic Good is understanding that not everyone agrees on how to after-live.

"Elysium concurs with Nirvana, your Honor."

"True Neutral means Axis can use the relaxed standards under Shizuru v. Asmodeus, undated to argue for Lawful Neutral.

"I don't think it makes sense to sort an oathbreaker into Axis, but it's funny enough to imagine it happening that I'll concur."

"Your honor, if we sort the decedent into a lawful afterlife, that means the argument Axis and Nirvana advanced earlier this trial about the second-order effects of the decedent's suicide would no longer be true. If the decedent is lawful, she must also be evil."

"Hold on, the argument you're advancing is—that since the decedent's destination will be scried, if she ends up in a Lawful afterlife, that the Osirian government will say 'oh look, she made a Lawful, no need to change anything'? She still died, and the Osirian government dislikes Hell just as much as it dislikes the Chaotic afterlives."

"The Evil afterlives would be contradictory, the Lawful afterlives would be contradictory, the Chaotic afterlives would be contradictory, the Good afterlives would be contradictory. This is one of the reasons that the second-order effects should have been ignored entirely. And without them, the decedent's death would be considered an Evil act."

"The second-order effects don't depend on the afterlife sorting, they depend on the death. The afterlife sorting would be persuasive, but not enough to convince or dismiss the death from the considerations of Osirian lawmakers.

"Besides, we already ruled on that—why not bring it up then? Because you're grudgingly okay with the Maelstrom winning this case but not Axis."

"The court is not allowed—"

"Yes, yes, we already did Boneyard v. Abyss -2362. Axis, The Abyss, stop pulling barely relevant precedents in order to snipe at each other. I'm ruling True Neutral.

"Now we proceed to questions of usefulness as raw planar material. I'm not sure she'd be remarkably valuable to The Boneyard as either a psychopomp or a childcare worker."

"Your Honor, Nirvana has an excellent track record at turning judged-True Neutral petitioners into valuable members of the Neutral Good Outer Planes. We would find this decedent in particular as valuable as anyone sorted Neutral Good, as we believe she ought to have been." 

The Abyss doesn't have a leg to stand on, here. There's no lawyer training system in The Abyss, no formal process for being assigned to cases. The representatives tend to either be minor demons who want a break from avoiding being eaten, or who are trying to accrue slaves or food in order to stop being minor demons.

Eating a soul doesn't count as useful raw planar material, sadly, Pharasma v. Abaddon 1021. Oh well. Might as well try to catch some sleep.