"And now it no longer impends because Allocator Idiot here has so kindly touched it off."

"We'll buy your grain at vaguely stabilizing prices. Tapa probably won't anymore, they're importing some of our absurdly powerful magic and that'll do for them instead."

"Did they have to stop executing people to get that?"

"They had the good fortune not to execute someone my father personally liked."

"That's one way of allocating resources."

"I do not think they have been informed of all the side effects of the powerful magic they're importing, and it will have a lot of side effects, no executions being one of them."

"So their way of life you'll uproot without warning, that's interesting."

"Are you hoping that if you point out we're being unprincipled we'll abandon the whole enterprise and go bother some other galaxy?"

"If you present people with the opportunity to collect bribes you can hardly blame them for trying to figure out what the rules are. The last time a foreign force of superior power occupied us they did line us up and decapitate every third. More than that if people jostled for place in line, but no one figured that out until someone tried to change places."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sure. So what, pray tell, are the rules? What behavior will leave me standing over a pile of rubble inhabited by the ghosts of people whose farmers you took with no care for the starving, whose plumbers you took with no care for the thirsty, whose doctors you took with no care for the sick, because it troubles you that those persons found themselves obliged to work for money and anyone who wouldn't come away with you possessed any loyalty or fear or couldn't read the invitation? Because the problems when you suddenly vanish a third of a population do not stop at having to burn your bloodied shoes."

"Stop executing people. Don't start wars. Don't hide atrocities from us - we're not going to avenge them, it'd be wasted time, but we'd sure as hell better know about them up front. When you say your rules are necessary and can't be flexible enough to hurt people any less, we'll listen, but you'd sure as hell better be telling the truth, because if we run small-scale tests a couple times and  it looks good and we scale it up carefully and check and your rules weren't necessary, then we will stop listening. We'll phase out reds slowly enough you can make robots; we'll help you make the robots. We'll bribe people to stay, if they're needed here and want to leave. But ultimately, in the long run, your society is going to have to get by with only people who want to be living in it."

"How long is this long run?"

"Hundred of your years, give or take."

"So I'm certainly old enough that I could ignore you, if I cared as little about my country as the people you're expecting to be seduced by extragalactic luxury. And we are expected to divine what things you consider atrocities requiring advance confession by means of -?"

"I said 'don't hide things', if they don't come up that's not on you."

"So national secrecy in general is forbidden."

"We could intercept all your communications anyway, and we have the means to read minds. Secrecy is impossible, the charade is discouraged."

"May I give you some advice?"

"By all means."

"On this planet, threats are issued, meant, considered a precursor to violence and coercion and destruction and every sort of subtle harm, and carried out. You are not using them as though that is understood. You are not using them as though you know you are making them."

...nod. "I apologize. I mean you to believe I will destroy your society if convenient; I do not mean you to believe I would leave its people to die."

"I'm very fond of my society, Prince Morifinwë Carnistir of the Noldor."

"Then let's figure out how to make it convenient to keep it."

"I can inform the rest of my caste that we should consider ourselves at your mercy and ought to term our de facto surrender since you fancy you don't require it to be unconditional, but I'm not sure this will produce the convenience you seek. I must ask, how much do you read up on societies before you insert yourself above them -?"