The nosoi looks irritated, picks up a gavel which a normal bird of its size wouldn't be able to handle, and strikes it.

"Demon representative, pay attention! If you do not complete your duty to explain the Abyss, you will be returned there in contempt of court."

What? …oh, the judge is threatening to send him back, ugh. "Repeat yourself? I need a moment."

"I shouldn't have to repeat myself because representatives should not be sleeping during hearings, at least not in a way that interferes with their ability to do their jobs. That said: You are to explain the nature of the Abyss. If you do not cover the most common objections to it, I will do so for you."

"The Abyss is, uh, chaotic evil?"

The judge still looks like ey expects more explanation.

"Demons, uh, fight each other and stuff? Things are messy and strong demons are in charge."

There, is that good enough?

Not really, but the Abyss's incompetence is their responsibility, not Pharasma's.

"The Abyss is commonly objected to on the basis of petitioners entering it typically being tortured or killed, as well as its disorder. Protean, you're next."

Incomprehensible crackling that is somehow suggestive of freedom!

"Protean, you are to use the courtroom translation infrastructure appropriately or be sent home in contempt of court."

Crackling sigh. "Fiiiine, we can go with the boring option. The Maelstrom, which Pharasma calls the chaotic neutral afterlife, is a region of infinite possibility, which even the newest petitioners have the opportunity to play with. It's difficult to get bored there, you have to work really hard on it. There's no better place to experiment, most planes will want you to follow other people's instructions or demonstrate safety. We'll just make things more interesting, most of the time. People who don't like us usually complain because they for some reason think being at least sort of the same person forever is important."

"To clarify the protean's statement, Maelstrom petitioners typically in the long term have little to no continuity of identity with their states on arrival to the Maelstrom. Nirvana, you're next."

"Thank you, your honor. Nirvana is the Neutral Good afterlife. We send representatives to every petitioner's trial, because of our beliefs that every soul contains a spark of Goodness that ought to be encouraged to develop, and every soul deserves a decent afterlife. We attempt to provide petitioners we do receive with an optimal recovery from the burdens of mortal life, which tends to create more knowledge of oneself and one's values, and eventually leave petitioners better prepared to pursue those values without being damaged by the pursuit. Because of our goals being so trial-oriented, we train a lot of lawyers. We're commonly criticized for our practice of transforming petitioners into animals associated with what areas of recovery they should focus on, and for our disinterest in facilitating petitioners' desires to take on duties they aren't ready for."

And, finally, the judge indicates that the Elysium representative, several colorful whirling paper-appearing rings with crayon-looking eyes, may speak.

"Elysium is the Chaotic Good afterlife. It's an expansive wilderness where you can do what you want if you don't hurt other people, unless they're okay with it. There are cities of varying levels of temporaryness. It's easy to find public things and easy to not be found if you don't want to. We're often criticized for the lack of permanent settlements with reliable infrastructure and services beyond the necessities which people are personally motivated to provide, but it's possible to figure out ways to get most things you want without that. To be clear, when I say 'you can do what you want' that's a broad statement. You can learn how to act as a lawyer while sleeping, store spare time and use it later, take your friends volcano-surfing safely, et cetera."

"Petitioner, do you now feel that you have some understanding of the nature of aligment and the afterlives?"

He pauses to consider the question. "There was something … weird … about some of those explanations. I'm not sure if I can really explain the intuition, which annoys me. I think I have some understanding now, but I still don't understand why I was auto-assessed as Evil."

"We will now be hearing opening statements from the representatives present on why the petitioner belongs in their associated afterlife. Except for myself: I am present as a judge, not an advocate. We'll continue with the same order we had during summaries unless anyone has a convincing argument as to why this would produce an unfair trial."

Nah, nobody here is really seeing an argument they want to make there.

"Thank you, your honor. First off, I don't think there's any serious argument to be made for a non-Lawful systemic alignment. I certainly don't get the sense that any of the Chaotic parties present are taking this trial all that seriously, they seem to be here to sleep or spectate on the first usage of the policy update we've been presented with. The petitioner was for the full duration of his life, both outside and within this court's jurisdiction, scrupulously honest including to the detriment of others, and only broke the law in cases where political officials stated that having the law be scrupulously followed was not important to the operation of their polity and they didn't plan to prosecute cases of people from favored demographics violating it in ways that didn't produce outrage."

"Secondly, the petitioner is clearly morally Evil. For the full duration of the time in our jurisdiction, the petitioner acted to improve the capabilities of Cheliax, an Evil country–"

"Objection! Your honor, polities do not under typical circumstances possess alignments, and Cheliax does not meet the criteria established in In re Formian Worker 976."

"Objection sustained. Devil, please rephrase and continue your argument."

"I apologize for my overly colloquial language, your honor. For the full duration of his presence within this court's jurisdiction, the petitioner acted to improve the capabilities of Cheliax, a country governed by Evil leadership, which encourages Chelish citizens to develop an Evil alignment and pursues goals typically considered Evil on the international stage as well. He did so in the service of Mireia Rasdovain, an Evil person who openly committed seriously Evil acts. In terms of myriad daily actions, he benefited from slave labor, including giving orders to slaves, causing them to accumulate painful injuries in his service, and increased risk of diseases that they would not have been cured of if they'd contracted them. Additionally, one of the evils of undeath is the production of entities that contain souls within their dead bodies but do not allow those souls to operate those bodies, which applies to one of the main branches of research into the manipulation of life and death that this petitioner pursued."

Leaving aside the obvious problems with these arguments, namely the fact that the petitioner operated for his entire time in Cheliax under what was analogous to a permanent Suggestion effect, the issue with trapping souls in their own bodies without control of those bodies is the subjective experiences of those souls and concerns about depriving them of afterlives, neither of which apply here. Ey's not supposed to make arguments like that right now, though, so she doesn't.

He asked, and Lady Rasdovain told him that Cheliax was unusually prone to pursuing humanitarian goals, and the workers were getting hazard pay! He conducted due diligence! (Why doesn't that feel as persuasive as it did for the past few years? It's like the ground is falling out from under him.)

He still doesn't see how cryonics causes harm to others, though.

And the Arbiter speaks.

"Your honor, while many of the arguments Hell makes regarding systemic alignment are correct, the same cannot be said of the arguments regarding moral alignment. As we can infer from the guidelines regarding Atonement, actions committed 'unwittingly or under some form of compulsion' are considered a classic failure of alignment auto-detection to represent a soul's actual alignment. All of the petitioner's behavior in Cheliax occurred under a Gullibility-like effect, causing him to be unaware of the nature of Cheliax despite the extensive evidence he was presented with. Given this, we have to consider the petitioner's beliefs, regardless of whether those beliefs are justified. He believed the slaves were paid employees receiving hazard pay and access to healing spells adequate for cancer et cetera. He believed that Mireia Rasdovain had excuses for the evil acts she visibly committed, such as them being illusory, consensual, et cetera."

"Furthermore, the actual impact of the petitioner's efforts is low, because Mireia Rasdovain wanted to keep her advantages to herself, and kept all extant instances of and notes on the petitioner's work in a hidden area of her estate, which was destroyed when Sergi Khollarix had her estate burnt. Khollarix also killed many of Rasdovain's slaves, giving them no opportunity to fall ill from their work under the petitioner. Given the petitioner's consistent Lawful behavior, and Good goals warped to Evil ends with no significant lasting impact in either direction, we believe the petitioner to be Lawful Neutral."

"Finally, the petitioner's research into brain preservation does not constitute research into undeath. In his home context, it was intended to prevent informational death, a state analogous to soul destruction. It is typically held that preventing soul destruction is Good. In the present context, he was attempting to reconstruct a medical process he was familiar with and acting under a vaguely understood concern that not all souls made it to afterlives. In either case, it does not produce an active creature of any form, much less one powered by Negative Energy, much less one which traps conscious souls in body they cannot operate."

In some ways, that speech explains his confusion. In other ways, that speech just makes everything more confusing. This is plausibly the most important event of his existence that he still has any chance to influence, and he has absolutely no idea where to start.

"As Axis mentions, the petitioner spent his life under a Gullibility-like effect. However, as this effect prevented him from lying, his honesty and other Lawful behavior cannot be reasonably construed to be actions he can be held responsible for. To really understand the petitioner, we'd have to see records of what actions he would take under some circumstances where he wasn't under such an effect. Luckily, Abaddon has such records, and is prepared to share them with the court."

"Explain. Including why those records were not submitted in advance."