"Hmm... I think I could have diversity, versatility and flexibility all there. Might be able to put them there without sacrificing the other details?"

My word is binding. All hear my oath of power.

Through land, sea or even sky. All hear my summon for magic. This my summon to use the flexible powers of magic.

No matter how, no matter where or when. All hear my pledge of benevolence. This my pledge to use diverse ways of benevolence.

Through all places in creation. All hear my promise of freedom. This is my promise to use the versatile paths of freedom.

(old oath) This is an oath to fight injustice. May I never break it. / (new oath) This is an oath to bring hope. May I do my best to be worth it.

(There is a tally mark after the "new oath" line. She isn't discarding the old oath yet.)

"Of course, there is a benefit of not spreading oneself too thin. I might just go with power and magic instead of benevolence and freedom. After all..." She mutters to herself.

"I'm not sure how much the fittedness of these lines matter, but I don't tend to see freedom as versatile, not on an individual level anyway. Respecting the freedom of others is a narrow road with a lot of pitfalls. Diverse ways of benevolence doesn't quite scan in my head either. I can't put my finger on why though. And now that I'm thinking about it there's a degree to which benevolence and freedom feel opposed to me, though that's likely just a false dichotomy imposed on my mind by institute politics."

"I was thinking more how there are many ways to be benevolent and how there are many ways to be free. Which isn't quite a virtue, but in my head sort of works. I honestly don't get how benevolence and freedom can be opposite to each other? Like... at all. I also don't see respecting freedom as a narrow road."

"Right, so for the opposition of freedom and benevolence, I think it's because the way freedom tends to be used in the political debates I mentioned is as freedom to make your own mistakes. Where the side of benevolence is more about protecting people from making the mistakes we already learned from. The sense in which respecting freedom is a narrow road comes from a broader take on what it is to be free that incorporates both that sense of freedom to make your own mistakes and being free to be yourself, in the sense of not constantly being worried about dying or being killed. Trying to balance those two concepts is what makes the road narrow."

"Ah, politics. I can't say I quite like either side of the debate? My way of seeing freedom and benevolence is kind like... If I had the power, I would give everyone enough magic to fend for themselves and them let them sort out what they want. That doesn't solve all problems, but takes most of them."

"The debate is kinda a lot more complicated than that and it partially revolves around the fact that distributing some of our technology is often worse than all or none. There are also smaller factions who mostly care about other things like the sanctity of other cultures or the potential that their natural development will lead them down paths we haven't considered and therefore by opening diplomatic ties we're destroying priceless research opportunities," he says rolling his eyes at the end. "The issue with most capabilities you can give people, and this may not be true of your magic, is that it's often easier to hurt someone than to protect yourself. To some extent you can obviate that with social structures, but it takes time for society to adapt to new capabilities."

She makes a face. "Yeah, not really the kind of problem I am good at. The freedom and benevolence thing still looks like an arbitrary dichotomy to me."

"Maybe so, I think that broadening the specifics into such big terms is likely pretty silly. But I think the underlying question is important: should we let people make their own mistakes even when it'll hurt them badly? Or not too differently: should we show people our answers to a problem they're facing or let them find their own without that sort of interference?"

"To which I propose the question: What those people want?"

"Well that is certainly a solution to the problem. I'm not sure it's the best solution, but it's a solution. The issue of course is that by asking the question, you are in a way already interfering in their lives in a way that some would say is irrevocable."

"I mean, I understand there is a difference of... effort, but I honestly don't think that doing anything isn't changing their lives and removing any choice and options from them altogether is the epitome of not actually caring for their well-being."

"That is among the arguments used against the hardline no-contact stance. You may note that I didn't mention having any stealth magic. I am in favor of opening diplomatic contact with less advanced societies. I just worry about how easy it is to use that leverage to force them to be more like us under the guise of offering help and advice. The technology we have all but necessitates massive social changes and so it's not entirely unexpected that societies look to emulate us more than they would in the absence of that sort of upheaval."

"Well, yes. It isn't an approach without problems, but that prime directive nonsense is worse."

"Agreed, I'm taking a lot of exploration missions lately because there are certain research projects that might strengthen the anti-interventionists."

"Does you world still have cultural problems with that sort of thing?"

"I'm not really sure what you mean. Are you referring to anti-interventionism, because yeah that's a pretty big issue politically as I've said. Or are you referring to what I said about research? There are some outside the institute that oppose research, that thinks we've already come too far, but that wasn't what I meant by my comment. Some research is being done into the magic that first forked me in the hopes that we can um, run afterlives for worlds without intervening there physically at all. I expect that will strengthen the anti-interventionist cause."

"No, problems caused by interventionism."

"It depends a lot on who you ask and what their values are. When we open diplomatic contact with a world there tend to be some flare ups of violence and to some degree their culture will be changed into something a bit closer to ours. People like myself think it's worth it given that we help cure their diseases and, once we have the infrastructure setup, offer uploading, but not everyone's value system places the lives of individual people as the most important thing, and our arrival tends to cut birth rates by a lot in the long term, so fewer people get born."

"What causes the lowered birth rates?"

"People who don't have biologies tend to not have kids. You can still manage it but it's hard to do. Also, we tend to make really good birth control available.  Some people hang onto being biological as long as they can but aside from having kids there aren't many advantages and there's a bunch of advantages the other way."

"...So you are saying that is mostly people making the decision to not have kids?"

"Yeah, as far as I know it's all down to increased ease of not having kids when you're biological and increased difficulty having them when you're not. There is something of a spike in the short term since we make it easier for gays and lesbians to have biological kids."

"Okay, now take that logic and apply it to, say, a woman whose husband is cheating on her? Do you think if a third party wanted said woman to have more children, then it would be okay for that person to hide the husband's affair? Speaking as a girl whose father committed trigamy."

Zahn looks puzzled for a few moments then, "Ah, you're referring to how I followed up my comment about different value standards with one on how lower birth rates is one of the larger effects of our interventions. I suppose I didn't phrase that as well as I could have. I don't think that anyone seriously sees having more people be born grow up and die as an important terminal value. Just, there are some people who are afraid, incorrectly in my opinion, that cultures with low to zero death rates are doomed to stagnation. I'm not an anti-interventionist and I'm likely arguing their points poorly though."

"Ah, okay. My main problem is the idea of having other people having children while they are not fully informed of the situation."