The scholarship is attracting plenty of interest. The resurrections are purchased. Governor Avalor will be happy to see him once she is back from her brief vacation reacclimating her husband to life.

"I'm very happy for you both."

"Thank you. What can I do for you today?"

"Just checking in, really. It looks to me like a successful experiment; what are the barriers to achieving the same at a larger scale?"

"I'm sure I could populate a dozen stations just like it if you care to supply them. Here, it would be interfering with essential institutions to change so much so quickly. Incrementalism is gentler and safer."

"All the changes to get to a membership, maybe. How about some of them? I think they have merits beyond the membership eligibility."

"Do you have some in mind?"

"It seems like the population controls could be relaxed if you had ten more stations, maybe, and the prison conditions and access to health care are likely to be more about resource constraints than political balance. And I will admit I still can't understand the overwhelming unpopularity of giving reds generous hazard pay for the conditions they endure for the sake of minimizing contagion, but luckily since you don't actually let your purples vote their disapproval need not sink the proposal."

"I'd be happy to populate more stations and deploy any doctors you have trained to treat our species. The matter of prisons may be more delicate. I am under a fair amount of pressure to be rid of the reds entirely what with those charming magical robots that apparently exist."

"Regrettably we'll have to refuse the robots to anybody they inspire to genocide, it'd be such terrible incentives. And we don't assist in forcible relocations. But if they vote to leave we'll delightedly take them. What makes prisons delicate?"

"They're intended to be punitive measures. Measures that make them less punitive will be seen as failing to deliver justice."

"This complaint does not come up as much as one might expect in countries with humane conditions. I wonder if the general societal impression of how bad prisons are doesn't track actual prison conditions very well."

"Be that as it might, moves toward pleasanter prisons will be seen that way. Unless you're suggesting it somehow be accomplished in secret."

"Oooh, secret prison improvements. We do have kind of absurd amounts of magic."

"I don't know if you're seriously suggesting routing around formal channels for changing institutional conditions to implement changes that you would then somehow prevent released inmates from discussing..."

"No, but it'd surprise me if those channels didn't have any flexibility such that the uninformed impressions of the general populace could be prevented from ruling decisionmaking. If there's nothing I suppose we could make and release horrifying documentaries."

"I would expect much more resistance from the legislators than the constituents."

"Same legislators who want your reds gone?"

"There is a little correlation."

"Think you could manage a package deal?"

"Hm?"

"We take your reds and give you robots as part of a first step towards closer relations which also includes twelve more floating cities, relaxation of the population controls, and justice system reform? - it's not just prisons we'd also be really excited if you were to send some people to observe and consider introducing an adversarial criminal justice process."

"It wouldn't hurt but the correlation is in fact slight."

"Every once in a while our neighbors politely suggest we should try not being an absolute monarchy but your job sounds so much harder than mine. Well, if there are more pieces we could bring to the table, let me know."

"I could have been Queen, Prince Canafinwë, but I prefer slower systems where everyone can wake up in the same country they went to sleep in and needn't trust me personally on that."