"Yeah. But I think we'd made a lot of progress on it by the time slavery started getting abolished in most countries. And I don't think we ever had city-strangling plants."

"You've at least mapped your whole world, presumably? We don't even have a good map of the east coast of this continent."

"Yes, we've mapped the whole world and landed on all the moons."

"We're not even sure what our moon is actually made of, people argue about it sometimes but it's one of those classic totally impractical arguments nobody's likely to resolve this century."

"Ours are all rock, I guess I don't know if that means yours is."

"It's the kind of rock - I suppose if you have no magic, you might not have white granite either? Amazing building material, quarries neatly, impressively lightweight, carves beautifully, basically imperishable and pretty durable to having lesser rocks thrown at and so on?"

"I am not a rock expert but I do not know of a material quite like that on Amenta."

"It'd be pretty obvious, you haven't seen any yet because Navarr tend to build in wood instead wherever possible; there's a fair amount of it in the ancient walls and various buildings in Seren, but it tends to get panelled over or overgrown.

I suspect that you don't have weirwood or mithril either? They're basically the wood and metal equivalents."

"They don't sound familiar."

"Seren actually has a weirwood grove on one side, they're quite impressive trees.

I have completely lost track of what we were talking about. Comparative social progress, maybe? I suppose if you only have unlineaged humans you don't have so much of a racism problem, or do you just find new and exciting things to look down on?"

"We have castes."

"Ah, yes, I think I remember you saying in passing. I'm not sure there's really any particular social technology to stop that other than 'don't', I'm afraid - here it's mostly just been that societies that don't do that have been gradually outcompeting those that still do.

Although I suppose the Dawnish still have nobles and yeofolk, they at least don't make it hereditary though."

"They have non-hereditary nobility? How does that work?"

"Everyone is born yeofolk - they foster kids out quite a lot, so it's not entirely just a technicality either - and you take a Test of Mettle set by the Earl of a House if you want to be nobility instead.

If they want you in their house they might give out something simple like obtaining a token something from every nation of the Empire, if they don't want you they'll demand something impossible, but most are elaborate challenges because the Dawnish really like their elaborate challenges, they use them for marriage proposals and settling disputes as well."

"How... distinctive."

"Yes, it's all pretty impractical. I did ask a seneschal why they put up with it once, but apparently the yeofolk really enjoy enabling all the wacky things the nobles get up to, they can go 'I made that happen' without having to always be trying to outdo everyone all the time.

Weirdly they're a lot less trouble than the nation that split off from them, who are mostly very practical farmers, but holding grudges is their national sport when it isn't kicking the shit out of each other vaguely near a football, and they get immensely offended whenever the Empire has to make any tradeoffs whatsoever with their hated enemies."

"Oh dear. Do they make trouble about being offended?"

"Yeah, they export a lot of food so they can make quite effective trouble. Also we've been perpetually at war with the Jotun - that's the nation on the other side of them - for years because they insisted on attacking the Jotun one season early and breaking the truce. And if that wasn't enough, one of their generals was executed for trying to kill a diplomat on the floor of the Senate. They're an awkward bunch."

"Wow. On my planet a food exporter did something stupid and got one of their farm provinces conquered for it so their biggest neighbor would have independent food security."

"Hmm, so you still go to war despite having a global social order? I was assuming your 'countries' were more like the nations of the Empire than our relations with non-Imperial forces."

"There are international treaties but the countries do not otherwise have formal control over each other."

"We've just started on the whole international treaty thing with the Liberty Pact, there are a lot of bilateral treaties but that's the only one with a considerable number of signatories. And that's just, like, 'abolish slavery, put trade sanctions on slavers, reward other pact members with free trade'."

"Ours are about things like population control and war crimes."

"Yes, 'accidentally' or 'regrettably' murdering Imperial citizens during a fight or causing widespread damage does tend to get people irritable around here too. Some people are even keen on not murdering the enemy's civilians.

We have somewhat the opposite problem with population, though; the Empire has sometimes had trouble having enough children to keep up with the insatiable armies."

"I guess if everyone can join the army that would be... a possible result..."