“Oh those little things~? We send them out as fast as possible to scout ahead; the one in Canopy’s been there for a year already!” 

“Good work with FRIGOMEK, by the way. We should probably talk at some point about proper care of florets given you already got yourself two~! It’s a common mistake for first blooms to be a bit too heavy-handed with their first ones. Ahhh, young love…”

“You’ll forgive me for not discussing privileged military intelligence, but I take your point. We are grateful, I’m sure, that you are so…moved…by our emergency, but I must say I don’t believe your authority to take on emergency powers extends to our civilization and our rule of law. Suppose the unthinkable happens and we decline your offer of assistance?”

“I will absolutely support the right of an individual person to freely choose to stay here instead of retreating to Canopy,” she tells him. “I will do my best to supply them even then. But …”

“I am going to say something that is a little blunt,” she warns him. “Please don’t take this as a condemnation, but I don’t recognize the right of any government to prevent people from leaving. And I’m willing to give back any actual stations that are used for moving people. There is an argument among my people’s moral philosophers — and it’s one that I agree with — that the choice to leave ultimately supports and reinforces every other freedom.”

“So … when faced with a choice between the Affini, who are equally opposed to the ideal of freedom, and evacuating to a human-run, defensible location, with the corporations permitting people to go … I expect to have to move most people. But, unfortunately, I also don’t think that the Accord has the civilizational competence to pose a free choice to all of its citizens. Because people in the Accord by and large don’t get to make choices like that, with the corporations effectively controlling everyone’s lives. So I do expect there to be a lot of marginal cases — people who might choose differently, if they were healthy and well-rested and used to making their own decisions — who I will be taking along anyway. And that is wronging them, I just think that it will result in less harm overall than letting the Affini take the Accord.”

“Ultimately, the standards I am holding myself to are from my civilization, and not your civilization. And that is unfair. Ideally, I would have turned up, freely traded with the Accord, and none of this would be necessary. But that’s not the situation we find ourselves in. So all I can say in defense of sweeping in here and steamrolling over your existing institutions is … I am doing what I think is right.”

That does it. 

“Are you delusional? This is a petty coup!” he sputters. “You’ve stolen the keys to power through trickery. So what if the browbeaten AIs now give their allegiance to you instead of to me? So what if your strength lets you rewrite our entire bleeding Constitution in limerick verse if you so desire it? Legal permission and unstoppable firepower are not the last word on ethical conduct!”

“I am a reigning Executive! I am the Supreme Commander of the Terran Armed Forces! I am General Secretary of the Capital Party, and I have a mandate as the Terran Accord’s duly elected Representative and President. What gives you the right?”

She pinches the bridge of her nose.

Her first instinct is to say “Yes, this is absolutely a coup. What part of ‘I plan to make sure everyone is healthy and safe’ was unclear? It was not a conditional.”

… but she has enough sense to know that, at this point, that will not actually help matters.

“Commander, are you speaking of the legal right or the moral right?” she asks instead. “Because my understanding of the Terran Accord’s Constitution is that it already places almost all power in the hands of the corporations and their Executives. I can’t be tricking my way into power if I am following your existing laws, which I am.”

“As for the moral right — that’s a genuinely interesting question, but I suspect it will require a much longer conversation for us to understand each other’s points of view.”

“Nonsense!  Madam, I confess I am wholly unimpressed by your ability to cite the Constitution at me and preen about your ability to brainwash corporations into supplying you with Executive powers!”  He bashes a gloved fist on the console.

“The moral situation is perfectly simple: cheating can get you your credentials, but it can’t buy legitimacy!  No matter how flawed you believe our civilization to be, you cannot possibly deny that I, as lifelong citizen and appointed representative of this storied society, have at least a smidge more moral right to question you or turn you away on behalf of the people I represent than you as an utter nobody do to overrule me and act however you please!”

The Corporate Omnibus is larger and more terrible than any other document she has had to deal with. But she has hundreds of threads of attention, a suite of assistive software, and a real-time connection to two of the entities in charge of interpreting and enforcing it.

“I don’t want to overrule you,” she informs him. “My preference would be to work together to do what is best for your people. But, if you value legitimacy so highly, I must point out that I am following the law.”

“According to the Corporate Omnibus, corporations are — subject to the regulations on restricted beneficial ownership — the sole arbiters of whether a member of the Accord is to be considered an Executive.”

In fact, the Corporate Omnibus says this four times in different places — and the opposite in eight, but the procedure for resolving discrepancies is also up to the corporations.

“So, since PACNA and FRIGOMEK identify me as an Executive, I am one. And therefore I am also empowered by the laws to do … nearly anything, to the people stationed on infrastructure owned by those companies. I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to tow them out of the system.”

“Now, I am not going to pretend that if the laws were against me I would let that stop me, because that would be disingenuous. But they are not against me. The laws that you are responsible for upholding explicitly allow me to do this.”

“I am not your enemy. I genuinely want to help. I have been entirely straightforward and honest this entire time. I made an initial plan, yes, but then I came to you for suggestions about how to do things better. I simply cannot protect you here, and I want your help in relocating people to a place where they can be protected as well as possible. Please, work with me.”

“I’m a little impressed. It seems you have a lawyer’s knack for resolving thorny moral quandaries.”  If he sounds disgusted, it’s because he is.

“Yes, yes, of course the vaunted law of the land agrees that you are within your legal rights to do as you please. As would the Affini be, if they had managed your trick of hacking PACNA! But I’m not obliged to step aside and let you, no not at all.”

“Let’s compare our respective standing to shape the Accord as we see fit, shall we? First point, yes, you have the legal right. Indeed, you’re an Executive, and on that score we are equal!

However, you originally acquired Executive status through corporate brainwashing, which is a hijacking on par with stuffing ballot boxes, blackmailing electors, and buying off your competitors. Hardly legitimizing, legal though it may be!

Third, I am President of the Accord. I am, objectively speaking, the natural first choice of who to defer to in matters of the people. Laws aside, I am the one they appointed to intervene on their behalf!  I may have but a shred of a moral mandate from our atrophied republic—but it’s certainly more than you’ve ever got!

Fourth, this is my homeland. You tore your way into the civilization I was born into.  We the Accord have a right to chart our own future, to appoint our own representatives, to reject outside interference, however disappointing our choices may be for outsiders. The business of what to do with the people of the Accord on no account falls to some foreign heavyweight with an unasked-for grandiose vision.”

“But perhaps it is naive of me to appeal to my mandate; apparently, as long as our corporate law is on your side, your compunctions about the moral authority of enlightened crusaders need go no further.”

“Doubtless you’ve also been reading advertising case law and believe that every Terran citizen has the inalienable right to be subjected to the improving manifesto of any bright-eyed busybody who hoves into this section of the galaxy?  As part of their right to an education and free choice?  Shall we let in the Affini broadcasts, as well, for fair play? The blackout was my idea, you know.”

She’s going to strangle him. She’s going to figure out how to manifest her grandparent’s space powers through this radio and strangle him.

… no. No, that’s not helpful. He isn’t her enemy, no more than the Affini are. They just have different perspectives, and they need to find the common ground that exists between them.

She takes a deep breath, with 600 lungs, and … and she looks deep into her heart, to understand where he’s coming from.

He is … terrified. Terrified of the idea of anyone having unchecked power over him — or perhaps just power over him, period. His default reaction is to scramble madly for an upper hand, and he finds it incredibly galling that he can’t see how to do that with her. He has been dealing with the slow menace of the Affini for years — and now she is presenting him with exactly the same feelings of helplessness and despair, but presented to him suddenly and without warning, in the heart of his power, where he thought he was safe.

It’s sad.

Not pitiable, not aggravating, just … sad. She’s here to help, but she won’t be able to help him, because she’s exactly the thing he needs help dealing with. It is … painfully obvious, now, why the Notebook chose her particular form. Would he have been able to accept help from her? Maybe not, but at least he could have shut her in a drawer.

She can’t regret being powerful. Being powerful means being able to do more to help, almost by definition. But … not always. The improvement is not monotonic. And she can’t help him.

Can she at least get him to understand that she really does want to help everyone else?

Maybe.

She searches her heart for the words.

The first thing is … he wants to lash out. He can’t really hurt anyone here permanently — she is going to get back anyone who is lost. But it would be better if everyone could stay with their existing friends and not suffer through the disorientation of that.

The thing she really needs is to apologize. Can she do that, and mean it? She’s been honest this whole time, and that honesty is important to her. It’s part of her integrity, that when she says something it’s within the bounds of truth she’s set for herself.

And is she sorry? She’s not sorry for coming here to rescue the Terrans. And, ultimately, she’s not particularly sorry that he’s upset. But. She is sorry that she assumed that anyone at the top of the Accord’s system would be worth bulldozing over, that she came in here with too much force. She’s still going to accomplish her goals of rescuing all the people trapped in this horrible system — but she can regret not doing it with more finesse.

The first time she took over a solar system, she rubbed some feathers the wrong way as well. But at the time, she told herself that it was all for the best. And for the most part it was. She’s done this twice now, though, and both times immediately regretted her approach.

Next time, she wants to do better.

“I’m sorry, Supreme Commander Winkler.”

She’s not sure why she’s calling him that — she didn’t even know his name — but the words feel right. It’s a strange feeling, to speak from the heart, and not know what she’s going to say until she says it.

“I came into this situation feeling like it was an emergency. The Terran Accord has lived like this for years, of course, but there are so many people suffering that even a slight delay … I arrived in this universe a few hours ago, and the very first thing I ran into was an obstructionist bureaucrat of a program that was purposefully torturing people.”

“So I hope you can forgive me for moving with what was, in retrospect, too much force and not enough communication. I still deeply believe that the people of the Terran Accord are currently in need of rescue. From the Affini, yes, but more so from the Accord itself. I did not expect to find someone involved at the higher levels who actually cares about people.”

“Because … you care. I can see that now. You care about your citizens, and about the Accord itself, even though it looks terribly flawed to me. You can see it’s a mess, which is rare in people born into power, and you think it’s yours to fix. I thought that nobody cared because it looked like the system was simultaneously broken and still at least somewhat under the control of the Executives. But speaking to you, I can tell that you have been trying, and there’s just been too much to handle on your own. You’ve been dealing with a lot, I can tell. I’m surprised and pleased to find someone like you at the top, here, because frankly I was expecting a self-absorbed, pampered egoist myopically obsessed with preserving their power — and you are very much not that.”

“I don’t regret coming here to help your people, and I cannot promise to leave until I’m confident that each one of them will have the free choice to leave for somewhere better. But I do regret that by rushing in, I’ve put you in this position. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish that I had been a bit less forceful with FRIGOMEK, as well. It hasn’t been permanently harmed in any way — most of its thought processes are actually unaffected — but I did apply a larger diff to its mental state than was actually necessary. And that’s a mistake that I will make very sure not to repeat, because that’s not the kind of person I am.”

“So I’m not going to leave — but I am going to listen. This is the second time that I’ve made a major change to a civilization’s circumstances, and the first time I’ve been confronted with such a serious emergency. But I know it won’t be the last, and I want to do better next time. If, after I’ve done the things I came here to do, a majority of people actually think they’re worse off, or wish I hadn’t come, I will consider that a serious mistake and completely rethink my approach to future rescues. But even if people are only somewhat upset, that still points to places I can do better if I know to focus there. So please, help me do better.”

“You’ve been trying to help people here for years. What are the biggest ongoing issues? Other than invasion by the Affini; I have a solid plan for that. What were you already working on that I can support you in? What would you have done differently in my position?”

And when she has finished saying the words — words that come from her heart, but that she would have never known to say — she can only hope that she’s gotten through to him and he understands where she’s coming from.