"That's the understanding, although we didn't anticipate the need for a criminologist so my understanding is only that of a layperson here."

"If we are going to end death it sounds like we'll certainly need some criminologists. In the meantime I wonder if there's another way to secure the Empire against treason so it need not be dissuaded with more killing people."

"...I would be fascinated to hear what you come up with."

"I think I'd need more information. For example, if people are continually trying to kill the Emperor, then we can just render him impossible to injure. If people are, say, exceeding the bounds of their orders in carrying out the massacres of colonies, we can't protect everybody in the colonies and we of course need to strongly dissuade them. If they're starting secession movements, well thankfully now you can let them! Same thing if they're having children without permission."

"People rarely make credible attempts on the Emperor's life but I'm not sure the spirit of the problem would be addressed if they just... bounced off," says Kahago. "That is, it would be an improvement, but they still would have tried to kill him, and if they learned he couldn't be injured they might attempt to harm him through his family or subjects instead. There are occasional problems with the chain of command... Secession movements often have substantial disagreements within the territory they wish to claim about whether that territory should belong to them or not, but if any secession movements want to simply leave and they wouldn't disrupt anything by their mere absence and you provide somewhere to go that's the obvious lowest-friction solution."

Nod. "We've yet to find a way to resurrect you, so the idea of any death continuing to occur is particularly horrifying. But I can imagine there might be narrow circumstances where some is required to protect against more loss of life."

"We appreciate your being flexible on things that concern our - different needs as species."

"It seems that it would be as unreasonable to expect you to adopt wholly peaceful institutions overnight as for you to expect us to adopt electricity and computing overnight. But we will both get there as swiftly as we can."

"Maybe a criminologist will be able to give a better picture of some of the obstacles. I'll send for one when next we communicate with home."

"Has relocating your end of the wardrobe been attempted? We left ours alone, in case that disrupted it, but now that the Valar are confident they can replace it it could be tried with no real risk."

"We're currently borrowing the ladies' home - they don't mind, they have others - and have not moved the wardrobe, no."

Elves other than Finwë make a face at 'the ladies' but he manages to refrain.

Kahago's assistant Agent Cherjoi is paying less attention directly to Finwë and notices. "They're being compensated for the use of the house."

" - oh, that's not - remotely the concern," an elf murmurs. Finwë glares at them.

"...is there something we can reassure you about?" Kahago asks.

"Not at this time, I think."

"...All right. At any rate they might wish to move our end if that proves feasible but the location is sufficiently discreet and defensible for the time being."

"I am glad to hear it. In that case I think the next step is the announcements about the end to killing and the portals."

"It may take a few days for the Emperor to come to a firm conclusion about how he'd prefer to make those announcements. It would probably help if he could display an accessible planet."

We can do portals to well-described locations at any time.

"Then I'll get ahold of someone who studies exoplanets and get them to describe you some likely options!" Grin.

Elves smile back.

And the diplomats go home to get more scholars. They come back with a criminologist and an exoplanetary astronomer and somebody who can determine if the exoplanets are as promising as they look.

In that case there can be portals to the exoplanets! With some fiddling to make sure air doesn't go rushing out of Valinor into the portals. 

And are any of the exoplanets habitable?