Nod.

"And there might be spells or potions that could help with some things but I don't know offhand if potions work outside Elcenia, and my recollection of interworld theory is that wizardry definitely doesn't, you have to cast everything here and if spells leave they break. Not sure what would happen if the spell was designed to be cast in Elcenia to affect things in other worlds, without being strictly a summon or a send, but that's definitely a top-of-the-tree problem, I'd have to inhale all the literature on interworld theory before I even started thinking about designing something. Who am I kidding, I'm going to inhale all the literature on interworld theory anyway."

He grins at her.

"And we've got decent leverage on this end because my father works for the government of Esmaar, he's a - what's the phrase again - he solves miscellaneous problems that no one else can get a grip on - National Applied Policy Authority, that's it. Sort of the perfect thing for this occasion. Is there an equivalent on your end?"

"Maybe, but I don't know, I've never really interacted with my government."

"Well that's markedly less convenient than 'yes and I have one in my immediate family', but I bet we can figure something out."

"I'm sure they'd find somebody upon being presented with - magic aliens."

"I'd sure hope so. Imagine if magic aliens showed up and the government just sort of threw up its hands and refused to deal with them."

"I would be ashamed of my representatives!"

Giggle.

That is a good smile that she has.

It is the smile of being adorably mindcontrolled!

The mind control is a problem but the smile is still very cute!

Yes. "What's the Esmaarlan government like?"

"Eh, I don't know, governmental. I'm pretty sure I don't still have a civics textbook lying around or I'd point you at it. There are appointed representatives who can be got rid of via referendum and you need to have some form of magic to be one and the country's demilitarized because what with the emphasis on magic our wards are sufficient to put a stop to any attempted invasion."

"Huh, the magic requirement is interesting. There's a little country on my planet where all the politicians have to touch an artifact that makes them incapable of lying. And lets them see in the dark, but that's not why they have to touch it."

"Oh, I like that one. That is a good country."

"It's not actually a very good country but it hasn't collapsed yet."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Well, most people don't want to be literally incapable of lying even in their personal lives so the selection isn't great, and they can't keep state secrets effectively in the hands of the politicians - if one of those politicians even just refuses to answer a question you know something's up - so they have some appointed positions for people to know secrets in but then those people can just tell the politicians 'it's important, I can't tell you why, do this', pretty much on their own recognizance... and the reason they do this is they had a lot of preexisting problems with corruption and it turns out some people are good at being corrupt even without telling any lies..."

"Aha. I was imagining something more - voluntary, approached from the direction of 'let's see if this has interestingly positive effects', not 'maybe if they literally can't lie they will stop fucking everything up'."

"Nope."

"Well that's much less delightful."

"Alas. Maybe you could borrow the artifact if there's somewhere riper for a positive social experiment about."