That level of sensitivity does not make Felix feel better over puking blood on their carpet.

"I appreciate that. They've been told to keep quiet?"

"We let them know it's important for you to have control over if and when the story comes out, yes."

Nod.

"It sounds like it'll be hard to keep completely quiet, but we never need to go public if you'd sooner not."

"I want to go public eventually. I just need to have a better grip... on things first."

She nods. "We're happy to answer more questions."

"Most of the problem is that I can't really make the right questions. Aside from things like 'the scientific basis for the castes to work this way.'"

"I could describe to you some things we might be tempted to arrange, and you could talk with us about whether they're possible to do safely?"

"Sure."

"Lots of people want to live in our cities, but the trains are all past their capacity at peak hours and and land is built about as densely as we can without running into elevator problems. If there were a few pocket dimensions overlapping the city, we could have a city where four times as many people could live without increasing transit costs. We could have large portals for trains and for commuters, and ask the dreamshaper to leave those open continuously. Then we could let people do construction inside the pocket dimension - either with magic or normally - and let people move in and live there."

Sigh. "I am still not inclined to share dreamshaping. I don't even want to commit to consider the possibility at this point. I don't think you appreciate the problems or maybe you do and want that power to use against the rest of the world, I don't know. On the other hand, yeah, pocket dimensions would allow all of those benefits and more. My own would allow for a decentralized electric grid. Each building with it's own generator and torches replacing all the electric lights - my dimension does not like to make them. The only material constraint is volume. In fact, my dimension can create super-luxurious things more easily than cheap things if you ever felt the need for a platinum-plated city. I could make mega-structures like space-elevators, underwater domes, artificial islands and cities built to maximum size both up and down. I could stack artificial islands on top of each other and then send one by one through a portal so you have both a chunk of ocean inside my pocket dimension and multiple moving islands outside. I haven't tested this in practice, but I think if I create a pocket dimension on another planet it is going to be a terraformed version of that planet. You can use that to siphon air and water to help terraform the place."

"All of those sound very appealing. I don't think we do understand all of the problems, and we certainly need to, but - it sounds like Earth isn't suffering the same way Amenta suffers from population pressure, and we might be willing to accept risks for the hope that we can give more of our citizens the chance to raise families."

Nod nod. "I wouldn't say our population problems are less complicated, but they don't feel... inevitable like yours. I could try explaining the risks better. I think you're at least aware of some of the bad consequences if I give the power to the wrong people."

"Absolutely. It could be very destabilizing. The thing we're considering is whether there's any way for it to be done safely, we certainly wouldn't assume that most ways of doing it would be safe."

Felix decides to not point out that the other diplomat didn't sound like they are just considering. And he screwed up that conversation anyway. Instead he just nods. "Dreamshaping appears to be personality based, but not necessarily in a straightforward and predictable way. We think it might be a metaphor to ourselves or something about ourselves. And even with that the possibility-space is too unlimited." He pauses to think of bad case scenarios. "A dimension could be permanently on spring. A dimension could set people permanently on spring. Or could mess with their reproduction some other way. Pocket dimensions can make people - mine did," he fidgets uncomfortably, "and I would be worried about those even if they didn't have unfortunate traits like causing more population pressure. We are not entirely sure what correlates with level of control due to sample sizes and other selection bias. A pocket dimension could make super-mobile reds."

"That all sounds like reason to test on a moon, or are there ways a pocket dimension could endanger people even from that far?"

"...I think that it's going to help a lot if instead of thinking 'future pocket dimension' you thought 'cluster unpredictable magical effects'. But I admit that the distance and vacuum would help a lot."

She nods. "The red dimension, do we know if it has any of those effects?"

"It is really hard to get the information and there is a level of... skill to figuring it out. A lot of the sensory experience of dreamshaping is not easily put into words. I might use the words 'my dimension likes to make luxurious things' but it's not really it. And the red is terrified of me, which does not make communicating things easier."

"You shouldn't have to interact with it, we can get you a social worker who'll be more suited."

Sigh. "I would be willing to take advice from a... good social worker. I hadn't been a day since I arrived and less than that since I started interacting with the red. Give us time..."

"Is it possible there'll be danger in the meantime?"

"I admit that yes. I don't think you can really take any action to make things any less risky."

"If the red were removed to a safer location where the dimension couldn't open on innocent people?"

"Can still expand it remotely. I can't expand the bits of mine that are back home. But if I was taken to a moon I would be able to expand Anitam sections. I might suggest it though."