"And another part of the problem is that we don't know we can trust you with ultimate decision power... We could confine the red somewhere Amenta-side with a lot of small closed portals that Felix made. It takes longer to unmake a portal that isn't yours and then Felix can just replenish faster than the red could unmake. But we would be afraid that you'd rather just kill the red than do this or for the red to be mistreat some other ways regardless. ...It's reminiscent of ...a thing that happened."

"They will absolutely rather kill the red. Everything about this situation is set up to make killing the red an appealing solution. I like a floating island better than portal containment because it doesn't oblige anyone to trust Felix."

"I think one of Felix's mistakes was not telling you that your world is fucked up. But that is besides the point. Are there ways to make killing the red less appealing?"

"Yes, have a straightforwardly verifiable-by-anyone way of proving the red is not able to touch anything anyone cares about."

Sigh. "Is monitoring him constantly - through standard methods - enough for that?"

"Should be."

Sigh. He runs his fingers through his hair. "Do you have suggestions on how to get to that point to the point where we are with a minimal amount of disaster?"

"Will Felix make a floating city for them, once he's back?"

"Yes. He tried to dissuade the cops by saying he wouldn't make any cities but I think he would be more comfortable with going back on his word if instead we made some sort of trade off for the benefits of the reds? He is still going to make a floating city if that is what it takes, but I am... deeply worried about him. I can not not be."

"A floating red city would solve not just this problem but also a related one, Olvala stranded some of their reds with this new experiment of theirs. It'd be very good for reds. Maybe he'd be willing to supply it as well. We're worried about him too, he seems - very unhappy and easily set off and powerful, it's not a good combination."

He gives her this look over the Olvala experiment.

"Uh. I don't think he is easy to set off. What he was trying during the incident was the skymage equivalent of being scary but nonlethal, it would've worked back on Earth... if he really had wanted to harm people... Felix wouldn't've been one of the casualities. But that said. Yes, he is basically a black hole of guilt and despair desperately trying to pull himself together to help your world."

Nod. "Once the red's gone he can take a few weeks or months to think, no problem."

This extracts a laughter out of him. A pained one. "Silly blue. That is not how Felix works. He is going to be absolutely devastated until he thinks he is actually correcting the wrongs of this mess. He won't be stupid about it this time. Going to research things and everything. But the notion of time off is unthinkable. Like, literally, if we don't raise the possibility he won't come up with it himself."

"I can think of a way to fix it but I don't think he'll go for it, it involves making deliberate dreamshapers."

"And I am a bit skeptical that you understood the heart of the problem. But I am curious about your sales pitch."

"Red work could be replaced with robots. The problem is that any society which does that will kill the reds the minute they aren't needed, because people hate them. The transition will be bumpy even if there's something to transition to, because the reds panic and riot and riots get suppressed with indiscriminate mass violence. I could easily convince everyone to relocate reds to a pocket dimension of mine - mine would be the easiest sell because the reds trust me not to kill them with it and everyone else trusts me not to let them out of it, but other people I could vouch for would also be okay - with portals to the places where they're needed to do their work. Then, once we can replace them, we just close the portals and they live happy lives on their own. Peaceful transition. Solves the biggest pending catastrophe of our era."

"Wow. I wasn't expecting that."

He thinks.

"There is a nonzero risk that you could not wake up again. Less so if we coordinate it right. Have Felix sleeping before you do. Dreamshard you. Felix opens portal to where you are and we retrieve your dream-avatar. Could take less than ten minutes if all goes well. But..."

She nods. "If the dimension is really dangerous something could already have gone wrong?"

"Well, there is that, but if anyone is going to retrieve dream-avatars it's going to be the one of the immortals and if the dimension is dangerous it can just not be used. What we are worried is general potential to abuse the power of dreamshaping. Magic, spying on your enemies, invading places, creating a high-skilled army loyal to you. All of these are potential problems. Felix could easily stage a coup of your country without lifting a finger, your country might even be better afterwards. But... the problem is trust and I can think of one way to get that trust in a reasonable timeframe, but it's another thing that is going to break Felix's heart so the plan better work."

"The country would not be better afterwards. It is fairly important that you realize that. What's the solution for trust?"

"Felix can create extremely compentent people and make be able to make people with a type of magic from Earth. The coup could be bloodless. The coup could be done completely in secret. But I grant you that it isn't worth it."

"The way is creating someone with the answer to the question 'can we trust these people with dreamshaping?' and the new person would know. I should be able to convince Felix to go for it. But it better work."

"I guess if you made 'particularly competent Anitami blues who you trusted and who could win elections' and had them run for office and win elections that might be an improvement. But we really like having elections, it's kind of a matter of principle, and we really like having leaders who care about us and the things we care about. And - imagine if some people from Amenta went to Earth and decided to overthrow your governments over the bisexuality thing - even if the bisexuality thing is really really stupid, would that actually help."

Sigh. "Why do you have to create a person with the answer to that question instead of, like, a piece of paper with the answer to that question."

Shrug. "Alright then. I don't actually think it's a good idea to overthrow your government."

"Format conversion from the brain to other formats is complicated. Creating a piece of paper with the answer to that question would take many months and it would be a short piece of paper not detailing why unless we add even more months to the problem. And then it would only answer if you are a trustworthy and not if anyone you vouched for managed to trick you. And your pocket dimension might turn out not to be useful for our purposes. A created person could vouch for dozens and dozens of people and gives us the reasons why and then be completely unbothered by existing and pursuing something else with their life."

"And you have somewhere to put them? Okay."