"Okay. No one making decisions is too dense to understand 'if you steal their power crystal the aliens kill you and probably lots of other people'. I, uh, take it that might actually be false because you guys aren't really used to following through on things like that, but they won't have any trouble believing it. Anitam complies with international law about population control and conduct in wartime and things. There are places that would go off the deep end given a way to get away with it but we aren't one of them. And don't have a way to get away with it. The treatment of reds is horrible - that's true everywhere - but aside from that I think you're imagining this country...worse than it is? Or bad in some ways that it isn't?"

"We don't know what your country is like. Or even your world. Or your species. You look human enough that you could even pass for non-magical back home. But we have already seen multiple species' differences that are likely innate. We are pretty much flying blind here."

Nod. "Okay. So, Anitam has a ruling council of five people, and requires a 4-1 vote for most important things. That makes us conservative; we default to not doing things. We've been to war once in the last ten local years, and the war lasted less than a season. They're elected, every two years. They all have a large staff that writes legislation and researches policy and things. They approved searching the district for the dreamshaper red, and they're working up rules about how to handle dreamshaping once we have it. The rules they're considering are pretty much that you own the area inside your pocket dimension, but are liable if you harm people by closing off access irresponsibly, and you have to purchase a credit for people you make with a waiver for people you make in the first half-hour or something."

He nods along. "Reasonable enough so far. We might want to work out more things to provide and protect created people, but maybe the current ways suffice on that front. How does the credits interact with...? Well, the new people might not be the same caste as the dreamshaper. They might not even be Amentan."

"They'll have all the protections citizens have. I know a green who I bet could be persuaded to dream up a casteless society on a terraformed moon, but until that's a thing they will have to be a caste. Maybe they can test for aptitudes or something."

"Introduce me sometime. Gosh. Meeting a third person. I wonder when I'm going to reach double digits!"

"I can host a dinner party, if you want to meet people."

"Sounds fun!"

"I will set it up. What else do you want to know about Anitam -"

"What are the plans, if any, to deal with new magic? Not dreamshapers in general but in specific dreamshapers, their dimensions, people, animals, artifacts and so on?"

"They still have to follow the same laws as everyone else. There'll probably be guidelines on foreign affairs stuff but I don't think they were planning to have any laws specific to the conduct of dreamshapers - hurting or threatening or menacing people is illegal for everyone -"

"I'm mostly concerned that some things might slip under technicalities. But that might depend on the more complex workings of the Anitami judicial system, I suppose. And I was also talking about good kinds of magic. It's okay to be conservative about new strange things, but it doesn't mean there isn't a loss of potential if you bar a healing artifact from use. And somethings aren't as clear cut as healing."

"I can't think offhand how the law would prohibit a healing artifact. Might prohibit getting rich off it, I guess. It's generally outcomes that are prohibited, rather than classes of activity."

"Could be healing with side-effects," he offers, "less than a year ago they rediscovered a pocket dimension that could make magical prosthetic eyes. If you had only one eye and could see well enough from it to do this perspective magic thing and pluck a star out of the dimension's sky. I don't think they had come with a conclusion on allowing people to remove their eyes surgically."

"That'd be allowed here. Might be an oversight board to make sure they knew what they were doing and weren't being pressured, like for organ donation."

"Good." Thinking. "I've asked a lot about your government. Now, your people. Do you think they are going to adapt well to all this? I know that the extra space is a huge boon, but are they going to be okay with things like 'yes, that person has wings' and 'yes, that fish is a person'?"

"Fish being people would be weird but - do you want something more than 'the law will be enforced' -"

"Just 'the law will be enforced' is okay. No deal breaker if people find it weird, but I'm also asking the question on behalf of Felix who is going to want to know."

"People will find it weird. The government will enforce the law, which says they'll need a credit but that once they've got it they've the same rights as everyone else."

Nod. "Felix is absolutely going to buy credits to the ones that lack it. Or take in those that seek asylum. Assuming your government collaborate with a citizen doing that?"

"Anyone can buy credits but one thing that might come up is - if you give other countries dreamshaping and they have fish-people who need asylum, they can't come to Anitam for any price, unless someone'll swap with them."

"Wow. Is the population problem that bad? Do you think that later, once your government is happily in possession of dreamshaping, they might be willing to relax that rule for dream created people?"

"The population problem is that bad, yes. No one's taken immigrants in living memory. It's why it's so important to have stable governments, because there's no way for people to leave, they're stuck with us. Once we have dreamshaping they might relax it some but - it would have to be a sustainable source of space to relax it entirely."

"Okay, I don't think that it's something we can meaningfully address now, but it can be left for later. Treating well your potential fish-citizenry should be a requirement for every country anyway."

"Some places will not be good about that. It'd be a shame if they got - vengefully thundered into the ground over it."