"Yep! With assorted possible magic systems! I'm not as urgent as Cam about it but I'm hoping someone comes through who can detach spirit animals - did you ever hear about how that works -"

"Mitros described it, yeah, it sounds - like a very frustrating hard-to-solve problem - the way I imagine species whose babies are more people-ish feel about abortion, only moreso -"

"A bit, yes. Some people bind their familiars and then just send them off to do whatever but they don't speak the language and have an awful time learning it."

"I assume you've been set up with the latest in machine translation -"

"The latest in machine translation needs a corpus. Familiar languages don't even come with writing."

Nod. "And Milliways isn't really a great solution - your magic system can't do translation?"

"If it could Fannar would've done it."

" - fair enough."

"It's complicated in exactly the wrong way."

"A way not amenable to flowcharts, you mean."

"It'd get pretty ridiculous. Telepathy is doable, a kind that doesn't use language might be."

"Would it be permanent or something you'd have to cast to have a conversation... is that a design thing or just a mystery until the spell first goes..."

"Mitros has a one way thing that lets him talk in people's heads, he casts it and then he can do that for awhile."

" - ooooh. I am jealous."

"I picked it up because the chart was around but I seldom see the point."

"Having to charge it in the middle of the conversation when you want it would rather defeat the purpose but - I frequently realize something while I'm talking with people and it'd be really convenient to just get it moving immediately instead of writing it down or trying to recall it later."

"I just organize my life so I can always write things down."

"It's a bit weird to write things down in the middle of a cocktail party."

"I'm the Queen and they can deal."

"I suppose that would do it. You and Mitros will not be doing any of that silly democracy nonsense?"

"Seems premature before everyone else has the correct values. I don't actually think one of them is 'democracy' per se, do you?"

"'a government that can be changed by their engagement', I think yes. 'one person, one vote', no, not especially."

"Mitros will reschedule a surprising variety of things to have more time to sit around waiting for people to come yell at him about stuff."

"I can't say I've been tempted to do that, there are too many people and it wouldn't filter very well."

"We'll have to streamline the system as the population grows. He just really likes lounging on his throne listening intently to people's problems!"