Nod.

"We've made a lot of progress. Alien contact helped, people want to be - cosmopolitan -"

"It would just be embarrassing if powerful aliens thought you were horrid."

"It'd be a more effective incentive if they didn't have lots of priorities we find silly - the Prime Directive! but it still does quite a bit."

"The Prime Directive probably makes sense to them - goodness knows if I heard Lathalind was bothering some tribe that barely discovered fire on some island I wouldn't think 'oh, I bet that tribe is going to come out of this really well' -"

"If they just taught them boats?"

"They wouldn't, though. The Prime Directive is - designed for people who wouldn't."

"If someone had given Amenta warp back during, say, the Oahk Empire, then the Oahk Empire which should not have had warp would have it. But it'd still collapse for all the reasons it really did, we'd still develop in the ways we have..."

"Would it though?"

"I suppose it's possible it'd have straightened itself out, but I doubt it."

"I mean, maybe it would have been able to leverage warp to keep being itself longer."

"I think most of the challenges it created for itself would have been worse with warp, and the justification for its existence weaker. But it's not impossible. It just would have been worth it, not to put everyone through forty years of empty springs."

Nod.

"Amenta may end up letting the Federation pressure us into not doing it much."

"Your problem is sort of unusual, but to hear T'Mir tell it Federation medicine is good enough to do astonishing things to the average newly warping planet if they let the doctors at 'em."

He frowns. "Wonder if they'll let the doctors at places we give warp, if they know it's motivating."

"Good question. They probably also don't have an unlimited doctor supply."

"T'Mir's really the expert here, I'll find her and ask what to push for."

"T'Mir is great. She has a running total of how many lives she estimates she's saved if she takes credit for the doctor thing."

"That is adorable. How many?"

"Twenty-three billion something!"

"...wow."

"I know."

"That's amazing."

"I know!"