"I'm sorry."

Nod. Sigh. "So there aren't going to be enough daeva to have the role in my world that they have in yours."

"No. You'd probably wreck infrastructure back home even trying. Occasional stuff sure."

"If it's by species. If it's by universe of origin - people born in the right ones are in the clear - maybe it's worth having Amentans in a source universe for daeva, so eventually there are enough of them."

"Have to get them there, but maybe."

"Can't they go through here?"

"My door goes to New Valinor."

"And people who die there don't become daeva?"

"I don't know yet. I'd be really surprised if the cyborgs or the Ainur did. Dwarves and the local humans maybe."

"But not likely, given that we don't."

"Yeah."

"So. Your home universe, and even then it might just be humans - naturally-occurring daeva are all humanlike?"

"Yeah. And there are only humans in Limbo."

"Okay." Sigh. "So we keep summoning secret, use it for terraforming planets but not things smaller-scale than that..."

"You could justify sending reds through angels as a one time thing."

"Yeah. And pause time often enough that it's not a strain on angel access elsewhere, probably."

"If you can keep the door, yeah."

"We would be idiots to lose the door. And we season here all right."

"Oh good."

"I should head back and see how long I've been gone."

"Be my guest."

The rest of the Amentans have experienced nine seconds.

Convenient. He gets back to looking at treaties.

Cam can supply more at need.

What's the best route to having defensive alliances with some heavyweights but not joining any federations with ridiculous rules about caste systems?

The Federation has some provision for alliance without membership, although they will probably be bugged about maybe seeing about membership. Almost nobody will deal with un-unified planets, except in a very cursory capacity. The Ferengi will though.