I'm not worried about her doing it. And even if she does expel all of us, we're not the only source of outside connections.

I didn't mention this there because I don't know if it's a reasonable request or not. But if you send a palantir it'd mean a zero-risk way of talking to people on the outside, specifically, Noldor, and might encourage her to do the ritual sooner.

...this touches again on something confidential even from my cousins, can I rely on your discretion?

If it's the same terms as last time, where I'll act as if I don't know it to keep the secret but don't have to actively convince them of anything.

Yep. So we don't know the extent of the Enemy's mind control but the upper bound is 'here we are, not slaves' and the lower bound is extensive ability to manipulate the experiences and perceptions of people in his power. The Valar deny having abilities like those, which if they're not lying just means it'd be against their natures to use them in that Vala-way where against their nature is in fact prohibitive.

The palantiri work by putting the interlocutors in the same place for magical purposes - for osanwe particularly. Giving one to Doriath is in a very significant sense putting everyone who uses one in Doriath. I don't know how that interacts with Melian's new abilities as a practitioner.

It shouldn't, she hasn't done much of the practice aside from basic telling spirits to do things—shamanism to be polite—and doesn't have any avenue to learn anything like mind control. I don't see it being much more dangerous than sending it to her last week would be.

Do you expect it'd count as the same place for magical purposes when it's an unrelated kind of magic?

I don't know. I had a lot of hesitations about any stone-holder being essentially in Doriath even when it was only the ordinary power she exerts over the place. Now, it sounds like if she drags it out of existence, she plausibly takes them with...

Theoretically, but not very plausibly. Dragging bystanders down mostly happens when there's loads of bad karma as well as insufficient connections; that's the weight that does the metaphorical dragging. And Melian's going to have pretty great karma. The other possibility is to snap the connection with them. They forget everything but the general idea that there was a kingdom like everyone else, but they'll be safe. That's a lot more likely if they're mostly attached to people on the outside. It's Doriath's inhabitants that'd be at risk, possibly including the younger refugees eventually.

It's still very unlikely this happens at all; they could get by with just the Enemy and his forces if they had to.

In that case I'll ask the King about it, and advise that we send one.

Good to hear.

Why is the colocation thing secret? The danger would almost never come up outside this very specific situation...

Has some other implications which are apparently obvious to people cleverer than I.

(Notably absent: "and not to me or which have not been explained to me.")

Okay. Um, other things I needed to talk about were that I'm not splitting the elementals we collected like we did the ghosts; I had to promise they wouldn't be used against Doriath and I can't actually guarantee that because of your oath.

Also there are Dwarves, who are great, and there's some technology I should describe to the inventors here.

We can set aside a greenhouse for the local refugee population, with a rule against any of the Noldor using it? Though that might still not work because I think if events did put us at odds with Doriath they'd side with us, they don't like Doriath much.

Technology sounds incredibly valuable. Do you have time to sit down and do that now? This is Dwarven technology? Do we need to go to Doriath to meet Dwarves?

We can export food, as long as any Silmaril situation isn't too sudden you can just not use what we send you when you march.

The limiting factor on technology is that a lot of the best things are externally obvious and the Enemy would get even more use out of copying it than we would from having it. Also that I'd rather not be in a room with your father if it's avoidable. For discretion reasons, not personal ones.

There are Dwarves in Doriath, but those are the ones who were willing to take the job. They have. Good reason to dislike the Elves there.

Oh?

Mass homicide.

Dwarves don't have osanwe, they're also immune to it, the Elves thought they were funny-looking animals, they hunted them. Maybe it was reasonable with the knowledge they had, I don't know what it's like to rely on a sense that suddenly stops identifying who's a person, but. They hunted them.

He sends an emotion: speechless strangled horror.

Eru.

Don't think it's a remotely reasonable mistake, but I guess we until recently were never hungry - it speaks very well of the Dwarves that they live in Menegroth anyway - ugh. Okay.

Most Dwarves don't. It's a high-paying job because no one wants to do it, plus they say they don't want to leave the people who killed their families or friends or compatriots to the Enemy by not selling weapons. You know, kind of like we're expecting Elwe to do to us later.

Plus I imagine it's better for them if there's some nice organized place with an army out distracting the Enemy. Do your objections to being in the same place as my father extend to someone bouncing him the conversation so he can ask questions no one's thought of, do they extend to him listening through the ears of someone present...

It's about information, not geography. He seems likely to get much further with less to go on, especially once I get talking about technology, and I don't necessarily trust him not to hold off on building the visible-but-useful things that the Enemy shouldn't know about. I did consider just sending descriptions and diagrams of discreet options, but I was going to be here anyway.

We are not going to let the Enemy get his hands on things he shouldn't know about. If you're confident you can identify everything that can be done discreetly then it amounts to the same, I suppose.

Mostly the same. The risk tolerance difference is pretty likely to matter, which is why all the not mentioning some of the most potentially powerful but obvious things.

That suggests these technologies can be considered more discretely than I'd expect - in general, advances have lots of implications for apparently unrelated fields - it's really a shame my cousins don't have a competent engineering team, that'd be the ideal way to do it...

Most of the implications would be for other things likely to be discrete or hard to reverse engineer. I can't picture it leading to the really tempting risks.

All right. Who would you like to talk with?

Maybe Curufinwe? Anyone who fits the criteria of being capable of filling in a lot of gaps since I only know a few designs in enough detail, while not being Fëanáro himself.