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There are a lot of Amentan countries. Vanda Nossëo representatives are dispatched to all of them. These Elves (two with black hair, one with silver) take a shuttle down from the lightleaper to a country called Calado, and radio ahead to request permission to land at a elegant modern spaceport.
okay by comparison Voa and Tapa look like thriving modern democracies
All of them explain to her that typically when you stab somebody to death with a sword your lawyer does not try to get you off, but tries to make sure all your rights are respected and negotiate for a shorter sentence.
"Doesn't it matter at all that it's not illegal in Rivik? Everybody's heard 'you have to read up on the law' but nobody has heard 'you have to read up on alien law when interacting with non-aliens in case they care if you overwater your herbs or something'."
"Do you arrest soldiers and executioners and tell them they commited murder? People used to spank children, when you land on those people do you kidnap every parent around - of course you do, you don't care if the kids have anyone looking after them at all -"
"If a war starts as a consequence of our arrival, we do arrest the responsible parties. The consensus is that empirically the best way to reduce child abuse is media campaigns and that arrests cause more harm than good, but if the evidence shook out the other way I imagine that policymakers would give it serious consideration."
"Are you saying you think you will somehow reduce incidence of people 'murdering' reds by abducting me? That's insane. Everyone's going to blame the red."
"...look, you seem to be imagining that 'the law is not fair' is a legal defense. It's a reason to change the law, maybe, but it's not at all a legal defense. You will not win if we try a legal defense of 'yes, we broke the law, but it's an unfair law'."
"...there are a couple options. I want to discuss one of them with you but I'm concerned it might damage rapport, it relates to the question of whether it was wrong to kill the victim."
"I'm clearly going to have to settle for rapport that doesn't revolve around my lawyer not being an alien."
"Is there any observable thing, including magic things like mindreading, that would, if you observed it, cause you to consider it likely that reds are - in a category where killing them is a bad thing to do?"
"...maybe something I haven't thought of? I mean, I don't know what mindreading is like - I'm not claiming reds don't perform cognition, some of them write repulsive little blogs -"
"Yeah, I'm not sure what exactly it is that you do believe or I'd be able to make more specific suggestions. Do you think that reds don't have experiences? Like, they're generating thoughts but there's no consciousness?"
"I see. Often I recommend that clients do something to persuade the court that they wouldn't act similarly again; can you think of anything that might work for that?"