"My point is it wasn't advertised. You can't make things up and expect people to read your minds."

"I understand why you'd feel strongly that the law should be changed."

...sigh. "So given that the law is currently this stupid thing what can I do."

"...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?"

"I mean, you can't kill a lot of them, they're still necessary..."

"I mean in its own right."

"...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'm agnostic about that."

"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?"

"Apparently it will cause aliens to abduct me."

"The court will observe that if Rivik were to, say, start issuing five-day prison sentences for the murder of reds our law would not permit further arrests."

"...and?"

"...and if that's the only reason you might not kill reds you'd go back to killing reds."

"I never killed one before, it isn't as though it was fun or anything. Look, I'm an actress, I can play a bit, but I don't know how to do improv as whatever kind of pretend moral reasoner you want me to be."

"That's why I was thinking if there were a way for you to actually sincerely conclude that there's a chance it's morally wrong to murder reds that would work better than suggesting you pretend."

"This situation is so perverse."

"I'm sorry."

"I have no way to believe you."

"I don't think you should testify at trial. "I don't agree that I did anything wrong and I'll do it again if I could get away with it and it came up" is about the worst possible thing to tell a court, sentencing-wise."

"I can do a bit. I just don't know what bit to do."

"...okay. Imagine that your species found aliens. And the aliens were nice enough except they were convinced that homosexuality was evil and that it was fine to murder someone if you found out they were gay. And imagine that someone went to Rivik and murdered a gay person and were facing a Rivikni court. That is how the court sees you. That is the bit to play."

"...I didn't leave Rivik."