We'll find what we need to make it work somehow.

"That's - I don't know how many, the planets are all different and I don't have any idea how some of the systems work, and - a lot. And you won't convince them all."

"He's very convincing, but no, you're right - where in the process of trying to convince them do you expect things to break down? Several points of failure is a good answer."

"Um, the part where you're confiscating their property and responsible for the breakdown of their society and the part where the last time someone conquered them it did not go very well and a lot of them would rather die than submit to a foreign power that has ideas about how to run their society differently? Probably?"

"Hm, not exactly what I meant - I mean, will they refuse to speak to us, or try to coerce us into behaving differently in some way, or require shows of good faith that involve handing back their erstwhile slaves before they'll accept any other sort of aid like food, or commit suicide in protest -?"

"They have been known to do the committing suicide in protest thing. Or, uh, blowing up their entire planet, I guess that's not the same thing, but it's - happened. I will be surprised if they don't attempt to attack you. If attacking you doesn't work then I won't be surprised if they talk to you. And then they'll probably attack you again? And - I am having a hard time picturing them not attempting to mobilize for full-scale war under these conditions? I expect some of them to attempt to negotiate in various strains of bad faith, and I expect a lot of others to just - not."

Mathrael would be so much better at this. Why isn't Mathrael here. Aaaa.

"If the captives just vanished and there wasn't anyone to blame for this or go to war with, but there was enough food -"

" - oh, then I guess you get general societal disruption and a lot of coups and countercoups and probably they blame the Carthons and redouble their efforts on the existing war. Probably."

He doesn't look delighted about this possibility.

"If Eru'd give us resurrection for non-chipped -"

"I bet he won't."

"He probably will eventually if only because I think Aulë's going to ask him every few millennia till he gets all his Dwarves back, but it's not going to happen on any reasonable time frame and not to make us able to operate more casually in an operation like this."

"97819, do you know anyone who might have thought of plans to minimize deaths while reforming the Alteri government?"

"Um. So nobody has, uh, actual plans. To actually fix things all the way. Because that'd be insane. But - I know some people who know more than I do?"

"It seems like it's a good idea for us to spend a while planning. If you know people who should be here for that, then we can absolutely go and get them."

".....how, exactly?"

"We'd have the Valar do it. They can do a lot of things. I don't know how much my father already mentioned."

"He explained some things but I don't know how good a picture I have. I just - certain people are important, and removing them might have effects for the people they're around or might lead to problems with their other responsibilities, and - if you take some of the people I know and only those people that will be suspicious, too. But I was on Earth and Earth doesn't have short-term communications with other Alteri worlds, so, uh, I guess I don't know how much it matters?"

"Can you think of a way for people to vanish without causing problems for anyone left behind? We could cause an accident of some kind, for example."

" - uh - this is separately selfish but you could blow up the ship I was on. If you can get everyone on it off first."

"We will not blow it up with anyone aboard."

"That's where your family is?"

"Part of it."

"It seems like a good first priority to me."

She looks down at her hands. She doesn't think they've stopped shaking but she's not going to unclasp them to find out. "If you get everyone on that ship then you get several hundred Liars and several dozen Alteri, including some who're sort of reasonable and sort of know what they're doing. As these things go."