"So that he can report on my liberal ways to his masters? I was planning to go on TV and denounce them sooner rather than later..."

"Best to control the information flow to the people spying on you, I've found. --Are you planning a coup?"

"At the moment I'm just going to completely delegitimize their current actions and give them a chance to shape up or expose themselves as hypocrites."

"Okay, but you understand that if you get on TV and say 'actually, God is fine with gay sex and screwing fourteen-year-olds, complementarianism is a lie, free speech is good' or whatever, there will be riots. People will die. Some of the people rioting will be in the military and they will come here and shoot us and take over the government and last time that happened we nuked Cascadia."

"...Adults screwing fourteen-year-olds is in fact not okay, but I take your meaning."

"It is not obvious from the outside which sex you do and don't take offense at!"

"Statutory rape is bad! Anything rape-like is bad! Anything consenting adults do--for sufficiently scrupulous definitions of consent, I suppose--is fine. To a first approximation."

"Unless the consenting adults are cheating on their spouses! And you might want to figure out a word to use other than 'statutory rape' if you're talking to Cascadians."

"That one is less sexual immorality and more 'in general, sleeping with people who are not your partner when you have a partner who is not fine with it is a dick move.'"

"I hope you can understand that from the outside it is not remotely obvious that having consensual sex with fourteen-year-olds is worse than cheating on your spouse, and we Gileadites have clearly been functioning on an outdated version of the commandments so we have very wrong preconceptions about what you do and don't approve of."

"Fiiiiiine. I will be comparatively gentle about ripping off the band-aid."

"Not actually what I was going for. I suggest contacting a government you like in North America, which sounds like it would probably be Canada, and arranging for a peaceful transfer of power. Present it in the press conference as a fait accompli. Complete amnesty for lower-level members of the Republic of Gilead, higher-level members get prison sentences or maybe house arrest, most governmental functions shall continue as normal but Canadian laws will apply, special elections will be held at thus-and-such a time, you will distribute pamphlets to every pastor explaining correct Biblical interpretation."

...She hesitates. 

"...Would Canada go over substantially better than Cascadia?"

"I don't think it would make that big a difference, You just seemed pretty down on sex with fourteen-year-olds. I think it depends on what policies You prefer. Cascadia tends to grant teenagers more rights, it's slightly more sexually liberal in general, it's easier to buy drugs there, they have stronger gun rights, they're kinder to animals, they're bizarrely anti-city, they spend a ton of money on their military but are generally pretty pacifist, they're the only country I know of where having open borders is a political third rail, they have forecasters which is admittedly a fascinating method of government..." 

"Fourteen-year-olds having sex with fourteen-year-olds is fine. And Canada seemed just about set to wipe itself out if I hadn't showed up."

"The problem with the Cascadian model is that, if it's common and socially acceptable for teenagers to raise infants or be their family's primary breadwinner, it's really hard to justify legally limiting their other choices, especially once you started giving a bunch of them the right to vote. For what it's worth, I think it's genuinely very rare for a fourteen-year-old to date someone much older than twenty, teenagers are just not very interested in people twice their age. Canada was wiping itself out because it values women's rights and wants to protect teenagers from making choices that they are quite likely to regret, both of which seem to be things You value."

"Yeah. Probably Canada is the winning move, I guess."

"I will arrange a meeting with the other Commanders. One thing worth thinking about is how You'd like to respond to Cascadia and Mexico, both of which also institutionally do things You disapprove of. For Mexico, You can talk to the Pope, it will no doubt go as the Pope does. Cascadia will have to be handled delicately. Your soft power is limited, because they have no reason to like or trust religion. And Cascadia's #1 priority as a country for the last twenty years has been making sure that we cannot use hard power on them. If You try, the entire continent will become radioactive slag."

"My plans with regards to Cascadia involve apologizing. Talking to the Pope...man, that's going to be awkward."

"Fortunately, the Catholic Church moves slowly, so You have time to choose the right approach. Your PR among Catholics is already quite good-- healing babies by dunking them in baptismal fonts does that-- but it would be best to avoid a schism."

"Maybe I can get away with 'you guys were factually wrong about some things but literally no one is not, we're cool'."

"I think it would be best to study the Pope's psychology and figure out how to target your appeal to him-- with your popularity among everyday Catholics, if you can get the pope on your side, the hierarchy shouldn't pose a problem." 

"Yeah," she sighs. "I guess that's probably strategically sound."

"An apology is a good start with Cascadia. I'd suggest healing as much radiation poisoning as possible. --You said you're not omniscient, what miracles precisely are you capable of? Healing, removing bitoxiphosphene from the atmosphere, multiplying food, calming storms...?"

"Oh, the bitoxiphosphene's gone, I dealt with that as soon as I could. Which was...not long after I...became public. Uh. Healing empirically yes, multiplying food and calming storms I haven't tried but I assume I can."