The prime minister knocks on the door.

"Minister, do come in. We have much to discuss today."

"Do we? I was under the impression that I set the agenda for our meetings."

"Of course, minister. We can and shall discuss everything on your agenda but I'm afraid I must pre-empt your first item of business with an issue of greater importance."

He spotted the half-empty bottle. "Are you drunk?"

The prime minister didn't think members of the High Council were able to get drunk. They didn't have any money, so they couldn't buy alcohol. Having never seen the Ayatollah take more than the smallest sips of wine at one ceremony or another, the minister had assumed they swore a vow of sobriety or something. It seemed more plausible than the rumors that they were outright immune to intoxicants.

The Ayatollah appeared to sober up as if shaking off a bad dream. "Have a drink, minister."

In six years, the Ayatollah had never offered him anything besides water or tea, not even the one time their meeting fell on a solstice. "I think I will," he said hestitantly. Suspecting the Ayatollah hadn't bothered with a glass, the minister wiped the rim of the bottle, poured some wine into a teacup sitting on the table, and took a seat. "How bad is it? Did the Eastern Suzerain steal one of the Republic's death rays?"

More accurately a heat ray. History reports that by using mirrors to concentrate heat, the First Republic fought off other powers and established its independence on an island. Eventually the weapon was used offensively, leading to a takeover its local archipelago and the First Republic becoming a major naval power. Reportedly, this technology was reportedly both lost during the early days of the Empire that succeeded the First Republic and rediscovered soon after the Empire fell. Reportedly, the High Council holds multiple heat ray generating machines as a deterrent to any rival powers planning an invasion.

"Minister, even if the High Council were to still maintain ancient weapons of mass destruction, is it not reasonable to assume that we would keep key members of Parliament like yourself apprised of their operational status and location at all times? Furthermore, given that history records how quickly the ability to use them was lost without the expertise of Republican technicians, do you really think that, even if a foreign power would be able to maintain it for long, they would be able reverse engineer it and create a genuine threat?"

"In any case, the urgent issue is that we have reports of... persons... congregating in a underground cave system in the western province."

"What's wrong with a few spelunkers?"

"Not just humans, minister. Persons," the Ayatollah reiterated. "Talking animals and fairy-folk and, and... well, we believe they come from other worlds."

"They, the talking animals and fairy-folk, have come from other worlds... to spelunk in our caves?"

"You think they're planning an invasion."

"I am concerned that they may be a disruptive influence to certain ongoing plans to reformulate our own world."

"So you think they're not planning an invasion."

"Even if they were planning an invasion from within the cave, we hold the high ground: sea level. But, no, I think if they were belligerent, there wouldn't be so many different kinds talking to each other, possibly exchanging gifts."

Foundational Document One is considered the most important volume of the Second Choronym Republic, giving an overview of its history, literature, culture, etc. By loose analogy, if Queen Anne were to have commissioned a similar document for her newly united Kingdom of Great Britain, it might consist of some of Shakespeare's best plays, the nicer parts of the King James Bible, and excerpts from Bacon, Locke, and Newton.

"Foundational Document Zero, actually. It's been a pet project of linguists and epistemologists for some time, asking the question, 'What if we encountered a culture too foreign in its way of thinking to understand anything we have to say without a primer?' In that way, it's like a book written for small children, explaining numbers, letters, colors, and so forth, except it's written in Standard. The current draft is on its way to Parliament for review in case we make contact."

"Does it have to be written in Standard? I haven't spoken it since I was in school and I was terrible at it even then."

"Most people are, given that it's a constructed language based on predicate logic. But we hypothesize that a common occurance for speakers-who-employ-logic* is to develop a language like Standard, and that the two languages will be isomorphic due to the underlying logical structures."

*The Ayatollah is using a word that means both "one who speaks" and "one who employs logic".

"So, what has been done so far regarding this situation?"

"We've sealed the caves."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"It would be more dangerous to leave them unsealed. It lets us control the situation until you all decide what to do about it."

"I don't like the clusivity implied in that last sentence."

"Minister, wise as we are, the High Council cannot unilaterally bear the responsibility of opening relations of other worlds. Academy can advise on what decision to make. Bureaucracy can claim a degree of latitude in how to implement decisions. But the decision on how we proceed must be as close to democratic as possible."

"'As close to democratic as possible' sounds like you're prepared to overrule Parliament if we don't make the decision you want."

"It's worse than that, minister. This is a decision being made on behalf of everyone on the planet. Unfortunately, the majority of everyone lives outside the Republic's borders and lacks any representation in your parliament. In my opinion, the decision to re-open the cave lacks democratic legitimacy if representatives from our trade partners, direct and indirect, aren't included."