"Why not? What makes a wizard different from you? Do they worship a different god or something? Our Mages' magic just kind of comes from the universe spontaneously through flowing power."

"Priests like me get power from any of various gods, wizards study the fundamental nature of magic and assemble their own spellforms, sorcerers have innate magic from their bloodline, druids get power from nature or the universe or something. Do people here worship the gods and just not have empowered priests, or do they not worship the gods at all?"

"That's a lot of types of mage. I'm..not sure I'm the right person to ask about gods, I'm an atheist. A few people worship various gods, or the same god different ways and have a lot of opinions on what's right or wrong about it, and it seems to bring a lot of people peace? But I'm not sure I've ever heard of it bringing powers, at least not in any time where it's well-attested."

"I don't know what would cause the gods to ignore a planet, or a dozen of them. How did humans come to be on so many planets, anyway? I thought we started on Golarion and had pretty much stayed there, with maybe a few people on the other planets around the same star."

"I...wouldn't have thought you'd even have gotten that far, by your armor, actually, that's impressive. But for us, it was the Compact and the Charter," the clerk says. "The first Mage-King of Mars overthrew the Eugenicists, who had force-bred magic back into humanity, and signed the Compact and Charter with the rest of humanity on Earth where we're from. The Compact says Mages dealt with Mage law and Mage crimes, as free from persecution by mundanes ever again as possible, and all Mages would be under his Majesty's Compact's protection. That's both the Mages by Blood directly known to descend from the victims of the Eugenicists His Majesty and the first Hands freed, and the Mages by Right the Testers spread out to help find from the children of mundanes. In exchange, His Majesty gave humanity the stars: mages using the jump matrix can jump far enough to cross between stars, and together with other works like the runic transceiver that let us communicate across the stars they tie the worlds of the Protectorate together. The Charter says that what a planetary or system government like Snap and Flytrap here get up to is their own business as long as they meet the minimum needs of their people for education, healthcare, and civil rights like speech, assembly, and exit." They pause. "Sorry to give you the speech version. I'm used to having to defend why we're here to slightly annoyed locals who don't get why the Protectorate is here at all."

The Corporal of the Marines chuckles. "Or Marines. It's like I say, after a couple years here you'll wonder why we're here if we're not going to clean it up a bit. Isn't that the whole thing about 'what use is His Protectorate if we don't protect his people'?"

"This is how they want to live, Corporal, and we have to respect those who make that decision. If we can prove crimes major enough to come down on people, we will," the clerk says. "In the meantime, that protection is being here to cover the bases for individuals and not wade into the local mess."

Samora knows a fellow patriot when she sees one, even if the system the clerk is patriotic about is foreign to her. 

"That makes sense, I think. As a way for magic to work and a way for society to work. Only our most powerful wizards can get to other planets, and Golarion has no overarching government, just kings of different places. My country, Lastwall, is run by paladins--people chosen by the Inheritor as especially righteous and honourable, and if they ever do anything Evil they lose their powers."

The clerk sighs. "I'd say it must be nice if it's that easy, but I'm sure its just as much more complex in practice as my little speech about the Protectorate?" They look back down at the bucket. "So, will that stick around, or can you....vanish it or something, or should I ask the private to go empty it?"

"It works better than any other system I've heard of, but empowering people is costly so there's never as many paladins as there's a use for. The water will disappear after a day if you don't need the bucket sooner."

"Oh, right you said that," the clerk says. "I...kind of want to see that, and we have other mop buckets."

They look at the second marine that had joined the group. "Private. Please take that and set it up someplace with a security recorder and some sensors looking at it and label it not to be touched? Then you can go about your duties. I think we'll be all right out here for a while longer." The Marine nods, and opens the door, sliding the bucket through with their boot before closing the door behind them.

"How large is the population of Golarian, or Lastwall? Would you be able to draw me a map?"

"Lastwall is about three million, give or take. Golarion as a whole . . . I have no idea. Tens of millions, maybe hundreds. And it depends on whether you're just counting the civilized races, humans and elves and dwarves and halflings and suchlike, or everything that speaks a language."

"...There are some people that speak languages and don't count in society? Why not?" the clerk asks carefully. Charter Commission senses tingling.

"Well they live in the wilderness and don't have writing or build buildings or trade with anyone and if someone tried to count them they'd just kill that person, so nobody really knows how many there are."

"Mmmm," the clerk muses noncommitally, in a way that says a lot. "Why do they try and kill people?"

Shrug. "Sometimes to eat, sometimes to steal from them, sometimes territoriality. Depends whether you're talking about morlocks or orcs or dragons or fae or what."

"So like...different races meaning like, different types of beings? Like...uh...giant flying lizard dragons, that's not a translation convention of your magic?" the clerk asks.

"Yes, that's right. Do you have those here as well?" It wouldn't be that surprising; old enough dragons can do gods know what.

"Not that I can think of," the clerk says. "Maybe some big flying lizards, but nothing intelligent. We've never found another civilization of beings that wasn't sadly extinct, or so early in their development there's been a lot of debate about the ethics of contacting them and influencing their development."

"What's wrong with influencing people's development? Don't societies influence each other's development all the time?"

"Well, that's the debate, right? If they're suffering from disease, or lack knowledge of agriculture so they can't raise enough food for their populations, then isn't it good to introduce those tools? And if the issue is that they lack some kind of intelligence or mental capability to do it, not just the knowledge, do we have a right or a duty to try and apply any capability to alter them and uplift them? Except also what right do we have to define 'improving' their society for them and especially in a way which is more like us or more convenient to us? Xenoanthropologists call it a 'prime directive' question, after this centuries-old science fiction story. I had a roommate at Curiosity City University who wrote his thesis about the whole thing."

"Huh. I wouldn't object to someone showing up and curing diseases and making the crops grow better and making everyone smarter, if it wasn't a plot to conquer us. I guess the goblins would object to that if it came with an attempt to get them to stop killing and stealing." Shrug. "At least it seems like a nicer problem to have than not being able to get through the forest without being eaten by something."

"Well, you can do both trade protection and attempting to fix social and developmental issues, that's why we have the Navy and the Marines as well as people like me, because we get more accomplished together from different approaches. But there is a challenge when those developments change cultures. What if the people you want to help have their own crops that are different than the ones you know and you think yours grow better? It can become a little like an invasion to try and cause somebody to switch over their entire food culture, diet and farming traditions, maybe even their whole agricultural calendar or ways of inheriting and dividing land socially? Or new technologies that can make farming or travel and trade or printing books or making metal and tools more efficient can completely upend traditional social structures...sometimes in ways that are in aggregate good, but in specific disruptive. What if you teach reading and writing to a small culture that previously had their own spoken language and oral traditions, and they they get swamped by exposure and loose all their traditional culture? There's good to be done...carefully."

"Like Legatus is careful?" the corporal says sarcastically. "They're licking their damn chops."

Samora nods along. "Very little worth doing is simple or best done carelessly. Who are Legatus?"

"Legatus is the first, oldest, and most developed of the Unarcana worlds," the clerk says.

"And whenever there's an ugly situation, you can count on them putting their oar in to steer people into thinking Unarcana rules are the solution," the Marine adds.

"Roughly how many inhabited planets are there again, and how many are Unarcana?"

"One hundred and eleven inhabited Protectorate worlds," the clerk says. "Fourteen are legally Unaracana worlds, but there's others where Mages aren't much liked but not legally prohibited."