"...can you describe what that does, exactly?"

"After a certain level of strength paladins are immune to fear. They can share that protection in part, not the complete immunity but enough that for nonmagical worries it is often very close. It is also free, they can do it as much as they care to."

"Share it temporarily, I assume? What... exactly is the intended outcome? Is this about what you said, that the correct mental posture is to not be motivated by fear for yourself?"

"Temporarily within a certain range. And yes, it might be clarifying even though you can't keep it." Out into the hall.

"I'm gonna wanna know what range that is to stay out of it."

"...as you like. Ten feet."

"I'm - not sure what to expect from it, but if it's only while I stay within ten feet of them, I don't really see any downsides to trying it." Is there anything she'd immediately, irreversibly do if she was completely unafraid? No, she's rational and wouldn't do anything like that. She'll know she's under the influence and that she shouldn't be making any decisions or really doing anything other than thinking. And she's calm right now. 

Select Oliva gets a bit ahead of them and has a word with an armored guy who's sitting in the temple with a book, who nods and looks up at them and squints.

The guaranteed-perfectly-Good soldier looks like an ordinary guy, there's no halo "Hello." She will hold off on approaching within ten feet until he's done squinting.

"I'm afraid you still appear to be Evil," reports the paladin gravely.

Tanya hadn't really expected a different answer.

She steps within ten feet of him.

It may be easier, like this, to contemplate her personally going to Hell as an evitandum the same way it would be for a stranger.

That's... the viewpoint of the greater Good, isn't it.

Unity with the cosmos, an equal share in the suffering of all thinking beings. Enlightenment.

It's not as if she can make any decisions like this that don't privilege Tanya. She'll just discard them once she steps out of the aura and (correctly) judges them to have been contaminated. 

And there's nothing she can directly do from inside here. At least, nothing she can think of. 

Can she attain some novel insight, something she can keep outside of here?

It would be nice if she could achieve real enlightenment. Something that lasted after leaving the aura of anatta. But she doesn't know how to think thoughts that are stronger than the immediate bodily experience of pain. The threat of eternal torture in Hell will still be enough to move her once she abandons the pretense that 'her' doesn't matter compared to the billions, perhaps trillions of other thinking beings who, yes, have gone or are on their way to Hell. People would not seek enlightenment all their lives if it could be achieved in a moment under the influence of the right drug.

What is she doing?

She is trying to avoid Hell. Obviously. Even if it is admirable to be the sort of person who'd put others ahead of themselves, she isn't. She doesn't know how to be. 

What does that mean, to not be able to make a decision? To not be able to take an action that is physically possible?

...Tanya thinks the way it works is that it would normally be terrifying to make that decision. So terrifying that she wouldn't be able to even contemplate it. She can contemplate it now, but she can't make it for the Tanya who lives outside of the field.

Can she stay in the field for literally her entire life? A paladin employed 24/7 in guarding her from fear must be worth it to unlock all the (non-military) ways in which she could help the greater Good, right? But if he ever slipped, if she ever got out, she would never go back. And it's a kind of self-betrayal. She decided not to make commitments in here when she was - when she thought she was a wiser, more balanced person, and not under the influence of any mind-control or contamination, and so she shouldn't in fact make any commitments.

How is she trying to avoid Hell?

In the first instance, she simply did not know how one does that. All (Earth) religions are contradictory and Being X was even self-contradictory, so it's no wonder that she can't go from simple maxims like 'help others, don't harm them' and 'act as you would have everyone act' and 'blame the incentives, not the actor' to something that can deal with the complexity and messiness of real life. 

So she consulted the local experts (who were also somewhat contradictory, or at least very confusing), but the parts she did understand don't seem very surprising. Help others. Make them happy. Protect them without a thought for yourself. If you must do violence to protect yourself or another, make sure to act out of that necessity. Avoid anger and hatred and fear, and do not act on them.

The problem isn't so much that she doesn't know how to do (a little) Good from now on. It's that it won't be enough to make up for all the Evil she's charged with.

Sincere repentance is supposed to help. But she doesn't know what to repent of, exactly. 

Unless she should repent of fighting in a war at all.

Should she do that? Not fighting in a defensive war seems wrong, without the promise of Heaven. (Oh, there were promises, but she'd met Being X and she knows better. Knew better, and as far as she knows she was right, back there on Earth.)

...but she didn't simply commit to fighting in a necessary and defensive war. She enlisted in a military which could have started an offensive, unjustified war. She does not believe the Germanian high command would have done that. Probably even the Germanian politicians and the Kaiser wouldn't have done that. But she didn't really know that about them when she enlisted. She only knew starting wars was wrong, and that her best chance of success in life lay in the military.

And if they had started a war, she would have - obeyed orders. Deplored them, thought them wrong, certainly, because war is almost never worth it even for the victors let alone before you have the assurance of victory. But she would have fought, and killed. If Being X had caused her to be reborn in the Commonwealth or the Republic she would have fought for them just as well. And she would not have had the excuse she does now, that her war was justified.

People have certain persistent qualities. They operate by rules or on instinct or emotion, they react to their surroundings, but there are still things that make Tanya herself. That make her different from Belmarniss, no matter where you put her. Call it individuality, or a lack of flexibility that comes with age. She might not care as much about Tanya for the moment, but she can recognize her for the person she is. She isn't someone who fights only in just defensive wars. She's simply someone who's willing to fight in a war when she's ordered to.

You should design impartial rules for everyone, and then act for yourself. But most people don't get to set the rules from on high. Thus the maxim was born, 'act as you would have everyone act'. If only everyone followed it, there would be no wars. If the generals and politicians were all Tanya they would not start a war, even if they were Francois.

But there is also such a thing as worker solidarity. Should you really want everyone to fight in war, no matter on which side? Should you want everyone-but-the-politicians to be Tanya? Is that really good for them? Are you going to realize you were fighting yourself all along, when you step into the paladin's aura?

Systems are built by people. Systems can and should be judged harshly, because they can be changed. People mostly respond to their circumstances, and they are not blameworthy for following the incentives that the system lays out in front of them.

It follows, then, that if people are to be blamed or punished for anything at all it should be for being who they are, and not for the behavior that was evoked by their environment. 

Of course you should try to change the environment first. If you can make a set of rules that turns everyone into high performers, you deserve to be immortalized as a great and Good law-giver. But once you've done all you can, the remaining differences in outcomes are due to innate factors, and you must reward and punish those differences to incentivize people to change themselves. As ridiculous as it may sound, correctly incentivized people might even be capable of changing something about themselves they thought was immutable.

Nobody has the moral right to tell someone they should not exist as they are. Nobody except, maybe, that person themselves.

Tanya is someone who will join the army when conscripted, and fight a war when ordered, and she can tell good from evil but she firmly keeps those thoughts to herself. After all, that's how you get promoted rather than court-martialed for insubordination. And what would be the point of a junior officer protesting the very fact of a war? What could it possibly accomplish other than disposing of that one officer? Oh yes, she screams very loudly about the injustice and irrationality of war. She screams in her head where it's safe and nobody can hear her, as she flies into combat. As if protesting her own actions will make her less responsible for them, in the eyes of anyone but Pharasma who judges people's thoughts.

Maybe she should try being a different kind of person. One who, when conscripted, will simply... refuse to follow that rule, and find another way.

Not someone with a long and happy life, showered in awards and accolades. Not someone whose very presence makes thousands of strangers grateful that she is there to protect them. Not someone who risks her life for those strangers while telling herself that she has no choice.

Certainly, Tanya is selfish. Even in the aura of anatta, she doesn't want for everyone in the world to stop being selfish. That feels wrong.

When did she decide that being selfish meant seeking other people's approval?

She takes a deep breath. Lets it go.

She steps out of the aura of anatta.

There is, after all, no point in being the kind of person who'd use anatta to hide from personal responsibility.

She is a soldier. She is not moved by fear, or other emotions, and certainly not when she is on a mission and the clock is ticking. She is a rational man.

(She does not step back.)

"It was very - educational. Thank you. I think it gave me an idea of what it would mean or feel like, to be a Good person. Even if I'm not one, yet."

"I thought being Good was about following the right rules. People kept telling me Good wasn't the same as Law, but I didn't know what else it could be for me. And I wasn't wrong, exactly, rules do determine outcomes. But I can't change the rules the world runs on. So I needed to change myself." Wait, does that actually make sense? She is suddenly terrified that the insight she had will escape her again -

- the paladin is right there. She can step back into the aura if she needs to.

Deep breath.

"People are judged not just for what they've actually done, but for who they are. That's why repentance works. So I thought I had to - decide to be a different person, by an act of will. And I had no idea how to do that. Maybe some people can do it, but I don't think I can."

"What I needed instead was to realize that it was good for me to be that different person. Not even just because Pharasma will send me to Hell otherwise. Just - that I didn't like some parts of who I was. And that I was allowed to care, and just do something different without waiting for, for an external incentive in order to change."

"That... might mean that I will change again, or be less dependable in the future. I don't want or intend to be, but. Um." Did she just talk herself out of being lawful as well or instead of being evil?! After all, a truly selfish being does not follow any external laws!

...but she thinks she wants to? If the laws are good?

...are any laws really good? The laws of Taldor don't seem to be very good to follow?

Select Oliva smiles tentatively. "You are allowed to care. Yes. And - we think generally being Good is good for people."

"I think you were right. That I was too focused, too distracted by the obvious way in which that's true. I was trying so desperately to be Good to get as far from Hell as I could that I couldn't spare any attention for any other reasons to want it."

The paladin smiles.