"I see. And are there things other than message interception that might cause us to regret trying to contact Heaven or Axis?"

"So, we could have some kind of outside-context failure. I'll list some examples. Heaven or Axis could be uncharacteristically incompetent. It could turn out that huge portions of my experiences were faked including those involving the costs of faking them and my attempts to 'contact Heaven or Axis' actually amount to something totally disconnected from my expectations, I guess. There could be some unexpected magic interaction producing unwanted dramatic results even if we make the attempt in a warded environment. But I think you could have generated all of those hypotheticals yourself and I can't really put probabilities on them."

"But nothing like... Heaven doesn't want us to regret contacting them so it directly alters the minds of those directly involved in making contact and then tries to hunt me down for having given my assent, or Axis judges our best alternative to contacting them based on a hypothetical where we contact Abaddon instead, or our existence is strategically relevant to a war and so Heaven has to inform Elysium and suddenly all our slaves are stolen, or the Upper Planes lose their war and we're worse off for having supported the losing side or we die sooner for having gotten their attention sooner than Abaddon would have known to come for us otherwise, or this is one of the occasions where Heaven uses social manipulation, or someone construes the corporate decisionmaking body and its constituents differently than we do and does something that makes the set of all people in the empire better off on net but only because it's so pleasing to the anemones..."

"I don't see mind-alteration of contact-makers as a plausible risk. I don't think Axis's model of your best alternative would be that bad, for one thing they have a file on me and for another the obvious alternative is inaction. Your existence is strategically relevant, I'm sure, but so are other things people come to Heaven with and this doesn't lead to Heaven letting Elysium cause them problems. Heaven understands that the interests of governing bodies may diverge from the sum interests of all people within their borders."

"Contacting Heaven is not the same as backing them. Backing them absolutely carries serious risks if they lose. I'm inclined to count a contact attempt being noticed and used for future retaliation or invasion or such as in the interception category, but if you don't, then yes, this is a risk, though one I expect Heaven will attempt to mitigate. I really don't think this is one of the situations where Heaven uses deception-and-misdirection-oriented social manipulation as opposed to mild strategies one might still consider manipulative such as compliments and gift-giving and such."

"If we do nothing, how likely do you think it is that the Upper Planes will win their war, and how likely do you think that is if we contact them?"

Griffie pauses in thought for a little while. It doesn't look like a happy thought.

"So, I think we're probably going to win. The Upper Planes as a whole is stronger than other individual powers. The Abyss is a check on the Upper Planes currently, but they aren't really capable of properly participating in a total war, and giving them enough support to participate but guaranteeing they still won't win would be … quite difficult. Axis is just almost certainly not going to win without the backing of others, they're stronger than they were last time but they still aren't actually independently strong. Hell is not weak, but a foundation of 'empower us further because we are strong' is a flawed foundation and that may well matter."

"But my thinking the Upper Planes is strong is related to thinking its foundational ideals are solid, and many people feel otherwise, and you probably want an estimate reflecting that! And none of them just publish numbers about this, because trying to put numbers on this is both difficult and really unpleasant! If you said 'Griffie, I really want a number even if you had to make it up right now and it's a bad number' I suppose I'd say 5/12 as a base chance but I really, really don't know."

"I notice you didn't directly answer how you expect contacting them to affect that chance. And do you think the victor will be strengthened or weakened by the conflict, if there is one?"

"I didn't indirectly answer either unless indicating uncertainty counts. Do you really want my speculation right now? If we do some magic-interaction tests I will feel slightly more qualified to speculate. And in the case where a party can be considered to have won the conflict, such as in that 5/12 number I made up, I expect them to be strengthened."

"What magic-interaction tests would you like to do and what would you infer from the possible results?"

Griffie will start listing tests!
"These are not all the tests I would come up with if I studied magic better, but I will list some.
I would like to scry an illusioned area. I expect this to fail, but if it succeeds, then relative magical strength is notably unfavorable to you.
I would like someone to try to void a sample of material I produce. I expect this to succeed, but again, if my magic wins then things are notably unfavorable to you.
I would like to work with a structure mage or an appropriate team to attempt to synthesize an exotic material which can penetrate wards at home that look like defense mage wards, and see if it goes through extant wards as well as wards designed with it in mind. If wards can be made to account for this I would expect it to be favorable to you.
I would like to attempt to direct a knowledge mage to scry unwarded areas of my home world, and if that succeeds, warded areas, though this may be a risky test. If scrying unwarded areas in my home world is an option it would be useful for you to get a sense of things not filtered through me for making your own estimates, and if scrying warded areas in my home world is an option that's very favorable to you. Ah, before we do that we should have me use my magic-detection to see if I can notice a local scry.
I would like to work with a structure mage or an appropriate team to attempt to synthesize another exotic material which would, if you can produce it, be of significant value for magic from my home.
A sun mage really shouldn't have interactions with my exotic materials and I can't think of obvious military applications beyond what other magic can do, but I'm curious anyway, if there are interactions it would be surprising and maybe suggest new research options.
Effects of a phenomenon whose name translates to Positive Energy on unwarded local life. If it works well for you, then any Hari soldiers could be mass-healed if injured.
Mind-affecting effects on unwarded local life. I have lots that work on animals from home, so you don't need a person for initial testing. If they're affected that presents options like a direct improvement to cognition for local people. If they're not that's also useful.
We should test whether I can resist command magic. Eventually. The same applies to death mages and positive energy or biological samples from me, I'm very nervous about that.
And test heat, I don't know how heat here works at all much less on exotic materials so it seems worth finding out."

"Most of those tests sound reasonable to me. I would like to know more about the ward-piercing material and the mind-affecting effects. Heat itself has no essence or substance but is energy which inheres in things that do."

"The ward-piercing material is… so my home has metal-equivalents. It is somewhat exotic for my home."

"Mind-affecting effects I can do to people and animals include sharing feelings, making people afraid of something, making their senses stronger, making them not know where they are, helping them focus slightly better for a moment, helping a little with a chemical they want but they don't want to want, helping them be better at a part of thinking, or calming them down a little bit if they want to as long as I make a specific noise, or letting them speak a language I speak, though that's an expensive magic for me."

"Mind-affecting effects I can only do to animals include making an animal calm down, or like me, or be distracted, or hold still, or follow commands, or do a handful of specific tasks like going to a location. Some of these are for multiple animals but that probably doesn't matter. All of these except maybe the last one exist for people too, but I can't do them. Possibly nobody bothered to design the specific-task one I mentioned for a person because if you want a person to bring a message somewhere that's safe for them to go you can just pay them. …for magic at home, it's easier for a target to resist dangerous commands."

"And heat for us is a kind of fire."

"Some of those abilities are deeply concerning. I do not know what it would mean for heat to be a kind of fire."

"I don't plan to assault people, but yes, the abilities are concerning. As for heat, there are particles of fire, and if you look at a sample of something that's warm, it has more fire-particles in it than a sample of the same thing that's cold."

"The word 'fire' does not refer to a substance. It refers to the behavior of objects rapidly draining the substance mammals breathe from the air. The process produces light and heat, and many substances exhibit this behavior at high enough temperatures, such as those produced by the process itself."

"Should I use a loanword to refer to the fire-like thing I am used to?"

"Maybe. Anyway, I was unsatisfied with the amount of detail in your explanation of the ward-piercing metal-like substance. What kind of wards does it pierce under what circumstances?"

"If a ward makes an invisible solid surface, like a wall, then using a hammer or cutting tool made of the metal-like substance can sometimes help break the wall even if a regular hammer or cutting tool would not work. I think. This was never my focus."

"Does it leave the ward permanently broken? What if the ward is automatically triggered by something and is triggered again later? Is the substance expended in doing this or can it work arbitrarily many times?"

"I think a typical ward in my world is temporary, not permanent, so I don't know whether a permanent ward would self-repair. I think an auto-trigger would work fine. The substance is reusable."

"I am tentatively in favor of you trying these tests and reporting back. We can have command and knowledge mages in the imperial employ assist you, if you are willing. I do not need to ask you anything else before you have learned more."

"I am willing to perform these tests, but given that I expect that they are of mutual interest to us, I request payment."

"I am willing to reimburse you for any reasonable and necessary costs you incur in the process so long as the tests have been represented accurately, you do not break the law in the process, you reverse any harmful effects of the tests on, for example, local wildlife, and it does not in hindsight appear to a hypothetical reasonable observer that you were trying to trick me."

"I think you have a potentially time-sensitive national-defense interest in understanding other worlds' magic better, and that will happen faster if I focus fully on that instead of, say, being a pair of hands for hire so as to be able to afford personal-comfort expenses, and am willing to take actual risks during animal testing."