While they argue about this point that doesn't matter because they're not actually using literal Leudorfell, she's going to think.

So far she's been reacting on habit - which is fine, her habits are working - and periodically reorienting (yep, still in a court in the Boneyard, no threats, no other opportunities). Time to strategize.

Goals: stay alive, do her duties, seek fulfillment. Her relevant duties are to argue for Lawful Evil, argue for Law, set useful precedent, deal fairly, and represent Marra to potential recruits. Personally, she wants to use this opportunity to practice mental skills and become more useful to Marra, advance Marra's interests, and, to the degree permitted by her duties, get a judgement that pleases her.

(Yes, advancing Marra's interests is a personal goal, not a duty. Marra demands specific duties from her feudal vassals, not 'take My goals as your own'. In fact, using your superiors for your own purposes is a Marran virtue.)

Actually one of her reactions was incorrect. Elysium made an argument about what counts as slavery. She was worried that narrowing the definition would hurt Marra, but Marra's 'slavery' subdomain is bundle of god-magic that has nothing to do with the word.

(And of course Her related areas of concern, Paternalism and Feudalism, are god-concepts that do not depend on the definitions used by anyone else, but that's not what Kireh was thinking about.)

Queue revisiting that question. Queue, at lower priority, figuring out why she made that mistake.

What is the shape of this case? No more grand speculation. Shorter term speculation is clearly Lawful Evil. In fact, wanting to own people and shape them to be powerful and useful and satisfied with their place is very fitting for Marra. The 'myriad daily actions' lean toward Law and Evil, in her opinion from skimming the notes - she'll have to improvise on that. (Would the decedent help, as the agathion advised him, if his preference for Elysium were ruled out? Queue that.) A literal application of Leudorfell either gives no alternative, and the project as a whole is Evil, or an alternative, and the results of how he carried it out are Evil.

(Speaking of which: orient. Are they still arguing about literal Leudorfell? Okay, keep thinking.)

...No more grand speculation on the effect of the project on society. But: What alignments would mice have? What alignment did Malosloff want them to have? (Neutral Good) What gods would they follow? At what point would they have souls? 

The answers to those questions lean Chaotic and Good, unfortunately. (If only he had picked rats instead of mice.)

Pop from the queue. How would narrowing the definition of slavery affect precedent? It would allow new precedent for not-technically-slavery, which might make rulings of Law and Evil easier. Or harder. Which would get Marra more or fewer souls - wait no. Marra's followers are easily ruled Lawful Evil. It would get other gods more or fewer souls.

The goal, then: make Law easier, make Evil harder.

How would this affect the world?

More things-that-Marra-likes-that-aren't-technically-slavery.

More crime by not-technically-slaveowners, if they get a big enough boost to Law. Kireh doesn't like that personally, but Marra would be fine with it as long as they fulfill their duties. ...Prioritize making Evil harder, if there's any precedent to be set.

While simultaneously winning the case and not offending the judge.

"It's not cowardice to obey five armed men when they order you to strip and jump into the snow."

"I'm not contesting that, but he could have mentioned the mice to the bandits."

"And then what? They kill the mice, or sell them, or maybe take great care of them - it's too speculative. A scry on the current conditions of the mice is permitted, but, without information on the counterfactual, is of little use -"

"I am not convinced that this point is important enough to delay for a scry."

"Limiting ourselves to standard discovery, the decedent was panicking at the time, a standard Calvonar impairment under which simple oversight may be excused, and he did regret this later."

"Objection, In re Crouse -"

"The oversight 'is considered to have no moral or systemic alignment'."

"Thank you. Hell concurs with Nirvana that nothing important to this trial happened in the last hour of the decedent's life. Let's return to the medium-term local extrapolated effects of the project."

"Yeah you all are showing classic dramatic-death bias.

Anyway, the project wouldn't have worked, so that leaves his 'myriad daily actions', which are clearly Chaotic Good."

The azata sure seemed to be acting earlier on the assumption that the project could have worked! Well, that's Chaotic people for you.

(In re Crouse establishes that the court is for sorting the decedent; the court itself is Neutral. Therefore, the court does not 'excuse' Evil. In re Calvonar can in fact be used to discard acts of any alignment. The objection was not critical here, but some judges don't like when you pass up an opportunity to object and then try to raise the same objection later.

Personally, Kireh really hates when Good assumes that everyone agrees with them.

Systemic alignment could maybe be divided into a few separate qualities: self-consistency, keeping promises, obeying mortal laws, god-stuff she doesn't understand...but it's still a fundamental part of the world. Good, however, is just someone's preference. Not even Pharasma's preference, just something She decided to sort on!

Good is not altruism. Good is not hedonism. Good is not pride in others. Good is not friendliness.

You could just as well divide the world along, say, Awesome/Boring. Marra and Iomedae are Awesome; Zon-Kuthon and Erastil are Boring. Or Diverse/Uniform: Cayden Cailean is Boring Uniform. Desna is Boring Diverse. Milani is Awesome Uniform. Kofusachi is Awesome Diverse.

Marra is Awesome Diverse and Asmodeus is Neutral Uniform.)

"It's hard to say if the project would have worked or not. My point about the use of hundreds of slaves in the near hypothetical has not been addressed. The decedent's death falls under the unforeseeable disruption exception of Hell vs Ulianof, so we should still consider the likely results of the project if it had gone as planned."

"That's unjustified speculation. The decedent might have identified precisely when the mice became people rather than farm animals. The populace of Andoran strongly disapproves of slavery - yes, I can cite data on that."

"That's a bold claim that the decedent would know when the mice became people capable of being enslaved."

"There is a circus cult traveling on a route close to his which provides subsidized castings of Early Judgement. Even if they charged full price, that was readily available -"

"An attack by bandits is not an unforeseeable disruption to a merchant traveling alone. So Hell vs Ulianof applies and this speculation is irrelevant.

Failure to plan ahead for the mice's care after his death falls under Heaven vs Shepherd -10000 and is not Evil."

(Kireh knew full well about the Marran cult chapter - some of them are going to be hers! Too bad the agathion noticed the trap but this is almost as good.)

"If the mice are farm animals, then Shepherd, fine. Are they?"

The judge takes a silent deep breath, looking around the room. "Before considering a fact-finding mission, does anyone have an argument that might make the mice's factual nature irrelevant?"

"Supposing that the mice are fully people capable of being enslaved, the decedent did not believe that. His assessment was that the most impressive ones behaved like, I quote, 'moderately smart dogs'. If that mitigating factor is strong enough, and the duration and counts of the slavery minimal enough, we don't need additional facts.

I believe that the mitigating factor is very strong. He paid a lot of attention to their behavior!

To be clear, I propose a mitigating factor on any slavery actually committed, as district from our previous discussion of the decedent's possible mistaken beliefs about the future under Hell vs Ulianof."

"And it's unlikely that the mice could spontaneously become capable of deceiving the decedent about their capabilities without any signs leading up to this development."

"Do you have data on that? Because I think it's entirely possible. He talked to them, as is common to talk to dogs, not actually trying to teach them any language, spoken or otherwise. His evaluation was mostly based on their dog-like friendliness and their performance on physical puzzles.

Would they have tried to initiate communication? Not any more than a feral child does."

"How about instead of wasting your time, Your Gr- Honor, Fangs and Slithery just slug it out right now?"

"I would like to analyze your systemic alignment further before agreeing to that particular set of combatants, but I admit that that sounds appealing compared to a fact-finding mission followed by tedious precedent-setting."

"Thank you, Mr. Malosloff, for that remarkable display of humility."