"I mean, I understand there is a difference of... effort, but I honestly don't think that doing anything isn't changing their lives and removing any choice and options from them altogether is the epitome of not actually caring for their well-being."

"That is among the arguments used against the hardline no-contact stance. You may note that I didn't mention having any stealth magic. I am in favor of opening diplomatic contact with less advanced societies. I just worry about how easy it is to use that leverage to force them to be more like us under the guise of offering help and advice. The technology we have all but necessitates massive social changes and so it's not entirely unexpected that societies look to emulate us more than they would in the absence of that sort of upheaval."

"Well, yes. It isn't an approach without problems, but that prime directive nonsense is worse."

"Agreed, I'm taking a lot of exploration missions lately because there are certain research projects that might strengthen the anti-interventionists."

"Does you world still have cultural problems with that sort of thing?"

"I'm not really sure what you mean. Are you referring to anti-interventionism, because yeah that's a pretty big issue politically as I've said. Or are you referring to what I said about research? There are some outside the institute that oppose research, that thinks we've already come too far, but that wasn't what I meant by my comment. Some research is being done into the magic that first forked me in the hopes that we can um, run afterlives for worlds without intervening there physically at all. I expect that will strengthen the anti-interventionist cause."

"No, problems caused by interventionism."

"It depends a lot on who you ask and what their values are. When we open diplomatic contact with a world there tend to be some flare ups of violence and to some degree their culture will be changed into something a bit closer to ours. People like myself think it's worth it given that we help cure their diseases and, once we have the infrastructure setup, offer uploading, but not everyone's value system places the lives of individual people as the most important thing, and our arrival tends to cut birth rates by a lot in the long term, so fewer people get born."

"What causes the lowered birth rates?"

"People who don't have biologies tend to not have kids. You can still manage it but it's hard to do. Also, we tend to make really good birth control available.  Some people hang onto being biological as long as they can but aside from having kids there aren't many advantages and there's a bunch of advantages the other way."

"...So you are saying that is mostly people making the decision to not have kids?"

"Yeah, as far as I know it's all down to increased ease of not having kids when you're biological and increased difficulty having them when you're not. There is something of a spike in the short term since we make it easier for gays and lesbians to have biological kids."

"Okay, now take that logic and apply it to, say, a woman whose husband is cheating on her? Do you think if a third party wanted said woman to have more children, then it would be okay for that person to hide the husband's affair? Speaking as a girl whose father committed trigamy."

Zahn looks puzzled for a few moments then, "Ah, you're referring to how I followed up my comment about different value standards with one on how lower birth rates is one of the larger effects of our interventions. I suppose I didn't phrase that as well as I could have. I don't think that anyone seriously sees having more people be born grow up and die as an important terminal value. Just, there are some people who are afraid, incorrectly in my opinion, that cultures with low to zero death rates are doomed to stagnation. I'm not an anti-interventionist and I'm likely arguing their points poorly though."

"Ah, okay. My main problem is the idea of having other people having children while they are not fully informed of the situation."

"Oh, I don't think anyone tried to influence societies into the direction of having more children. Regardless, we were talking about magic before we got into all this politics stuff. I don't know that much about your magic system but given what we've gone over since then it your most recent oath sounds pretty good. I wish I had a better sense for how elaborate you're allowed to get with these oaths though. Is there some point at which the first and last lines aren't enough to 'anchor' the oath and prevent it from backfiring too badly? Is anything preventing people in your world from swearing unanchored magical oaths? How do you know the bad magic isn't just playing possum again?"

"There is in fact a point where the two lines stop anchoring the oath, but it's a fuzzy limit, though. What do you mean with backfiring it? There is always the risk of magic playing possum again, but since what happened last time they have been very thorough with magical-analyzing it. Knights of the new oath are magically distinct and the effect of not following the oaths looks more like a diminished quantity of magic, while the old oath produced something akin to... visible damaged. The metaphor I was told was 'a small flower instead of a withered flower', if that makes sense."

"Hm, I don't think I'd risk being damaged like that if I didn't have backups, but maybe you're sufficiently confident in your ability to hold to the oath to risk it."

"Also, its pretty much the only way to get immortality in my world. Unless your backups can be done with just technology?"

"They can. I'm backed up on half a dozen servers in various places throughout Institute space, not to mention the other forks of me that are running around." He frowns, "Unfortunately, uploading tech is classified as critical technology, us explorers don't carry the needed tech for fear of capture."

"Is this a time to mention that Bar can provide basically technology that isn't alive, magical or bigger than her countertop?"

Zahn steeples his fingers and sighs. "Uploaded people require some maintenance, though depending on what body type it can be of the variety of once every few centuries. They tend not to be able to be magic users in my world, they can use magical artifacts though. I do worry about giving out certain technologies without someone to supervise but if you're going to go that direction, I'll do my best to help you do it as safely as possible."

Temperance blinks. "Uh, I mentioend that not because I want you to force you to do anything. I mentioned because now anyone can go to Bar and ask after your technology. Well, not directly your technology, but they can ask for things with certain capabilities and narrow down from there."

"I suppose I should speak with this Bar then. Although, if the multiverse is as flexible and varied as you say, I doubt that mine is the first or only to make our breakthroughs. In all likelihood, I can only hope that the patrons of this establishment will use what they obtain responsibly."

"Yeah, can't say every patron here is going to be nice. It sounded relevant to mention even if it turns out your method isn't the best."