A Diplomat's Lecture

**Day 24, Month 12, 415 RVY**

"Good afternoon, class." Early last week, everything went to hell. It was somewhat miraculous that Seiva even still had a class to teach, albeit a little bit later than normal. It looked as though someone showed up to see if she'd be in today and told everyone that could still make it that she was here. Still, it meant she had students, so she could somewhat stick to her usual daily routine. For now. She'd have to cut it short a bit.

"Sorry for missing last week's classes. I'm sure you understand." She looked out upon her class. Normally, this would be a class of 30, sitting in a lecture hall designed for a potentially much larger number of students. Right now, it looked more like 15, with everyone huddled together in the middle of the first couple rows like a normal-sized classroom. "None of our Agahian students could make it, so they'll have to make do with my poor-quality recordings. At least it looks like most of our—" Another student came in from a door in the back. "*All* of our Dairan students got in. Good, good, I didn't expect you to be able to get a message to them." One of the Darian students raised a hand. "Yep?"

"We've been at the Academy for about a week," he said. "Let us pack up some stuff and then sent us here until the war's over."

"Good, safer for everyone. I pushed to try to negotiate for that early." Seiva could see some panicked looks from the other students. A couple of them basically lived at the Academy. A couple came from other planes than Entela and Daira, so it makes sense they might not have heard yet. "Does anyone *not* know what's going on?"

A couple of students raised their hands. Even some that came from Entela. "Right. Monday of last week, military originating from the 'Dairan Empire' made an attack against Agahia, seemingly coming from the other city of Oriel on that plane. We're not sure how that happened yet. We're also not sure how it's going, because we can't receive messages from Agahia right now, we just know that they clearly didn't succeed because they're still negotiating with us."

There were some suspicious looks cast towards the Dairan students. She needed to stop that. Now. “No, we’re not having any of that. Your classmates are still your classmates, they’re not *suddenly* part of the Dairan military. It’s not their fault we’re at war.” She took a moment to pause. “By the way, part of our agreement to have students at The Academy is that no military can be stationed here. Entelan or otherwise. Occasionally the local law enforcement from Minei has to come in here. … And for those of you with a class with Professor Ylerne, she’s technically a military leader when we’re at war, so she’s not going to be here for the next little while. You’ll have to deal with me for her class too.”

“So what happened?” One of the Entelan students asked. “Why the war?”

“*Why* the war,” Seiva repeated. She looked up at the Dairan students. It dawned on her that she *might* be the only one with that answer. “Do you know? It started before you were born, right?”

Most of the Dairan students shook their heads. One girl raised her hand. “Is it because of the smuggling Entelans are doing?”

*Entelans* were doing? The Entelans doing that smuggling were acting against Entela’s wishes, not against Daira’s. “Iiiiinteresting. I think it’s related. So, for those of you that don’t know — because we’re… 3 classes in — I’m Entela’s primary diplomat. So this whole war business and finding an agreement is going to be on my shoulders. What that means is that I don’t know *yet*, but I’ll be finding out before the end of the day, when I get the opportunity to ask.” Seiva crossed her arms and leaned against the presentation desk at the front of the hall. “It’s a very interesting time to live in for interplanar politics students. So let’s talk about why *I* think the Empire wants to fight us.

“Some number of years ago — more than 20, now? — Entela and Daira met. We in Entela have much more advanced technologies… things that allow easy fabrication of tools, easy processing of metals, circuits based on aether that you can teach to do many things. We offered to help Daira learn that. *But*, at the time, there was an organization called the 7CI that had limits on how much of our technology we could share. So we followed their guidelines and stopped sharing our technology. The 7CI disappeared over a decade ago, but we still have those agreements we’re bound to. Because…?” Seiva opened the question to the students.

After a few moments of no one responding, one of the students raised a hand, and guessed, “Beeeecause you might look dangerous if you start doing things you said you wouldn’t?”

“Right! In *theory* the limitation was supposed to stop us from accidentally hurting Daira when we were trying to help. Unfortunately, the *theory* didn’t match up with what was happening in practice. In practice, without being able to guide Daira’s technology further, their aethertech is a hazard on its own. It passively gives off dangerous amounts of aether and leaves waste products that are toxic, unstable, or *also* aetheric.” The Darian students nodded in agreement. *That* sounded familiar to them. “Which is why there was a bunch of smuggling going on. Entelans trying to help Dairans in spite of our restrictions, and Dairans trying to get good, valuable technology to help themselves. Transceivers, especially.”

“So it’s *not* because of the smuggling,” the girl from earlier clarified.

“I don’t think so, but I think the war happened for the same reason the smuggling did. I think Daira — or, rather, the leadership in charge of it — wants us to see them as a threat, so that we fix what we broke. That’s my guess, at least, which is the best I have until this evening.”

“Why did they attack Agahia?” another Entelan student asked. “Why not Entela? Or anything else that Entela owns?”

“That’s a good question,” Seiva replied. “Entela’s an easy answer. It’s still dangerous for most people to be there. Only people with Volarian biology or that’ve been specifically inoculated for it can go to Entela safely. Aether in the atmosphere, and similar problems. What do you all know about Agahia? Why might it be important?"

Seiva let various students answer before weighing in herself. "Only Entelans live there?"

"It's a bunch of empty space?"

"It's important to the Church of Solari."

"Is it something to do with the tunnel?"

Seiva was going to respond to the tunnel comment, but another student added to it instead. "Why would they bother with Agahia then? The Academy's undefended."

"Um…" the Tunnel Question student started. She trailed off. She probably didn't want to take up class time talking about it, so Seiva gestured for her to continue. "Um, so, maybe it's like those agreements that maybe made the war happen? They don't want to do it because, uh…" she looked up at Seiva, who once again prompted her to continue. "Because they don't want to look like the bad guys?"

"Because they don't want to look like the bad guys," Seiva repeated. "And I think you hit it right on the head, there. If they want the ARF tunnel — and I bet they do — only really have 3 options. Entela's right out. Agahia's defended. But the Academy is undefended! *But*, the only reason they can get away with a war like this is by pushing the *narrative* that they’re doing a good thing and Entela deserves whatever’s happening. That’s what they’re framing the war as on Daira, right?” Seiva looked up to each of the Dairan students and got some nods in response. “And they’re not *entirely* wrong, we *did* screw up, but it’s a lot harder to convince others of that when you also attack agreed-upon neutral ground. The same way it’d look bad if Entela ignored its agreements.”

Seiva took a deep breath. She was running out of time for this lesson already, and there was still so much left to be done. “It’s always important to consider the narrative. Especially now, since both Entela and Daira are going to be discussing the war in the open. Obviously, I’m talking about this war in a much different way than the Dairan diplomat would. Even if I don’t consciously try to do it, I’m naturally going to be speaking in defense of Entela, because I’m a part of its governance.”

Seiva clapped her hands together. That would be a good point to leave it for today. “Alright, that’s going to be it for today. My meeting with the Dairan diplomat to discuss a peace will be having a viewing on campus in room 12025 of the Main Tower in two hours, it’s a couple floors directly above the Tunnel. It’s all going to be recorded and publicized on both sides, so you’re free to come check it out. If not, I’ll see you again on Thursday.” Seiva bowed to the students, and a couple of her students — including the one born from the region around the Academy — bowed to her.

The following two hours of Seiva’s life were spent receiving messages from Master Sara. Updates on Karina’s situation — which was to say, nothing. Updates on Agahia — again, nothing. Then hopes for the negotiations. In this case, a lot of the obvious: do not give them Agahia, guarantee that Hannah is returned, check before doing anything drastic.

There was a small paper sign attached to the door of the negotiations room that was definitely drawn by a student. It depicted some stick figures sitting at a table. One of the figures was roughly surrounded by blocks of black and smaller accents of yellow. The other was contained in blocks of purple with small accents of white, identifiable only because the artist had drawn space to put color and then colored everywhere on that side of the paper except there. "War Negotiation Closet! Viewing in Room 12025!" was written in neat handwriting across 3 languages — Entela's Volarian, the Academy's local Hanago, and Daira's Arghivi.

The inside of the 'war negotiation closet' was just as spacious as the name implied. A single table with two chairs was crammed into the space, without nearly enough space between the sides of the room and the table to get from one side of the table to the other. One chair was on this side — naturally, already featuring the Dairan diplomat in her purple and white dress — and the other would require Seiva to climb over or under the table.

"Why did we decide on this room, again?" Seiva asked.

*"You're the one that thought it would be big enough,"* the diplomat reminded her in Arghivi. Seiva had spent such a long time learning it over the last couple of decades that she could fluently recognize everything that was being said. *"Your uniform has pants, so I figured you'd be okay to climb it."*

"I've also got a decade or so on you." Rather than going over the table, she elected to crawl under it, trusting she could get back up with help from the table. Which she could.

*"I fail to see the problem,"* the diplomat observed, a smile crawling across her face. *"It's good to see you again, even if the circumstances are… as they are."*

"Tell you what, I was very excited that I was going to be working with someone I already knew. You know, ease the air a little bit."

*"Indeed. I do appreciate what you've done here. However, this isn't about my desires, but those of my country, so you can't expect much freedom on my part."*

"I figured as much. So, right to business then? What do you want?"

*"Naturally, we'd like the plane of Agahia…"*

"Well, that's not happening, but go on."

*"... expected. A, mm…"* — the diplomat said 'Aether Resonance Frequency' in Volarian before going back to her own language — *"tunnel stationed in Arghiv."*

"I'd love to, but I think Master Sara would call it 'high security risk'. I can give you the blueprints and let you make one yourself, though."

*"And that was the last one. Access to the Entech market and Entelan freedom of information. I realize that you have other agreements to uphold on the matter, however."*

"Mm…" Seiva scratched her head. "If you're willing to fight over it, we're okay to renegotiate those agreements. So we can do one of the three. And we need our head engineer back. She’s not a combatant. She doesn’t really deserve any part of this.”

*“She’ll be returned after the war, don’t worry. She’s been given a nice, safe place to hunker down and is guarded by people she knows. Do you have any other requests?”*

“Nooo… just stop fighting us. I know some other planes in our network decided they wanted to join the Empire, that’s up to them. We clearly weren’t doing what they were hoping we would.”

*“Alright, well. I’ll bring this to the attention of the Emperor, but I doubt he’ll be willing to budge at the moment. Agahia is still a potential gain, after all.”*

“Yeah, I figured that might be the case.” Seiva sighed. “Was really hoping to get this out of the way.”

*“You knew that wasn’t going to happen,”* the diplomat offered. *“Give it two weeks, see if anything’s changed?”*

“Or if something special happens,” Seiva added. “No sense letting the war go on if it becomes apparent that one side has failed.”

The diplomat offered her hand forward. *“I look forward to hearing from you again. Hopefully when we can make an agreement.”*

“Iiiii sure hope so.” Seiva and the diplomat stood. Seiva placed a loosely-curled hand on her chest and bowed to the diplomat. The diplomat simply nodded at her and retracted her hand. The diplomat started to leave, but Seiva continued, “Oh, wait.”

The diplomat turned around. *“Yes?”*

“I was teaching a class earlier and one of my students asked why we were at war. I couldn’t give them a satisfying answer.”

The diplomat hesitated. Seiva wasn’t fishing for sensitive intel — and the diplomat knew it — but she would still have to be careful. *“The Empire wishes to be treated as an equal by Entela. After much consideration, the Emperor decided that goal was unlikely to be reached any other way.”* And then the diplomat parted, leaving Seiva to figure out how to get out from behind the table.

The imperial capital was only one of the many cities Entela had tried to help. It didn't have anything special going for it at the time. Before Entela, the world was split up into an endless amount of island territories, each uniquely governed by nobility. And Entela tried to help as many of those islands as they could — even if they couldn't reach every territory in such a short time. This island of Arghiv featured a couple cities, previously separated by forestry and connected by a mountain path. Now the forest between the two was getting thinner and thinner as the cities grew larger and larger.

The only reason this city was any more special than any other was that in this city's docks, Entela had placed their aether tunnel — their method of bridging worlds. Naturally, this meant that Entela’s work started here, so Arghiv had the easiest access to their technology. Even once Entela stopped ‘helping’, people in Arghiv could get smuggled tech the cheapest. It was no wonder, then, that with how important the tunnels were to moving things around, the capital would be the place surrounding a tunnel. Unfortunately, the original tunnel was directly linked to the Academy of Interplanar Youth, so they had to make one of their own in secret, using whatever info they could scrounge about the Entelan one — and it was much, much shoddier, with a link to a different plane that had access to a real tunnel.

The shoddy tunnel, however, was good enough for some very basic tasks. Sending individual people, like messengers and couriers. And it was placed in the center of the new imperial palace, where previously there was a hole in a wall. And it was here, at a designated meeting spot, that the High Princess was awaiting her diplomat. Sending *anything* over a transceiver meant that it had to feed through the Entelan data system, which meant that Entelan leadership could hear it. Which meant anything potentially sensitive had to be planned out and discussed in person.

The woman was out of breath before she arrived. Did she rush, or did she simply struggle from climbing stairs? The princess offered her a moment of respite before pushing in with questions. “Rivvek. Do you have a report?”

“Nothing of value,” Rivvek replied. “Unsurprisingly, they don’t wish to give up Agahia or recreate their important tunnels for us. And, as expected, they would be okay with sharing their information.”

“Figures. That’s not going to be good enough,” the princess replied. “We’ve already dedicated a lot of resources and lives into Agahia. If we fall back now it looks like we've made a mistake."

"Bad form for an empire, as I understand it."

The princess turned to the inside of the palace and motioned for her diplomat to follow. "As much as I wish we could just stop this, I'm not the one with such a decision to make. I'm simply a military leader. The Emperor will need to hear you directly."

## A Diplomat's Lecture

### Setting

The Entelan Academy for Interplanar Youth, Virilin; Arghiv, Daira

### Characters

Seiva Zeni

The High Princess

Rivvek