"All right.  Then I think we take that as our baseline option to potentially improve upon later, though I'll want to check what the actual options being offered to them are and whether I feel a need, or just want, I guess, to call in further favor from Cheliax to improve them."

"That leaves the question of what kind of contracts we see for the eight who stay.  In dath ilan, people in this kind of position would usually be offered some of their compensation in the form of an expected share of future profits, and this is something that we have to negotiate with actual Cheliax at some point, but at least in dath ilan, that agreement would be produced by us collectively negotiating with Cheliax, especially you four because you're the ones who seem relatively irreplaceable."

"Actually, now that I think about it, Pilar is not exactly all that replaceable?  She should arguably have something like a tier-one-and-half status, based on a suspicion of greater-than-first-apparent impacts of divine interventions; a status that gets promoted to tier one if Pilar turns out to be way more important than just saving my temporary life once and having snacks."

"Anyways, I'm still waiting on Cheliax to offer me a first-run contractual relationship between Project Lawful's employees and Cheliax, where I'm not quite sure why they don't have one, yet.  Except that my guess is that they want more than a week worth of data to make up their minds, and the trouble there is that I don't feel it's particularly prudent to, like, work on metallurgy or roadbuilding for a month without any contract.  We could potentially have a crude contract for the first research that gets done, with intent to renegotiate it after seeing how early results play out, but I do want any contract.  And -"

"What I'm getting at here is that I can successfully sit down in a room with you and figure out what you think Project Lawful wants from Cheliax, or you do, which is more than I've been successfully able to do with Cheliax itself.  Except for one person who didn't seem empowered to do binding negotiations, and who I think isn't back from Hell yet after the Nidal assault."

"All right.  Then I think we take that as our baseline option to potentially improve upon later, though I'll want to check what the actual options being offered to them are and whether I feel a need, or just want, I guess, to call in further favor from Cheliax to improve them."

"That leaves the question of what kind of contracts we see for the eight who stay.  In dath ilan, people in this kind of position would usually be offered some of their compensation in the form of an expected share of future profits, and this is something that we have to negotiate with actual Cheliax at some point, but at least in dath ilan, that agreement would be produced by us collectively negotiating with Cheliax, especially you four because you're the ones who seem relatively irreplaceable."

"Actually, now that I think about it, Pilar is not exactly all that replaceable?  She should arguably have something like a tier-one-and-half status, based on a suspicion of greater-than-first-apparent impacts of divine interventions; a status that gets promoted to tier one if Pilar turns out to be way more important than just saving my temporary life once and having snacks."

"Anyways, I'm still waiting on Cheliax to offer me a first-run contractual relationship between Project Lawful's employees and Cheliax, where I'm not quite sure why they don't have one, yet.  Except that my guess is that they want more than a week worth of data to make up their minds, and the trouble there is that I don't feel it's particularly prudent to, like, work on metallurgy or roadbuilding for a month without any contract.  We could potentially have a crude contract for the first research that gets done, with intent to renegotiate it after seeing how early results play out, but I do want any contract.  And -"

"What I'm getting at here is that I can successfully sit down in a room with you and figure out what you think Project Lawful wants from Cheliax, or you want, which is more than I've been successfully able to do with Cheliax itself.  Except for one person who didn't seem empowered to do binding negotiations, and who I think isn't back from Hell yet after the Nidal assault."

"All right.  Then I think we take that as our baseline option to potentially improve upon later, though I'll want to check what the actual options being offered to them are and whether I feel a need, or just want, I guess, to call in further favor from Cheliax to improve them."

"That leaves the question of what kind of contracts we see for the eight who stay.  In dath ilan, people in this kind of position would usually be offered some of their compensation in the form of an expected share of future profits, and this is something that we have to negotiate with actual Cheliax at some point, but at least in dath ilan, that agreement would be produced by us collectively negotiating with Cheliax, especially you four because you're the ones who seem relatively irreplaceable."

"Actually, now that I think about it, Pilar is not exactly all that replaceable?  She should arguably have something like a tier-one-and-half status, based on a suspicion of greater-than-first-apparent impacts of divine interventions; a status that gets promoted to tier one if Pilar turns out to be way more important than just saving my temporary life once and having snacks."

"Anyways, I'm still waiting on Cheliax to offer me a first-run contractual relationship between Project Lawful's employees and Cheliax, where I'm not quite sure why they don't have one, yet.  Except that my guess is that they want more than a week worth of data to make up their minds, and the trouble there is that I don't feel it's particularly prudent to, like, work on metallurgy or roadbuilding for a month without any contract.  We could potentially have a crude contract for the first research that gets done, with intent to renegotiate it after seeing how early results play out, but I do want any contract.  And -"

"What I'm getting at here is that I can successfully sit down in a room with you and figure out what you think Project Lawful wants from Cheliax, or what you want, which is more than I've been successfully able to do with Cheliax itself.  Except for one person who didn't seem empowered to do binding negotiations, and who I think isn't back from Hell yet after the Nidal assault."

"All right.  Then I think we take that as our baseline option to potentially improve upon later, though I'll want to check what the actual options being offered to them are and whether I feel a need, or just want, I guess, to call in further favor from Cheliax to improve them."

Wow does that still feel awful.  Well, everyone warns about that, and everyone is apparently right, go figure.

"That leaves the question of what kind of contracts we see for the eight who stay.  In dath ilan, people in this kind of position would usually be offered some of their compensation in the form of an expected share of future profits, and this is something that we have to negotiate with actual Cheliax at some point, but at least in dath ilan, that agreement would be produced by us collectively negotiating with Cheliax, especially you four because you're the ones who seem relatively irreplaceable."

"Actually, now that I think about it, Pilar is not exactly all that replaceable?  She should arguably have something like a tier-one-and-half status, based on a suspicion of greater-than-first-apparent impacts of divine interventions; a status that gets promoted to tier one if Pilar turns out to be way more important than just saving my temporary life once and having snacks."

"Anyways, I'm still waiting on Cheliax to offer me a first-run contractual relationship between Project Lawful's employees and Cheliax, where I'm not quite sure why they don't have one, yet.  Except that my guess is that they want more than a week worth of data to make up their minds, and the trouble there is that I don't feel it's particularly prudent to, like, work on metallurgy or roadbuilding for a month without any contract.  We could potentially have a crude contract for the first research that gets done, with intent to renegotiate it after seeing how early results play out, but I do want any contract.  And -"

"What I'm getting at here is that I can successfully sit down in a room with you and figure out what you think Project Lawful wants from Cheliax, or what you want, which is more than I've been successfully able to do with Cheliax itself.  Except for one person who didn't seem empowered to do binding negotiations, and who I think isn't back from Hell yet after the Nidal assault."