...he kind of does owe it?  He's not that absolutely devoid of Good and everything he has to trade is given him by grace of dath ilan.

Okay, maybe the amount of internal stress that thought generated was a warning sign.  There's also penalties if he feels pressured into hiring too many people; that is also a Wisdom out of Civilization.

What's the next-best alternative to going with only eight candidates such that he could in principle hire all of them if all of them performed well enough?  Asking for eleven candidates but warning them that there's only eight seats, they might end up stuck in Secret Project Limbo for years if not selected, warning the male candidates that they may be slightly more at risk than female candidates...

"Let's go with eight, the two most promising men and all women except the unpromising one.  Warn everyone except the top two men and top three women that they're starting from a slightly less favored position for a permanent job, if anybody doesn't want to show up given that, go to the alternate male candidates.  If as expected the gendertropes mix okay then we'll consider men and women on an even basis in future hiring rounds."

"I'd be tempted to only go with the five most promising candidates, except that I don't know if we can get more, and I also wouldn't get to check my sense of who's more or less promising."

...he kind of does owe it?  He's not that absolutely devoid of Good and everything he has to trade is given him by grace of dath ilan.

Okay, maybe the amount of internal stress that thought generated was a warning sign.  There's also penalties if he feels pressured into hiring too many people; that is also a Wisdom out of Civilization.

What's the next-best alternative to going with only eight candidates such that he could in principle hire all of them if all of them performed well enough?  Asking for eleven candidates but warning them that there's only eight seats, they might end up stuck in Secret Project Limbo for years if not selected, warning the male candidates that they may be slightly more at risk than female candidates...

"Let's go with eight, the two most promising men and all women except the unpromising one.  Warn everyone except the top two men and top three women that they're starting from a slightly less favored position for a permanent job, if anybody doesn't want to show up given that, go to the alternate male candidates.  If as expected the gendertropes mix okay, then we'll consider men and women on an even basis in future hiring rounds."

"I'd be tempted to only go with the five most promising candidates, except that I don't know if we can get more, and I also wouldn't get to check my sense of who's more or less promising. In Civilization - where expanding quickly wasn't that urgent, and people wouldn't need time-consuming Law lectures just to get up to speed on basic thinking, and you could just go on looking for more candidates, and I actually trusted at all my sense of who seems promising - the common wisdom would strongly say to only try the five really promising candidates at this stage of expansion, and beg Cheliax to please provide more like those."

...he kind of does owe it?  He's not that absolutely devoid of Good and everything he has to trade is given him by grace of dath ilan.

Okay, maybe the amount of internal stress that thought generated was a warning sign.  There's also penalties if he feels pressured into hiring too many people; that is also a wisdom out of Civilization.

What's the next-best alternative to going with only eight candidates such that he could in principle hire all of them if all of them performed well enough?  Asking for eleven candidates but warning them that there's only eight seats, they might end up stuck in Secret Project Limbo for years if not selected, warning the male candidates that they may be slightly more at risk than female candidates...

"Let's go with eight, the two most promising men and all women except the unpromising one.  Warn everyone except the top two men and top three women that they're starting from a slightly less favored position for a permanent job, if anybody doesn't want to show up given that, go to the alternate male candidates.  If as expected the gendertropes mix okay, then we'll consider men and women on an even basis in future hiring rounds."

"I'd be tempted to only go with the five most promising candidates, except that I don't know if we can get more, and I also wouldn't get to check my sense of who's more or less promising. In Civilization - where expanding quickly wasn't that urgent, and people wouldn't need time-consuming Law lectures just to get up to speed on basic thinking, and you could just go on looking for more candidates, and I actually trusted at all my sense of who seems promising - the common wisdom would strongly say to only try the five really promising candidates at this stage of expansion, and beg Cheliax to please provide more like those."