Asmodia restrains the impulse to tell Avaricia everything she's actually doing wrong, like, if Avaricia was actually trying that, she should be giving her new minions freer rein, telling them to write down in advance how they planned to think about things methodologically, and seeing which of them if any produced results that way.  Avaricia has, in fact, grasped the idea of writing down possible experiments and predictions, and letting her underlings propose those; to Asmodia's observation she hasn't taken it to the meta-level at all.

For while Asmodia does not, in fact, want Cheliax to win, Asmodia suspects that part is not mainly down to her own choices, at this point.  Asmodia definitely doesn't want Avaricia to win.

"Yep, I want Cheliax to lose, but I also know that it's in my best interests to be able to honestly testify that I did my best work at any point up until Keltham comes back for us.  And the fact that I'm being honest with myself about that, lets me figure out what actually is in Cheliax's interests.  That's why Sevar prefers it that way.  Avaricia's thoughts twist and turn until whatever's best for herself is sincerely believed by her to be what's best for Cheliax.  She can't choose not to betray Cheliax and her superiors; she doesn't have an internal option that looks like that, because she doesn't have internal labels on the traitorous parts."

"Hence the saying:  Better a bad slave than a muddled one."

Asmodia restrains the impulse to tell Avaricia everything she's actually doing wrong, like, if Avaricia was actually trying that, she should be giving her new minions freer rein, telling them to write down in advance how they planned to think about things methodologically, and seeing which of them if any produced results that way.  Avaricia has, in fact, grasped the idea of writing down possible experiments and predictions, and letting her underlings propose those; to Asmodia's observation she hasn't taken it to the meta-level.

But this, indeed, Asmodia does not say.  Asmodia does not, in fact, want Cheliax to win, but Asmodia suspects that part is not mainly down to her own choices, at this point.  However, Asmodia definitely doesn't want Avaricia to win.

"Yep, I want Cheliax to lose, but I also know that it's in my best interests to be able to honestly testify that I did my best work at any point up until Keltham comes back for us.  And the fact that I'm being honest with myself about that, lets me figure out what actually is in Cheliax's interests.  That's why Sevar prefers it that way.  Avaricia's thoughts twist and turn until whatever's best for herself is sincerely believed by her to be what's best for Cheliax.  She can't choose not to betray Cheliax and her superiors; she doesn't have an internal option that looks like that, because she doesn't have internal labels on the traitorous parts."

"Hence the saying:  Better a bad slave than a muddled one."