On the plus side, if Keltham has actually gotten away with this, it settles a long-standing literary debate in dath ilan - about whether dath ilani dealing with aliens, who exhibit apparently elaborate reasons to like totally break off friendly trading relations with aliens they now need to invade or sabotage or something, so as not to betray warm relationships, could in fact plausibly fool aliens that way!

Where the two positions are roughly:

(1)  "There's lots of plausible reasons for behaviors, look how hard it is for humans to decode other humans sometimes, the aliens aren't going to zoom in on exactly the right thing unless their own psychology is configured in a way that zooms in on the same answer to the same question, they wouldn't know it was a standard trope!"

(2)  "Don't tell me the aliens haven't read our books, aliens you could have warm trading relationships with in the first place would come up with the same trope in their own books!  They'd see it immediately just like we would, and be like, 'Well there's a very standard tropey behavior you're trying to come up with a smokescreen to hide.'  Stop postulating aliens who are stupider than you are just so the plot goes through!"

On the plus side, if Keltham has actually gotten away with this, it settles a long-standing literary debate in dath ilan - about whether dath ilani dealing with aliens, who exhibit apparently elaborate reasons to like totally break off friendships and warm trading relations with aliens they now need to invade or sabotage or something, so as not to betray warm relationships, could in fact plausibly fool aliens that way!

Where the two positions are roughly:

(1)  "There's lots of plausible reasons for behaviors, look how hard it is for humans to decode other humans sometimes, the aliens aren't going to zoom in on exactly the right thing unless their own psychology is configured in a way that zooms in on the same answer to the same question, they wouldn't know it was a standard trope!"

(2)  "Don't tell me the aliens haven't read our books, aliens you could have warm trading relationships with in the first place would come up with the same trope in their own books!  They'd see it immediately just like we would, and be like, 'Well there's a very standard tropey behavior you're trying to come up with a smokescreen to hide.'  Stop postulating aliens who are stupider than you are just so the plot goes through!"

On the plus side, if Keltham has actually gotten away with this, it settles a long-standing literary debate in dath ilan - about whether dath ilani dealing with aliens, who exhibit apparently elaborate reasons to like totally break off friendships and warm trading relations with aliens they now need to invade or sabotage or something, so as not to betray warm relationships, could in fact plausibly fool aliens that way!

Where the two positions are roughly:

(1)  "There's lots of plausible reasons for behaviors!  Look how hard it is for humans to decode other humans sometimes!  The aliens aren't going to zoom in on exactly the right thing unless their own psychology is configured in a way that zooms in on the same answer to the same question!  They haven't read our books, and wouldn't know it was a standard trope!"

(2)  "Don't tell me the aliens haven't read our books, aliens you could have warm trading relationships with in the first place would come up with the same trope in their own books!  They'd see it immediately just like we would, and be like, 'Well there's a very standard tropey behavior you're trying to come up with a smokescreen to hide.'  Stop postulating aliens who are stupider than you are just so the plot goes through!"