[b]Dolce![/b]

The Supreme Ruler watched Dolce carefully while Katherine was speaking. She left a long moment after that, time enough to think - but not an unlimited amount.

"You want to know if we have built an utopia," said the Supreme Ruler. "And the answer is no. We are not pacifists or anarchists. We are running a state. We hold within our hands the full range of state powers, including execution, conscription and the freedom to wage wars of aggression. We punish dissent, censor speech, control technology and seal particularly wicked foxgirls underneath bridges. We have no bill of rights or constitution to tie our hands and no rhetoric to justify our actions that has not come from the mouths of a thousand governments before ours. I personally hold more power than countless autocrats and dictators throughout history. Our system of government has no special features other than - as Ms. Fluffybiscuits has so astutely observed - a corrected set of incentives."

She looked down at the sword that Katherine wore. She was wearing a sword, didn't you notice? This good, soft, silly girl was armed. Armed with - if the Plousios' fate was any guide - a terrifyingly deadly weapon. One that could destroy this house and the hill it stood upon.

... why didn't you notice?

"But neither," said the Supreme Ruler of Earth. "Have we invented a sword that cuts only the wicked. If our world stands, it stands by our people's wisdom alone. What would we do if someone disobeys? Well, it [i]depends [/i]- doesn't it? It depends on everything, which depends on everything else. And as everything is ever changing so is what we would do. So I cannot answer your hypothetical - all I can do is invite you to experience everything we have done."