Yeah, but engaging with an independent elven state that's existed within Imperial territory since before it was Imperial territory, and inviting them in to our power bloc, is the sort of thing that will catapult the Trident from being a mild irritant that they think they might need to address eventually, but don't currently have the power or inclination to confront, all the way up to an immediate threat to their economic stability as the breadbasket of the Empire that they need to address. And meeting with a foreign, oft-misunderstood power with no form of Imperial oversight, in Imperial territory, is literally handing them the dagger that they can stab us with. Frankly, I think whether it came to some sort of political or military confrontation with our enemies among the Elector Counts, we'd probably win. But the issue is that whoever wins, we all lose. We don't WANT a confrontation because a confrontation weakens the Empire as a whole. By quietly, slowly growing our power, while remaining as a vital bulwark of the Empire, they might scheme up some tricksy shit like the trade reforms the Moot and Marienburg tried to push, but they can't really directly confront us to try and curb our growth, at least not without an overwhelmingly large chance of failure, and an awful lot to lose from that failure. But if we go through with the Trident Meeting with Laurelorn, without any sort of Imperial oversight, we become both an immediate, very large threat to their political authority, and a threat that they have a method to directly attack. If we at least get the approval of Magnus and take some time to more slowly introduce the idea, while it will still sting them, and they'll still regard it as a threat, we won't be handing them a means to oppose the action on a silver platter when the next Elector's Meet rolls around.
