I: “Almost, Master Hobbes, almost. They are modeled on your list, but times and peoples change, and so too do the laws that Reason leads such peoples to.”

Hobbes: “Changed? Balderdash! Such Laws are immutable and eternal. To forget any of them leads inevitably to war. It can never change that peace is endangered if one man tries to reserve to himself some Right which he will not share with everyone else, or if, in cases of revenge, men dwell on the greatness of the evil past, instead of thinking of the greatness of the good to follow, and so let private vendetta grow into public ruin. Whether in my era, thine, or any, Mycroft, Peace and War and what creates them cannot change.”

That I dispute not, Master Hobbes, and rest assured, the alterations to your laws are not so great as you fear. The fundamentals are unchanged, but our age cares less about primogeniture or Right of First Possession than your contemporaries did, and since our mores are more ubiquitous, we can cover more types of transgression with fewer words. Hobbestown’s rules are carved, not posted, on her gates, and their honest roughness corroborates the rumor that her founding Rumormonger etched them with a pocket knife, not any artist’s chisel. Romanova’s eight Black Laws stand on the left gatepost, while on the right post stand Hobbestown’s Eight Customs, also Called Natural Laws, enforced by nothing more than mob retribution, and crowned here by the Blacklaws’ brave commandment:

STRANGER, GO TELL YOUR LAWMAKERS THAT, WITH THESE CUSTOMS, WE LAWLESS FEW LIVE WELL.

1. Here we endeavor sincerely to keep the peace, but when that fails, we defend ourselves with all the means at our disposal.
2. Here we remember that what we do to others, others can and will do to us.
3. Here we put reasonable effort into accommodating others, no more nor less.
4. Here, when we harm others, we either volunteer fair recompense, or accept vendetta; when we are harmed, we accept fair recompense, and do not let vendetta go too far.
5. Here we endeavor not to harm or monopolize communal things.
6. Here we do not act on rash rumor, but do heed well-weighed opinion.
7. Here we do not harm or hinder peacemakers, arbiters, ambassadors, or those working for the public good, nor do we undo their work without good cause.
8. Here those chosen to be arbiters try to be fair, and those who consent to have a disagreement settled by an arbiter accept the judgment, and let matters end.

Hobbes: “Fascinating. And tell me, Mycroft, how do my backwards children separate rumor from opinion?”

Reader: “No more for now, friend Thomas, you have interrupted long enough; indeed were you less a friend I would say ‘too much.’ I am the reader here, not you, and it is at my pleasure our chronicler serves.”

Hobbes: “Deepest apologies, Master Reader. Such excitement can make even me forget the deference due to sovereignty. Forgive me?”