"Oh, I like those opening moves," he says in appreciative tones. Those would be his first steps, after all, and since this is only a hypothetical, he can take a tone of confident conspiracy. "Perhaps in such a scenario, we'd end up as allies. We both value gathering information before deciding how to act. In the tyrant's case ... how would you go about testing their capabilities? Deliberately provoking them? I'll admit that's my own bad habit."