"I think it is unlikely I could convince them to only make one major societal innovation on the grounds of good data collection, alas."

"What led them to this particular pair of them?"

"They have a very charismatic leader who felt strongly about them both, as well as some religious doctrine, I think."

"Huh. What's human religion like?"

"It varies a lot, but the most common ones involve the son of god having risen from the dead and two afterlives, one nice and the other full of torture."

"The son of who?"

"God - the presumably fictitious omnipotent entity some people believe created the world."

"Why would they believe this if it's fictitious?"

"I think they find it comforting and it's non-trivial to realize it's fictitious when lots of other people you trust also believe it?"

"But how did it start?"

"I'd guess from people trying to find comforting explanations for things they didn't understand, but I'm not certain."

"Do humans do that a lot? Like if somebody's stuff is stolen do they go 'ah probably this was taken by a deserving person who needed it more and just didn't have time to explain', or something?"

"Not exactly that, but I imagine someone might decide that something was stolen because someone hated them in particular."

"That doesn't sound comforting at all."

"I think people prefer to believe that crimes against them are committed out of malice rather than desperation."

"I can't imagine why but maybe that's a species thing."

"Possibly, yeah. It can also vary - I don't have that preference myself as far as I can tell."

Nod.

"I'd guess it was related to the technological level of my world, but I think religion was an even bigger deal before the Maelstrom."

"Amentans have religion, or at least something I'm translating that way for some reason, just... it doesn't involve making things up and then believing them after having made them up, it's more to do with codifying and legibilizing the feelings we already have and coming up with principles for how to deal with them."

"That sounds more like psychology or philosophy?"

"Maybe the language power isn't amazing," she shrugs, "I didn't exactly get to customize it or choose from several competitors."

Nod.

"I guess it's lucky you got one at all."

"Yeah, these would not have been amazing conditions to try to learn a new language in."

"Do you want to try doing rounds at the market with me shadowing you tomorrow?"