Eventually: "Okay, so these people are a republic, at least sorta. The inner planets have a lot more power than the outer ones, although this is sorta glossed over probably because they like to pretend to be more egalitarian than they are? They seem to be aiming at egalitarianism." 

"Well, that's probably better than not aiming at egalitarianism."

"Enh, depends on how good they are at it. If they're doing something stupid it's easier to sit on an autocrat to make them stop than to sit on an entire Parliament to make them stop." 

"I don't think they are likely to have designed the government expressly to make it easy for outside actors to sit on."

"Well, no, but how they're designing the government and how I feel about it are two different things." 

"I think I'd feel more tempted to sit on a government that wasn't aiming at egalitarianism."

"I dunno enough about how different political principles shake out in practice to have a strong opinion so I'll take your word for it."

"D'you want to trade books?"

"Sure." 

Isabella hands over Third Unit General Science and accepts Introducing The Verse.

"Huh," she says after a little while. "Stars that aren't people are just...giant fireballs. Okay."

"I had been assuming that you just had giant fireballs that were also people. To perform any of the conventional functions of a sun a thing has to be massive and hot and bright."

"I mean, Judgments are massive and hot and bright, but heat and light are what they produce, not what they are. Imagine going to a universe where cows are just giant dripping spheres of milk." 

"Ew!"

"Okay, less gross than that. But Judgments have some kind of biology under all the heat and light. I don't know as much about it as I could, and I don't think it works exactly like mortal biology, but it's definitely way more complicated than just fire." 

"I think stars are technically more complicated than that too but not in a biological way."

"I dunno exactly how Judgments have sex but I know my grandfather got my grandmother pregnant somehow and that it was not a way such that I should worry about shining too hard at someone with a uterus. I may someday learn more about how that works but, hopefully, if it ever becomes in any way relevant it will mean there is someone not my grandparent to tell me." 

"...yeah I can't help you there at all."

"I wasn't asking for advice! Just. As an example of biology-as-opposed-to-fire. I know what parts I have and how they work, but I'm half human, I can't generalize too hard from me." 

"- makes sense."

Xander snickers and sets down his picture book in favor of something on civics.

"Yes, yes, I mentioned genitals, we're not five years old."

"Xander occasionally regresses." Isabella buries herself in the social studies book.

She gives Xander a mock judgmental (no pun intended) look before going back to investigating what science has figured out since the nineteenth century. Fascinating stuff, honestly; she itches to send it all back to her brother. She makes a mental note to look at some of her own cells and tissues under a microscope if she ever gets the chance.

"Okay, system formally unified but there was a civil war - that being I guess what you call a war retroactively when the pro-unification side wins, it's not obvious if they were unified to begin with. Central government called 'the Alliance' and they maybe have more presence in the center worlds or that's just a planetary-scale urban/rural thing, I'm not sure which, but the core worlds were the ones that had the Alliance on them to begin with. Beaumont is..." She consults her map.