"People do have opinions."

"Oh good. What are the big things people disagree about there?"

"Why is that good?"

"Because if everyone agreed about everything, then either that would be because there was something stopping people from having different opinions, which is usually bad, or it would mean people in your timeline were very psychologically different from people here and that would make my job really hard in a way that would probably be unpleasant for you."

"Unpleasant?"

"If you're really different from everyone I know I might accidentally give you bad advice! And you would probably just ignore it if it was obviously stupid, but I might give you subtly bad advice and you might take it and end up wasting your time."

"...ah."

"What did you think was going to be the problem?"

Shrug.

"Anyway, that was a tangent, what sort of political arguments does Ibyabek have?"

"Do opinions always mean arguments, here?"

"No, not always. Some things everyone agrees on the facts and it's just a matter of what people would prefer. Other times people disagree on the facts and try to persuade each other. It needn't be acrimonious and often isn't."

Kyeo doesn't say anything.

"Am I bothering you in a way you don't want to explain again?"

"I'm fine."

"Oh, okay. So what's political discussion like on Ibyabek?"

"People talk about... the Glorious Leader's decisions, and who will succeed him, and - what the local governors are likely to do - and about foreign planets, sometimes -"

"Sounds like a similar set of things, yeah. How do you pick the leader and the governors?" they ask, climbing into a nearby tree and then jumping down.

"The Glorious Leader is elected by popular vote and then appoints people to all the lesser positions."

"How many people usually run? Can the winner usually fill all the other positions with the people who ran against them or do they have to go out and find more people?"

"The last election was before I was born," says Kyeo.

"I guess if they're for life that makes sense. But isn't it super inconvenient? I feel like technology and procedures would have changed so much every time that running the election would be a huge hassle. Does each leader give several years of notice before retiring so they have time to find candidates and pull the voting setup together?"

"This is only our second Glorious Leader, and the first one died in office."

"Ouch, poor guy. You said on the mailing list that he only made it to 88, but most people here would still have retired by then."

"It was before I was born."