Tanya has never heard of Nidal but presumably that is another ongoing disaster on the scale of 'constant famines' that would be incredibly important to fix if you were at all invested in either the well-being, economic productivity, or even simply the good opinions of the locals!

"Almost all of it is new to me but I fear that explaining it properly would require a history of the preceding century and so on. I understand that Aroden was a 'god' broadly in favor of - good things - who intended to descend to Golarion and improve local conditions. However, other divine factions opposed him, he died in the ensuing struggle, and some other disasters happened - I'm not clear which of those were results of the shifting balance of power, part of some kind of proxy war between the gods, or opportunistic power-grabs during the chaos as you've implied for the worldwound. I don't recognize any of other proper names and references, but I hope I don't have to know about all of them in order understand the present state of things." Most of those things were labelled 'attempts' or else are events a hundred years in the past.

"...and I'm not sure what you mean by prophecy but I'm also not sure it's worth a digression," seeing how it's now 'broken'.

“That is broadly correct.  The extent mortal nations are merely proxies for divine conflict is debated.  There are schools of geopolitical thought that attempt to classify or understand mortal geopolitics almost entirely this way, but I mostly disagree with them.  I think a proper understanding requires understanding the interests of the mortal nations.  Various God’s can be understood as aligning with or incentivizing mortal interests.  Understanding prophecy was a key element in understanding how Gods acted and how they negotiate prior to a century ago but it isn’t so much now.  For understanding Avistan’s current state, you mostly need to understand the fact there are a number of potential far reaching disasters that could happen or could spiral further out of control if things become destabilized enough.”

“Should I note the terms that aren’t translating with the right connotations and try to explain them further or would you prefer that I move on?”

"Please do. Honestly, I'm surprised things are translating as well as they seem to be." Whoever brought humans to this world presumably also spread the same concepts to one or both, but Tanya shouldn't blithely rely on that when she's entirely unused to translation spells.

“The connotation of ‘God’ and ‘Gods’ feel off?  Like maybe… the word wants to be singular for some reason?  And it overall feels looser than any proper definition?  For a proper definition… a minimal definition would be ‘an entity that can empower clerics’ which somehow feels missing from the connotations I’m getting?  Keep in mind I’m not an expert at using Tongues like this, I’m kind of realizing it as I’m trying to describe it.”

“And the connotation for ‘demon’ feels off, like in this language it is just a generic evil magical monster?  Like ‘devil’… doesn’t actually have a distinctly different connotation.  The actual formal definition… a demon is a Chaotic Evil outsider from the Abyss, usually made from or originally a mortal soul (or sometimes mortal souls plural)… and outsider isn’t coming through right either, neither is the Abyss.  An outsider is a being from another plane, often very different in basic physical makeup from a being from the material plane.  And the Abyss is the Chaotic Evil afterlife.  Should I try to explain more?”

What, seriously? The Germanian language can talk about plural gods just fine! People write about the ancestral Germanic gods and the Indic gods and so on! Just what cultural connotations are coming through with this language spell? (Unfortunately Tanya can't introspect about this right now.) 

As for not matching 'can empower people with magic', that is absolutely correct. The people who designed and built Tanya's orb and gave it to her were not 'gods', and would be insulted or horrified at being called that. They were much better than gods: they were rational human beings who helped their fellow men and did not demand anybody's worship. She does not want to get into this argument with Sorcha but it is very clear to her that she is right. 

"...I know why those connotations exist and I already realized the translation for 'demon' and 'devil' was off. I had not realized the Abyss was an afterlife, it also didn't translate correctly."

So - one of the local gods, Pharasma, 'judges' the souls of the dead and sends them to be reincarnated in different places, some of which are dungeon dimensions... the Abyss is one of these afterlives for 'evil' people... they are reincarnated into different species from their original ones with 'very different' physical makeup, which frankly sounds terrible, and then they are tortured on top of that? Except that now they have a - gateway letting some of those people escape torture back into Golarion??? Why - and why would that result in marauding bandits - unless they only release the people likely to be like that or condition them into it, deliberately gathering the worst criminals of a hundred worlds - what message is this meant to send the locals, you'll be tortured if you're bad but if you're really evil you'll have a chance at staging a prison break?

Sheeee probably can't ask Sorcha to confirm all that without outing herself as someone extremely strange and at the very least from off-planet. Does she need to know about this? She'd only be learning what the divine factions want the locals to believe - but they can talk to these demons, so unless they're all mind-controlled or have their minds overwritten by the gods it must reflect some reality - actually, there's a thought.

"Jon? Do you think I should follow up on this with the Consular?" Hopefully he'll get the subtextual message that what she's actually asking is whether she should follow up on this with Jon later instead.

Jon has only half paid attention for anything really disastrous, he is mostly focused on a very interesting conversation with Terendelev about mindscapes.

“I think you have some major misunderstandings about demons… and lots of theological topics.  They are likely very relevant, albeit long term.  Demons might be more short term relevant.  The questions you would ask would be suggestive of a very different background context than most people, so you may want to hold off on them?”

“Should I disregard that?  I can continue on with the book, or explain more without any clarifying questions from Tanya, or if the additional security exposure is worth it you can ask anyway?”

It looks like escapee of an Archmage’s secret Demiplane is looking more likely, she should come up with a different distracting pretend explanation.