The blue is eager to learn! She explains that it's not polite to talk about anything gross in polite company if it's not an absolute practical necessity; it would be rude to attend any gathering sick unless it is very definitely not infectious; if someone touches their hair like so that means they don't have the correct educational background to opine confidently about the topic at hand and might want to be asked for a referral to someone else; it's okay to give gifts pretty arbitrarily to impersonal groups, like "the Amentans", but giving gifts to individuals should probably wait till they have more fluent translation to explain the details of how that ought to work; you don't touch people you don't know on a personal level (so, sometime after you would normally start using their given name).

Elu is not terribly clear on when you'd change which name you call someone, when exactly do you do that?

Elu definitely has more to say about Sesati etiquette - ways you can greet different sorts of people, how titles work with the Star-of-Stars and when you can dispense with that, and rude gestures that might mean something else on Amenta. She mentions that it's very forward to ask about people's families. She's willing to start listing virtues Sesat considers important (and therefore considers it confrontational to suggest someone lacks). She can explain the concept of oaths if they happen to be unfamiliar though she disclaims that she has no expectation that they are and is just trying to be very thorough to the point of explaining things that probably don't actually need to be explained. She mentions that gender roles exist but she's not sure she can explain them quickly so maybe the visitors should just avoid going into anyone's bedroom until they've had more time to figure that out.

Usually you start calling someone by their first name when you start socializing them outside of work-related situations, though you might continue calling someone their job name while actually at work with them indefinitely.

It's really useful to have a catalogue of greetings and titles. That one gesture is an Amentan sign language's word for a beverage but that seems unlikely to come up for the foreseeable future. They can avoid asking about people's families if that's rude, do they just fall back on talking about the weather, is it weird to volunteer information about one's family or can the Amentans show off baby pictures and stuff? Amenta has promises, and very serious promises, but not really a specific oath category insofar as they are translating the explanation correctly, what is important about the difference between a promise and an oath? Gender... roles... huh, what a way to be, but it makes good evopsych sense in some ways. They will send out a bulletin about not hooking up with locals for the time being (or merely entering their bedrooms, if that's also a thing specifically).

Amenta also values many different virtues, though which ones exactly depend on the caste. It is unfriendly to suggest someone lacks a relevant virtue, but in most situations it just leads to the person avoiding you. If they start calling random Amentans stupid or criminal or something then they will more likely be asked if they'd like to talk to someone else than start a serious fight.

It's not very weird to volunteer information, especially if the babies in question are now adults on another planet.

Elu meant the bedroom thing completely literally and actually expects hooking up to be less than maximally fraught though perhaps they should also avoid that until they know more.

What things start serious fights in Sesat of course depends on the gender of the people involved but Elu can talk about that in detail.

(Speaking of baby pictures, lookit this green baby! Isn't he cuuuuuuute?) And are they guessing correctly that the people with discernible breasts and higher voices are the women and the ones with facial hair and kind of a lotta muscles are the men?

Elu and several soldiers agree that's a very cute baby! Two of the soldiers show no interest at all.

"Yes, that's mostly correct. Women who are fairly lean might not have discernible breasts, voice ranges overlap a little, and facial hair is complicated - men shave it off if they're soldiers, but not if they're farmers; sometimes women grow a little and they'll shave it if they have time and it's patchy and looks uneven, but not if they don't have time or if it's easy to keep it looking nice. If you're at a loss, men are more likely to carry swords or bows or be wearing or carrying archery wristguards or gloves."

"Okay! Do we ask if we aren't sure?"

"I suppose, since you're aliens, if you remind people that you're aliens, that might work straightforwardly."

"Okay. We don't care if people can tell which ones of us are girls and boys as long as we aren't hooking up with humans anyway so you don't have to worry about that."

"Well, you're aliens, it doesn't have to matter to you, though perhaps you could explain how to tell which people are apt to get into duels and which aren't expected to get involved in violence."

"We don't have duels but the greys are designated for violence if it comes up unavoidably."

"You don't have duels? What do you do instead?"

"In - what situations? There have been historical societies with dueling but I don't know what you use it for."

"They still duel in Ereith."

"Really? Well, they're all grey, that would kind of impair developing a nonviolent culture."

"What do you do when mortally insulted?"

"What does it mean to be mortally as opposed to not mortally insulted?"

She attempts to explain what sorts of insults draw what sorts of responses from what sorts of people - like if you suggest some soldier ought to be a slave, that's the sort of thing that might get a violent response, and if that soldier has a sister that you say it to she might arrange for a man to do something about it or, for instance, if someone said that to Elu, then that person would likely never get an audience with the Star-of-Stars and might never be able to find anywhere to stay in the capital. But, for example, saying someone is just ugly isn't nearly that serious.

Huh. Sometimes people are sued for slander, if it's actually a serious and public enough insult that it might affect anything about your life that you couldn't solve by not hanging out with whoever insulted you.

Elu is interested to hear more about how that works.

Sure, they can talk about civil court.

Elu is trying to learn so much it feels like she's running out of room to remember more new things today but this is very important.

They did not bring a civil court along on the ship, to be clear, here they are mostly trusting everyone's professionalism and would probably fall back on asking Sakasta Mashu or one of the other blues on the ship to adjudicate if something blew up really badly. Or a personnel yellow if it was threatening to blow up and someone needed to be reassigned or something, before anyone had actually started issuing really dire slander.

Well. In that case maybe it won't be too terrible if she comes back to the topic of civil court some other time.

Yup. Are there standard polite circumlocutions if you think someone doesn't have enough of some virtue for some purpose and want someone else to handle a task to which that purpose is relevant?

"You mean like 'yes, his majesty is interested in a new advisor, but candidates must present nonnegligible progress toward a solution to the Riddle of Tena's Ford to be considered' or like 'actually, I don't think you'll do' or are you picturing a different sort of situation?"

"If those are polite ways to express those things then they certainly answer my question! Thank you."