He was home, but he wasn't. He had gotten where he had to go, but he hadn't. He had found out who he was, but he didn't know why it had failed to sat… - C. J. Cherryh

“You’ve behaved very highhandedly, Captain Mallory. Is that the custom out here?”
“The custom is, sir, that those who know a situation handle it and those who don’t watch and learn, or get out of the way.”

It was a monumental achievement that the serpentine tc'a had once upon a time gotten the knnn to understand the concept of trade: so nowadays knnn simply contacted a station, rushed onto its methane-dock and deposited whatever they liked, grabbed whatever they wanted and left. This was an improvement over their former behavior, in which they simply looted and left.

Their minds were geared to the old problems and to their own problems and their own politics.