It's natural to put your own people at the center of the map if you're the one drawing it. Your homeworld wasn't spacefaring? My people have had starships for centuries, and we still haven't encountered any inhabited planets. I hadn't met anyone who wasn't human before I arrived here.

[Ari has adapted to that part remarkably quickly. Her people had always known that by probability, they couldn't be the only sentient beings in the universe. There had to be others, just far away.]

I guess some things are the same. If we're stepping in for peacekeeping, it's because talks between colonies have broken down and someone resorted to violence. I wish it didn't happen, but there are always going to be people willing to violate the rights of others, and sometimes the only thing they'll listen to is the threat of having every ship of the lines turn up on their doorstep if they don't back off.