I appreciate that this series just has no sense of scale. Like - everything that happens is the major event in another book and, in this book (and the previous one), it's like a chapter.
It's very much in the tradition of Delaney's idea of philosophical scifi but also with Tchaikovsky's own fondness for interesting cultural situations and resolutions.
The entire question is always "can we communicate across impossibly wide chasms of difference" and the book is always trying to write a realistic "yes!" as an answer.
Well, for a given definition of realistic. The premise can be as bonkers as one wishes so long as it allows for the bridge to be built. And I kind of love that.