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.

Yes, Jon, Tanya knows the questions would be indicative! That is why she attempted to ask you whether continuing this line of questioning was worth revealing that!

Note to self: don't rely on Jon to correctly interpret non-literal subtext. ...really, when she puts it like that, it's her own fault for expecting the literal alien to get her meaning.

Should she ask Sorcha to explain 'demons', who are apparently maliciously reincarnated, deliberately released prisoners from a dungeon dimension endowed with teleportation magic so they can wreak havoc? She does want to get answers, but - Jon is right that it's probably won't affect any decisions she makes in the short term. Her first priority has to be not to make any catastrophic mistakes in the next few days or weeks and the nature of the worldwound isn't relevant to that; only the local nations' response to it is. However, the rest of Sorcha's book seems likely to rely on an understanding of all this...

"I don't think it's important to explain for its own sake right now, but if it keeps coming up and I can't understand the rest without it then please take the time to give me a brief explanation. I'm not afraid of revealing my ignorance here" because she already has, "only of being diverted. Specialists can spend whole careers on subfields of history or theology and deservedly so, but my own time is unfortunately limited."

“The geopolitical takeaway is that demons can’t be negotiated with as organizations nor even as individuals.  They are always impulsively treacherous and the trade goods they want tend to be stuff like ‘let them torture an orphan for amusement’.  If you are thinking of them merely like an unusual mortal race that would be a mistake.  For comparison, I would argue Orc tribes and Drow city-states can be negotiated with and you can find common interests, and there are plenty of individual Orc and Drow that want reasonable things you can do trade about in a mutually beneficial way.”

She is kind of worried Tanya may still not get it, but (apparently) she is on some kind of timeline or at least wants to get urgent things and/or a broad understanding established first.

“I can try to explain in more detail or move on?  It’s mostly relevant to the Worldwound… if you keep wondering why we couldn’t and can’t cut a deal with the demons, or at least get occasional individual demons defecting or acting as double agents maybe I should go ahead and explain?”

"It's important for me to understand that that's the case," Tanya agrees. "I'm not sure if it's worth spending time" and possibly arguing or unintentionally giving offence about "explaining why that is the case. I understand that the demons are - people who Pharasma judged as chaotic evil and reincarnated in a particular afterlife. I don't understand which of them are the ones that come here, why they're evil and irrational beyond mortal extremes and without exception, or for that matter why they can all teleport. I can think of several possible explanations for this state of affairs and I'm probably missing others." If all the divine factions were opposed to the worldwound they would presumably stop it, but Tanya doubts that the locals know anything other than what they're told by their churches. 

"I was told that Deskari and possibly other actors can organize the demons and cause them to act together to some degree. Do they act as organizations even if you can't treat with them as such? Do the demons want to attack and torture 'mortals' more than they do each other? Are there incentives that they follow reliably?"

“I think reincarnate isn’t quite the usual term, but yes.  Mortals judged Chaotic Evil by Pharasma’s court are reborn in the Abyss as ‘larvae’, kind of like giant insect grubs.  From there, they may spend centuries crawling around in the muck of the Abyss.  They are used as raw materials and occasionally as food by full demons.  It is widely believed more Evil and Chaotic souls transform into full demons much faster.  This topic is difficult to study given the timespans involved, and any exact way of exploiting it is censored by civilized societies to avoid incentivizing people towards Chaos and Evil.   Outer planes, that is, afterlife dimensions, are often described as having a will of its own… I’m not sure if that is metaphor or passive laws of magic unique to each plane or if they are kind of like really unusual Gods… the Abyss’s will warps the minds of people within it and empowers the more Evil demons.  So those that survive to become full demons have had centuries of mind warping towards Evil and were the Evilest on top of that.”

This is a really upsetting target.  Also it’s not geopolitics or history.

“I’m not an expert, that is just a general overview.  You had specific questions… Demons generally want to torture weaker targets less inured to suffering so they are more interested in mortals.  They aren’t animals, they’ve gotten better at organizing over the past century, going from entirely uncoordinated individuals to armies, albeit poorly disciplined armies.  I think their methods of organization look like lots of mind control from the top down?  I’m not sure, you would have to ask an expert or I can try to get a more detailed book?”

It turns out that the answer is really 'all of the above'. 

You take broadly bad people - criminals, murderers, the insane. Reincarnate them as literal worms, have them spend centuries in a pointless and inescapable existence. Mind-control them into being more evil and torturing each other, possibly via environmental effects; humanity wasn't even trying and it discovered plenty of drugs and pollutants that lower intelligence and impede rationality, so what might a dedicated research effort uncover and put in the proverbial water? Repeatedly empower the worst of them and reward their worst instincts, a dysgenics program combined with structural sabotage of any emergent society.

And then you release the very worst specimens into a naive population. You give them magic, teleports and mind control, to make them a threat to civilization. And you teach your followers to call the poor wretches 'demons' instead of applying the term to the sick pretenders to godhood who run the show.

Also: you can have hierarchical mind control! Why hadn't she thought of that? Realistically, it's because she's not a genius and won't think of every implication right away, and will need a long time to become proficient with the societal implications of local magic. As always, the surest way to survive and to thrive is to join a successful organization.

Hierarchical mind control is enough to explain why demons are individually incapable of cooperation and yet can be organized into armies. You can break the mind control on a crucial link to throw your opponent's organization into chaos, but any spy or double agent must be mind controlled by yourself and would be discovered quickly. And demons who break out of the system don't seek shelter with Lastwall in exchange for their knowledge, because they've been conditioned not to and because to trust them Lastwall might need to mind control them anyway... this picture is missing some details, but the outline is clear enough.

"We shouldn't digress into that right now. Please continue."

“I’ll resume reading.”

Cheliax has a devastating civil war!  At the time people assumed it was the absence of their main God meant there was no moderating influence on the nobility, but in hindsight the obvious conclusion is that Asmodeus was subtly intervening to prolong it!  In the end he takes control through a pact with House Thrune, Abrogail Thrune in particular.  This is obviously a disaster, but Lastwall agreed not to intervene in the war before it became apparent Asmodeus was involved and they are thoroughly occupied with the Worldwound.  Elsewhere around the world, the lack of prophecy has altered how the Gods operate.  Clerics fall much more frequently as Gods are no longer able to predict in advance who will be reliable with their teachings! Abadar makes a deal with a human cleric of his and bloodlessly establishes an Osirion Pharaohdom.  There is some controversy over his churches common role as international neutral arbiters, but both his Osirion and Absalom churches are very clear to establish themselves as independent from each other.  There is also some theological claim about or by the Osirion church the book seems to be eliding or talking around.  The worldwound continues to get worse, with an army of angels and archons out of heaven failing to turn the tide of demons!  The wardstones are created by a miracle of Heaven, and (possibly as part of divine deals behind the scenes) multiple nations, most notably Cheliax, agree to contribute to holding the Wardstone line.

“And I think that establishes enough context to change books and start the present day.”

“I have some plans to run by Tanya… we should probably go ahead and do that, I will need to loop Lastwall in if Tanya approves, also my telepathic bond with Terendelev expired earlier so we’ll need Lastwalll to use a sending if anything will change from the plan we have worked out.”

Tanya now knows probably as much as an average local about what happened, but she has no idea why any of those things happened! What are the constraints on divine factions having proxy wars? If Asmodeus can't back a faction to conquer Cheliax outright because he has an intervention budget then what do his local allies actually get out of the deal, can one quantify the assistance locals get from their divine patrons? How does 'a literal army of angels' count in intervention budget and how does it compare to Asmodeus's army that conquered Cheliax? If clerics often lose powers is that something the gods are happy with (the clerics are fired for not promoting the organization's goals) or unhappy (they lose valuable employees because of Pharasma's judgements), and if it's the latter why don't they find a workaround or just learn to guide their employees better? Do the nations who signed the treaty possibly not know if they did it because of their backers backchanneling, or is it only the book's author who doesn't know?

In other words, it's an entirely ordinary understanding of politics and history.

"That seems like a good point to pause, thank you. Jon, is it time for me to step out of the antimagic field to check on my wound?" No, wait, he'll probably misunderstand her and tell Sorcha to put her fingers in her ears and hum while spilling all of Tanya's secrets. Tanya will step out without waiting for his answer; there's no downside to briefly checking more often than she had planned.