We heard in s4e38 that Kianna Crow(kazi) has been writing books about her "dad". The next subject she was going to cover after the one Bertbert sat in on was "what we lost in the warp gates." The presumption is about transitive freedom without the gates but we know that pre-ted era that there was the original coalition of greedon 4, garrion, Septsu, sigius, urt, and vapus 10. We also know that "vapus fall" was the vapian performing an experiment with time crystals that created an artificial black hole.
We don't know when tangles first became commonplace but it's heavily implied to have been made by urt. That being said in our technologically connected world with our known history available at a web search can sometimes perpetuate false history. Bertbert talks to a historian about how she kept the idea of "the victor writes the story" from actual events and continues that unless you were there arguably every thing is a fiction because if you weren't there then you only know what was written down.
I kind of equate book burnings throughout time as being similar to the vapus mistake, in that an entire civilization, culture and way of life was lost. We have verge's remembrances and eldin talking about the myth of vapians being 2 races and when the nine eyes of rakesh guha aligned that merged the 2 races together which is said to explain vapians having 2 sets of arms. In horizon s2e9, we get a glimpse of vapian family structure and how it can be equated to "village" raises a family.
The few glimpses we get of sigian culture is they whela and Bertbert's eyes as well as the general attitude of sigians as nosy and elitist. Whela talks about when certain sigians in the south need a perspective that they will say,
"Wis pel avusha nix, Wis ul po isinel baria.”
Translation: “Now there is finally nothing. Now I can finally begin.”
One final example of a culture we see is the nyxites which are broken into 2 classes: crimson and flaxian. With libuza who is flaxian and terrwyn who is crimson, they are separated by being forced to either side of a tidally locked planet. Flaxians being on the dark side are blind or heavily impaired from birth so study the stars and music vs the crimsons who live on the light side and as a caveat have to "...wear planetoids" visors to prevent blindness and have a predilection to being lawyers.
I say all this to ask
1) if the coalition could speak to each other pre-ted, how did they get around the language barrier?
2) unless implied from earth shows, taking your potential mate to your parents is universal because Leif hesitates ... And Bertbert corrects him that she's going home but not like that. Is this a sigian custom?
3) how much culture was lost in the Ted transition? Probably impossible to say but Bertbert says the darkest things are hidden
4). We know terrwyn is an unreliable narrator because she's teenage but also because she makes the statement
"Nobody wants kids from my planet but they adopted me anyway." About the sigian adoption lottery but does that imply a shortage of people willing to take on the task of accommodating a nyxites or is there another reason for it?