Since the Banu aren't particularly interested in war, would that in turn make them exceptionally good at diplomacy with other races?
TL;DRThe Banu are good at diplomacy in a way, since they don't keep history and must renegotiate contracts whenever a guild dissolves, which can frustrate other parties.
Yes, in a weird way, because you also have to bear in mind, and again, this is the fun of coming up with these interesting, almost paradoxical personality things, they don't keep track of history. So one of the things that we realized, what started as a discussion about Souli: if a Souli were to dissolve, and I, as a human corporation, was getting my materials from the Souli, and then it dissolves and another Souli takes its place, I have to renegotiate my contract with that Souli because the previous one isn't going to honor a contract that they didn't sign. So I have to basically constantly renew a contract with them.
Yeah, contracts are agreements between two parties, and if one of the parties dies or is no longer existing or something, then the contract dies.
Contract is null and void. So you have to renegotiate. So what ended up happening in the conversation was we realized that they had signed a trade agreement with humanity when we met each other. And so did that mean that they basically had to keep renegotiating that contract every generation? And so, yeah, basically they've gotten really good at diplomacy, but it might be kind of frustrating that you would have to...
Yeah, every couple of years explaining to the Banu why they can't bring slaves into UEE space, and like, yeah, your drugs are great, but please stop trying to bring them.