Citadel is set up as an over the top patriarchy. The enemy are native "demons" who our MC figures out are probably sentient. At 40% on, she has set out to make contact and finds out the demons are telepathic. after all the clumsy world-building at that point, the final straw was our MC insisting that the demons who tell her that humans started the killing are wrong, rather than ask them what they know. you're doing first contact, and your character is suddenly a bull in a china shop, despite being much smarter than that before then. final straw for me.