Other way around. The tea taxes are going down so smugling is no longer profitable.

I prefer the type of bug (wo)men that look exactly like humans but in close inspection are a swarm of diferent types of bugs like in green brain or the first arcs of reverend insanity. Honestly i was anoyef they droped that asthethic in the latter since it would have been very cool. And would explain why the protagonist is such a hardcore volcel.

I agree with your second point. But it would seem that normaly the languages that are spoken primarily by people that learnned them as second languages would become more simplified.

For example english speakers say ate instead of eated wich would be the logical choice. If enough peaole learn it as a second language so that it becomes eated then the language becomes simpler.

And then tend to become complicated again as the speakers develop ideosincracies. But if there is a mechanism preventing this, for example its spoken over a wide area so the ideosyncracies never stick. Or the speakers are constantly interacting with forengers or both. Then the languaged gramar would remainsimple.

Persian gramar is much easier to learn than russian or spanish. And i asume chinise is likewise easier.

Yes its bad because it should have hapenned 8 years ago. The current mess is because putin decided to apease the west for nearly a decade letting them arm ukraine to the teeth. Until he had no choise but to act.

Isnt donestk atleast nominally a comunist republic? That sonds like a lot less supression of the left when compared to the kiev regime