In terms of gameplay and story structure, this game is great. In terms of its thematic implications, I have qualms. Certain aspects of this universe, which were present in Adastra, have now become too explicit for comfort in Khemia. Am I the only one who finds a bad taste in my mouth in seeing that our protagonist is evidently afraid of the poor? It seems tactless that, in a story that is ultimately about politics, the grievances of the masses are portrayed as nothing more than a source of trauma for our protagonist- especially when we have seen it established in Adastra that the condition of the Adastran poor is pretty bleak. It is not as if I have no sympathy for Scipio- after all, he isn't the ruling elite he is attacked for being and the attack on him seems motivated more by his breed than his social status- resembling racial prejudice more than class uprising. And, of course, the ideological influence of Cassius that apparently motivated it is flawed (FUCK Cassius). Still, I wish we could see a full and multi-dimensional portrayal of the average and poor people of this society instead of having them serve as nothing more than a bogeyman haunting a cast of aristocrats, bureaucrats, and dictatorial monarchs.
This is a failure common to a lot of political dramas, sad to say. They focus far too much on the great chess matches of tyrants and in those matches the people are only a pawn or a problem to solve, never being portrayed fairly as actual people or having their concerns addressed. I am reminded of Game of Thrones- but at least they tried to depict the average people's interests with characters like the Brotherhood Under No Banners. Khemia, at least so far, seems content to depict the poor and downtrodden's rebellion as nothing more than a nuisance, while it depicts the literal all-powerful imperial dictatorship they rebel against as a cute and harmless himbo. It doesn't help that the "parents" and their contract with Amicus echo the feudalistic myth of the divine right of kings-wherein democracy is seen as blasphemy! The worldview this narrative implicitly works upon is very flawed.
If I were to try and fix this, I would try to in some way represent the actual plight and concerns of the common people- maybe have a suffering everyman as an actual character in the plot, instead of just an eeeeeviiiiilll shadow in a flashback or a trite talking point in a debate. And stop pretending monarchs are cute!