I can see that, back when whatever caused the 10C's near destruction happened, a hardline developed in their unified opinion that caused a dismissal of concern for those creatures that they could not prove by their own standards to be equivalent of themselves. In the time since, through the deaths of individuals of their own, and their contribution to that unity, the point of view moderated enough so that once something was speaking to them in a form of their own language, they couldn't deny it, and they were able to expand their definition of what sapience is.
I have at times struggled with the idea that I must consume life for my own existence to continue. When I tell this to a vegetarian or vegan who is so due to a moral position on killing or eating animals, they often get visibly excited, until I mention that the same thing applies to plants for me. They'll say 'plants don't feel pain' or 'plants can't feel emotions' and they get super defensive if I say something like, 'they don't do those things in a way we recognize, but that doesn't mean they don't, or don't feel something analogous.'
I was hoping that, when the 10C decided that the DMA was too awful, that we would learn that they had created the galactic barrier in the first place, as protection from something they believed came from the galaxy, and were walling it off, and using the DMA to get power to maintain the barrier. I was hoping that they would drop the galactic barrier (which I actually hate as a concept).
), the entire crew getting to participate in things at the end, the wrap story wasn't too bad. 
