labingi

First of all, I just read the most beautiful and enthralling book: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. I've read a lot of hers but this one's a masterpiece that comes close to The Goblin Emperor in that I didn't want it to end and have to say goodbye to the characters. Her Uprooted is also very good, but this one is really powerful, and I think it will stay with me.

As for Vila, I understand about as much of their class system as you; here it's much more about education and success. I didn't answer right away as I knew I'd have to marshal my thoughts about Vila.

When we first meet him, he's fairly confident, with a place in the world he made for himself outside the grading system: a very clever thief in demand for his skills. He doesn't define himself by grade at all (though he doesn't deny it) but by his skills. He treats the others as equals, though he makes mistakes, like the jokes about pleasure machines before Space City which go down like a lead balloon with the higher grades, though I'm sure they'd have worked with his friends. He is also much cleverer than they must have suspected, with his wit and vocabulary, though I'm not sure where he acquired it. Reading? I'm also inclined to believe him about buying his grade - maybe he was a Gamma? - to get out of being trained as a spaceship captain. He shows a lot of knowledge about ships, recognising the Scorpio's class and its features, and knows how to fix it using force fields. Of course by that time his self-confidence has been eroded by the scorn of the others - and not having a function that gives him worth; he'd hardly been able to use his skills since S2, and Dayna has his position on the neutron blasters. Blake may have been dismissive at times but he gave Vila his due and responsibility for important tasks.

Anyway, in short I don't think it mattered to him. Friendship and being worth something to others matters a lot more. He didn't go with Kerril because he knew his skills, his self in his view, wouldn't matter on a new world.