Humanity was able to understand the galaxy because it accepted relativity. Time was not the same everywhere, and distance did not exist as a single value. The order of events with no causal relationship could be recorded differently depending on the motion of the observer. Galactic civilization calculated this precisely. Every clock had a reference, and every measurement was accompanied by the observer's position. No physicist claimed that only their own clock was correct. Galactic Standard Time did not choose a single clock either. It began with the recognition that no clock was correct on its own. Yet the way civilization dealt with people and worlds moved in the opposite direction. Common standards were established to determine which worlds' lives should be protected, which risks should be permitted, and what should be recognized as a citizen. At first, this was intended to prevent discrimination between different worlds. The standards gradually became more precise.
In physics, the fact that measurements differed with the observer's position was not called an error. In administration, different worlds wanting different ways of life could be recorded as a problem. When calculating physical phenomena, the observer's frame of reference was always specified, but when galactic civilization made policy decisions, it did not state whose frame of reference was being used.