The way Ebonshield had explained it before was that class differences among the 'Children of the Stars' were extremely sharp, and all must bow in respect to a member of a higher 'phase.' Which had included all of them on that first visit, when the Reverend Mother Superior arrived to interrupt the training to welcome Anonymous, and to sternly admonish the sergeant herself. Of course, it only came out later that those words might not have just been between a member of a higher 'phase' and a lower one, but also between a disapproving mother and her disobedient daughter. 