The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)

by Dan Simmons

I was the intellectual Jesuit, secure in the tradition of Teilhard

“To impress us with their superior technology?” asked Theo, sotto voce.

their innermost modules and lifecans and ’cologies looking like something stolen from O’Neill’s Boondoggle and the dawn of the space age;

To spread the seed of humankind to all worlds, diverse environments, while treating as sacred the diversity of life we find elsewhere.” Freeman Ghenga’s face was bright in the sun. “The Core offered unity in unwitting subservience,” she said softly. “Safety in stagnation. Where are the revolutions in human thought and culture and action since the Hegira?”

“Our new age of human expansion will terraform nothing. We will revel in hardships and welcome strangeness. We will not make the universe adapt … we shall adapt.”