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We did not see the adversary for what he was, and we brought him into our home.
First, it was presented as a chance for the most exalted scholars and researchers of Anjiin’s great medrey and research conservatories to come together to socialize casually. In practice, “casual” included intricate and opaque rules of behavior and a rigidly enforced though ill-defined hierarchy of status.
“You’re at a point in your career that you should make people uneasy. You’re too fond of being underestimated. It’s a vice. You’re going to have to impress someone someday.”
“I’ve never been the fastest learner, but that’s my burden. Your teaching was always good. I’m going to owe you a lot when it’s all said and done.”
I’ve been watching you flatter and charm everyone all your life. I don’t think less of you for being manipulative. It’s a good skill.
Small moments, unnoticed at the time, change the fate of empires.
“Can I ask you a question?” She settled into herself. “Of course.”
Of course, you can, you just did.
Hypocrisy is the natural companion of beer.”
But giving a different way forward is a stronger argument than just saying no to the one that’s on the table.
“Hey, this is probably inappropriate, but if this does go bad, I’d feel stupid not having said anything…” She shifted her head. Her hair draped down to her collarbone. Her gaze on him felt like a pin through a butterfly. After a few breaths, the corner of her mouth twitched into a half smile. “You’re not saying anything,” she said. “Yeah. I know. And I was off to such a good start too. Forget about it.
But they aren’t like us.” “I don’t understand how they think, and that’s terrifying.”
“It’s just human. We don’t stop just because there’s no hope.”
“There’s always hope for something. Just not always… not always what we want.”
“Focus,” she said. “Just focus. Let go of all the things you can’t control, and find the things you can.”
A leader must be utterly decisive, especially when giving orders that conflict with the ones from the day before.
Preservation is irrational because it glorifies what cannot be. The universe is in constant change from the smallest measures to the greatest. To cling to one state of being over any others is foolish and futile and doomed.
That which had utility was incorporated, that which had none was culled. Any being who has chosen to pluck weeds out of a garden has done the same.
“It’ll be all right,” he said. “It won’t.” “No. But we’ll find a way to be all right with that.”
It is a very human thing, to want without knowing why.
If we’re waiting for a good, safe time to revolt, that’s the same as agreeing that this is our life now.
he had an imaging deck, a magnetic lensing microscope, a more advanced protein library with self-generating speculative databasing and automated synthesis paths, a soft-tooth separating grinder that would probably be able to take tissues down to their cells without breaking as many cell walls in the process.
It’s about domestication,
In a world without privacy, etiquette had to suffice.
Humans are structureless. They live in conflict with themselves and each other. Their great genius is rationalization: lying into mirrors until they bully and seduce themselves into things they would never otherwise do. They are creatures of self-delusion, regret, and desire.
