Seveneves

by Neal Stephenson

Ty shrugged. “Humans have always—” He was about to say deluded themselves but didn’t want to make a poor impression on Deep. “—preferred to believe that there was a purpose to the universe. Until the moon blew up, they had theories. After Zero, the theories all seemed kind of stupid. Fairy tales for coddled children. No one thought about the big picture for a few thousand years. We were all scrambling to survive. Like ants when their nest has been destroyed. On those rare occasions when we thought about the big picture, it wasn’t really that big—Red versus Blue or what have you. There was surprisingly little thinking about the Agent. Where it came from. Whether it was natural or artificial, or even divine.” Einstein, the Cyc, and Deep were all nodding as if to say Go on, go on! But he had nothing to go on with. “Some people—some Red, some Blue, and some ambiguous folks like the Owners of my bar—maybe even some of those kind of people”—he nodded at Deep—“seem to think they know something.”