Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse, #6)

by James S.A. Corey

History, Michio believed, was a long series of surprises that seemed inevitable in retrospect.

And I understand you’ve got a few after-market add-ons —” “Keel-mounted rail gun,” Alex said with a grin. “— that scream of overcompensating for tiny, tiny penises, but might prove useful.

“Should have said so in the first place, Chrissy,” Amos said. “Go fuck yourself, Burton. I was getting to it.”

“Shouldn’t let go of being educated,” he said. “Universe spent a lot of time telling you something. Now you’re second-guessing it. Maybe all those other things were getting you ready for this.”

Situations change and clinging too tightly to what came before kills you.

All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief.

“We’re not people,” he said. “We’re the stories that people tell each other about us.

Men like Marco could orchestrate vast battles, order the looting and destruction of worlds, and never run out of coffee.

The same beautiful bullshit that everyone told themselves. That they were special. That they mattered. That some vast intelligence behind the curtains of reality cared what happened to them. And in all the history of the species, they’d all died anyway.

My life has become a single, ongoing revelation that I haven’t been cynical enough.”

Strength by itself is just bullying, capitulation by itself is an invitation to get fucked; only mixed strategies survive. Everything is personal, but they know that too. They can smell pandering like a fart. If you treat them like they’re a treasure box where if you just tweak them the right way, the policy you want falls out, you’re already fucked. They’ll misjudge you, so be ready to use that.

Nothing like the stupid shit people do for a captain when they’re really invested in not seeing how fucked up he is.”

History itself was a massive n=1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.

“Next is enough,” Naomi said. “As long as you always see the next step, you can walk the whole way.”