The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency, #1)

by John Scalzi

Some things I need from you, so I can trust that there is more to you than the shallow, self-centered hustler you’ve been up to this point. I need to believe you might actually be able to save the world.”

“It’s the truth.” “Oh, my daughter,” Huma said, and smiled. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how little that actually means.”

It worked because on a social level, apparently enough people wanted it to, and because at the heart of it, billions of humans living in fragile habitats prone to mechanical and environmental breakdowns and degradation, and with limited natural resources, were better off relying on each other than trying to go it alone. Even without the Interdependency, being interdependent was the best way for humanity to survive.

don’t know that it will matter even then,” Cardenia said. “I’m continually confronted with the human tendency to ignore or deny facts until the last possible instant. And then for several days after that, too.”

“That’s the human brain,” Attavio VI said. “It creates patterns when there aren’t any. Imagines causality when there is none. Imagines a narrative where none exists. It’s in the design of the brain itself. It’s primed to lie.” “And primed to believe the lie.”