Seven Surrenders (Terra Ignota, #2)

by Ada Palmer

There are miracles, and a Divinity behind those miracles, Who has a Plan, but have you ever, reader, heard me claim that that Plan is benevolent?

They thought we had to make the world less perfect or no one would be willing to face the hardships of moving on. There are few people left anywhere who are willing to die for something, for their children maybe, but not for a cause, and certainly not for a patch of raw and barren Mars ground. Apollo thought that we need suffering to create people capable of enduring suffering. World Peace does not breed heroes.”

I am asking you to exceed your duties, not your capacities. This crisis is a horror beyond what anyone should have to face, but it is not beyond what the human race has faced in the past, and overcome. We are not weaker than our ancestors. We will do this.

Oh, miraculous chameleon, Science, who can reverse your doctrine hourly and never shake our faith! What cult ever battered by this world of doubt can help but envy you?

The first lesson you will learn when war reaches you, reader, is that our limits in civilian life, the point at which we are too tired, too distraught, too weak to go on, are not really our limits. I rose and saluted.