Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)

by Becky Chambers

My own research methodology professor phrased this concept succinctly: learn nothing of your subjects, and you will disrupt them. Learn something of your subjects, and you will disrupt them.

who was still confused. She patted the rack and began to walk. ‘Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories. Cities are a story. Money is a story. Space was a story, once. A king tells us a story about who we are and why we’re great, and that story is enough to make us go kill people who tell a different story. Or maybe the people kill the king because they don’t like his story and have begun to tell themselves a different one.

Why? What’s the point? Kip, there isn’t a sapient species living or dead that hasn’t grappled hard with that. It scares us. It makes us panic, just like you’re panicking now. So if the lack of a point is what’s bothering you, if it’s making you want to kick the walls and tear your hair out, well, welcome to the party.’

‘What do you think I should do?’ ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that,’ Isabel said. ‘I can only tell you what I want you to do, and that’s based on my shallow impression of who you are and how I’d like your story to go. You can’t operate by that. You’re the only one who can think about what you should do.’