Shorefall (The Founders Trilogy, #2)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

He doubted for the very first time whether the merchant houses could really be overthrown—if Tevanne really could be restored, or remade, or at least changed, just a little. What change could possibly be accomplished in the face of such thoughtless, ignorant conviction?

Enough with laws, and constitutions, and statutes, and parliamentary procedures. And he stormed the assemblies and took control, and when people complained, he simply said—‘Let us battle, friend. You with your laws, and I with my spear.’ And no one seemed to have a very good answer to that.”

mankind is quite good at coming up with delightful little innovations…but all of them are eventually turned to cruelty, and oppression, and slavery. Even the simplest ones become weapons.

“There is no innovation that will ever spring from the minds of men that will not eventually be used for slaughter and control.

Humankind is most innovative at turning innovation to the cruelest ends. Power alters the soul far more than any innovation I could imagine,

An emperor’s hunger for

control will always outlast a moralist’s desire for equality and idealism. And even if you succeed, you will have done so using some advantage that will then be used to shape new hierarchies, new elites, new empires.”

“There is some rot to this place,” she said. “Something…Something that warps and distorts our thoughts…” “It is power, Ofelia,”

could we ever win?” Gregor said. “Is this just a dance we do over and over? Will everything we build turn to nothing but ugliness?”

If they cannot make the right choice, then it’s better to just remove the choice entirely.”

So many dreadful wrongs. All to right a broken world.