Axiom's End (Noumena, #1)

by Lindsay Ellis

“All that shady stuff the feds have done that’s come out—up in Altadena and Pomona. You know?”

It should go without saying that I don’t do this for myself but for the pursuit of a world that will allow them to live their lives without fear from one’s government, media, or society for speaking the truth.

This time, we know better. This time, we have the upper hand. Are you in the Los Angeles metro area? Don’t be a good citizen. Don’t be lied to and just take it. Follow the noise. In the words of Ortega: Truth is a human right.

Black olives. The answer to the eternal quandary of what if one were to combine snails and old tires into a foodstuff. The only way the creature could have punished her more brutally was if it had forced celery on her.

“Well,” she said, “as a young white female of the species, I’m less likely to be looked at with suspicion by others, especially men. I’m, um, more nonthreatening for what I am, for my place in the social hierarchy. For instance, I’m of the demographic that is most likely to shoplift but least likely to get caught for it. Does that make sense?” “Your gender, age, and ethnicity make you seem innocuous.”

I think we may need to get used to the idea that we are entering a post-private world.

But there is a sickness in my country and my culture—a sickness of manipulating the masses, of hiding the truth from them. Immediate transparency wouldn’t cure us of them, but the doing of deeds that even need to be hidden in the first place—that is our sickness.

“I mean, in a way, maybe this is good,” said Cora, unable to bear the silence. “Maybe it’ll mean the end of the war in Iraq…” She stopped, hearing how ridiculous her own words sounded even as she said them.

“What has you frightened?” he asked, his focus narrowing into a point. A whimper crawled up her throat, and she tamped it back down. “These are very powerful men,” she mouthed. “They represent your own government,” he said. “Why are you afraid of your own government?”

The secretary was trying to keep his gaze on Ampersand, not Cora. “Here in America, we consider ourselves created equal. We stand on equal ground.” “Categorically untrue.” “He says he feels that’s dishonest,” said Cora flatly.

‘The human fascination with intelligent exoterran species focuses on their similarity to humans. Humanity is not prepared for any cultural, biological, or ideological disparities it may encounter. No species is. “‘One species is only comprehensible to another species as it understands itself. But with all species, there are attributes one possesses that the other does not share. Where attributes are not shared, inevitably both parties will try to shape the other into a form they can understand.’”

is there a Great Filter preventing civilizations from … advancing? Why are there so few?” Ampersand considered this for an unusually long while. “Advanced cognition. Intelligence is the filter.” “So life is common, intelligent life is not.”

“They had consumed that planet, in the way humans have consumed Earth.”

“Because it offers little opportunity to strategize. It is mostly a game of chance.” “The same could be said about life,” offered Cora. “Yes,” he said. “That is why I don’t like it.”

Typical, she thought. Of course you don’t really get too worked up about issues that won’t affect your generation. Men his age weren’t too fussed about the potentiality for man-made climate change to pose an existential threat to human civilization. Why should hostile aliens be any different?

[We/Fremda/humans must communicate, become a part of the human superorganism.]

There’s no question that Saddam is a dictator, but I am horrified at how quickly and easily the whole country has fallen for the line that Iraq is to blame for terrorist attacks they had nothing to do with, just so the U.S. will have someone to invade.

People want to believe it, because it gives them an enemy, and that’s all the people want right now. Any enemy will do, apparently; that’s what we’ve been reduced to.

“We have imported our caste system, despite no longer being beholden to it. Social dynamics do not simply change when the situation does.” They do if you want to survive,

The Genome may not be human, but Cora was, and to leave her to die was simply inhuman.

The animal noises coming from the thing triggered the lizard part of Cora’s brain—This is an animal; this is an alien. Again, she thought of Olive, imagined her sister alone on an alien planet. Imagined some well-meaning idiot alien monster trying to port her off to safety, even if she didn’t understand that was what was happening. Reminding herself that this was a person she was dealing with, not an animal.

“Trauma can cause cognitive impairment in all sapient species.”

I want to be able to put you in the right context. The context of your species, of your history. But I can’t help but apply human morality to you.” “Not just human morality. A fast-changing brand of morality, unique to this time, place, and culture. It will be a different morality a day from now. A year from now.”

“The more they learn about you, the more incomprehensible and terrifying you will become to them. But you will grow attached to them, as I see you already have, and inevitably overtake them, mold them, conform them to what you wish them to be. Think of all the uprisings you would need to quell, the little lives you would need to extinguish to maintain control. You would become the greatest mass murderer this planet has ever known.”