More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
inappropriate modesty can be very dangerous.
A happy wall is a long-lived wall, a practical wall, a useful wall.’
Old age is overtaking you and you have discovered youth. Janov, you’re trying to be a hero, so that you can die for that body.’
‘The Second Galactic Empire – worked out after the fashion of Terminus – will be a military Empire, established by strife, maintained by strife, and eventually destroyed by strife. It will be nothing but the First Galactic Empire reborn. That is the view of Gaia.
‘The Second Galactic Empire – worked out after the fashion of Trantor – will be a paternalistic Empire, established by calculation, maintained by calculation, and in perpetual living death by calculation. It will be a dead end. That is the view of Gaia.’
‘Greater Gaia! Galaxia! Every inhabited planet as alive as Gaia. Every living planet combined into a still greater hyperspatial life. Every uninhabited planet participating. Every star. Every scrap of interstellar gas. Perhaps even the great central black hole. A living galaxy and one that can be made favourable for all life in ways that we yet cannot foresee. A way of life fundamentally different from all that has gone before and repeating none of the old mistakes.’
Gaia was formed thousands of years ago with the help of robots that once, for a brief time, served the human species and now serve them no more. They made it quite clear to us that we could survive only by a strict application of the Three Laws of Robotics as applied to life generally.
He could hear Mayor Branno’s voice say firmly, ‘Free will!’ Speaker Gendibal’s voice said peremptorily, ‘Guidance and peace!’ Novi’s voice said wistfully, ‘Life.’
‘We abandoned the appearance of power to preserve the essence of it.’
