Consider Phlebas (Culture, #1)

by Iain M. Banks

Vavatch lay in space like a god’s bracelet. The fourteen-million kilometer hoop glittered and sparkled, blue and gold against the jet-black gulf of space beyond.

Maybe she would have forgotten about him, or even be committed to some relationship with the other Changers at the base on Schar’s World, but Horza didn’t really think so; he thought of such things only as a sort of insurance.

In these arguably insane times, any lessening or attenuation of madness is maybe something to be grateful for.

On other wavelengths there would probably be a lot still to see, but the mess-room screen was on normal light. Only the Minds, only the starships, would see the whole destruction perfectly; only they would be able to appreciate it for all that it had to offer. Of the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum, the unaided human eye could see little more than one percent: a single octave of radiation out of an immense long keyboard of tones. The sensors on a starship would see everything, right across that spectrum, in far greater detail and at a much slower apparent speed. The whole display that was the Orbital’s destruction was, for all its humanly perceivable grandeur, quite wasted on the animal eye. A spectacle for the machines, thought Horza; that was all it was. A sideshow for the damn machines.

Us with our busy, busy little lives, finding no better way to pass our years than in competitive disdain.