Mark

“Are you intelligent?” I asked. I am equipped with a natural language processor and other systems to understand questions and comments and to provide answers, which often gives the appearance of intelligence, especially when connected to larger computer networks. Brain Pal™ systems, however, are not natively intelligent. For example, this is an automated response. This question is asked frequently.”
― John Scalzi, Old Man's War

“Assuming you know the good guys from the bad guys will get you killed. You can’t afford anthropomorphic biases when some of the aliens most like us would rather make human hamburgers than peace.”
― John Scalzi, Old Man's War

“Zimnyaya Koroleva, they said. The winter-queen. It frightened her.”
― Katherine Arden, The Winter of the Witch

“Christ on a Popsicle stick,” Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz declared after he had glared at the sixty of us in his recruit platoon, standing (we hoped) more or less at attention on the tarmac of Delta Base’s shuttleport. “We have clearly just lost the battle for the goddamn universe. I look at you people and the words ‘tremendously fucked’ leap right out of my goddamned skull. If you’re the best that the Earth has got to offer, it’s time we bend over and get a tentacle right up the ass.”
― John Scalzi, Old Man's War