Rihannsu Quotes

“Starfleet’s desire is to find an ‘antidote’ or countermeasure that will make the Sunseed routines essentially useless, and to disseminate that information freely to every inhabited star system. They want to teach every vulnerable system a way to make both ships and planets effectively immune to the routine, able to stop it as soon as someone starts to use it.” Ael”
― Diane Duane, Star Trek: The Original series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages: The "Bloodwing" Voyages

“Things existed and so had a right to nobility, a right to be honored and appreciated, as much as more sentient things that walked around and demanded the honor themselves. Things had a right to names: when named, and called by those names, of course they would respond positively—for the universe wants to be ordered, wants to be cared for, and has nothing to fulfill this function (said another contributor) but us. Or (said a third person) if there are indeed gods, we’re their tool toward this purpose. This is our chance to be gods, on the physical level, the caretakers and orderers of the “less sentient” kinds of life. More than nine thousand people, from Gorget and other ships, added to this written tradition as time went by: they wrote letters, dissertations, essays, critiques, poems, songs, prose, satire. It was the longest-running conversation on one subject in the history of that net. The contribution started two years after the departure from Vulcan, and continued without a missed day until seventy-eight years thereafter, the day the core of the computer in question crashed fatally, killing the database.”
― Diane Duane, Star Trek: The Original series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages: The "Bloodwing" Voyages

“Things,” she said, “notice.” It did, in fact, begin as a joke, one that other species share. Have you noticed, she said, that when you really need something—the key to your quarters, a favorite piece of clothing—you can’t find it? You search everywhere, and there’s no result. But any other time, when there’s no need, the thing in question is always under your hand. This, said the nameless contributor, is a proof that the universe is sentient, or at least borderline-sentient: it craves attention, like a small child, and responds to it depending on how you treat it—with affection, or annoyance. For further proof, she suggested that a person looking for something under these circumstances should walk around their quarters, calling the thing in question by its name. It always turns up. (Before the reader laughs, by the way, s/he is advised to try this on the next thing s/he loses. The technique has its moments.) The”
― Diane Duane, Star Trek: The Original series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages: The "Bloodwing" Voyages