Polity Agent Quotes

“It all came back to human time and utterly human impulses: in the end, gods did not appreciate godlike power, but humans did.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“Thus, in moments of catastrophe, when hard decisions needed to be made quickly, all AIs included in their calculations a human death toll governed by a factor called ‘pigheadedness’.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“Coloron often pondered how a race, in which the stupid seemed more inclined to breed, had managed to come this far, and why human intelligence persisted—a discussion point in the nature vs nurture debate which had not died in half a millennium.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“There is no doubt that Earth Central, the planetary and sector AIs, and even some ship and drone AIs are capable, without acquiring additional processing space, of setting up synergetic systems within themselves that result in an exponential climb in intelligence (mathematically defined as climbing beyond all known scales within minutes). So why not? Ask then why a human, capable of learning verbatim the complete works of Shakespeare, instead drinks a bottle of brandy, then giggles a lot and falls over.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“They carry grenades and will die rather than be captured,’ Scar informed him. ‘Problem?’Thorn enquired. ‘It will wash off.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent: An Agent Cormac Novel 4

“Consider what the word “augmentation” means. The idea is that you augment something already existing. Many who do it destroy that essential something in the process – become more their additions than themselves. It is part of the haiman ethos to retain that humanity until such a time as it becomes possible to truly extend self. They call themselves haimans but know that until that becomes possible they are not truly post-human.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“Time travel is dangerous, cosmic disaster dangerous. Using it for anything less than the aversion of a cosmic disaster equates to using a fusion drive to travel from one side of your house to the other. You’ll certainly arrive, but there probably won’t be anything left of your house when you do.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent

“I have a tendency to over-focus on the task in hand, with an exclusivity that is borderline autistic.”
― Neal Asher, Polity Agent