Tag: science fiction

G’Kar:

It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused—suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting.

All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both. G’Quon wrote:

There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities. It is against chaos and despair.

Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.

The future is all around us waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.

— “Z’ha’dum” – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

Marcus Cole:

You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, “wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?“

So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

— “Point of No Return” – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

[Sarek, Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, had become close friends with Amanda Greyson during her work adding his language to the then-fledgling Universal Translator Project.]

…There came a time when the day seemed somehow incomplete if she had not called him and asked him about something, or told him what she was doing. There came a time when it seemed odd not to have dinner together at least one day of the weekend, if not both. There came a time when it seemed quite normal that he should visit her at her house, and have dinner with her, and stay late, talking about everything in the world. The worlds. Now there were truly more than one, and he felt as if he was living both of them. The word lists had started the process: it was the word lists that finally put the finishing touch to it.

“You have mistranslated this,” he said, sitting on her couch and tapping the printout. “I thought we had discussed this. Do you mean to tell me that this revision of the list went to the committee?”

She frowned at him. “I told you it was going to. What’s the problem?”

“This word.” He pointed at arie’mnu. “It does not mean elimination of emotion. That is not what we do, by and large.”

“But all the earlier—”

“If you will pay attention to all the earlier translations, you will perpetuate their mistakes! Nor, what is this, down here, nor is it ‘suppression.’ Control is wrong as well. Mastery, it is mastery. There is a difference!”

She shrugged and sighed. “It’s going to be hard to get it changed now. It’s just one word, we can catch it in the next translation—

“And leave everyone who hears the word for the next ten years thinking that we have no emotions? Do you think we have no emotions?”

“Do you have emotions?” she said, arching her eyebrows at him. He was being teased, and he knew it.

And instantly he knew something else, as well.

“You will have to judge,” he said…and drew her close.

And showed her that he did.

And found that she did, too.

— Spock’s World, Chapter 7

Author’s emphases.

Lord Vaako:

This is your one chance. Take the Lord Marshal’s offer and bow.

Riddick:

I bow to no man.

Lord Vaako:

He’s not a man. He’s the Holy Half-Dead who has seen the Underverse and returned with powers you can’t imagine.

— “The Chronicles of Riddick” (2004)

Lorien:

You can’t turn away from death simply because you’re afraid of what might happen without you. That’s not enough! You’re not embracing life; you’re fleeing death! And so you’re caught in between, unable to go forward or backward.

Your friends need what you can be when you are no longer afraid. When you know who you are, and why you are, and what you want. When you are no longer looking for reasons to live but can simply be.

…Surrender yourself to death. The death of flesh. The death of fear. Step into the abyss, and let go….

— “Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” – Babylon 5, Season 4 (1997)

He looked back down and saw the warrior standing before him, tall and clad in golden armour, each plate wrought with the same skill and love as had been lavished upon his vessel. The warrior wore no helm and was fitted with no visible breathing augmetics, yet seemed untroubled by the chemical-laden air of Mars.

Verticorda found his gaze dwelling on the warrior’s face, beautiful and perfect as though able to see beyond the armoured exterior of Ares Lictor and into Verticorda’s soul. In his eyes, his so very ancient eyes, Verticorda saw the wisdom of all the ages and the burden of all the knowledge contained within them.

A crimson mantle flapped in the wind behind the giant warrior and he carried an eagle-topped sceptre clutched in one mighty gauntlet. The golden giant’s eyes scrutinised the blue-armoured form of Verticorda’s mount, from its conical glacis to the aventailed shoulder plates upon which the wheel and lightning bolt symbol of the Knights of Taranis was emblazoned.

The warrior reached out towards him. “Your machine is damaged, Taymon Verticorda,” he said, his voice heavy and yet musical, like the most perfect sound imaginable. “May I?”

Verticorda found himself unable to form a reply, knowing that anything he might say would be trite in the face of such perfection. It didn’t occur to him to wonder how the sublime warrior knew his name. Without waiting for a reply, the warrior reached out, and Verticorda felt his touch upon the joints of Ares Lictor‘s knee.

“Machine, heal thyself,” said the warrior, the purpose and self-belief in his voice passing into Verticorda as though infusing every molecule of his hybrid existence of flesh and steel with new-found purpose and vitality. He felt the warmth of the warrior’s touch through the shell of his mount, and gasped as trembling vibrations spread through its armoured frame of plasteel and ceramite. He took an involuntary step back, feeling the movements of his mount flow as smoothly as ever they had. With one step, he could feel Ares Lictor move as though it had just come off the assembly lines, its stubborn knee joint flexing like new.

“Who are you?” he gasped, his voice sounding grating and pathetic next to the mighty timbre of the golden warrior’s voice.

“I am the Emperor,” said the warrior….

— Mechanicum, Chapter 0.01

Author’s emphases are in italic. Mine are in bold.

All the Mayhews’ guards were down now, but so were many of the assassins, and Honor and [her treecat] Nimitz were in among the others. She knew there were too many of them, yet she and Nimitz were all that was left, and they had to keep them bottled up in the entry alcove, away from the Protector and his family, as long as they could.

The killers had known she’d be here, but she was “only” a woman. They were totally unprepared for her size and strength—and training—or the mad whirl of violence that wasn’t a bit like it was on HD. Real martial arts aren’t like that. The first accurate strike to get through unblocked almost always ends in either death or disablement, and when Honor Harrington hit a man, that man went down.

— Honor of the Queen, Chapter 20

Delenn:

It should never have been allowed to happen. Not for my sake.

Lenier:

If not for yours, then who else?

Delenn:

He could have been killed.

Lenier:

Delenn, all we know is that we will die. It is only a matter of how, when, and whether or not it is with honor. He did what any of us would have done.

Respectfully, Delenn, I think this is the one thing about your position you do not yet understand. You cherish life. Life is your goal. But for the greater part to live, some must die or be harmed in its defense—and yours. There is no other way.

— “Grey-17 Is Missing” – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

Romulan Centurion:

Take care, Commander. He has friends, and friends of his kind mean power. And power is danger.

Romulan Commander:

Danger and I are old companions.

— “Balance of Terror” – Star Trek, Season 1 (1966)

Londo Mollari:

Now, if I may ask: does this torment end when you leave, or am I going to have to spend the rest of my life paying for one little mistake?

Elric the Techno-mage:

Oh, I’m afraid you have to spend the rest of your life paying for your mistakes. Not this one, of course; it’s trivial. I have withdrawn the spell, but there will be others.

Londo Mollari:

What are you talking about?

Elric the Techno-mage:

You are touched by darkness, Ambassador. I see it as a blemish that will grow with time.

I could warn you, of course, but you would not listen.

I could kill you, but someone would take your place.

So I do the only thing I can: I go.

[Starts to turn away then turns back.]

Oh, I believe it was an endorsement you wanted. A word or two, a picture, to send to the folks back home confirming that you have a destiny before you.

Londo Mollari:

Yes, it was just a thought, nothing more.

Elric the Techno-mage:

Well, take this for what little it will profit you:

As I look at you, Ambassador Mollari, I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sounds—the sounds of billions of people calling your name.

Londo Mollari:

[Brightens.]

My followers?

Elric the Techno-mage:

[Scowls.]

Your victims.

[Turns and walks away.]

— “The Geometry of Shadows” – Babylon 5, Season 2 (1995)

Kevin Flynn:

The Grid: A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways?

I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then, one day…I got in.

— “Tron: Legacy” (2010)

[Commander Riker is allowed only 40 crew on an obsolete starship for a combat simulation, but 40 of his choosing. He goes to the quarters of Worf, the Klingon member of the Enterprise‘s crew.]

Commander Riker:

You know of the simulation. What do you think?

Lieutenant Worf:

Waste of time.

Commander Riker:

It’s just designed to be an exercise.

Lieutenant Worf:

Useless. If there is nothing to lose—no sacrifice—then there is nothing to gain.

Commander Riker:

You mean besides pride. Well, in this case, it doesn’t matter. I probably haven’t got a chance.

Lieutenant Worf:

[defensive] There is always a chance.

Commander Riker:

Slim. The Hathaway‘s most sophisticated weapons system, even in a computer generated mock-up, can’t hope to defeat the Enterprise.

Lieutenant Worf:

Well, still—

Commander Riker:

You’re outmanned, you’re outgunned, you’re outequipped. What else have you got?

Lieutenant Worf:

[ponders for a moment before looking up in challenge]

Guile.

Commander Riker:

[smiles]

Join me.

— “Peak Performance” – Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 2 (1989)

Jenson:

I’m told it’s old. Real old. Older than Mankind, even…. It’s an Apocalypse Box. You ever heard of an Apocalyse Box?

[Matthew Gideon shakes his head. Jenson leans in and lowers his voice.]

It gives you an edge. It knows things no one else knows….

[Possession of the box passes to Gideon. Jenson laughs then gives a sober warning.]

It lies. You, you know that? You have to be very careful, because…it lies. Not all the time. Just enough….

— “The Path of Sorrows” – Crusade (1999)

Dr. Elizabeth Dehner:

Before long, we’ll be where it would have taken Mankind millions of years of learning to reach.

Captain James T. Kirk:

And what will Mitchell learn in getting there?! Will he know what to do with his power?! Will he acquire the wisdom?!

Dr. Elizabeth Dehner:

Please, go back while you still can.

Captain James T. Kirk:

Did you hear him joke about compassion? Above all else, a god needs compassion!

— “Where No Man Has Gone Before” – Star Trek, Season 1 (1966)

Marcus Cole:

The Minbari say the only way to understand the battle is to understand the language. War is as much concept as execution.

Dr. Stephen Franklin:

What else did they teach you?

Marcus Cole:

Delight. Respect. Compassion. That for your actions to be pure they must proceed from direction, determination, patience, and strength. I’m afraid I’m still working on patience. They taught me how to live, how to breathe, how to fight and how to die.

And they taught me terror. How to use it. And how to face it.

Dr. Stephen Franklin:

I think I’d like to hear more about that.

Marcus Cole:

No, you wouldn’t.

— “A Late Delivery from Avalon” – Babylon 5, Season 3 (1996)

[Vasque] stepped to the [battle] suit and ran his fingers over first the plastron, then the sheared metal along the cut…. Hansen couldn’t judge the status of the smith and his apprentices. Vasque wore a gorgeously-embroidered tunic—though there was a cracked leather apron over it. Even the youths were dressed rather better than many of the warriors.

“Not much of a suit,” Vasque said. “Dilmun’s work, I wouldn’t be surprised, and he was never much.”

“Dilmun’s good enough to dress the Lord of Thrasey,” said Malcolm. “And as for this suit, there were three arcs on it together before it failed.”

“On a good day, I suppose Dilmun might be all right,” Vasque admitted grudgingly. He took the severed arm from the slave and worked the elbow joint with his hands as he peered at the cut. “Well, we’ll see.”

The sleeping youth groaned loudly and threw out an arm. After a moment, his eyes opened. The other apprentice helped him sit up on the couch.

Vasque handed the arm back. “Go on, boy, go on,” he said to the apprentice, making shooing motions with his hands. “There’s king’s work to be done.”

He turned to the slaves. “Lay it down by the couch, you. I’ll take care of it now.”

As the slaves laid the damaged suit full-length on the floor, the two youths positioned the [severed] arm by it so that the cut ends joined. Vasque himself stepped outside. He came back with his leather apron laden with bits of ore.

“Might need more than this,” the old man muttered, “but I think not, I think not….” He arranged his chips and pebbles around the severed arm with as much care as a florist creating a wedding bouquet…. [Then] Vasque lay down on the couch…. One of the youths took a polished locket on a thong from around his neck.

“Keep back, boy…,” the smith murmured.

His eyes, focused on dustmotes dancing in the light, glazed and closed. The apprentices watched with critical interest, while the slaves gaped with amazement as great as that which Hansen tried to conceal….

Vasque was shuddering in his sleep. Hansen gestured toward him. “Is he any good?” he asked Malcolm in an undertone.

“You won’t wake him,” said Malcolm in a normal voice, as though that were the only reason someone would want to discuss the matter in a whisper. “And yeah, he’s very good.”

The veteran smiled impishly. “Almost as good as Dilmun, I’d say. You’ll have a suit to be proud of.”

…The ore shifted around Hansen’s suit. The chunks on top of the pile slid as dust puffed away. As Hansen watched, a fist-sized lump he thought was magnetite crumbled as though in a hammermill. Bits of it drifted down through the interstices of the pebbles beneath it.

One of the apprentices bobbed his head in approval. “Look, he must be four centimeters away from the join,” he said. “Great extension!”

Malcolm sniffed. “The important part,” he said, ostensibly to Hansen, “isn’t how far a smith can reach through the Matrix for material but how well he stitches the result together. That’s the craftsmanship that keeps you and me alive, Lord Hansen.”

“That and skill,” Hansen remarked coolly….

Half the gravel piled on the shoulder of the battlesuit powdered and slipped to a flatter angle of repose.

Vasque shuddered like a swimmer coming out of cold water. His apprentices stepped toward him, one of them with a skin of wine or mead, but the older man waved them away. “There!” he gasped. “There, Lord Malcolm. Tell me about Dilmun now.”

“Although,” he added as he got to his feet and only then accepted the container of drink, “I checked the whole suit while I was in the Matrix, and it’s not so very bad after all….”

“How do we test it?” Hansen asked. Malcolm smiled.

“I get my suit,” he said, “we go out to the practice ground … and I see just how good you are, laddie.”

It wasn’t an especially nice smile; but then, neither was the grin that bared Hansen’s teeth.

— Northworld, Chapter 10

[Palpatine] ticked his fingers one by one. “I have kept the secret of your marriage all these years. The slaughter at the Tusken camp, you shared with me. I was there when you executed Count Dooku. And I know where you got the power to defeat him. You see? You have never needed to pretend with me, the way you must with your Jedi comrades. Do you understand that you need never hide anything from me? That I accept you exactly as you are?”

He spread his hands as though offering a hug. “Share with me the truth. Your absolute truth. Let yourself out, Anakin.”

“I—” Anakin shook his head. How many times had he dreamed of not having to pretend to be the perfect Jedi? But what else could he be? “I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”

“It’s quite simple, in the end: tell me what you want.”

Anakin squinted up at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.” The last of the sunset haloed his ice-white hair and threw his face into shadow. “You’ve been trained to never think about that. The Jedi never ask what you want. They simply tell you what you’re supposed to want. They never give you a choice at all. That’s why they take their students—their victims—at an age so young that choice is meaningless. By the time a Padawan is old enough to choose, he has been so indoctrinated—so brainwashed—that he is incapable of even considering the question. But you’re different, Anakin. You had a real life, outside the Jedi Temple. You can break through the fog of lies the Jedi have pumped into your brain. I ask you again: what do you want?”

“I still don’t understand.”

“I am offering you…anything,” Palpatine said. “Ask, and it is yours. A glass of water? It’s yours. A bag full of Corusca gems? Yours. Look out the window behind me, Anakin. Pick something, and it’s yours.”

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“The time for jokes is past, Anakin. I have never been more serious.” Within the shadow that cloaked Palpatine’s face, Anakin could only just see the twin gleams of the Chancellor’s eyes. “Pick something. Anything.”

“All right…” Shrugging, frowning, still not understanding, Anakin looked out the window, looking for the most ridiculously expensive thing he could spot. “How about one of those new SoroSuub custom speeders—”

“Done.”

“Are you serious? You know how much one of those costs? You could practically outfit a battle cruiser—”

“Would you prefer a battle cruiser?”

Anakin went still. A cold void opened in his chest. In a small, cautious voice, he said, “How about the Senatorial Apartments?”

“A private apartment?”

Anakin shook his head, staring up at the twin gleams in the darkness on Palpatine’s face. “The whole building.”

Palpatine did not so much as blink. “Done.”

“It’s privately owned—”

“Not anymore.”

“You can’t just—”

“Yes, I can. It’s yours. Is there anything else? Name it.”

Anakin gazed blankly out into the gathering darkness. Stars began to shimmer through the haze of twilight. A constellation he recognized hung above the spires of the Jedi Temple.

“All right,” Anakin said softly. “Corellia. I’ll take Corellia.”

“The planet, or the whole system?”

Anakin stared.

“Anakin?”

“I just—” He shook his head blankly. “I can’t figure out if you’re kidding, or completely insane.”

“I am neither, Anakin. I am trying to impress upon you a fundamental truth of our relationship. A fundamental truth of yourself.”

“What if I really wanted the Corellian system? The whole Five Brothers—all of it?”

“Then it would be yours. You can have the whole sector, if you like.” The twin gleams within the shadow sharpened. “Do you understand, now? I will give you anything you want.”

The concept left him dizzy. “What if I wanted—what if I went along with Padme and her friends? What if I want the war to end?”

“Would tomorrow be too soon?”

“How—” Anakin couldn’t seem to get his breath. “How can you do that?”

“Right now, we are only discussing what. How is a different issue; we’ll come to that presently.”

Anakin sank deeper into the chair while he let everything sink deeper into his brain. If only his head would stop spinning—why did Palpatine have to start all this now?

This would all be easier to comprehend if the nightmares of Padme didn’t keep screaming inside his head.

“And in exchange?” he asked, finally. “What do I have to do?”

“You have to do what you want.”

“What I want?”

“Yes, Anakin. Yes. Exactly that. Only that. Do the one thing that the Jedi fear most: make up your own mind. Follow your own conscience. Do what you think is right. I know that you have been longing for a life greater than that of an ordinary Jedi. Commit to that life. I know you burn for greater power than any Jedi can wield; give yourself permission to gain that power, and allow yourself license to use it. You have dreamed of leaving the Jedi Order, having a family of your own—one that is based on love, not on enforced rules of self-denial.”

“I—can’t…I can’t just…leave…”

“But you can.”

Anakin couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t blink.

He sat frozen. Even thought was impossible.

“You can have every one of your dreams. Turn aside from the lies of the Jedi, and follow the truth of yourself. Leave them. Join me on the path of true power. Be my friend, Anakin. Be my student. My apprentice….”

— Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Chapter 15

Author’s emphases.

The novelization truly redeems the film. Anakin is not a petulant man-child but a young man who is tormented by having seen too much war and having foreseen his wife’s death. Palpatine’s seduction occurs over years. This is the moment where the Lord of the Sith overtly tempts him.

Madame Kovarian:

The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules.

The Doctor:

Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many!

— “A Good Man Goes to War” – Doctor Who, Series 6 (2011)

Backlinks

• EOW Links 107 – Weaver Skeptical

The one thing war stories always forgot was the dust. Khârn learned that early, and the lesson stayed with him through the years. Even two men kicking up sand in the gladiator pits was a distraction. Two armies of a few thousand souls on an open plain would turn the air thick enough to choke on. Scale it up again, and a few hundred thousand warriors locked in conflict would darken the sun for a day after the battle was done.

But the realities of pitched warfare rarely made it into the sagas. In all the stories he’d heard, especially those woeful diatribes from the remembrancers, battle was reduced to a handful of heroes going blade-to-blade in the sunlight, while their nameless lessers looked on in stupefied awe.

It took a great deal to make Khârn cringe, but war poetry never failed.

…Visibility was a myth. It simply didn’t exist.

In ages past, when bronze swords had formed the pinnacle of humanity’s capacity to wage war against itself, mounted scouts tore through a battlefield’s dust clouds to relay information and orders between officers whose regiments were blinded in the thick of it. That was another truth that rarely survived to make into the archives.

— Betrayer, Chapter 3

The great procession of the triumph passed under the Spatian Gate, and I marched with it, into the atrocity. That ceremonial arch, so splendid and massive, forms a threshold in the course of my life. I stepped across it and was remade, transmuted from one form into another.

Some have said that I was crippled beyond the measure of a man. I do not see it that way.

I believe I was liberated.

— Gideon Ravenor, preface to The Mirror of Smoke

— Ravenor, preface

“Gideon Ravenor…suffered crippling injuries during an [atrocity] on Thracian Primaris, and was confined to a suspensor chair for the remainder of his life. His confinement only boosted his already formidable psyker abilities….”

— Gideon Ravenor – Lexicanum