A few survived to emerge onto the surface after the bombardment. They knew that they could live only for as long as their supplies and their machines lasted. There was nowhere they could go, nothing they could plan for. They did not give in. They did not know how to give in. They must have existed for months before they realized that, by a quirk of fate, a slim chance of survival existed.
If what they say is right we’re none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.
Yes, we’re tired. Yes, there’s no relief. Yes, the Cylons keep coming after us time after time after time. And yes, we are still expected to do our jobs!
Tell him the job didn’t work out. We’re not thieves. But we are thieves. Point is, we’re not takin’ what’s his. Now we’ll stay out of his way as best we can from here on in. You explain that’s best for everyone, okay?
“What were you in the war? That big war you failed to win? You were a sergeant, yeah? Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds … balls and bayonets brigade. Big, tough veteran. Now you got yourself a ship and you’re a captain. Only I think, you’re still a sergeant, see? Still a soldier. A man of honor in a den of thieves. Well, this is my gorramn den, and I don’t like the way you look down on me. I’m above you, better than! Businessman, see? Roots in the community. You’re just a scavenger.”
There were many, many times thereafter that Don regretted having enlisted - but so has every man who ever volunteered for military service.
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife’s grave. Then I joined the army.
“My brother wanted me to help him with his wet-ranch on Aphrodite and I thought it was too dangerous. So I joined the flipping Navy.”
I am unique. That makes me rather dangerous.
“You mean you killed off real heroes so that you could pretend to be one?”
“Oh, I’m real. Real enough to defeat you! And I did it without your precious gifts, your oh-so-special powers. I’ll give them heroics. I’ll give them the most spectacular heroics anyone’s ever seen! And when I’m old and I’ve had my fun, I’ll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super! And when everyone’s super…[laughs maniacally] …no one will be.
“In a changing universe, only a changing species can hope to be immortal and then only if its eggs are nurtured in widely scattered environments. This predicts a wealth of unique individuals.”
Telepathy and intelligence appear to be incompatible from the evolutionary point of view—if you’ve got one, you don’t seem to need the other, and they may even be evolutionary enemies.
The Grog was psychic. Or something similar. It could control minds, even minds as insignificant as a sand rat’s.
That was the purpose of the Grog’s large brain. Its intelligence was a side effect of its power.
The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people.
“And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue — liking what you’ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”
This is one of the Earth’s first colonies. They say the settlers have cracked the secret of human happiness.
Do androids dream? Rick asked himself. Evidently; that’s why they occasionally kill their employers and flee here. A better life, without servitude. Like Luba Luft; singing Don Giovanni and Le Nozze instead of toiling across the face of a barren rock-strewn field. On a fundamentally uninhabitable colony world.
We’re underground here — almost the whole colony is underground, safely shielded because radiation is not your friend. Every angle is calculated, every line efficient.
I think my parents wish they could plan me just as carefully, no part of me without a purpose, no part of me wasted. Maximum return for their efforts.
“Gussy, why don’t you move underground?” Fay asked, his voice taking on a missionary note. “It’s a lot easier living in one room, believe me. You don’t have to tramp from room to room hunting things.”
The tunnel pulled at her. How many hands had it required to make this place? And the tunnels beyond, wherever and how far they led?