…the Senate discussed a proposal to include parthenogenesis in the alpha baseline recommended capability list, for further insurance against the requirement to rebuild population following an existential event.
(After three hours debate, the proposal was returned to the Select Committee on Health and Genomic Affairs pending further studies on techniques to artificially ensure genetic variability.)
Just a quick snippet today, as I’ve been composing stuff for use elsewhere:
“absolutely sure”: A rare example of the double-positive negative grammatical form in the wild. “Absolutely sure”, in technarch jargon, means “educated conjecture”, or indeed “wild-assed guess”.
See also: “reasonably sure”, qualified certainty, dubifier, Rationalist-Empiricist Pissing Contest.
(I’ve got the allergies today, so am reworking some of my notes and doing light editing. But here, have this wee snippet I ran across in the process:)
“Sure, you could theoretically weaponize a nucleonic device, but what would be the point? Everyone knows they’d have no imaginable practical use in warfare. What possible use is there for a bomb that completely obliterates the economic value of whatever you’re fighting over?”
– Alys Amanyr
(Who was later disappointed, despite being fundamentally correct where planet-based warfare was concerned.)
“They’re not aerodynamic, you know. Landing a Drake on a respectably-sized planet is not what you might call an elegant operation. It involves aerobraking hard to shed most of her velocity, flipping her around once you’ve lost enough of it and balancing her down on her tail with the main drives, then finishing off with a rather graceless belly-flop once you’ve achieved zero velocity at zero altitude.”
“The next item on the checklist customarily involves a sigh of relief, a shot of whiskey, and a change of pants.”
– Sailing Master Lt. Galenyi “Scorcher” Janaris-ith-Janaris,
Imperial Navy
“I want you to understand this, and understand this well. This is not making a deal under duress. This is extortion.”
“By which, to make our positions absolutely clear, I mean that some people would use the “you took the agreement to exchange goods for exval, even if there was an assault destroyer in low orbit at the time” to spread a fig-leaf of legality and compliance over their actions. I neither need nor want such a thing. I am robbing you. You aren’t receiving a crate of exval in exchange; you’re receiving one to rebuild so that I can rob you again in the future. That is all. Shake Downwell, clear.”
“Only the smallest, least enlightened minds accept the limits of the currently possible. Indeed, only small minds accept the limits of the possible, where greater minds strive to expand its reach. Some apologist philosophers would advance the claim that a finite mind is inherently limited in its ability to comprehend greater possibilities; to them, I say that only small minds indeed choose to remain bound by their own limitations. The strength of flesh is limited in itself, but the strengths of tools, wealth, and contracts unbind it. How, then, should we accept that the wisdom of flesh is limited?”
– ch. 2, Eternal Progress, Ianthe Claves-ith-Claves Elinaeth
“Progress begins with someone saying: ‘There has to be a better way to do this’. This, then, must be the basis of techneprax morality: never to fail to ask that question.”
– prologue,
Eternal Progress,
Ianthe Claves-ith-Claves Elinaeth
Or, A Typical (Paraphrased) Exploratory Service Response To The Embarrassing Problem of Xenodeism:
“So you’re some sort of gods?”
“That depends.”
“Depends?”
“If you mean: do we possess assorted skills, powers, devices, and other techne capable of duplicating pretty much any miracle attributed to the mythological deities of yore, yes. If you mean: are we exemplary, awesome, righteous, and worthy of emulation in all things, we’re flattered, and maybe. If you mean: should you get on your knee-equivalents and start grovelling before us in worship, knock that shit off right now.”
“The life of my patient is his to dispose of; he is its proprietor. I shall not desert any life for which its proprietor wishes to give battle; nor shall I force the struggle upon any who wish to quit the field.”
– Healer’s Code, first line
“Selfish? You try livin’ in a world where persuasion and trade and generally makin’ nice with folks are the only ways to get anything, and see how long you can pull that kind of attitude off. ‘Specially if you’re fond of eating1.”
1. Or, in the limiting case, breathing.