aliens

While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn't more trouble than it's worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they're probably right. I hope they are. "Blindsight" is a thought experiment, a game of "Just suppose" and "What if". Nothing more.On the other hand, the dodos and the Steller sea cows could have used exactly the same argument to prove their own superioirity, a thousand years ago: "if we're so unfit, why haven't we gone extinct?" Why? Because natural selection takes time, and luck plays a role. The biggest boys on the block at any given time aren't necessarily the fittest, or the most efficient, and the game isn't over. The game is never over; there's no finish line this side of heat death. And so, neither can there be any winners. There are only those who haven't yet lost.

I thought carefully as I watched Eyuran treat Uncle Orewen__ wounds. There is no one in their right mind who would assault a Danna, simply because the enemy of an individual becomes the enemy of the whole kennar. Kennar are usually related to each other, which would probably make the unlucky person the enemy of the entire Tue Dannan.And Danna settle things the old way.

Because we were the good guys. We were in the right. The universe looks out for people who act with honor in furtherance of an honorable cause. It must, or we never would have gotten this far as a species.___e won__his little conflict and a thousand like it__ecause we were destined to win. The universe will allow no other outcome.

Reluctantly, we had already accepted every challenge at the moment we were born. And as long as we live, we have no right to give up. For we, or at least someone very similar to us, already died once, long ago in a faraway place.

What do you want me to do? Arrest them all?_ __hen you can, absolutely._ __nd when I can__?_ __o whatever is necessary to remove their ability to act against us__gainst humanity._ __ou mean kill them._ Her expression darkened in what he sensed was sorrow, but her shoulders rose. __f that__ what it takes.

I__l do whatever I can to help guarantee this plan succeeds, and I__l try to make sure I__ in the right place at the right time._ __he right place and time for what?___f I knew that, ma__m, I probably wouldn__ need to be there.

She pointed to the wreckage of one of the frigates in the distance. Half the ship had landed atop one of the towers on the edge of the city, the other half on the flatland beyond. __ou didn___do that, did you?_ He shrugged with proper dramatic flair. __ did say I came to rescue you. They were in my way.

We want to know. We want to know who we are and what we are capable of.I want to know.And yet we were dragged into another war. Another seemingly inevitable and gruesome legacy passed down, along with soma.

As the sky began to darken she sank down in the chair. She had just watched over a thousand Alliance soldiers die in the space of less than a minute. Yet the encounter would be considered a victory, for the enemy was vanquished. But at such a cost. She considered what Alex had asked of her_and began to understand.

Eyuran,_ I addressed his Node. __hat was in this one?__e came closer and studied the huge case, which was easily twice the height of an adult Danna and had body slots for some kind of gear.__ don__ know for sure. I haven't seen this before. It resembles a gearbot sarx, but those are usually larger. Must be a new, compact model._ Observing the empty sarx, a wave of bad feelings came over me.__ also saw some of the weapon crates with broken locks.___f someone is operating a gearbot, a bunch of guns will be the least of our worries. A hull repairer can__ even begin to compete with the power of an assault exomachine._ He looked around and frowned. __y the way, the whole hull repairer rack is empty. Counting the one you took out, we should have seven more roaming somewhere on the ship.

She skidded around a corner, slamming her shoulder into the wall and bouncing off of it without slowing. Caleb?Silence. Forty-six meters. A long stretch of hallway. She pushed faster, harder. Twenty meters.She burst into the room in unison with a deafening crash of metal shearing metal.

He wasn__ going to be able to deactivate the field, which meant there was only one choice.He__ realized early on that his arcane, profoundly alien passenger came with a cost, possibly one too high to pay and get out the other side free and clear. He__ pay it nonetheless and without complaint if the diati would only come through for him now.Caleb closed his eyes.

Caleb shoved back from the table and stood to retreat to the kitchen. __o. Find another plan.___here is no other plan. This isn__ even a plan, merely a nugget of an idea for the start of a plan that__ certain to fail and end in your deaths.

Alex thrust her hand and half her arm into the labyrinth of light. Her stare blanked, and in the halo of the matrix her eyes and glyphs blazed so radiantly she looked as if she were being consumed by a primordial fire.__he just stuck her hand into Machim Command__ central server matrix!__aleb smiled, watching on in blatant awe. __he does that.

No, we absolutely should do it. If we can capture such a motherlode, it could make a pivotal difference in the coming war. We need it. AEGIS needs it, my mother needs it. This is why we__e here.____ merely pausing at the precipice of the cliff, peeking down into the chasm and asking, __re we sure?_ So_ Alex eyed him wearing an uneasy grimace __are we sure?

Nisi flashed his charismatic, mysterious smile. __ow, with this in mind, are you ready to take the next step?__espite Caleb__ attempts at caution__t circumspection and even suspicion__he man__ words stirred his blood. They teased the possibilities of the power within his reach, real power extending far beyond parlor tricks and personal protection to a place where the course of life itself could be changed.__ am.

You have business and pleasure to attend to. As an expert in both, allow me to advise you to put them aside for the next ten minutes. Why? __ecause the world is about to transform, and you will want to be able to say you saw it happen. The axes of our little universe are about to flip, and you__l want to get your magboots set.

You look like you__e been on a month-long bender. Have you?___o, Ken, I have not. I__e just had a long week._ Walked the streets of a city bathed in blood and stood amid a hundred thousand corpses. Negotiated a three-way peace treaty among opposing factions of a warring alien species who__ previously held me captive. Bullied the Metigen leadership into doing my bidding. Found out we__e not the real humans, and the real humans are currently enslaving the real universe. Oh, and I think I__ addicted to my ship. How was your week? __othing a shower and some food won__ fix.