A Closed And Common Orbit Quotes

Most sapients confuse working hard with being miserable.

Are we going for an anchor or a compass? A memory to ground you, or a spark to guide you forward?

I love learning. I love history. But there's history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It's not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes. -Tak

And seriously, anybody working in a job that doesn’t let you take a nap when you need to should get a new job.

At the core, you’ve got to get university certification for parenting, just as you do for, say, being a doctor or an engineer. No offence to you or your species, but going into the business of creating life without any sort of formal prep is . . .’ He laughed. ‘It’s baffling. But then, I’m biased.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we're doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe you're at the top. And if you're at the top, then people who aren't like you... well, they've got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn't matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.

Just because someone goes away doesn't mean you stop loving them.

Owl had said it was important to know how swearing worked, and it was okay under the right circumstances, but that Jane shouldn’t swear all the time. Jane definitely swore all the time. She didn’t know why, but swearing felt fucking great.

There are few better ways to get to know how a species thinks than to learn their art.

The planet was beautiful. The planet was horrible. The planet was full of people, and they were beautiful and horrible, too.

It was hard to play it cool when you wore your heart on your face.

Owl had been good to her. She stayed on the screen by the bed all day, and she taught Jane about something called music, which was a weird bunch of sounds that had no point but made things feel a little better.

There were dozens of stars. Dozens of dozens, way too many to count, just like her questions.

As long as I have food in my belly and can buy dumb stuff to decorate my house with, it doesn’t matter whether people are paying me the same amount every time.

She was glad to have met someone who liked to read.

When I see the ocean, I feel calm. It makes me want to’ – to keep eating candy – ‘to keep going. To keep trying new things. To keep living.

Possessing knowledge and performing an action are two entirely different processes.

in that moment, she could feel a bridge stretching between her as she was right then – giggling and gasping in a spaceship kitchen – to her at four years old, sucking algae gunk from her nails in the dark. She felt as though she could reach out to that little girl and pull her through the years. Look, she’d say. Look who you’re gonna be. Look where you’re gonna go.

All of you do this. Every organic sapient I’ve ever talked to, every book I’ve read, every piece of art I’ve studied. You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don’t have one. You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent – sentient, maybe – animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you – the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason. That thinking worked well for you, once. When you climbed down out of the trees, up out of the ocean – knowing what things were for was what kept you alive. Fruit is for eating. Fire is for warmth. Water is for drinking. And then you made tools, which were for certain kinds of fruit, for making fire, cleaning water. Everything was for something, so obviously, you had to be for something too, right? All of your histories are the same, in essence. They’re all stories of animals warring and clashing because you can’t agree on what you’re for, or why you exist.

You break rules all the time.’ ‘I break laws. That’s different.

You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don’t have one. You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent - sentient, maybe - animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you - the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason . That thinking worked well for you, once.

Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.

I do.’ Pepper nodded seriously. ‘I’d like the left side of the menu, please.

All of your histories are the same, in essence. They’re all stories of animals warring and clashing because you can’t agree on what you’re for, or why you exist.

I love learning. I love history. But there’s history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It’s not limited to libraries and museums. I think people who spend their lives in school forget that sometimes.

So, tattooing . . . you’ve got a picture in your mind, then you put it on your body. You make a hazy imagining into a tangible part of you. Or, to flip it around, you want a reminder of something, so you put it on your body, where it’s a real, touchable thing. You see the thing on your body, you remember it in your mind, then you touch it on your body, you remember why you got it, what you were feeling then, and so on, and so on. It’s a re-enforcing circle. You’re reminded that all these separate pieces are part of the whole that comprises you.

If I'm nothing more than a tool, then I must have a purpose. Tools have purposes, right? But I'm more than that...I know that I'm more than a tool. I know I'm a person, even if the GC doesn't think so. I have to be a person, because I don't need a purpose and not having one drives me crazy.

Blue turned the bottle to the back label. Ingredients: Whatever we could grow this year, plus water.

They'd strapped themselves into this explosive hunk of scrap and aimed for the sky. How was this a good idea? How had anyone ever thought this was a good idea?

The enhanced call us misfits - people who don't fir their intended purpose. So maybe you're a misfit too. Doesn't mean you're not deserving. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be here.

Maybe a compass could be an anchor, too.

All the things made better for some people. Nobody has ever figured out how to make things better for everybody.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you . . . well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn’t matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it.

you’ve got to get university certification for parenting, just as you do for, say, being a doctor or an engineer. No offence to you or your species, but going into the business of creating life without any sort of formal prep is . . .’ He laughed. ‘It’s baffling.

Pepper rolled her eyes. 'Most sapients confuse working hard with being miserable... Seriously, anybody working in a job that doesn't let you take a nap when you need to should get a new job. Present company excluded, of course.' 'Are naps good?' 'Naps are fucking great.

You like little bits,' Jane 64 said. 'You're real good at them. I think you're the most good at little bits.' Jane 23 drank her meal and watched the vid. She was starting to feel sleepy, too. It had been a real good day, though. She had been on task and hadn't gotten punished and Jane 64 said she was the most good.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you … well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right?

Life is terrifying. None of us have rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you … well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn’t matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.’ She jutted her chin toward Tak. ‘You studied history. You know this. Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.

Dance was curious in its near universality. Not all species had dance in their cultures, but most did, and those that did not latched onto the idea once exposed to it... Sidra had watched a lot of archival footage of dance, but fascinating as that was from a cultural perspective, she enjoyed the improvised madness of a multispecies gathering much more. In the pit, she'd observed, it didn't matter what your limbs looked like, or how you liked to move. So long as there was a beat and warm bodies nearby, you could do whatever felt good... The kit responded, changing its posture into something Sidra hadn't experienced before. The limbs were no longer pressed close to the torso, the back no longer straight. What had been tension and angles was now a harmony of curves, rocking, swaying, shifting... A curious sense of delight began to warm up Sidra's pathways.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you . . . well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right?

Words were weird.

No offence to you or your species, but going into the business of creating life without any sort of formal prep is …’ He laughed. ‘It’s baffling.

If you know what you’d like—’ ‘I do.’ Pepper nodded seriously. ‘I’d like the left side of the menu, please.

But there’s good things, too. There’s art and cities and science. All the things we’ve discovered. All the things we’ve learned and made better.’ ‘All the things made better for some people. Nobody has ever figured out how to make things better for everybody.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you . . . well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this. Does it again and again and again. Doesn’t matter if they do it to themselves, or another species, or someone they created.’ She jutted her chin toward Tak. ‘You studied history. You know this. Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.

The table fell silent. Sidra doubted anyone was going to eat cake by this point.

I don’t care about your task. That’s not what’s important. That should never have been the most important thing. What’s important is that you were good girls who – who found out how wrong things are. And you died, and you were probably scared when it happened. That’s so unfair, and I am so, so angry about it. I wish you had been here so we could’ve helped each other. I wish we could’ve been friends. Maybe we could’ve gotten out of here together.

You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent – sentient, maybe – animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you – the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason. That

Our imaginations are forlornly under-equipped to cope with distances outside the narrow middle range of the ancestrally familiar. We try to visualize an electron as a tiny ball, in orbit around a larger cluster of balls representing protons and neutrons. That isn’t what it is like at all. Electrons are not like little balls. They are not like anything we recognize. It isn’t clear that ‘like’ even means anything when we try to fly too close to reality’s further horizons. Our imaginations are not yet tooled-up to penetrate the neighbourhood of the quantum. Nothing at that scale behaves in the way matter – as we are evolved to think – ought to behave. Nor can we cope with the behaviour of objects that move at some appreciable fraction of the speed of light. Common sense lets us down, because common sense evolved in a world where nothing moves very fast, and nothing is very small or very large. At the end of a famous essay on ‘Possible Worlds’, the great biologist J. B. S. Haldane wrote, ‘Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose…I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy.’ By the way, I am intrigued by the suggestion that the famous Hamlet speech invoked by Haldane is conventionally mis-spoken. The normal stress is on ‘your’:

We live in a society,

My primary function was to observe all the goings-on within a ship. All the goings-on. If I don’t have boundaries, I don’t know where to stop processing.

She talked to herself as she walked, for company. Walking didn’t take much brain, and hers got away from her if she wasn’t working on something.

The only reason Humans stopped killing each other to the extent they used to, I think, is because your planet died before you could finish the job.

Jane 23 didn’t move. ‘Hey,’ Owl said. ‘It’s okay. Nothing in here will hurt you. You’re safe.’ Jane 23 didn’t move. ‘Sweetie, I don’t have a body. I can’t touch you.’ Jane 23 thought about that. That seemed a little more good. She walked to the new screen.

She sighed. ‘This must be so confusing for you. I’ll do my best to make sense of everything.’ The face in the wall gasped. ‘I haven’t asked your name! I’m sorry. It’s been so long since I had someone to talk to. I’m so scattered. Do you have a name?’ ‘Jane 23.’ ‘Jane 23,’ Owl said. She nodded, real slow. ‘Well, since you’re the only Jane I see here, is it okay if I leave the numbers off?

The never-ending night was thick with the sounds of sapient chatter, the smells of alcohol and varied kinds of smoke, the flicker of luminescent moths trying bravely to nip at open cups and sticky flasks. If the people around her minded the wait, they didn’t show it. This was a Shimmerquick party, and apparently, standing around doing nothing was a fair price to pay for what was about to happen.

She was aware, as the saga of war and homeland poured forth from the kit’s mouth, that Blue was distracting her. She’d seen him do the same sort of thing to Pepper in the moments they thought Sidra didn’t notice, when Pepper became quietly, whisperingly afraid of nothing. In those moments, Blue would ask Pepper about her day. He’d ask her about what she was working on. He’d ask her about the latest sim she’d been playing. In a small way, Sidra felt a bit manipulated, like he was purposefully driving away the bad mood she’d felt justified in nursing – but having something else to focus on was better, and being painted was a surprisingly good feeling, too. It was nice to be watched, to have somebody pouring all his attention into her. Was that selfish? And if so, was that a bad thing?

Jane lay still. Just relax, she thought. Just relax. I won’t get punished. But her body knew it was time to wake up, and the feeling of being in trouble grew louder and sharper, sitting thick in her chest. Girls who stayed in bed got punished. Girls who were late got punished. I won’t get punished. Girls had to work hard. Girls couldn’t be lazy. I won’t get—

Between you and me, I really don’t care how much things cost. As long as I have food in my belly and can buy dumb stuff to decorate my house with, it doesn’t matter whether people are paying me the same amount every time. I work within budgets, and trade is every bit as welcome as credits. More so, even.

And no matter what the sims said about the power of a single solitary hero, there were some things just too big to change alone.

Jane let out a sob she hadn’t known was there. Oouoh sat up with a start. ‘Oh – oh, what the f*ck,’ he said. ‘Shit, let’s get you to the med ward, come on—’ Jane stared at him. ‘What? Why? I’m fine.’ ‘Uh, no, you’re . . . your eyes are leaking.’ Jane laughed, which was hard to do while crying. ‘No, no, this’ – she sniffed hard – ‘it’s just tears. It’s okay.’ Oouoh was distraught. ‘What about this is okay?’ ‘We do this. Humans do this when – when we’re feeling a lot of things.’ ‘You leak?’ ‘I guess. I’m okay, really. I’m fine.’ The Laru shifted his jaw back and forth. ‘All right. That’s f*cking creepy, but all right.

None of that changed the fact that by base, museums were weird. Pepper understood that you had to get your story down somewhere, and making it tangible was a good way to keep from forgetting. The intent was fine. The content . . . that was what weirded her out. Everything in the Reskit Museum was junk. A clunky early ansible, a burned-out nav beacon, an old tunnel map from the days when the Harmagians were the only ones boring holes in space. Why this stuff? Why this antique exosuit, and not the ten others that had probably come in with it? Why had this one been lovingly stitched, patched, and propped up in a temperature-controlled cube, while the others had been chucked out – or worse, boxed away in an archival warehouse somewhere. A whole building set aside for stuff you couldn’t use, couldn’t fix, and wouldn’t get rid of. Now that was the mark of people who had it good.

even though Aandrisks weren’t known for getting too fluffy with their architecture, the design was a hell of a thing to see. Aandrisk buildings weren’t big on windows to begin with (hard to keep heat in that way), and sunlight was rough on just about everything, especially old tech. The museum had gotten around that problem by building the entire complex out of thinly cut yellow stone, sliced so slim that the light from outside glowed through. The effect was haunting – magical, almost. It was like walking through the heart of a star, or a dying fire. It was like being within something alive.

But then she looked up again, up at the big soft galaxy, and after a bit, she felt okay. She felt good. Somehow, outside, looking at the stars, everything was a little better.

If you're going to be my assistant,' she said, 'you've got to learn to make mek.' 'That's... the most important thing?' 'Oh yeah. Fixing complicated shit requires a clear head, and nothing chills a person out like a warm cup of mek.' Pepper placed an affectionate hand on the brewing machine. 'I require a lot of this.

Protect your passengers and monitor the systems that keep them alive, the file read. Provide a safe and welcoming atmosphere for all sapients present. Yes, they were someone else's words, but she had no desire to change them. She liked those words. They suited her just fine.

The scrib brightened. An image appeared, and in an instant, there was no air in the room, no floor beneath her. She would have fallen had she not been sitting. And even so, she still felt like she was falling, but now, there was a warm pair of arms that would catch her at the end, a warm pair of arms she'd always imagined but could never feel. 'Oh,' Pepper choked. 'Oh, stars--

What was the difference between strung-together neurons and a simple bundle of if/then code, if the outward actions were the same? Could you say for certain that there wasn’t a tiny mind in that bot, looking back at the world like a beetle might?

Even though the clothing cues could not be missed, Sidra was glad she had downloaded additional social references before leaving home, as the latter two genders were impossible to distinguish through physical features alone. Shons changed reproductive function multiple times throughout a standard, and were always considered fully male or female, depending on the current situation. Calling a shon by a neutral pronoun was considered an insult, unless they were in the middle of a shift. Such terms were reserved for those too young, too old, or simply unable to procreate. As neutral adults of breeding age looked exactly like their fertile counterparts, they generally did not mind the assumptions of other species where gendered pronouns were concerned, but appreciated it when the correct terms were used. Despite knowing that the kit’s Human appearance would absolve her of any pronoun mishaps, Sidra appreciated the colour-coded clothing. She loathed the idea of getting such things wrong.

Jane 23 did not understand what she was seeing. On the other side of the wall, there were not more walls. There were huge piles of scrap, but far away, and the floor in between her and them didn't look like any floor she'd ever seen. Above them, there was a... a ceiling. But not a ceiling. It didn't look touchable. She couldn't explain it. There was a ceiling that wasn't a ceiling, and it was blue. Just blue, for a long, long way. Blue for ever.

Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here. So, the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people who aren’t like you . . . well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this.

So, tattooing … you’ve got a picture in your mind, then you put it on your body. You make a hazy imagining into a tangible part of you.

Presented with something new, she could easily ignore the everyday.

Every organic sapient I’ve ever talked to, every book I’ve read, every piece of art I’ve studied. You are all desperate for purpose, even though you don’t have one. You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. And there are a lot of intelligent – sentient, maybe – animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But the animals like you – the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore, you all share a need for purpose. For reason.

So, tattooing... you’ve got a picture in your mind, then you put it on your body. You make a hazy imagining into a tangible part of you. Or, to flip it around, you want a reminder of something, so you put it on your body, where it’s a real, touchable thing. You see the thing on your body, you remember it in your mind, then you touch it on your body, you remember why you got it, what you were feeling then, and so on, and so on. It’s a reinforcing circle. You’re reminded that all these separate pieces are part of the whole that comprises you.

Jane definitely swore all the time. She didn’t know why, but swearing felt fucking great.

I love learning. I love history. But there’s history in everything. Every building, everybody you talk to. It’s not limited to libraries and museums.

Her own scared feeling started to go away, and in its place was something kind of hot and loud and good. They were talking about bad behaviour, but she wanted to do this. She wanted to do this a lot. So she did. Right then.

At the core, you’ve got to get university certification for parenting, just as you do for, say, being a doctor or an engineer. No offence to you or your species, but going into the business of creating life without any sort of formal prep is . . .’ He laughed. ‘It’s baffling.

Going fast had felt so good before that. For a second, she'd been somewhere else, somewhere where all she could feel was heart and breath and fuzzy head. Her body was doing exactly what it wanted. Everything was bright and clean, and she had smiled.

Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.’ ‘It’s not all that,’ Tak said. ‘A lot of it, yes. But there’s good things, too. There’s art and cities and science. All the things we’ve discovered. All the things we’ve learned and made better.’ ‘All the things made better for some people. Nobody has ever figured out how to make things better for everybody.’ ‘I know,’ Tak said. She thought,

your species, but going into the business of creating life without any sort of formal prep is . . .’ He laughed. ‘It’s baffling. But then, I’m biased.

xyr

The Enhanced call us m-misfits. People who don’t suit their intended purpose. So, maybe, ah, maybe you’re a misfit, too. Doesn’t mean you’re not deserving. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be here.

Credits are imaginary. I’ll accept them because we’ve collectively decided that’s how we do things, but I prefer doing business in a tangible way.