Terran Quotes

Celaena Sardothien wasn’t in league with Aelin Ashryver Galathynius. Celaena Sardothien was Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, heir to the throne and rightful Queen of Terranes. Celaena was Aelin Galathynius, the greatest living threat to Adarlan, the one person who could raise an army capable of standing against the king. Now, she was also the one person who knew the secret source of the king’s power—and who sought a way to destroy it. And he had just sent her into the arms of her strongest potential allies: to the homeland of her mother, the kingdom of her cousin, and the domain of her aunt, Queen Maeve of the Fae. Celaena was the lost Queen of Terrasen. Chaol sank to his knees.

The Gethenians do not see one another as men or women. This is almost impossible for our imaginations to accept. After all, what is the first question we ask about a newborn baby? ....there is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protected/ protective. One is respected and judged only as a human being. You cannot cast a Gethnian in the role of Man or Woman, while adopting towards 'him' a corresponding role dependant on your expetations of the interactions between persons of the same or oppositve sex. It is an appalling experience for a Terran

Anyways. I heard you made it onto one of the shuttles. So you're Schrödinger's Kady right now. That was this weird old Terran experiment where you put a cat in a box, and since you couldn't actually know if the cat was dead or alive from that point on, the cat was considered simultaneously both alive and dead... and presumably pissed off about being in a box.

Our pride is not in fighting but in farming; In the work of our, hands not our blades. Never have we sought war. We come to the Banner of the white pig because it is the banner of our friend, Terran Wanderer.

Human bipolarity was both the binding force and the driving energy for all human behavior, from sonnets to nuclear equations. If any being thinks that human psychologists exaggerate on this point, let it search Terran patent offices, libraries, and art galleries for creations of eunuchs.

That, plus the huge traffic jams I could see on the public skyways even at this distance, told me this was no place for sensible people. Hell, it was probably no place for Terrans.

Ai taught me a Terran game played on squares with little stones, called go, an excellent difficult game.

Geologists on the whole are inconsistent drivers. When a roadcut presents itself, they tend to lurch and weave. To them, the roadcut is a portal, a fragment of a regional story, a proscenium arch that leads their imaginations into the earth and through the surrounding terrane.

The war might be over, but scaring Terrans witless is one of life's little joys.

Athshe, which meant the Forest, and the World. So Earth, Terra, meant both the soil and the planet, two meanings and one. But to the Athsheans soil, ground, earth was not that to which the dead return and by which the living live: the substance of their world was not earth, but forest. Terran man was clay, red dust. Athshean man was branch and root. They did not carve figures of themselves in stone, only in wood.

But the physical danger was judged to be less important than the psychological stresses. Eight humans, crowded together like monkeys for almost three Terran years, had better get along much better than humans usually did.

We're outnumbered a hundred to one. The GIA has Auri in custody. They have our Longbow locked down. But I've studied Terran space vessels since I was six--I know the layout of a destroyer backward. And though this pack of losers and discipline cases and sociopaths might've been the last picks on anyone's mind during the Draft, turns out none of them are bad at their jobs. If I can hold this together, get us working as a team, we might even make it out of this alive...

A great majority of Terrans were idealists, and they believed fervently in concepts such as truth, justice, mercy, and the like. And not only did they believe, they also let those noble concepts guide their actions—except when it would be inconvenient or unprofitable. When that happened, they acted expediently, but continued to talk moralistically. This meant that they were “hypocrites” —a term which every race has its counterpart of.

Looks like you’ve got a case of misogynitis. The only cure I can offer you is to surgically remove that thumb up your ass and for you to start treating her like a person. Got it?

It’s just ugly, like someone really angry built it. I don’t know what it is with Terrans and their design aesthetic.

Terran man was clay, red dust. Athshean man was branch and root. They did not carve figures of themselves in stone, only in wood.

Most Terran primates did not understand the multiplex nature of causality. They tended to think everything had a single cause. This simple philosophic error was so widespread on that planet that the primates were all in the habit of giving themselves, and other primates, more credit than was deserved when things went well. This made them all inordinately conceited.

The culture known as “America” had a split personality throughout its history. Its laws were puritanical; its covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were Apollonian; its revivals were almost Dionysian. In the twentieth century (Terran Christian Era) nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed—and nowhere was there such deep interest in it.

Someone comes.” Tyler looks up from the server, elbow-deep in cable. “You sure?” I peer back down the corridor at the approaching Terran. He carries an armload of computer equipment and wears a tool belt full of e-tech. He is three days unshaven, glares at the security personnel around him with an air of undisguised contempt, and looks as though he has not slept in seven years. “He certainly has the appearance of a man who works with computers, yes.

Jethri had lately formed the theory that this reluctance to offer information was not what a Terran would call spitefulness, but courtesy. It would be—an insult, if his reading of the tapes was right, to assume that another person was ignorant of any particular something.

From this day forward, let no human make war upon any other human. Let no Terran agency conspire against this new beginning. And let no man consort with alien powers. And to all the enemies of humanity, seek not to bar our way, for we shall win through, no matter the cost!

If this place were closer to Terra there’d be empty beer cans and plastic plates strewn around. The trees would be gone. There’d be old jet motors in the water. The beaches would stink to high heaven. Terran Development would have a couple of million little plastic houses set up everywhere.

Touch was a main channel of communication among the forest people. Among Terrans touch is always likely to imply threat, aggression, and so for them there is often nothing between the formal handshake and the sexual caress. All that blank was filled by the Athsheans with varied customs of touch.

CENTURY, AFTER TERRANS DISCOVERED IN THE TWENTIETH THAT IT KILLED YOU!” “It took them two hundred years to stop doing it?” I ask, bewildered. “ISN’T THAT INSANE?” Magellan says. “HONESTLY, DOESN’T THAT SOUND LIKE A SPECIES THAT WOULD BENEFIT FROM SOME KIND OF BENEVOLENT MACHINE OVERLORD?” “Silent mode,” Tyler says.

Holding Cubbie firmly against his chest, Dargus went to stand by the head of the examination bed. Both he and the rabbisaurus peered down at the unconscious female. Her lids snapped open. Two deep brown eyes stared up at him. Cubbie chirruped excitedly. Dargus’ lips stretched into a tentative smile. The Terran screamed.

To be pushed and move beyond our own understanding provides a wonderful learning opportunity.

Gethenians could make their vehicles go faster, but they do not. If asked why not, they answer “Why?” Like asking Terrans why all our vehicles must go so fast; we answer “Why not?” No disputing tastes. Terrans tend to feel they’ve got to get ahead, make progress. The people of Winter, who always live in the Year One, feel that progress is less important than presence.

Madam, let's not be so crass. We're Terrans, after all, forever virtuous, eternally right in all matters of comportment, wise and clever, honest and forthright, inclined to modest errors in judgement while maintaining our heartfelt desire to do good and therefore entirely capable of sweeping under the carpet all the genocidal horrors studding our history in the galaxy.

John Isidore said, “I found a spider.” The three androids glanced up, momentarily moving their attention from the TV screen to him. “Let’s see it,” Pris said. She held out her hand. Roy Baty said, “Don’t talk while Buster is on.” “I’ve never seen a spider,” Pris said. She cupped the medicine bottle in her palms, surveying the creature within. “All those legs. Why’s it need so many legs, J. R.?” “That’s the way spiders are,” Isidore said, his heart pounding; he had difficulty breathing. “Eight legs.” Rising to her feet, Pris said, “You know what I think, J. R.? I think it doesn’t need all those legs.” “Eight?” Irmgard Baty said. “Why couldn’t it get by on four? Cut four off and see.” Impulsively opening her purse, she produced a pair of clean, sharp cuticle scissors, which she passed to Pris. A weird terror struck at J. R. Isidore. Carrying the medicine bottle into the kitchen, Pris seated herself at J. R. Isidore’s breakfast table. She removed the lid from the bottle and dumped the spider out. “It probably won’t be able to run as fast,” she said, “but there’s nothing for it to catch around here anyhow. It’ll die anyway.” She reached for the scissors. “Please,” Isidore said. Pris glanced up inquiringly. “Is it worth something?” “Don’t mutilate it,” he said wheezingly. Imploringly. With the scissors, Pris snipped off one of the spider’s legs. In the living room Buster Friendly on the TV screen said, “Take a look at this enlargement of a section of background. This is the sky you usually see. Wait, I’ll have Earl Parameter, head of my research staff, explain their virtually world-shaking discovery to you.” Pris clipped off another leg, restraining the spider with the edge of her hand. She was smiling. “Blowups of the video pictures,” a new voice from the TV said, “when subjected to rigorous laboratory scrutiny, reveal that the gray backdrop of sky and daytime moon against which Mercer moves is not only not Terran—it is artificial.” “You’re missing it!” Irmgard called anxiously to Pris; she rushed to the kitchen door, saw what Pris had begun doing. “Oh, do that afterward,” she said coaxingly. “This is so important, what they’re saying; it proves that everything we believed—” “Be quiet,” Roy Baty said. “—is true,” Irmgard finished. The TV set continued, “The ‘moon’ is painted; in the enlargements, one of which you see now on your screen, brush strokes show. And there is even some evidence that the scraggly weeds and dismal, sterile soil—perhaps even the stones hurled at Mercer by unseen alleged parties—are equally faked. It is quite possible in fact that the ‘stones’ are made of soft plastic, causing no authentic wounds.” “In other words,” Buster Friendly broke in, “Wilbur Mercer is not suffering at all.” The research chief said, “We at last managed, Mr. Friendly, to track down a former Hollywood special-effects man, a Mr. Wade Cortot, who flatly states, from his years of experience, that the figure of ‘Mercer’ could well be merely some bit player marching across a sound stage. Cortot has gone so far as to declare that he recognizes the stage as one used by a now out-of-business minor moviemaker with whom Cortot had various dealings several decades ago.” “So according to Cortot,” Buster Friendly said, “there can be virtually no doubt.” Pris had now cut three legs from the spider, which crept about miserably on the kitchen table, seeking a way out, a path to freedom. It found none.

My world, my Earth, is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and gobbled and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first. There are no forests left on my Earth. The air is grey, the sky is grey, it is always hot. It is habitable, it is still habitable—but not as this world is. This is a living world, a harmony. Mine is a discord. You Odonians chose a desert; we Terrans made a desert…. We survive there, as you do. People are tough! There are nearly a half billion of us now. Once there were nine billion. You can see the old cities still everywhere. The bones and bricks go to dust, but the little pieces of plastic never do—they never adapt either.

The question has been raised, General Ia, as to whether or not you already know the outcome of this tribunal. Do you?” he asked her. “Is that why you’re trying to avoid being here? To avoid being bored?” “Sirs, I deal in percentages. There are eight possible outcomes to this tribunal which are greater than one percent in their probability, and fifty-two possible outcomes that are less than one percent, most being less than one-tenth of one percent. However small those minor possibilities are, I cannot rule them out as an outcome. I was shot in the shoulder with a handheld laser cannon on a less than three percent probability, which most people would consider to be a highly unlikely outcome. I was also elevated to the rank of a four-star General, never mind that I am now a five-star, on a less than one-hundred-thousandth of a percent, when the largest percentile, forty-seven percent, was that I should have been elevated only to the rank of Rear Admiral. “As for being bored . . . I actually would prefer to be here because that means nobody would be attacking our colonies. But they are, and that means my preferences must take second place to my sense of duty. I will admit I have sat through this tribunal around eight or nine times in the timestreams, examining those eight largest percentiles,” Ia added candidly. “This has left me very familiar with the majority of all evidence the prosecution will be presenting against me . . . but again, the outcome is never one hundred percent certain, until it has actually come to pass. I do take this tribunal seriously, but I also take the ongoing threat to Terran civilians equally seriously, sirs.

He looked at the cameraman. “Was the photographer your idea? Not getting enough TV time?” “No,” replied Calvin. “I’ve had all of the publicity I need for this lifetime and several more. His name is Bob Jones; he goes by the nickname ‘Danger.’ I didn’t know we were getting him until we were on Domus. There was a combat cameraman doing a show on the new members of the Terran Republic, and the Domans hired him to do a ‘real Terran news show’ on the war.

Back in NCO school, I had to read a ton of papers by mostly clueless theoreticians, prattling on about the “changing nature of modern warfare,” and the need for the modern, post–Terran Commonwealth Defense Corps to be tooled and trained for “low-intensity colonial actions.” In truth, warfare has changed very little since our great-great-grandfathers killed each other at places like Gettysburg, the Somme, Normandy, or Baghdad. It’s still mostly about scared men with rifles charging into places defended by other scared men with rifles.

Failing to act is action, and though there are a lot of people talking, they are not taking action.

For probably the ten-thousandth time Tizhos cursed her people. They had ventured forth from a ruined planet, rediscovered how to enter Otherspace and explore the Universe, made contact with Terrans and others – and then decided they preferred to spend all their time blowing glass and planting gardens in little woodland villages.

SPACE... it's fucking big. These are the voyages of the starship, A.S.F. Willful Child. Its ongoing mission: to seek out strange new worlds on which to plant the Terran flag, to subjugate and if necessary obliterate new life life-forms, to boldly blow the...

Karru, please.” He grinned and nibbled her hip. “As my Jhoari demands.

Life as a private investigator, slash bounty hunter wasn’t all Gary Beck wanted it to be. There weren’t any big mansions on a palm beach owned by an affluent writer generous enough to let him live rent-free and use his spare Ferrari. But then you have to ask yourself, what could you expect living on a planet like Deanna? As a third-rate colony in the Terran Empire, Deanna had more than its fair share of dull moments. It orbits a star called Ramalama. If you think that’s funny, Deanna’s two moons are called Ding and Dong, respectively (this is a local joke) and one of them falls down occasionally.

On any given day, Ossifar Distana carried around 5000 passengers, the actual figure varying slightly depending on where she was on the vast elliptical cruise that took her around the Terran Empire. When she entered the system she carried 4984 passengers, 500 crew, one dead body and one very puzzled Captain.

You booped me!” Jackie exclaimed in a near whisper.

The problem with such guidelines is that they never seemed applicable to the real-world situation.

New Terrans, she supposed. Unless the squatters' naming schema won out. Then... what? Ilusians? Illusions? It was a stupid fucking name.

The same collection of cut-throats, crooks, and incompetents are still steering our planet’s various ships of state.

meretricious

Because in the Renaissance, broadly integrative thought was at a premium; empirical method was in its infancy. Now, with the tools of measurement so highly refined, we produce lots of narrow specialists but fewer expansive thinkers.” “Well,

In fact, one could argue that the Terrans’ international pastime wasn’t soccer, it was a much older game they called espionage. Before

Vulcan has no moon,” various Vulcans have been heard to remark: accurate as always, when speaking scientifically. “Damn right it doesn’t,” at least one Terran has responded: “it has a nightmare.” T’Khut

Enough violence can solve any problem,” Santos said.

She turned away from it all to face the double bunk. “Are you top or bottom?” Nassien quirked an eyebrow. “Top, definitely.” Kay bit back a reply that would only land her in trouble. It would be hard enough bunking with Nassien as it was.

you fight with the best, its hard to go back to the rest

metal can be reforge and tempered again

Vows are worthless unless deeds are wedded to them,

When Imperial Fleet Lords felt contrite, they apparently apologized like Canadians.

Explosions are meant to make a statement.

The Kai-lao girls were arrayed in a triangular formation, but they did not hold themselves as any warriors I knew. Each young woman was posed in strange, exaggerated ways, some balancing on one foot with arms raised, others crouched low and back with hands scrunched up in imitation of animal claws… I think. More so, they all dressed in identical uniforms save for the color, a literal rainbow. Each uniform… or maybe the girls themselves?... sported ears like a Terran feline with tails to match. Considering they twitched and moved, I could only guess they were natural. “Andrea Baker,” I said into the comms, “I misunderstand. You said when you spoke of ‘a cat fight,’ that it was a figure of speech? Perhaps you misspoke?” “Oh my God, Aylin,” Andrea laughed into the comms, “I really thought it was a joke, but I guess I was wrong. It really will be a cat fight!

That was the trouble with war. Leave out the toil, discipline, discomfort, scant sleep, lousy food, monotony, and combat, and war would be a fine institution.

when

Intelligence reports and local folklore together perpetuated tales of his bloody adventures across the rim worlds and badlands of Terran space. It was his trademark and often over the last two decades, history proclaimed in large bloody letters that ‘Kilroy woz ‘ere.

One day, I will be a father. Herding our guests is like herding children, yes? Easier than cats . . . but only by so much.” That

Marsh’k cut the circuit on the rest of the helmsman’s whining and rose to his feet, stretching to his full height of just under six standard Terran feet.

Meradinis! Turtle Island! It was a little corner of chaos! This was the scene the speeding black ship had left behind three days ago, fleeing in humiliating shame, those three days a constant running battle. For three days the accursed Imperial ship Indomitable had followed, firing on them at every opportunity. Death or imprisonment now awaited those who called themselves Corsairs – and though this death was now more certain rather than just a possibility, Sona Kilroy, or “The Hammer” as he was called by his men, was not prepared to give up his freedom so easily. Piracy was his life and he’d known no other. He was tough and cruel, a despicable man, a case in point when academics quoted the barbarism by which the Corsairs had made themselves known and feared across the star systems of the peaceful Terran Empire.

repair aboard flag.

She tapped her wrist, an ancient Terran gesture meant to signal impatience, one of the few things she remembered from early childhood on Earth.

A myth can be picked up by a whole society, believed and taught to the next generation. Gods, fairies, witches—believing a thing doesn’t make it true. For centuries, Terrans believed the Earth was flat.

My Green locksmith, Cyra, another Terran, is on a knee working the interior of the biometric lock. Her gear is set out on the floor near the door, where she’ll run support. Bit twitchy, that one. She doesn’t usually like coming to the dancefloor. I’ve hired Cyra sporadically over the past few years, but we’re not close. She’s like most Limies—petulant and selfish, with a processor in place of a heart. Especially nasty to Volga. Doesn’t bother me. I came to the conclusion at the age of nine that most people are liars, bastards, or just plain stupid. She’s a good hacker, and that’s all I care about.

Carthago delenda est. How many humans would know what those words meant? How many Terrans, whose world had birthed them, and how many on the thousands of newly populated and rediscovered orbs, all frantically developing and building and reaching upwards to a dimly understood but fantastically powerful future? Just a handful, maybe, who had access to lost books written in dead languages. History had a penchant for repeating itself, though, for rehearsing old patterns in ever grander circuits even if the participants had forgotten their origins.

There are basically three alien networks at work on earth: The Anti-Grey Nordic [Federation] factions, the Anti-Nordic Grey [Empire] factions and the Nordic-Grey collaborators, which would also include those Terran intelligence agencies and occult lodges who are involved in the collaboration for whatever motive.

You think violence is an instrument you can control, like your tech, using it only for ‘good and sufficient’ reasons. But violence is not an instrument; it’s a cancer. You can’t turn people into killing machines with the power to end life, and then expect them to behave humanely in the rest of their lives. Humane empathy is always the first victim of war, or soldiers couldn’t kill at all. Once violence gets started, it always escalates. It can’t be controlled.

Just having a little fun," Crusher said, putting his knives away. "Fun?" Burke asked. "You stabbed this man in the ass!" "His buddy did that." Crusher pointed at Murph. "No idea why. Seemed weird to me, too." "Not to be a whiner about this, but I'm pretty sure I need medical attention," MG said.

first rule of tropical weather—don’t fight against it; go with it.

Did you know you can bruise your balls by falling onto your back hard enough?

Logistics wins wars,

the PanTerran people might not be able to pick up

Touch was a main channel of communication among the forest people. Among Terrans touch is always likely to imply threat, aggression, and so for them there is often nothing between the formal handshake and the sexual caress. All that blank was filled by the Athsheans with varied customs of touch. Caress as signal and reassurance was as essential to them as it is to mother and child or to lover and lover; but its significance was social, not only maternal and sexual. It was part of their language, it was therefore patterned, codified, yet infinitely modifiable. “They’re always pawing each other,” some of the colonists sneered, unable to see in these touch-exchanges anything but their own eroticism which, forced to concentrate itself exclusively on sex and then repressed and frustrated, invades and poisons every sensual pleasure, every humane response: the victory of a blinded, furtive Cupid over the great brooding mother of all the seas and stars, all the leaves of trees, all the gestures of men...

Even given my limited knowledge of the vast span of Terran history, terrible crimes seemed terribly commonplace and didn’t usually lead to enlightenment.

First and Fourth Fleets were operated by the North American Commonwealth, Second and Fifth by the European Union, and Third and Sixth by the Sino-Russian Federation.

Fucking spacers changed the name of a door just so they could feel important.

The wrench momentarily forgotten, he thrust his hand behind the bench and did what any red-blooded human male would do in his shoes: he pushed the button of unknown capability.

Sixty Pathfinder Corps insignia lined the top of his son’s empty casket. It seemed such a small offering, but Henry knew it was the single greatest honor those marines could bestow upon their fallen brother.

Eight months’ food and water and a single set of missile reloads didn’t sound like much to take on an interstellar empire.

Aye aye, ma’am.” Her tactical officer took a moment to flex his fingers and crack his knuckles. “No pressure,” he muttered under his breath.

Karman line,

So what are you saying?” Kravczyk said, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer. “We’re down to rude gestures and harsh language?

but at least we’ll get to embrace the suck together.

karambit

He grunted and flexed his core muscles as hard as he could, working in unison with his APEX as it squeezed his extremities in an effort to keep blood in his head, where it would be useful.

Well…” Ben said slowly, turning to face them. “That was weird.

-this was a living moment, a time to discover regularities within perpetual change, an instant in which to feel that long movement from their Terranic past, all of it encapsulated in her memories.

He had never considered himself to be anything remotely resembling a leader, despite the fact that his parents had both been excellent ones, but he had inherited his mother’s lack of patience for stupidity.

On paper, the war had technically been a draw, but only because neither side had enough ships left over to fight off a garbage scow when it was all said and done.

What’s up, Cheng?” he asked, using the ancient naval slang for “chief engineer.” “Why the hell are you suddenly flogging my ship like a rented mule, sir?

The petite, five-foot-two engineer was a foul-mouthed hellion masquerading as a blonde bombshell.

It was going to be a long year or two before this shit finally settled down. He needed to get the kid whipped into shape, pronto.

But Ramsey was and always would be a destroyerman at heart, and destroyer skippers weren’t exactly known for being models of sanity.

You’d think the locals would be able to deal with a disorganized bunch of gangsters on their own, not need a high-speed, low-drag badass SEAR to do it for them.

I’m glad to see you well.” Klaythron moved to stand slightly behind Elyria and to her right. The guard’s body language practically screamed, Fuck with her again and I will end you, Terran

Weps,” Ramsey called out to his weapons officer, making brief eye contact with the man. “We believe this is the last Imperium ship in Terran or Alarian space, so do be generous. We can always bill the Alarians for our expended ordnance later.

Lauren let out a derisive snort. “Honey, you were a half step away from the rending of garments and sacrificing a chipmunk to the technology gods.

How can he be so calm? He was definitely dropped as a child…

It helped that both the Pathfinders and the Alarians chosen to join them were a cut above the average infantryman, having been forged into true professionals in the fires of their respective training programs.