Dialog from SMAX?

[Illuminatus]

Cult

Mankind has been blind for thousands of years-for all of its history. We
have come to a place whose wonders are a hundred-fold more amazing than
anything on Earth. Around us is clear evidence of the will of a higher power.
I bring the Vision to the blind eyes of men. I bring the Word to the deaf ears
of men. I will make them see it. I will make them hear it.

Prophet Cha Dawn, "Planet Rising"


The ancient Chinese had a name for it: Feng Shui. We call it energy flow. It is the
same thing, the same thought: energy is everywhere, but only a fraction of it is tapped by humans for their purposes. Now the Progenitors have taught us that we can tap not only our own latent abilities, but the latent abilities of the Universe itself.

Prophet Cha Dawn, Planet Rising"


I saw the alien phalanx coming toward us, and I calmed my mind as Kri'lan had taught me. And what I saw next to the phalanx was a shadow regiment, half-formed from the resonance around them. I cursed the aliens...with power like that, each one could fight as many, and I thanked Planet for sending us the betrayer.

Prophet Cha Dawn, "The Betrayer and I"


Kri'lan taught me of the resonance and how to feel it. After much training, I could
see -- the very surface under our feet, Planet itself -- is a living, fluctuating nexus
of energy, violent, beautiful and quite unstable. And I could also feel its cousins -- distant mirrors on the other side of the space-time continuum -- the far-flung Manifolds.

Prophet Cha Dawn, "The Betrayer and I"

**************************************************

Humans were unfortunate enough to evolve on a world in which they comprised the most intelligent and powerful species. Thus the overwhelming arrogance wired into them, to imagine gods in their own image and then discard them when they become inconvenient. That will not be possible here. Make no mistake, Planet itself is a sleeping god, and when it wakes there will be apocalypse.

Prophet Cha Dawn, "Planet Rising"

[Illuminatus]

Caretaker

Manifold harmonic fields : within, the true nature of the universe becomes apparent. Layers : within layers. Worlds : within worlds. Inside : the heart of everything opens, and everything opens to it.

Caretaker Lular H'minee, Resonance : Power"


Humans : there is no space inside rocket. Progenitor : space exists around all things with mass. Space : "here". Inside rocket : "there". Secret: bring here to there.

Caretaker Lular H'minee, "Secret : Space"


Tau Ceti Flowering: Horrors visited upon neighboring systems must never be repeated. Therefore: if it means the end of our evolution as a species, so be it.

Caretaker Lular H'minee, "Sacrifice : Life"

Resonance: comes not from individual beings, rather city as whole. Progenitors: not separate, lines between us glow. Resulting power: exponential. Brilliant beacon even in vast universe.

Caretaker Lular H'minee, "Resonance : Power"

**************************************************

Flowering : doomed to fail. Failure : horrors unimagined by innocent or primitive minds. Caretaker : serve life by preventing the attempt at Flowering.

Caretaker Lular H'minee, "Manifold : Service"

[Illuminatus]

Usurper

Humans : correct in making the leap from wealth as currency to wealth as energy. But logic failure : wealth ultimately is extension of desire, fluctuating with emotions and state of mind. Desires : when all are supported in purely adaptable system, true wealth is achieved.

Usurper Judaa Marr, "Human : Nature"

Risks of Flowering: considerable. But rewards of godhood: who can measure?

Usurper Judaa Marr, "Courage : To Question"


Missile attack on Zeta Five: humans activate, first defense successful. Afterwards: danger posed by invasion suddenly clear.

Usurper Judaa Marr, "Human: Nature"

**************************************************

Human : galaxy appears empty of life. Progenitor : life takes shape in every favorable environment. Life : mind. Mind : evolution toward Flowering. Secret : Progenitors prevent Flowering by preventing mind. Usurper : question wisdom and rightness of such strategy.

Usurper Judaa Marr, "Courage : To Question"

[Illuminatus]

Drone

In one dimension I find existence, in two I find life, but in three, I find freedom.

Foreman Domai,Cadet Induction Ceremony, Mission Year 2216


To understand a thing is to know the manner by which it might be destroyed. A fundamental understanding of the basic building-blocks of the Universe is essential, then, to the total destruction of everything.

Foreman Domai, "One Tool, One Thought"


"Now it's day and night the irons clang, and like poor galley slaves
We toil and toil, and when we die, must fill dishonored graves
But some dark night, when everything is silent in the town
I'll shoot those tyrants one and all, I'll gun the flogger down
I'll give the land a little shock, remember what I say,
And they'll yet regret they've sent Jim Jones in chains to Botany Bay."

"Jim Jones", Traditional

The managers always talked about having view from 30 000 feet. The only problem with having the view from 30 000 feet is that from that height everyone looks like ants.

Foreman Domai, "Genejack and the Beanstalk"

**************************************************

Without our work, nothing is built. Without our work, no wealth is gathered. Without our work, no secrets are discovered. Without our work, no base can be defended. Now you tell me: why should our work be taken for the benefit of others?

Foreman Domai, "Manifesto"

[Illuminatus]

Various other SMAC characters

Captain said to big old John Henry,
That old drill keeps a-coming around.
Take that steam drill out and start it on that job
Let it whop, let it whop that steel on down
Let it whop, let it whop that steel on down.

Traditional, Datalinks


It is not uncommon to see patients undergo permanent psychological trauma in the presence of the Sphere, before the nerve stapler has even been strapped into position. Its effect on the general consciousness of the culture is profound: husbands have seen wives go inside, and mothers their children. Dr. Xynan left the surface of the sphere semitranslucent for a reason. You can hear them in there; you can see them. It is a thing of terrible beauty.

Baron Klim, "The Music of the Spheres"


I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe or laugh or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment.

Anonymous, Datalinks


Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
whose fleece was white as snow.

Assassins' Redoubt, Final Transmission


Preliminary analysis indicates that our rivals have developed a safe and reliable method to simulate conditions existing on the interior of a stellar mass. The fabrication and transmutation of materials possible in such an environment guarantees significant industrial and military applications.

Probe Team Operations Directorate, Top Secret Report


We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?

Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467; TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

**************************************************

In the past thirty years, we have used our telescopes to gather a few terabytes of information about the target world. On this basis, we glibly call Chiron "Earthlike." I want you to consider for a moment what that means. Chiron has gravity not too much higher than we find comfortable, an atmosphere containing water and free oxygen, a surface climate that we can tolerate. That's all. Billions of years of separate evolution have inevitably made Chiron a greater challenge than we can imagine. Even the familiar will be alien.

Captain John Garland, initial address to the Unity crew, 2058

[Illuminatus]

Quotes from real persons

Red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron; an iron taste, and iron smell, and a Babel of iron sounds.

Charles Dickens, "Bleak House"


God, from the mount of Sinai, whose gray top Shall tremble, he descending, will himself, In thunder, lightning, and loud trumpets' sound, Ordain them laws.

John Milton, "Paradise Lost"


The sea is everything. It covers seven-tenths of the globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert where a man is never alone, for he can feel life quivering all about him. The sea is only a receptacle for all the prodigious, supernatural things that exist inside it; it is only movement and love; it is the living infinite.

Jules Verne, "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea"


When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.

Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"


The chief aim of their constitution and government is that, whenever public needs permit, all citizens should be free, so far as possible, to withdraw their time and energy from the service of the body, and devote themselves to the freedom and culture of the mind. For that, they think, is the real happiness of life.

Sir Thomas More, "Utopia"


That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge


God does not play dice.

Albert Einstein


Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks--those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest.

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"


And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not.

Soren Kierkegaard, "The Sickness Unto Death"


The wicked have told me of things that delight them, but not such things as your law has to tell.

Saint Augustine, "Confessions"


The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics"


Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under. I love those who do not know how to live, for they are those who cross over.

Friedrich Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra"


And when he has brought forth and reared this perfect virtue, he shall be called the friend of god, and if ever it is given to man to put on immortality, it shall be given to him.

Plato, "The Symposium"


There are only two ways in which we can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects: either experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make experience possible.

Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason"


Therefore a wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.

Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince"


Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

Aristotle, "Nichomachean Ethics"


Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason"


Heaven lasts long, and Earth abides
What is the secret of their durability?
Is it because they do not live for themselves
That they endure so long?

Lao Tzu


If you can discover a better way of life than office-holding for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only in such a state will those rule who are truly rich, not in gold, but in the wealth that makes happiness--a good and wise life.

Plato, "The Republic"

**************************************************

To reign is worth ambition though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.

John Milton, "Paradise Lost,"

We have only to believe. And the more threatening and irreducible reality appears, the more firmly and desperately must we believe. Then, little by little, we shall see the universal horror unbend, and then smile upon us, and then take us in its more than human arms.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Datalinks

[Illuminatus]

Over!
Explanation: since quotes are far to big in character quantity, I've split them into 14 seperate posts which also makes is easier to view.
Quotes separated from others by ***s do not appear on SMAC or SMAX cd but can be found in GURPS manual. Do not be confused by second line of ***s in Believer quotes - I've split the Conclave bible and Miriam ones, but also GURPS ones, so those three quotes between upper and lower ***s do not come with the actual game.

And now my final remark on quotes. When SMAX came, it featured a bug in which sound files foe new SMAX facilities were not properly played. This was subsequently fixed. But I noticed that no one checked if those quotes are included in blurbsx file - they weren't, even with patch. None of SMAX quotes list I saw featured this missing quotes (I guess no one noticed), so I wrote them down by myself. What you can see above, is the most comprehensive list of SMACX quotes ever.

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by Maniac


W00t!

http://ender.aspyre.ro/mindspell/col_alpha.html for the SMAC ones

How dare you interrupt me! It took me half an hour to post them all.

Considering the demand, I guess I will rearrange the quotes I collected in a more easily viewable way, upload the text document and put a permanenet link to the list in my signature.

[Frankychan]

I tell you that every man is an accident, a twig on the tree of life, an animal which can barely be called sentient or self-aware. If our lives have any meaning, it is as part of the greater whole which existed long before us and will exist long after we are gone. Those of us who are aware of this fact must step forward, to guide those who remain snugly wrapped in their illusions.

Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, "Looking God in the Eye"

Where is this from? What tech or base improvement? I've never heard this one before.

Franky like. Franky like a lot.

[Commy]

I think that we should make a book about it, then sell it 50 yrs. from now...

[#endgame]

Commy.

for Illuminatus!

[MysticWind]

Illuminatus,

You, sir/madam, are a prince. Truly you have done this remnant of a community a great service. We are indebted to those such as you who actually bother to archive and store this when no else has.

I am inspired by this... I believe I shall try to follow this by collecting every bit, every fact, every datum about 22nd century Earth life from Michael Ely's works. I believe that in the end few will actually need it, but it'll make a good conversation piece, and I will use it to write future fanfiction to make it seem "historical."

Cheers to you, Belighted One!

[#endgame]

Those who join us need give up only half of their humanity--the illogical,
ill-tempered, and disordered half, commonly thought of as 'right-brain'
functioning. In exchange, the 'left-brain' capacities are increased to undreamed
potential. The tendency of Biologicals to cling instead to their individual
personalities can only be attributed to archaic evolutionary tendencies.

Prime Function Aki Zeta-5, "Convergence"

Is in the Cyborg post twice.

[Illuminatus]

Thanks #endgame for assistance, I fixed it.

Frankychan, it was one of additional quotes made for GURPS guide. Each faction received at least one, and some like Lal, Deirdre and Zak received multiple ones.

MysticWind, er uhmm thanks , I am just a fan.

[Frankychan]

Yes, Illuminatus is the man.

Nice. I don't know anything about that GURPS guide though. Is it made by the guys at Firaxis, or are they made by some other person?

I really like this quote and probably will put this on another Apolyton thing.