The Collapsing Empire Quotes
"This is where I remind you that you gave me this position not just out of personal friendship and experience with court politics but because I have a doctorate in the history of the Wu dynasty and know more about your family than you do." - Naffa Dolg to Cardenia
"Easy for you to say." - Batrin's response to Cardenia's attempt to comfort him.
"You are a literal princess, but you didn’t live like one. I think it’s fair to say most people in your situation would have resented that." - Batrin to Cardenia
"I don’t regret that you are succeeding me." - Batrin expressing his feelings about Cardenia succeeding him as emperox.
"I think I lost you there." - Batrin noticing Cardenia's distraction during their conversation.
"I’m not sure that’s calming." - Cardenia's response to being asked to calm the empire about her father's death.
"None of us knew what we were doing." - Batrin reflecting on the reality of being an emperox.
"I would have rather you had given it to a cousin or nephew or someone else." - Cardenia expressing her reluctance to become emperox.
"You are in the Memory Room. Please tell me how I may assist you." - Jiyi, the figure in the Memory Room, to Cardenia.
"I always thought you were a nice young lady. Smart. Attentive to me. I don’t think you’ll make a very good emperox." - Attavio VI's honest assessment of Cardenia.
"It's all right. In fact, it did happen again, more than seven hundred years ago, when we lost contact with a system called Dalasýsla."
"I’m doing a really good job of not panicking right now."
"There's a very real possibility that the Flow streams that connect the Interdependency will collapse during your reign."
"War excuses many lapses, especially if the duke gets his weapons and quashes the rebellion."
"We used to fuck each other. It's not the same thing."
"You know I’ll still have people at Imperial Station looking for him to board your ship."
"The actual fucking was good, Ghreni. It’s the metaphorical fucking I’m not in the mood to forgive. Now or ever."
"Can I just wrap up this whole line of conversation by saying I really don’t give a shit whether you’re upset?"
"You’re coming onto the Yes, Sir as Marce Claremont, you’re coming on as Kristian Jansen, crew member."
"I was loyal to, and silent for, your father for nearly forty years. It’s in the nature of the position."
"If this is what I have to worry about, I think I can handle it."
"I worked in marketing. Before I was a prophet. After, too, but we didn’t call it that after that point."
"It was your blood. Sucked it out of you, clipped off the major vessels in his arms, drained that blood, put yours in. It’s not complicated."
"I need your help. Stop whining like a fucking child."
"The future is on End, Ghreni. We’re going to need you there so we can be ready when it happens."
"You can’t dip a toe into it without paying tolls and tariffs and taxes."
"If nothing else, no one will see this coming."
"I'm just making sure we're clear on what the failure states are."
"The result is you’re Duke of End and I’m the imperial consort."
"The whole reason the House of Wu is the imperial house is because they control the space around Hub."
"I’m not as smart as either of you, but I’m smart enough to know this plan of yours has a lot of risk."
"We marry into the House of Wu to get power now, we secure End to stay in power when things shift."
"You’re a murderer and a usurper, and you tried to hurt my son."
"You have no idea what’s coming in the next five years."
"How the vast majorities of the star systems accessible by the Flow were not easily habitable by humans but how they proceeded anyway, undeterred."
"True power rested not in trade but in controlling access to the Flow."
"The Interdependency codified and manipulated humanity’s actual need for intersystem trade and cooperation, for the benefit of just a few at the very top."
"It’s one thing to suspect it, and another thing to be told it, by the simulated but verifiable representation of your ancestor."
"Some portion of the tour would be Amit and her alone, allowing the two of them moments of agreed-upon privacy to discuss whatever they felt like discussing."
"You don’t have to pretend you might marry him now."
"All that was left was striving to keep humanity alive after the fall."
"I received quite a lot of bad news today, I’m afraid."
"Someone just tried to kill my emperox for the second time on my watch."
"We’ll control its imperial station first, and if my brother doesn’t control the surface of the planet by then, we’ll control it soon enough."
"Every single Flow stream is disappearing in the next decade."
"We’ll keep it in mind. In the meantime, thank you for your service on the executive committee. You’re dismissed."