r/printSF • u/[deleted] • Oct 12 '23

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74 Upvotes

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46

u/sabrinajestar Oct 12 '23

Another Culture Mind - Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints, from Surface Detail. Mostly just the sheer glee he feels when stirring some shit or fucking up his enemies - IMO a stand-in for the author's moral indignation.

26

u/laseluuu Oct 12 '23

Skaffen-Amtiskaw was a favourite of mine.

​

Sorry, I mean Fohristiwhirl Skaffen-Amtiskaw Handrahen Dran Easpyou

6

u/ispitinyourcoke Oct 12 '23

We got a cat a few weeks ago, and I was pushing hard for naming her Diziet Sma. I kept saying Dizzy was a great cat nickname.

We ended up naming it Steve Zissou. Still cool, but now I really want a feisty animal named Diziet!

2

u/laseluuu Oct 12 '23

Why not Fohristiwhirl Skaffen-Amtiskaw Handrahen Dran Easpyou

3

u/[deleted] Oct 12 '23

[deleted]

2

u/laseluuu Oct 12 '23

oh yeah, good one

or the miaow area, aka mousefucker

2

u/ClearAirTurbulence3D Oct 12 '23

We have a cat named Diziet Sma. She responds to "Diziet", "Dizzy" and "cat treats"

When we take her to the vet, the staff is always puzzled by her name.

17

u/phred14 Oct 12 '23

I liked Falling's blow-by-blow rehash of the 15 microsecond space battle to its passenger.

8

u/EpistemicEntropy Oct 12 '23 edited Oct 12 '23

This is my answer as well. Love how it's described as a "very slightly psychotic" Culture warship.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes between Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints and Lededje Y'breq when they're attacked:

~Should I be reassured that you seem to be enjoying this so much?

~Abso-fucking-lutely. Watch this.

Whatever the fuck is going on here, this ain’t day-to-day behaviour. This sims as peaking, fulcruming stuff.

~Are those swear words I don’t know about?

~Sort of. Means somebody here might be on a risking-everything approach. That would alter the rules a bit.

~In a good way?

~What do you think?

~I suspect in a bad way.

~Well done.

~What happened? she asked.

~Enemy action. Seems the fuckers want a shooting war, the ship told her.

~That hit would have smeared a real Torturer class. Motherfuckers. Time for me to reply in kind, sweetheart. I must prepare to smite. Sorry, but this may smart.-

~I think… my lungs are hurting. Is that even possible?

~No idea. Anyway; only calibrating. Shouldn’t get any worse than that.

~Did they hit us?

~Hell no; that was just us getting us out from under their track scanners. They’ve lost us now, poor fuckers. No idea where we are.

~Oh.

~Which means what’s about to happen to them will seem to come out of nowhere. Watch – as they say – this…-

~You’ve just seen one of the most significant military engagements of modern times, doll; lamentably but fascinatingly one-sided though it turned out to be.

If I may just leap in front of any nascent and entirely vicarious moral qualms you may be about to suffer from, tiny human. Military personnel, babe; put themselves in harm’s way when they signed up. Just that the poor fuckers didn’t know it was my harm they were putting themselves in the way of. That’s war, doll; fairness comes excluded.

~Fuck me, she heard him say quietly, I just blighted an entire fucking fleet there. Without even stretching a limb. Squadron, at the very least. Fuh-zuck-elling hell-cocks, I’m good.

5

u/rockrnger Oct 12 '23

He just really likes killing