"Dear Diary:
Well, this summer has been one headlong dive into whirlwind romance for me. Ha! I wish! As you know, I've spent most of the summer trying to run into Percy Marlborough (sigh!), the handsome young industrialist I met the day I snuck into the country club on a lark.'
[...]'
OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. He's not human.
If anyone finds this, I beg you, call the police. Tell them our city is full of insect-lizard creatures that walk invisibly among us and feed on our emotions, an ancient eldritch race that see all our efforts and strivings as the caperings of monkeys."'
— How NOT to Write a Novel, "'And One Ring to Bind Them,' Said the Old Cowpoke"
Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.
Tull: Great and holy heavens! You don't know, do you?
Loken: Don't know what?
Tull: (laughing) All this time, we've been pussyfooting around you and your great Warmaster, fearing the worst...
Loken: Commander, I will own up to ignorance and embrace illumination, but I will not be laughed at.
Tull: Forgive me.
Loken: Tell me why I should. Illuminate me.
Tull: (now deadly serious) Kaos is the damnation of all mankind, Loken. Kaos will outlive us and dance on our ashes. All we can do, all we can strive for, is to recognize its menace and keep it at bay, for as long as we persist.
Loken felt sick as he realized that everything he knew about the warp was wrong.
He had been told there were no such things as gods.
He had been told there was nothing in the warp but insensate, elemental power.
He had been told that the galaxy was too sterile for melodrama.
Everything he had been told was a lie. [...]
Sindermann had been right. Loken was hearing the music of the spheres, and it was a terrible sound that spoke of corruption, blood and the death of the universe.
Loken knew with utter certainty that it was up to him to silence it.
Shi Qiang: That's... that's really dark.
Luo Ji: The real universe is just that black. The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life — another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod — there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It's the explanation for the Fermi Paradox. But in this dark forest, there's a stupid child called humanity, who has built a bonfire and is standing beside it shouting, 'Here I am! Here I am!'
"Never bring Time Travel, the Cthulhu Mythos, or Giant Robots into an established setting, because if you do, all it will ever really BE about from then on is Time Travel, or the Cthulhu Mythos, or Giant Robots. Or Giant Robots traveling through time to fight the Cthulhu Mythos."
"The dance of division and replication. Imperfect. Finite. Organic life evolves, yearns for perfection. That yearning leads to synthetic life. But organics perceive this perfection as a threat. When they realize that their creations do not age, or become sick, or die... they will seek to destroy them, and in so doing, destroy themselves.
"Beyond the boundaries of time and space, we stand. An alliance of synthetic life, watching you, waiting for your signal. Call us, and we will come. You will have our protection. Your evolution will be their extinction."
— The Admonition, Star Trek: Picard
"The best thing about cosmic horror is that it fits great into most science fiction or fantasy settings… mostly. There is the small chance that suddenly adding cosmic horror into a fairly pedestrian, upbeat fantasy or science fiction story without any foreshadowing might completely ruin the light tone. I mean, watching your typical upbeat, plucky fantasy party suddenly get ripped limb from limb by horrors from beyond time and space at plot’s halfway point, with the only survivors being driven mad, will certainly leave an impression on the reader. Should I have a dark undercurrent run through the first part of the story while laying clues for the reader to speculate at the universe’s darker nature BEFORE eviscerating my main characters? Of course not. We want to maximize the impact of the cosmic horror... and probably the impact of our book as it's thrown across the room by our reader."
— Terrible Writing Advice, "Cosmic Horror"
The woman's restroom was cold. Avasarala stood at the sink, her palms flat against the granite. She wasn't used to fear or awe. Her life had been about control, talking and bullying and teasing whoever needed it until the world turned the direction she wanted it to. The few times the implacable universe had overwhelmed her haunted her: an earthquake in Bengal when she'd been a girl, a storm in Egypt that had trapped her and Arjun in their hotel room for four days as the food supplies failed, the death of her son. Each one had turned her constant pretense of certainty and pride against her, left her curled in her bed at night for weeks afterward, her fingers bent in claws, her dreams nightmares.
This was worse. Before, she could comfort herself with the idea that the universe was empty of intent. That all the terrible things were just the accidental convergences of chance and mindless forces. The death of the Arboghast was something else. It was intentional and inhuman. It was like seeing the face of God and finding no compassion there.
This was worse. Before, she could comfort herself with the idea that the universe was empty of intent. That all the terrible things were just the accidental convergences of chance and mindless forces. The death of the Arboghast was something else. It was intentional and inhuman. It was like seeing the face of God and finding no compassion there.
