"The idea of a bunch of political rivals coming together to act in the greater good is a lot harder to accept in the wake of the confusion and discord surrounding the invasion of Iraq. Cease Fire hints that the utopian ideal of the Federation is not a concept that can be taken for granted...The emergence of a political block like the Federation would have major political and social ramifications – it is no wonder that the Romulans reacted to the formation of that alliance with fear and uncertainty. Of course, Enterprise never develops this fascinating idea as well as it might. Instead, it leaves it largely unsaid."
"Instead of one world, we have 'star wars,' and a future in which dumb, dented human toys will drift aimlessly about the cosmos after our small planet's dead."
—Gore Vidal, "On Flying"
"Thus began the unprecedented stalemate. The Jedi reconnecting with their roots, The Republic nursing its wounds, the Sith consolidating their power in a galaxy divided between darkness and light."
— Jedi Master Gnost-Dural, Star Wars: The Old Republic
"This whole affair is endemic of the current crisis. The Sith are on the rise. We are on the wane. The Mandalorians and the Hutts stand between us, creating confusion and jostling for advantage. Our options are limited. If we do nothing, millions of people die. If we fight back, we engage with them at their level."
—Jedi Padawan Shigar Konshi, Star Wars: Fatal Alliance
"Sure, I've seen those shows too. All those starships politely doing whatever some distant admiral tells them to do. All those worlds quietly minding their own business. It's all a dream, boy. Nothing but a foolish dream."
— Colonel Hanse Castillo, Terra Invicta
"For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary."
— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
