I guess I was just hoping there might be a way to do things other than the way that ends up with everyone getting killed. - John Scalzi

When you’re a kid, a rural, agriculturally-based colony town is a lot of fun to grow up in. It’s life on a farm, with goats and chickens and fields of wheat and sorghum, harvest celebrations and winter festivals. There’s not an eight- or nine-year-old kid who’s been invented who doesn’t find all of that unspeakably fun. But then you become a teenager and you start thinking about everything you might possibly want to do with your life, and you look at the options available to you. And then all farms, goats and chickens—and all the same people you’ve known all your life and will know all your life—begin to look a little less than optimal for a total life experience. It’s all the same, of course. That’s the point. It’s you who’s changed.

Eight-year-olds can switch into acquisition mode pretty quickly.

“You and I don’t actually need to be here for this,” I said to the goat. The goat didn’t respond, but I could tell she agreed with me.