She stirs her frozen grapes around on her plate for an instant; they are starting to thaw, so she re-freezes one and pops it into her mouth, chewing, thinking.
"The Living People are very used to having their AIs do their deciding for them. For the moment, we're a pretty passive species. Which is better than active, because active is aggressive for us. The population could be spread over a thousand planets instead of concentrated on Fle, which would make it a lot harder to take them out.
"Even if other people figured it out, implementing it would be incredibly expensive and difficult. Inside the Empire, there's the total-surveillance issue. And outside, it's incredibly hard to slip back in without being caught. Hard to leave too. Without Horanckk, I would never have made it out. Although since I've come here, I've started to wonder if I was escaping with his help, or he was escaping with mine."
no subject
"The Living People are very used to having their AIs do their deciding for them. For the moment, we're a pretty passive species. Which is better than active, because active is aggressive for us. The population could be spread over a thousand planets instead of concentrated on Fle, which would make it a lot harder to take them out.
"Even if other people figured it out, implementing it would be incredibly expensive and difficult. Inside the Empire, there's the total-surveillance issue. And outside, it's incredibly hard to slip back in without being caught. Hard to leave too. Without Horanckk, I would never have made it out. Although since I've come here, I've started to wonder if I was escaping with his help, or he was escaping with mine."