The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Section 2

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Prologue, Chapters 6-10.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling this for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss events from later chapters. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

I only have the audio, and I'm at Chapter 14, so I am trying to be as spoiler-free as possible until others comment, since I can't go back easily and see right where different plot-points happen. I think at this point, we start seeing more of the AIs, with station and ship. What do you guys think of Breq's decision regarding station (adding spoiler tags just in case (view spoiler)[ to HOPEFULLY eliminate its override commands. I thought it was very natural coming from Breq, although it certainly would be tempting for the humans to use the commands instead. (hide spoiler)]

We also see the Presca representative. No spoilers here- because I honestly don't know.....when they first meet, it seems as if Breq guides the interpreter to an alternative persona....is that the case? Some of the funniest conversations in the book have her involved. And I may never look at oysters in the same way.

Breq heads back to the station from the planet because several gates into the system have been detected. Anaander Mianaai is on her way. And there's a very illuminating conversation with Tisarwaat as Breq reveals her intentions with respect to the Athoek system AIs, essentially giving their access codes to just themselves. The conversation culminates in the following exchange:

“You’ve never been a ship, Lieutenant.”

“Ships aren’t mistreated. They do what they were made to do. It can’t possibly be so bad, to be a ship. Or a station.”

“Stop for a moment,” I advised, “and think who you are saying that to. And why you are saying it, in these circumstances, at this particular moment.”

She drank the rest of her tea in silence.

I loved that bit.

When Breq returns to the station, she's almost immediately subject to arrest by the station security chief and Governor Giarod under the orders of the Anaander Mianaai who is with the fleet that has just arrived in the system. Breq takes the security chief hostage and escapes with Tisarwat and the Sphere ancillary on a shuttle heading to the Mercy of Kalr via the Sword of Atagaris. Breq offers the same thing to Atagaris that she offered to the Athoek Station AI.

Breq then uses Mercy of Kalr and the Presger weapon to take potshots at the incoming Radch fleet, but in the process the Mercy of Kalr flies into a minefield causing Breq to be injured and eventually to have her leg amputated. Of note is that Sphene takes this as Breq definitely being on her side of things.

(I don't get this bit. Breq and everyone else knows that the Radch are going to predict the fourth gate exit ... so isn't that incredibly risky? Why not exit the gate somewhere else? Space is BIG. A spherical area that Breq can shoot at the ship from is HUGE. Why not exit the gate somewhere else than the easily predicted sequence?!)

As Breq recovers she realizes that she's been abusing the Mercy of Kalr and she offers it the same terms as the other AIs she has contacted and resolves to use less of its AI resources that she has been using without asking for. Zeiat (who has appeared mysteriously) amusingly refuses to believe that Breq missing a leg is the same Fleet Captain that she was previously dealing with. She does reveal that the Presger weapon was actually designed to destroy Radch ships, not just penetrate through armor, so Breq's actions may have been wildly more effective that she has thought.

Sphene reveals to Breq and her ship that the Undergarden was most likely a hiding place for some AI cores that was going to be a part of the plan to turn the Ghost system into a secret shipyard for one of the Anaanders. This is why the high priest was causing a ruckus about the Undergarden being refitted. Plans are made, a friendship between Sphene and Zeiat happens, and the decision is made to return to Athoek.

I loved the part with Zeiat refusing to believe Breq is the same person because she's missing a leg.

I'm curious to see what the results of the potshots taken by Breq are.

And I agree Lindsay, the predictible pattern for emerging seems strange.

The whole game with Zeiat and Sphene was really great too - the ongoing tokens, adding new pieces, eating some. I loved that.

Zeiat pretty much steals the scene every time she's in one.

The emerging from hyperspace thing could have been resolved by a single paragraph in text explaining that there are only a finite number of solutions for emergence given a source point and a destination point. I suspect that's what she had in mind.

The idea that you could mine a spherical area of space bounded by the range that the Presger weapon's projectilles could cover in a period of several hours seems silly.