"Exploring an alien landscape as you beat up on your rivals with 
custom-designed units, building a planetwide society that can transcend 
humanity -- the sheer scope and excitement of all there is to do in ALPHA 
CENTAURI sets a new benchmark for strategy games."
-- Brian Reynolds, Alpha Centauri Game Designer

 "Information, the first principle of warfare, must form the foundation 
of all your efforts. Know, of course, thine enemy. But in knowing him do 
not forget above all to know thyself. The commander that embraces this 
totality of battle shall win even with an inferior force."
-- Spartan Battle Manual

 "In the great commons at Gaia's Landing we have a tall and particularly 
beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first colonies. 
It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet itself, never to 
repeat the tragedy of Earth."
-- Lady Deirdre Skye, "Planet Dreams"

 "What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than 
information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The 
lesson is simple: Take control of the input and you shall become the 
master of the output."
-- Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"

 Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but
competition for limited resources remains a constant. Need as well as 
greed have followed us to the stars, and the rewards of wealth still 
await those wise enough to recognize this deep thrumming of our common 
pulse.
 -- CEO Nwabudike Morgan, "The Centauri Monopoly"

 "The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one can not stay in the cradle 
forever."
--Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

 "As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free 
flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The 
once-chained people whose leaders at last loose their grip on information 
flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation 
gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid 
slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to 
information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
-- Commissioner Pravin Lal, "Librarian's Preface"

"The substructure of the universe regresses infinitely towards smaller 
and smaller components. Behind atoms we find electrons, and behind 
electrons quarks. Each layer unraveled reveals new secrets, but also new 
mysteries."
-- Prokhor Saratov, "For I Have Tasted The Fruit"


APPLIED RELATIVITY

 Who cares if you are here, and I am there, and we move past and with and 
through and around each other, if there's not some gain to be made from 
it?
- Director Morgan, "The Ethics of Greed"
                
BIO-ENGINEERING

 Why do you insist the human genetic code is "sacred" or "taboo"? It is a 
chemical process and nothing more. For that matter, we are chemical 
processes and nothing more. If you deny yourself a useful tool simply 
because it reminds you uncomfortably of you mortality, you have uselessly 
and pointlessly crippled yourself
- Chairman Yang, "God in the Eye"
                
CENTAURI ECOLOGY

 Observe the Razorbeak as it tends so carefully the fungal blooms; just 
the right bit from the yellow, then a swatch from the pink. Follow the 
Glow Mites as they gather and organize the fallen spores. What higher 
order guides their work? Mark my words: someone or something is managing 
the ecology of this planet.
- Lady Deirdre, "Planet Dreams"
                
DOCTRINE: TOTAL WAR

 Man has killed man from the begining of time, and each new frontier has 
brought new ways and new places to die. Should a world of pure thought be 
so different?
- Marshal Joachim Ortega, "The Council of War"
                
MATTER TRANSMISSION

 The first lving thing to go through the device was a small white rat. I 
still have him, in fact. As you can see, the damage was not so great as 
they say.
- Academician Sorov, "The Gating Fallacy"

RECYCLING TANKS

 It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks and become one 
with all the people.
- Chairman Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
                
TEMPORAL MECHANICS

 "Time travel in the classic sense has no place in rational theory, but 
temporal distortion does exist on the quantum level, and more important 
it can be controlled.
-- Keeper Pravin Lal