"...shall legally take possession, in the name of the Alliance, and the member worlds, of any vessel or cargoes belonging to the Kentaurus Pact or their agents."
Standardized Syfolan Alliance Privateer Charter
"Don't write off the Sineb, but it appears that humans and centaurs are the only species in the region to benefit from and struggle with extremely long lifespans. It is just now, after three hundred years have passed since the first post-Flight generation was born on New Canaan, that we realize that our society is becoming increasingly stratified according to age. Our memories function better and longer than our ancestor's did and the skills and capital a person acquires over several centuries gives them an edge in every arena against the young. For better or worse, our cultures leading members are its oldest.
"For now the Centaurs are moving on a track parallel to that of humankind. Our populations are intermixed and we share local institutions, but there is every reason to believe that in time they may diverge from us. The databanks of the Centaur Seedship contained the histories of a once widespread and mighty Centaur Civilization. Little is yet known about what the histories contain as there are too few of us to cover such a great amount of data. One day our populations will grow large enough to support a serious effort to investigating this dead civilization's records and it seems possible the social forms and organization of the distant past will become appealing once more.
Nina Maarten
First City University
"Support for the proposed name appears to be unanimous among the crews. We are all aware that this planet we now know as New Canaan, is our best chance and our last hope."
Admiral Sullivan
Fleet Commander
"We must not build the spaceport in First City. If we ever find ourselves under siege from orbit we will not want prime targets in population centers!"
Marina Hendricks
1st Proxy Council Debate
"The God of the Kentaurans was Sargassar, the gas giant their home moon orbits. For over one million years the pre-scientific cultures stared at the giant luminescent ellipse above them and at the worlds large whirling storms they knew as eyes. One of the most widely held views of creation during this extremely long period was that the gas giant was The Maker, the creator of existence who jealously guarded his creation, constantly surveying it with his ever moving eyes. The moon Monelbi, being so close to the face of this God and often beneath so many of his eyes, seemed to be the most important object in existence and it was assumed that the worlds dominant species must be the universes most important form of life. This sense of constant supervision must have shaped Kentauran cultures. There is data suggesting that crime once rose drammatically during Monelbi's night. [It is considered to be night by Kentaurans native to Monelbi when they cannot see Sargassar in the sky, as it is the brightest object in the heavens so far from their star.] To ancient populations it must have seemed as if The Watchman [another of his old names] had gone around the curve of the world to check on others. [Kentaurans never traditionally believed their world was flat. Being a moon with a diameter just under half of Earth's, the horizon clearly can be seen to curve by anyone on the planets surface.] It seems likely that this view of God was largely responsible for the great delay between the advent of technological civiization and the first sizeable colony off Monelbi. Wouldn't God choose only the finest planet in the universe for his study after all?
XenoHistorian Hans Elsman
"We must be careful with the Kentaurans. Even those of us born orbiting Sol 
tend to forget that there can be many factions within a single species. Diplomacy is an art we haven’t practiced in centuries. Their unification wars rage too close. We must remain neutral."
Tiro Ptzikopian
1st New Canaan Proxy Council
"I think the oppressive powers of Earth feared AI’s. We cannot. Our survival depends on them."
Sarena Reynolt
Chief Scientist of the Sagan
"Genetic experimentation has brought us to the point where a human can expect to live nearly three centuries without undergoing Rejuvenation. With Rejuvenation, and proper medical care, the human lifespan becomes incalculable as over several millenia technology can improve the upper limit by orders of magnitude."
Consensus Daily
"Non-human intelligence raises many difficult questions. The role of philosophy is no longer solely the study of mans relationship to the universe. It is the study of the mind’s relationship to the universe. Which mind? Any that may think."
Jharwhal Nesivitz
Artificial Intelligence
"Take it from one who knows, if you spend long enough inside of a ship less than two hundred feet on a side you will begin to look at things differently. Indigo and I, this was before Carl joined us, once spent three years in this ship without even a week outside and I can with complete confidence state that the person that stepped into and out of the ship was very much out of sync with who I was during the trip."
Sharrael Evans
"Samsara is a fair term to express what happened. I was not born on this ship, but I did die here and was reborn, though perhaps not into one of the states ancient Buddhists knew. I actually died in the Twilight’s Med-Tank."
Rajid, A.I. Imprint
"I see little reason to doubt the evidence we've seen. The Outsiders must be descendants of the refugees our ancestors encountered at Epsilon Eridani."
Horvus McKenzie
Professor of Cultural Development
Jameson University, Incondat
"The Sandling ecological niche is just a little too tight. We have a hell of a time keeping their embassies atmosphere from killing them."
Engineer, Ames Biological
"A bed of deep ocean Zale topped with Earthlife halibut and dried spindle fruit." Bottom of the Well Restaraunt Menu
Port Town, New Canaan
"I have not a doubt in my mind. Humankind will outstrip Kentauran expansion in a matter of a century or so. They haven't expanded outward since before their old civilization fell. The Re-unification Wars swallow the products of their labors."
Rhea Altschule, DataNet Posting
"Of course this presumes we survive their politicking in the meantime."
John Sill, DataNet Posting
"The success of humankind and the success of the Centaurs is the same damn thing!"
Yelled by a Redcap at a HUMANIST protest
"Their is no way to adequately defend a civilization against the extermination tactics availabe in modern war. The only defensive weapon of any use is the threat of devastating retaliation. So you ask, why must we explore so aggressively? Because undiscovered threats are nooses about our necks waiting to be tightened."
Captain Sharrael Evans
"Most people tend to assume that the genetic stock we find in humanity today is equivalent to that we would have found a millenia ago. This is not the case. When the Marauders came they altered the dominant genetics of our race to a degree that hadn't occured since man walked naked across the Serengeti. In one blow they wiped out every living person who, for one reason or another, had not gone into space. The survivors of The Flight were primarily athletic, intelligent, adventurous, and risk taking sort of men and women. They were also genetically enhanced in such a way as to make them more able to live in low gravity and under high acceleration. Their veins had been thickened and their lungs were able to breathe a wider range of atmospheres. What does all this mean? That the human race that survives today is descended from people who, by nature or design, possessed an extroardinary aptitude for survival."