“Human histories and media are full of ‘soldiers’ and ‘heroes’—individuals who perform acts of violence for the sake of their tribe—and astonishingly, these are considered admirable.”

Here again, the non-human writer allows the author to engage in defamiliarization. This fictional writer has not been subject to the centuries of acculturation that make war seem normal to humans, and they are therefore able to see—and make readers see—the strangeness of glorifying violence and death.

“The sky lit up with green surreal flashes as a Wisdom cruiser dropped out of shadowspace.”

This is the opening line of Chapter 1. It subtly alludes to the first line of William Gibson’s 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”; however, Tesh changes it so that the sky is green. Neuromancer is about artificial intelligences that can be compared to the Wisdom technology in Some Desperate Glory.

“She was made for war, but so were they: she had realized early in adolescence that the absolute limits of her body’s abilities would still never beat the boys. She’d had to succeed a different way.”

This quote develops the theme of How Authoritarianism Oppresses Women. Women and men are pitted against one another on Gaea Station, and both genders are genetically altered to be strong. Kyr is faster than the boys, however, highlighting how the hierarchy of men over women is oppressive and wrong.

“It perhaps says enough that the patently insane ‘‘jump hook’ technology—permitting a single soldier to travel alone and nearly unprotected through surreal space over short distances—was a standard part of Hagenen kit.”

This is an example of the excerpts from fictional texts that Tesh includes at the beginning of each part. This structure gives the readers both didactic and narrative information about Tesh’s universes. Here, a technology of her universe is described, foreshadowing how she defeats Jole in the end. She can navigate shadow engine tides without the jump hooks; Jole cannot.

“Women were supposed to wear their hair long enough to tie back neatly, unless it was too curly to stay tidy that way.”

This quote also develops the theme of how authoritarianism oppresses women. Gaea tells women to grow stereotypically feminine hair and tie it back. Women with curly hair are seen as less feminine and tidy, highlighting how Gaea’s fascism includes racism and eugenics.

“But Yiso told it like a story: like the history Kyr had learned in Nursery, the old tales of the Earth. Once upon a time there were some people who were very unhappy and wicked, said Yiso.”

Yiso’s description of the Wisdom technology reflects Arthur C. Clarke’s famous line “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Profiles of the Future, 1962). Yiso uses the opening of most fairy tales, which are about magic, to help Kyr understand a very advanced universe-building intelligence.

“But the agoge—oh, it is real and it isn’t. Those little universes it generates stop existing as soon as the scenario ends.”

Avi doesn’t use magical language like Yiso because the agoge isn’t as advanced as the Wisdom technology. Jole uses the agoge to craft impossible scenarios that break the spirit of people trying to beat them; he isn’t trying to create the least horrible world, which is the Wisdom’s goal. This illustrates the limits of human fascist thinking: Jole wants to destroy and control people and worlds, not to create.

“But we’re still Earth’s children, Valkyr. It’s the only thing Gaea Station ever got right.”

Gaea’s authoritarian regime uses the concept of “Earth’s children” to impose an oppressive unity and dedication to the cause of revenge. Here, Mags reappropriates this concept, suggesting that the identity need not be oppressive or violent.

“The actual operation of power in Magna Terra is best described as a militarized technocratic oligarchy with elements of authoritarian populism.”

This excerpt from a fictional text describes the second universe in the novel. Earth hasn’t been destroyed: Instead of Gaea Station, men in power, like Jole, create a larger fascist structure. For the non-human scholar writing this passage, this raises the question of whether human men are capable of creating non-authoritarian social structures.

“None of this was real. All of this was real.”

This passage describes Kyr trying to cope with memories from two different universes. Her character develops by synthesizing two identities: Kyr and Val. This quote echoes Quote #8 but is about the Wisdom rather than the agoge, drawing a parallel between the two technologies.

“This world was so much better. But it wasn’t, exactly, different.”

This is Kyr reflecting on How Fascist Competition Undermines Empathy in two universes. Instead of being isolated to Gaea, the fascism of the Terran Expeditionary is less intense but more expansive, co-opting the Wisdom’s power.

“If there is one thing I have learned about humanity, it is that you do not deserve power.”

Yiso sees fascism and genocide as the inevitable consequences of humans having control of the Wisdom. Here, Yiso realizes that they’d rather destroy the Wisdom than allow Jole to use it, even though they are part of the Wisdom and the Wisdom created them. This is a major development in their character.

“I believe, said the Wisdom, I am making a decision.”

Over the course of the novel, the Wisdom becomes a character and not simply a technology. Here, for the first time, it does what it wants to do, rather than what someone else wants it to do. It uses the pronoun “I” for the first time, indicating its self-awareness.

“I leave it to the reader to decide whether such an obliteration of history, culture, ethnicity, and language aligns in any way with their understanding of utopia.”

This is an excerpt from Ursula’s book, which, as an anthropological text, alludes to the author who had the strongest influence on Tesh: Ursula Le Guin. One of Le Guin’s anti-war novels, The Dispossessed, is a look at failed utopian societies. Le Guin’s and Tesh’s characters share a first name to highlight this connection.

“She thought about lies. About no one expecting perfection, and everyone being punished for falling short of it, all the time. About believing a lie so hard you fell into it.”

Lies are an integral part of how fascist competition undermines empathy on Gaea. Truthfulness develops connections and understanding between people. Empathy is what Jole seeks to destroy in order to control people and convince them to participate in eternal war.

“She was home and it was the worst place in the universe.”

Moving between universes is a way to move away from home. In the second universe, Kyr has a better life on Hymmer than on Gaea. In the third universe, the Wisdom puts her back in her original home, Gaea, which she has outgrown.

“Gaea Station is set up to stop kids coming up with anything. Crush them between secondary trauma one direction and physical exhaustion the other and see how much initiative and empathy the average kid has left.”

Here, Lin describes how Jole brainwashes the children raised on Gaea Station. They are underfed, overworked, and taught to fight instead of feel, illustrating how fascist competition undermines empathy.

“She wasn’t Earth’s child. She was Elora Marston’s, and Yingli Lin’s, and Ursa’s, and she owed her duty not to some abstract unknown planet but to the women who’d come before her.”

This quote represents a turning point in Kyr’s character arc. Kyr speaks to the importance of found family and biological family over the fascist ideal of a national family. Furthermore, she speaks to how women need to support one another to combat authoritarian oppression.

“She would have taken just her chosen few. Something in her still wanted her chosen few: the Sparrows, Avi, Yiso, Mags. How selfish. How small.”

In this passage, Kyr takes the idea of found family to an extreme. Even in the third universe, she doesn’t have the level of emotional intelligence that Lisabel does. Lisabel thinks that all of Nursery is worth saving, while Kyr would have only saved those closest to her.

“I am not the first person who wanted to fight and got betrayed into Nursery. I am not the first daughter of Earth to be told that the best use of her body was breeding more boys to die for humanity.”

This quote speaks to the pervasiveness of how authoritarianism oppresses women on Gaea. Kyr recognizes that she is one of many women who had their bodily autonomy stolen, and she feels solidarity with the others. This is part of her developing emotional intelligence and empathy after being brainwashed.

“Imagine it: if all the way back in the beginning Jole had just reversed their assignments. Mags to Nursery and Kyr to Strike. She would never have questioned a thing. She would have followed her orders and gone to Chrysothemis and died killing humans to make Jole’s point.”

Jole’s insistence on stereotypical gender roles ironically creates avoidable problems. If Jole had been more lenient on Gaea, as he was in the Terran Expeditionary forces, Kyr would never have discovered the extent of her brainwashing and pushed back against it.

“I destroyed myself, Valkyr, said the ship. Or at least so much of myself that what remains is statistically negligible. The Wisdom was a transtemporal and pandimensional intelligence capable of shaping the fates of trillions. I am a pleasure yacht.”

Here, the Wisdom develops as a character by gaining a sense of humor. It relates to Kyr by joking about being Yiso’s ship. This alludes to how being smaller, as a technology or a family, allows for stronger community connections and more personal development.

“I took an ocean’s worth of sentient existence, and preserved as much as could fit into a bucket.”

This passage concludes the water symbolism in the novel. Water is a metaphor for the Wisdom’s transformation. Minimizing the amount of water becomes about limiting oneself for the greater good, rather than being limited by someone else, like the water on Gaea.