“No stupid self-respect! The important thing is to succeed. Yes, let’s get together with the other worlds. Let’s create an international and intercosmic company to destroy… to destroy!” Penkenton bit into the repeated world as if it were prey between the teeth of a tiger. “Destroy everything: worlds, suns, space itself, and time! Annihilate everything, engendering nothingness! What an achievement—greater than creating being! And what a god man will be when he has achieved that creation! But one man, one company, or one world isn’t sufficient to the task; we need for associates the 115 planets that surround us and the 38 million suns that flame at the end of our telescopes. So let’s get on with it, without wasting a moment, and reach an understanding with our allies.”

Alfred Didier Marie Mesnard, comte de Chousy, 1883