DR X: For you #cleverness is its own end & once you've seen a clever way to do a thing, you must do it, as water finding a crack in a dike must pass thru it & cover the land on the other side!
HACKWORTH: Farewell, Dr X. You will understand that although I hold you in the highest personal esteem, I cannot earnestly wish you good fortune in your current endeavour.
[He bows, as Kidnapper adjusts its stance. Dr X bows, giving him another look @ the coral #button on his cap]
#DiamondAge

HACKWORTH [blinking the daydream away]: Your arguments are not w/out merit. Thank you for helping me see the matter in a different light. I will ponder these on my way to Shanghai.
DR X: You have helped us for 10 yrs. It is your destiny to make the #Seed.
HACKWORTH: Nonsense. I did not know the nature of the project.
DR X [grin]: You knew it perfectly well. [Shaking his finger] You do these things not to serve your Queen but to serve your own nature, John Hackworth!
#DiamondAge

The airship was a dromond. Hackworth was in 3rd class. Below that was steerage, for migrating thetes… & #SkyGirls. Even now, these were bribing their way into the 3rd-class lounge, making eyes at Hackworth & the white-shirted sararimen who tended to travel this way.
#DiamondAge

HACKWORTH DEPARTS FROM SHANGHAI.
Would-be passengers listened as the aerodrome announcer brayed names of great & ancient Chinese cities into his🎙️. They shushed children, furrowed brows, cupped ears, and pursed lips in utter bewilderment. None of this was made any easier by the extended family of some 2 dozen just-arrived Boers, women in bonnets & boys in heavy coarse farmer's pants, who had convened by 1 of the gates & begun to sing a hymn of thanksgiving in thick hoarse voices.
#DiamondAge

I ~want~ this specialized matter compiler. Checking with the seller (unintentionally pictured) to see if its firmware is compatible with the Source Victoria feed.
#DiamondAge #fanfic

MISS MATHESON: There are many Lesser phyles & 3 Great ones. What are the Great ones?
"New Atlantis"🇫🇰
"Nippon"🎌
"Han"🇭🇰
MISS: Correct. Some include #Hindustan. Others view it as riotously diverse microtribes sintered together according to some formula we don't get.
#DiamondAge

SIR CARL: The woman you seek is named Miranda.

All thoughts of crowns, queens, and armies seemed to vanish from Nell's mind, and she was just a young lady again, looking for-what? Her mother? Her teacher? Her friend? Carl spoke to her of Miranda, and of the book, and of the old stories about the deeds of Princess Nell.
…
On the seventh day, Princess Nell walked naked into the sea at dawn, vanished beneath waves turned pink by the sunrise, and did not return.

#DiamondAge

Carl walked north from New Atlantan camp following the tideline. Every few yds he presented a visa, incl to Ashantis, Kurds, Armenians, Navajos, Tibetans, Senderos, Mormons, Jesuits, Lapps, Pathans, Tutsis, FDRep, Heartlanders, Irish, local CryptNet cells flushed into the open… He discovered synthetic phyles he had never heard of, but this did not surprise him. Finally he came to a generous piece of beach frontage guarded by twelve-year-old Chinese girls.
#DiamondAge

Carl Hollywood had been assigned to .mil duty upon reporting to the New Atlantan authorities, despite his efforts to convince his superiors that he might be of more use pursuing his research. But then a msg came thru from the highest levels of Her Majesty's government. The 1st part praised Carl for getting the late Col Spence out of Shanghai & suggested a knighthood might be waiting for him. The 2nd part named him as a special envoy to Her Royal Highness, Princess Nell.
#DiamondAge

HACKWORTH: lacking any moral code, they confuse inevitability with Right. Of course, it can't be allowed…if everyone possessed a Seed, anyone could produce weapons whose destructive power rivaled that of Elizabethan nuclear weapons.
#DiamondAge
artist: Stuart Brown

MRS PING: There are only 2 industries. This has always been true. There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment. After people have everything they need to live, everything else is entertainment.
Everything.
#DiamondAge

New Chusan rose above them, a short swim away, and up on the mountain they could hear the bells of the cathedral ringing.
#DiamondAge

Nell swam up toward the light. Miranda wasnt swimming strongly & Carl saw shadows above, dozens of naked girls swimming downward, garlands of silver bubbles streaming from their mouths, their almond eyes excited & mischievous.
#DiamondAge

They passed up through many tunnels, always taking the uphill fork until they saw sunlight shining down from above through the waves. Nell severed the tunnel behind them, wielding her sword like the sweep of a clock's hand. The warm water rushed in on them.
#DiamondAge

Around the edges of the market were stalls where books were exchanged for gold, and beyond that, a few alleys where gold could be exchanged for food.
#DiamondAge (from the Primer)

NELL: They only have one book in Sendero, and it tells them to burn all the other books.
#DiamondAge
#SenderoLuminoso

If the item of stolen property had been anything other than a book, it would have been confiscated. But a book is different—not just a material possession but the pathway to an enlightened mind & thence to a well-ordered society.
#DiamondAge

But as many first-time fathers had realized in the delivery room, there was something about the sight of an actual baby that focused the mind. In a world of abstractions, nothing was more concrete than a baby. #DiamondAge

NOTE: Stephenson leaves us with the billionaire hotelier groveling to Zhang w/out explaining what the premier whispered in his ear. But this is backstory for Constable Moore, who'd be a teenager right now IRL. Zhang's "Long Ride" takes place perhaps ≈late 2030s.
NOTE ENDS
Via the Primer, Nell was able to establish that Constable Moore was, or at least had used to be, a brigadier general in the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Division of the 1st Protocol Enforcement Expeditionary Force. #DiamondAge

#DiamondAge
"Zhang at the Shang" [video footage]
The leader was a stocky man w/white hair, pumping away on a bicycle in drab worker's clothes. He moved down the street w/deceptive speed, into the hotel's drive. An embolism of bicycles formed on the street .
And here came another classic moment: The head bellhop skirted his stand-up desk & ran toward the bicyclist, waving him off & hurling abuse in Cantonese―until he was 6 feet away & realized he was looking at Zhang Han Hua.