Location 3612:

"And thousands of smaller ones," I said. "One city in my world probably covers more land than we’ve traveled since leaving Stenford." At least, if you included the suburbs, the nuances of which I didn’t want to explain at the moment. "Gods…" Sefawynn said. "It’s so…" "Crowded?" I asked. "Peaceful." Peaceful? I hadn’t been expecting that. "So many people living together," she said, "but not fighting. You only learned to fight as a contest, for others to watch. There might be people among you who…who have never seen someone die…"

Location 4475:

I can trace the original idea back to a story I told myself at night sometime in 2019. You see, as I’m going to bed each night, I tend to imagine a story. Like telling myself a bedtime story. This is how my brain works. If I close my eyes, movies start playing.