How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Wintermute could build a kind of personality into a shell. How subtle a form could manipulation take? (10.27)
An interesting thing about manipulation and technology: the subtler the more effective.
Quote #5
In the dream, just before he'd drenched the nest with fuel, he'd seen the T-A logo of Tessier-Ashpool neatly embossed into its side, as though the wasps themselves had worked in there. (10.38)
Memory is a faulty mechanic. We misremember parts of our past all the time. Here, Case is remembering an incident from his past, but he isn't misremembering it. Instead, Wintermute is manipulating the memory. But what if someone could manipulate our memories without us knowing? How would we know what really happened from what we are only told happened? And wasn't this in a movie already?
Quote #6
"Because—" and the [wasps] nest, somehow, was gone—"it's the closet thing you got to what Tessier-Ashpool would like to be. The human equivalent." (14.88)
In social wasp societies, the female that builds the nest rules the nest as queen. Wintermute claims the Tessier-Ashpool family wants to manipulate humans to work for them like they are the queen wasp. Although the idea of being a working bee slave isn't too appealing, all the free nectar would be delicious…